MDK2 vs. MDK2: Armageddon - VGF

Codiekitty · 01-28-2007, 09:53 PM

I feel like ranting, so I've chosen this subject.

For a bit of background, MDK is a Playstation game from Shiny, AKA the people who did Earthworm Jim. "MDK" is the actual name of the game, and I think it was confirmed by Shiny to be an acronym of "Murder, Death, Kill" (even though it's a light-hearted comedy) but what changed to "MDK" to get a lower ESRB rating. MDK2 is the Dreamcast sequel, but it was made by BioWare, AKA the people who did Knights of the Old Republic. It's a really good game, maybe the best I played last year (it's between MDK2 and Vagrant Story), and I snagged it for a mere seven bucks. There's also a PC version. Armageddon is the PS2 port. Think Skies of Arcadia and Skies of Arcadia: Legends. From now on, when I say "MDK2" I mean the Dreamcast version, and "Armageddon" refers to the PS2 version.

While SoA:L is considered by most people to be an upgrade, MDK2: Armageddon is a serious downgrade, mostly because it does whatever it can to dumb down the difficulty.

First of all, while MDK2 has no difficulty settings and is permanently set to "Hard", Armageddon provides four difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Jinkies!. I originally went to Jinkies!, which was way harder than the Dreamcast version. After twenty failed attempts at getting past the ship's catwalk at the end of stage 3, I bumped it down to Hard. Maybe it's just because I already know how everything works, but it feels way easier than the Dreamcast version. I don't even want to know how wimpy Normal and Easy are.

In MDK2 many of the bosses had a puzzle of sorts to solve, and if you think you can piddle around long enough and have the voice from the Temple of Worship give you a hint, guess again. Armageddon doesn't just provide hints, it practically tells you exactly what to do. You can see this first boss' weak points in normal view (in the original, you couldn't see them unless you went into Sniper mode and zoomed in a ways). The fourth boss has an expanding red circle coming out of where you're supposed to shoot him. The sixth boss has an arrow pointing to where you're supposed to stand to attack it. I've only made it to the eighth stage so I don't know what they've done to the eighth, ninth and tenth bosses (the ninth level's boss barely qualifies as one, but there is still a puzzle that took me a little while to figure out), but I'm surprised there weren't any red circles on where you're supposed to shoot the seventh boss.

In the sixth stage there's four puzzles where a bomb is set up and some buttons are scattered about the room. The bomb has this pillar of blue lights, but one of them will be blinking red. You have to follow the cable that's coming out of that light down to the corresponding button. Press the wrong button (or let the timer run out) and the bomb detonates. The cables cross each other and clumb together, and by the third and fourth puzzles things get really messy, so I had to resort to educated guesses, trial and error, and note taking. Here, the generator occasionally (about once every ten seconds) shoots out a pink "pulse" that travels down the active cable to the button you're supposed to press, effectively negating the entire point of this section.

In the seventh level, there's this really confounding puzzle at the beginning of the stage. Here, it's been altered so that you'll probably solve it on accident rather than through observation and thinking.

Some game changes don't affect the difficulty, but are still major WTFs. At the beginning of the third stage, there's a cutscene where Schwang Schwing calls up Doc and the two make some threats to each other. In MDK2, Schwang's face takes up the entirety of Doc's comm display. In Armageddon, they "crystalized" his model so that it looks like a hologram and stuck his upper half in the monitor. First, it leaves most of the display empty (the display is pretty big, and I have a movie of it on my other computer), and is overall less menacing. Second, I guess somebody thought Schwang jutting out of the monitor was cooler than the conclusion to the conversation where he laughs maniacally and gets in Doc's face.

Long story short, only play the PS2 version after you've played the Dreamcast version.

Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

Codiekitty · 01-30-2007, 11:39 PM

I'm to the final boss.

