Playground Series: This Shit Is Bananas

I've recently learned to stop apologizing. So EXCUSE my bitch ass for not posting for a bit.

P.N.03

Okay so you know how when a game comes out people are all like "wahhh imma go check IGN anf fuckong.. Gameinformersomeshit fuckin'...askn all ma frendzz an whatev see hoiw good the gmae is befo I spend moneuy err whatev" I say FUCK THAT. In order to know how good a game is, you have to play it yourself. And no game has taught me that lesson more thoroughly than P.N.03.

P.N.03 is a third-person shooter that gives off a classic arcade-like feel. You navigate through linear levels and just try to fucking kill everything in your path before they kill you. Once you reach the end of the level, you move on to the next level. The point of the game is to beat every level and once you do, you're expected to move onto the next difficulty. This game's concept is simple and during this day and age, it could appear to be outdated and stale. This game was reviewed poorly and was criticized for it's sloppy controls, small move-set, length, and gameplay. Well you know what I say? Wanna know what I think about these claims? I think FUCK. THAT. This game is AWESOME. It's so frustratingly difficult, but rewarding and even though it only takes you 2 hours to beat the story on Easy mode, it will take you a lot longer than 2 hours to earn the ultimate prize.

So we gotta talk about all the different aspects of the game that make it what it is. Like I said, P.N.03 is pretty much a level-based action game. You start in one "room", kill all of the enemies, then move onto the next room. Once you complete every room, the level ends and you are pushed to the next one. Easy right? NO. So first of all, what you need to understand in order to play this game is that even though, yes, it is a shooter, there is only 1 or 2 buttons that make you shoot. You got the A button, which unleashes the rage of your trusty Palm Shot, and different combinations of the D-pad buttons + A for your strongest attacks. Knowing when to use your 2 different shots is important but what is even more important is knowing that every other button, including, B, L, R, LL, RR, Z and Y are all different buttons that let you dodge in different ways. The point is that health and energy necessary to charge your strongest attacks is scarce and if you fuck up, the game is not going to forgive you. Every single bit of your health counts so the skill you need to master in order to beat this game is not shooting the enemies, rather it is dodging the enemies, because you better believe that if you're trying to kill these enemies, then they are trying to kill you.
 
Imagine each room is like a spacious, in-door paintball arena. There are sections of the room where you are out in the open, as well as sections where you can jump and duck behind things. Using the environment in order effectively avoid the enemy onslaught while picking off each enemy one by one is critical in order to beat, or even play this game. The incentive to avoiding every single bullet shot at you, in addition to not dying, is the fact that the game awards you a certain amount of points each time you complete a room, and then gives you a nice bonus each time you complete a level. Wow points? Like fuckin....Super Mario Bros. or some shit? Yeah points. Obviously, whenever someone hears the word "points", they think of older games. Points, and trying to achieve the greatest amount of them, is a personal goal. In Mario Bros, you aren't rewarded for getting a high score with some kinda fuckin power up or something, you were just supposed to feel good about getting more points than ya friends. P.N.03 tries to rekindle that desire to snag the most points and does it flawlessly.....not satisfied are you? Okay, you got me. P.N.03 does definitely give you incentive to earn points, but not in order to fulfill any video game goal, but to fulfill you sexual goals. Yup I said it. So lemme explain this shit. You see the points given to you at the end of each room and level is the currency in P.N.03. You can exchange the points you've earned in order to upgrade your suit, increase your health, or buy different suits. The specs of your suit, predictably, affect how quickly you are able to vanquish enemies during levels, thus making it easier for you to beat the game faster. The amount of points earned at the end of each room is determined by how quickly you completed the room, as well as how much damage you took. Then the bonus at the end of the level is determined by your average performance during each room. So where is the sex? Well what if I told you that the character you play as was a woman? What if I said she was curvy? and sexy? What if I said that while you're standing there idle on the screen, and pretty much whenever she is not jumping or rolling around, she is shaking her ass right in your face? What if I said that if you earned a fuckload of points over time, and purchased every suit, and upgraded every suit, and completed the game, that you would get the final suit: Vanessa in her underwear. Yeah I'm a fucking pig, whatever. It's funny! Think about it: the ultimate, final suit as a reward for beating the game, leaving no stone unturned and no enemy alive, is just porn. It's amazing and kicks the shit out of earning any Trophy nowadays.

This game has an insane learning curve, but it's not hard, it's just untraditional. I know when I used to play Halo 3 with my brother, I would head out and if I got shot, fucking, whatever I didn't care. You just run away, get your health back automatically and then you can go out and shoot again (I am not good at Halo). In P.N.03, if you just run out there and not give a shit, then you're gonna die in like, actually 5 seconds. You have to be stealthy and attentive. You have to learn how to use all of your different dodging techniques in order to avoid fucking EVERYTHING. I remember I definitely just ran out into the open field first thing when I turned on this game and I got pwned. I looked at the screen and I was like "...ffffuckn whaaa??" So I reconsidered my strategy, and learned how to play the game the right way. Ultimately, the fact that this shooter was so different than anything I had ever played before gave me confidence in games that try to teach an old dog new tricks. Not every game can do it, but some, very few, can. And among those games that successfully tackle familiar game genres in untraditional ways is, in my opinion, P.N.03.