The 3rd Birthday

Being a fan of the original Parasite Eve games for the Playstation 1, I was fairly enthused when I discovered The Third Birthday available as a rental. This enthusiasm swiftly transmogrified into absolute disappointment.

The story of the Parasite Eve universe that has been established thus far in the series was decidedly abandoned in this iteration, and with zeal. Okay, so never has Parasite Eve be known for it's gritty realism, or how it meditated on the deep philosophical issues of life, but it did have in it a working internal logic, and an enjoyable mythos which struck an interesting tone- somewhere between chilling and action-packed; never so much action that it'd be mistaken for Resident Evil, and not scary enough to be in the league of Silent Hill, instead it had it's own nice little niche.

That's no longer the case. Enix has abandoned the established format entirely, and apparently have decided that horror is a bit dated, and instead came to the weird conclusion that it would be best to magnify the sci-fi undertones of the previous games. Using science fiction as the focus of the story was a terrible mistake, it makes for an absurd game, and one I assume will alienate the fan base (if it still exists).

So that's it for my take on the story. I'm not going to bother with a synopsis, 'cause it's pretty pointless, to be honest. Instead, let's just hastily move on to the gameplay. The gameplay actually isn't terrible. I preferred the original, but they like to change things up for the PSP, don't they? So with that in mind, I appreciated the system they created. Basically, you get to customise a fairly wide array of guns, which you will then use to stave off hordes of enemies as you work your way through various areas of the mission you're in. However, there's more! Aya's new found sci-fi self has discovered she has the ability to 'overdive', that is the ability to travel back into the past, and take possession of someone from that time's body.

This makes the core of the gameplay: you must constantly jump from person to person in order to stay alive, and take out the enemies. The enemies are fairly sturdy, and take a lot of shots, so using Aya's 'liberation' technique in order to make it easy to possess an enemy and do a lot of damage is essential. To achieve this special move, it often helps to cross shoot, which is focusing your computer-controlled allies' attention on the same target and unleashing a volley of fire. Aya can also buff up with a system which levels up her 'DNA', basically your typical way of improving the character's skill set. It's a bit annoying, and all quite random, no real skill involved and also has an absurd premise.

One thing about the game that's fairly undeniable about the game is the great graphics. The cutscenes in particular wouldn't look too bad on a Playstation 3 or X Box 360, which really is quite a feat for such a dated system. The in-game graphics of course don't compete, but they are some of the best the PSP has to offer- although, saying that, I still couldn't enjoy them as although they are indeed good for the PSP, they are dated and rough compared to console games, which are the games I usually play.

IN conclusion, the story is ridiculous, the characters totally stupid, the graphics are good, the soundtrack is enjoyable, and the battle system has some depth but in the end is merely repetitive, frustrating, and not worth your while. All in all, this makes The Third Birthday nothing more than a Parasite on the franchise selling power. (See what I did there?)

It was a good game and it was quite hard but not my cup of tea, would recommend it though

A spectacular game, brilliant graphics considering it's a hand held, the story is wild and imaginative, though confusing once you understand what's been going on everything clicks into place. By far one of the best PSP games I've played.