I noticed this earlier, but it wasn't as annoying until now. Max gets a jetpack in all of his stages; he doesn't start with it, but he eventually picks one up. In the Dreamcast version you simply held the Jump button and he shot up. Here, they appearantly added some Analog sensitivity to this for who knows what reason. If you just press it Max sort of floats up. You have to mash it to get him to accelerate. This makes the cooling tower and boss in Stage 8 extremely irritating.

Speaking of the cooling tower, your goal in there must have confused a lot of people, because there's another expanding ring (albeit a hazy green one instead of neon red) coming out of the exit. Also, it seems they removed the acid rain, which was one of the coolest things in that room.

Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

LuWEEGEEman · 01-31-2007, 08:32 AM

hmm... what to say... oh, i know! long post curse!!!

Codiekitty · 01-31-2007, 10:03 AM

Is it really necessary to say that any time I make a post that's over a paragraph in length?

Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

t3hDarkness · 01-31-2007, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by luigimanultra7

hmm... what to say... oh, i know! long post curse!!!

I know the perfect way to reply to that. Thats about as useful as tits on a bull [/British]

There is no problem with long posts as long as there is something breaking up the wall of text. Like a little bit of formatting.
A felt like adding another short sentence.

Codiekitty · 01-31-2007, 08:01 PM

Kurt's Mortar Shell seems a lot bouncier in Armageddon than the Dreamcast version. In Level 7 you have to shoot one into a basket to blow up some glass under it (think basketball), but it kept bouncing back out (and those things screw you up good if they blow up in your face, as I was reminded just now when my attempt at Zizzy with Kurt ended with my own Mortar taking me from 70-ish to 0). I don't remember that happening in MDK2.

Codiekitty · 02-01-2007, 11:28 PM

I've beaten it with all three characters.

Kurt was by far the hardest, which is odd because (A) I found Max to be the hardest on the Dreamcast and (B) I think Kurt got dumbed down a little because it seems they removed some of the orbs you have to snipe around Zizzy's brain.

Overall, the base game is still there so I still liked it, but because of those idiocies I wouldn't recommend this version to anyone (except maybe pansies whom I can easily imagine throwing their controllers). If you think you'd rather get this version because you have a PS2 but not a Dreamcast, then get a Dreamcast. They're maybe 25 bucks.

And no, I'm not making it Game of the Moment. I've already featured the superior Dreamcast version.

Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

Alph · 02-02-2007, 07:16 PM

I loved that game back on the DC, but I never beat it because of the difficulty. I've always wanted to go back and give it another try, with the hopes that maybe my skillz have improved.

Codiekitty · 02-03-2007, 12:04 AM

Do you remember where you left off?

About the cooling tower:

In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure what the guy is doing at the beginning where he's just running the perimeter of the tower, and anyone who gets through this section this way is a pansy, but this video should give you an idea of how massive that thing is (you can also see the acid rain on the walls at about 2:13/:40 depending on if the timer is counting up or down):

Click to view video.

This is the PC version, by the way. And yes, that's a four-armed robotic dog smoking a cigar.

Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

Codiekitty · 05-05-2007, 01:38 PM

This topic is three months old and nobody cared when it was new, but I'm bored.

In the first post I mentioned when Schwang Schwing calls Doc, and they changed his appearance on the monitor for the PS2 for some reason. Well, I finally got around to snagging some pictures.

On the Dreamcast:

On the PS2:

The colors on the DC one are a little faded because I had turned up the brightness of my capture software because I was on a darker monitor and couldn't see very well. I seriously have to wonder why they made this change. I also just now noticed they changed "Hawkins, is it?" to "Hawkins, isn't it?" Again, why? And it sounds like they didn't even change the voice acting to "isn't it", although I can't quite tell because of the echo.

Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

01-28-2007, 09:53 PM	#1
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 173 Times in 119 Posts Points: 43,756.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,065,207.46 Donate	MDK2 vs. MDK2: Armageddon I feel like ranting, so I've chosen this subject. For a bit of background, MDK is a Playstation game from Shiny, AKA the people who did Earthworm Jim. "MDK" is the actual name of the game, and I think it was confirmed by Shiny to be an acronym of "Murder, Death, Kill" (even though it's a light-hearted comedy) but what changed to "MDK" to get a lower ESRB rating. MDK2 is the Dreamcast sequel, but it was made by BioWare, AKA the people who did Knights of the Old Republic. It's a really good game, maybe the best I played last year (it's between MDK2 and Vagrant Story), and I snagged it for a mere seven bucks. There's also a PC version. Armageddon is the PS2 port. Think Skies of Arcadia and Skies of Arcadia: Legends. From now on, when I say "MDK2" I mean the Dreamcast version, and "Armageddon" refers to the PS2 version. While SoA:L is considered by most people to be an upgrade, MDK2: Armageddon is a serious downgrade, mostly because it does whatever it can to dumb down the difficulty. First of all, while MDK2 has no difficulty settings and is permanently set to "Hard", Armageddon provides four difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Jinkies!. I originally went to Jinkies!, which was way harder than the Dreamcast version. After twenty failed attempts at getting past the ship's catwalk at the end of stage 3, I bumped it down to Hard. Maybe it's just because I already know how everything works, but it feels way easier than the Dreamcast version. I don't even want to know how wimpy Normal and Easy are. In MDK2 many of the bosses had a puzzle of sorts to solve, and if you think you can piddle around long enough and have the voice from the Temple of Worship give you a hint, guess again. Armageddon doesn't just provide hints, it practically tells you exactly what to do. You can see this first boss' weak points in normal view (in the original, you couldn't see them unless you went into Sniper mode and zoomed in a ways). The fourth boss has an expanding red circle coming out of where you're supposed to shoot him. The sixth boss has an arrow pointing to where you're supposed to stand to attack it. I've only made it to the eighth stage so I don't know what they've done to the eighth, ninth and tenth bosses (the ninth level's boss barely qualifies as one, but there is still a puzzle that took me a little while to figure out), but I'm surprised there weren't any red circles on where you're supposed to shoot the seventh boss. In the sixth stage there's four puzzles where a bomb is set up and some buttons are scattered about the room. The bomb has this pillar of blue lights, but one of them will be blinking red. You have to follow the cable that's coming out of that light down to the corresponding button. Press the wrong button (or let the timer run out) and the bomb detonates. The cables cross each other and clumb together, and by the third and fourth puzzles things get really messy, so I had to resort to educated guesses, trial and error, and note taking. Here, the generator occasionally (about once every ten seconds) shoots out a pink "pulse" that travels down the active cable to the button you're supposed to press, effectively negating the entire point of this section. In the seventh level, there's this really confounding puzzle at the beginning of the stage. Here, it's been altered so that you'll probably solve it on accident rather than through observation and thinking. Some game changes don't affect the difficulty, but are still major WTFs. At the beginning of the third stage, there's a cutscene where Schwang Schwing calls up Doc and the two make some threats to each other. In MDK2, Schwang's face takes up the entirety of Doc's comm display. In Armageddon, they "crystalized" his model so that it looks like a hologram and stuck his upper half in the monitor. First, it leaves most of the display empty (the display is pretty big, and I have a movie of it on my other computer), and is overall less menacing. Second, I guess somebody thought Schwang jutting out of the monitor was cooler than the conclusion to the conversation where he laughs maniacally and gets in Doc's face. Long story short, only play the PS2 version after you've played the Dreamcast version. Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now! Last edited by Codiekitty; 01-28-2007 at 10:01 PM.

