Folklore (PS3)

They won't be singing songs about this one in the mountains.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Phallus Alert: Is that a lighthouse on your load screen or are you just happy to see me?

Folklore opens on the proverbial dark and stormy night. Two total strangers have been drawn to an Irish fishing village named Doolin, which has a reputation for being haunted.

Ellen, a 22-year-old from the button-nosed-blonde school of videogame women, is searching for her long-dead mom. Keats, the 33-year-old man-boy and editor of an occult magazine, comes to Doolin in response to phone call that may or may not be a prank. The two cross paths on a cliff top, just in time to watch a woman -- or is it a corpse? -- topple off the cliff to the shoreline below.

Even by videogame standards, which are still seven or eight rungs on the ladder below "The Family Circus" when it comes to narrative quality (though they are improving), this is preposterous, poorly written stuff.

With my disbelief firmly suspended, I sallied forth. The perspective of the game is split between Keats and Ellen. I don't mean it alternates back and forth; I mean that you can either choose Keats' path or Ellen's path at the beginning of each level.

Both Ellen and Keats are shepherded below ground -- Ellen by a scarecrow thing; Keats by an invisible man wearing a bowler -- to convene with the dead.

Ellen, for reasons that will only later become clear, is gifted with some kind of magic cloak. This cloak makes her hair fly up into this cool-looking hairstyle, and replaces her sensible plaid skirt with something that makes her look like she's going to stop by the Star Wars cantina later on for a nightcap. Oh, and her new outfit is conveniently missing a handkerchief-sized bit of cloth, revealing her taut stomach.

If you want to root out every last nuance of this decidedly un-nuanced story, you'll have to split time between both characters. While their stories do vary, the gameplay generally does not. That means repeated play-throughs of eerily identical levels are necessary.

Keats -- surprise! -- is also imbued with some sort of magic power simply by being in Ellen's proximity when she receives her magic cloak. His invisible guide explains that he's Ellen's guardian...or something like that. Anyway, Keats turns all white, and his eyes glow, and all these muscles swell up on his body. Oh, and lightning flies all around him.

Apparently, in order to enter the underworld and commune with the dead, you must wear the latest fashions or have white hair and glowing eyes.

From here, both Keats and Ellen enter the underworld, with their respective guides warning them about "folks." Folks are little, annoying sprite-like creatures that are more of a nuisance than they are dangerous (or scary). Once you've defeated a particular species of folk, you absorb their "id," which is represented by phantom shadow that lingers above your vanquished foe. Hit the R1 button to grab onto said id, and then, in a somewhat satisfying Sixaxis moment, you literally jerk the DualShock upward to snap it out of the folk's body, reeling the id into your own.

Once you've absorbed a species' attack power, you can use it as your own. Attacks can be mapped onto the DualShock's face buttons. Like most games of this variety, you can lock onto a particular enemy with the L1 button. The attacks are pretty puny at first -- you start off with a scrappy little swat attack and a block -- but they do ramp up very quickly. Before long, you'll have griffin-like creatures and monstrous bears in your arsenal.