Torrente
has a few things working against it, the least of
which is the fat, balding, middle-aged, ass that is
the star of the game. That fat dork is the best thing
about the game. What does that tell you?
Torrente
is based on an apparently hilarious Spanish movie
which translates to The Stupid Arm of the Law. José
Luis Torrente is the foul-mouthed, bumbling lout who
is a modern day Inspector Clouseau. As an ex-detective,
Torrente is shown sitting in the lap of luxury surrounded
by babes in a hot tub. He explains that things weren't
always this way. We begin in Madrid where a plethora
of missions attempt to bring us up to speed on Torrente's
present situation. Unfortunately things don't always
work this way.
At
first glance, the city, with its crowded vehicle and
pedestrian traffic, resembles a combination of Crazy
Taxi and GTA. The city is large but very simply detailed,
not unlike Crazy Taxi. Although there are lots of
vehicles you can't drive any - although you can get
run over by them. There is an on-rails mission which
features a vehicle. It's actually the best part of
the game. The majority of the gameplay however, will
involve walking around and shooting at gang members
and other nefarious criminals.
Missions
range from escort to collecting. You can defend yourself
from enemies with pistols, rifles, grenades, baseball
bats, uzis, knives and hand-to-hand combat. There
are times when you may need a sniper rifle to pick
off some bad guys in a second-story window or the
occasional grenade to infiltrate a distant gathering
of enemies but the pistol will serve your needs just
fine for the most part. The aiming is loose. Only
the grenade has any sense of accuracy but that's because
it's got a larger radius of destruction. Fortunately
the bad guys don't move around a lot. They either
stand in one spot and shoot at you or run at you in
straight line. Eventually this begins to erode any
sense of challenge that may have been present at the
onset.
Torrente
is slow to move. He's fat. What else can I say? I
think he's got potential to be a really interesting
character but we don't really get to see his personality
the way in which it was revealed in the film. This
film was huge in Spain. In the game he's a caricature
of a caricature. Before each mission we're given a
little insight into the story and his character but
it's too shallow to make me really care about him.
He spews out a few naughty words here and there but
he repeats himself too quickly. For those that haven't
seen the movie more explanation would be required
and that includes me.
You
can choose from first or third-person perspective.
There are times when you will be attacked from enemies
off-screen. At first you might think this is due to
the perspective but such is not the case. You'll have
to remember where all the scripted events take place
and avoid them on your next time through the level.
Yes, you'll have to play through the entire level
again and let me tell you that you can expect to play
through some of them more than twice.
What
bugs me the most about this game is the wasted potential.
It's got a kind of Leisure Suit Larry meets Duke Nukem
feel to it but the developers focused more on the
shooting aspect instead of expanding on the comical
storyline.
I f
anything, Torrente has got me sufficiently interested
in seeing the movie version. Considering that the
quality of the game in terms of graphics, sound and
gameplay would still look like a budget title on the
PS2, a full version of the movie should have been
included. It's more than five years old now and would
probably include subtitles, so it's not like they'd
be giving something incredibly valuable away. That's
the only way I could recommend purchasing this game.
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