02-01-2007, 11:28 PM	#7
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 173 Times in 119 Posts Points: 43,756.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,065,207.46 Donate	I've beaten it with all three characters. Kurt was by far the hardest, which is odd because (A) I found Max to be the hardest on the Dreamcast and (B) I think Kurt got dumbed down a little because it seems they removed some of the orbs you have to snipe around Zizzy's brain. Overall, the base game is still there so I still liked it, but because of those idiocies I wouldn't recommend this version to anyone (except maybe pansies whom I can easily imagine throwing their controllers). If you think you'd rather get this version because you have a PS2 but not a Dreamcast, then get a Dreamcast. They're maybe 25 bucks. And no, I'm not making it Game of the Moment. I've already featured the superior Dreamcast version. Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now! Last edited by Codiekitty; 02-01-2007 at 11:36 PM.

01-30-2007, 11:39 PM	#2
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 173 Times in 119 Posts Points: 43,756.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,065,207.46 Donate	I'm to the final boss. I noticed this earlier, but it wasn't as annoying until now. Max gets a jetpack in all of his stages; he doesn't start with it, but he eventually picks one up. In the Dreamcast version you simply held the Jump button and he shot up. Here, they appearantly added some Analog sensitivity to this for who knows what reason. If you just press it Max sort of floats up. You have to mash it to get him to accelerate. This makes the cooling tower and boss in Stage 8 extremely irritating. Speaking of the cooling tower, your goal in there must have confused a lot of people, because there's another expanding ring (albeit a hazy green one instead of neon red) coming out of the exit. Also, it seems they removed the acid rain, which was one of the coolest things in that room. Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

01-31-2007, 08:32 AM	#3
LuWEEGEEman He's coming for you... Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: insert something clever and witty here Gender: Posts: 3,387 Thanks: 56 Thanked 118 Times in 93 Posts Blog Entries: 3 Points: 5,798.62 Bank: 3,674.94 Total Points: 9,473.56 Donate	hmm... what to say... oh, i know! long post curse!!!

01-31-2007, 10:03 AM	#4
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 173 Times in 119 Posts Points: 43,756.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,065,207.46 Donate	Is it really necessary to say that any time I make a post that's over a paragraph in length? Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!

01-31-2007, 08:01 PM	#6
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 173 Times in 119 Posts Points: 43,756.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,065,207.46 Donate	Kurt's Mortar Shell seems a lot bouncier in Armageddon than the Dreamcast version. In Level 7 you have to shoot one into a basket to blow up some glass under it (think basketball), but it kept bouncing back out (and those things screw you up good if they blow up in your face, as I was reminded just now when my attempt at Zizzy with Kurt ended with my own Mortar taking me from 70-ish to 0). I don't remember that happening in MDK2.

02-02-2007, 07:16 PM	#8
Alph Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: MWAHAHAHHAHAHAAAA!!!ha. Gender: Posts: 1,294 Thanks: 21 Thanked 8 Times in 4 Posts Points: 12,911.64 Bank: 729.69 Total Points: 13,641.33 Donate	I loved that game back on the DC, but I never beat it because of the difficulty. I've always wanted to go back and give it another try, with the hopes that maybe my skillz have improved.

05-05-2007, 01:38 PM	#10
Codiekitty Just Another Face in Red Jumpsuit Join Date: May 2001 Location: Lemmingland Gender: Posts: 19,143 Thanks: 121 Thanked 173 Times in 119 Posts Points: 43,756.72 Bank: 3,021,450.74 Total Points: 3,065,207.46 Donate	This topic is three months old and nobody cared when it was new, but I'm bored. In the first post I mentioned when Schwang Schwing calls Doc, and they changed his appearance on the monitor for the PS2 for some reason. Well, I finally got around to snagging some pictures. On the Dreamcast: On the PS2: The colors on the DC one are a little faded because I had turned up the brightness of my capture software because I was on a darker monitor and couldn't see very well. I seriously have to wonder why they made this change. I also just now noticed they changed "Hawkins, is it?" to "Hawkins, isn't it?" Again, why? And it sounds like they didn't even change the voice acting to "isn't it", although I can't quite tell because of the echo. Where are these lemmings going? Not the Super Nintendo Super Shire! They know to go to Codiekitty.com now!