Cam's Eye View

Eternal Sonata for the Xbox 360 and PS3 review

2012-01-24T18:45:00.000-08:00

You know what I have noticed with all of these Xbox 360 reviews and 360 games I want to do reviews on? The Xbox 360 is slowly turning into the Turbo Grafx-16. Before you leave a shallow hate-filled comment, let me explain myself. What do you get when you get a 360? Halo? Gears of War? Well, if you can’t think of any other genre besides a shooter, then no flipping way, Sherlock! The Xbox 360 is the home for more quality shooters from first person, third person, to arcade-style shooters. Is there ANY other genre you can think of putting on the 360? I know a lot of the 360’s profit probably comes from players getting Xboxlive Gold membership, because then they can play online with shooters that are mostly on other consoles, but for some reason people buy them on the 360. There are also a lot of arcade-style shooters like the Raiden series, Deathsmiles, and other arcade shooters on the console. What happened to the amount of high quality Japanese-style RPG’s that were on the console? I mean, there are a lot of quality titles on the system, like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and depending on who you ask, Last Remnant. For example, here is another quality RPG you could get on the PS3, but I feel like this is the better version, Eternal Sonata. It’s a very original and unique Japanese-style RPG that is definitely worth more of your time than other RPG’s that have come out, but since I have talked about them already, I won’t list them. I mean, who would have thought a video game based off one of the world’s most famous musicians, Frederic Chopin, would be well good? And on top of that, it isn’t a music game! Well, actually that’s a lie, since music plays a huge role in this game, but it isn’t a Guitar Hero rip-off. So, let’s dive into the Sound of Music and review Eternal Sonata.

The game starts out with the famed composer, Frederic Chopin, voiced by Patrick Seitz, in his bed in a very ill condition. He then makes some kind of fantasy world within his mind, filled with a tyrant named Count Waltz of Forte, voiced by Liam O’Brien who rules over the imaginative world. Chopin then joins up with multiple characters throughout the game to take down Waltz and protect the world. In that sense, you could say the overall style is unoriginal with the whole ‘take down an evil guy and save the world’ story, but to my surprise, Eternal Sonata has one of the deepest, memorable, and original stories I have ever seen. I mean seriously, there are themes of escapism, death, life, political espionage, and rebellion being the themes throughout the game. It’s told very well with some really great voice actors doing some of the best voice acting I have ever seen. I mean, there is even a girl in the game named Polka, voiced by Erin Fitzgerald, who has the ability to use magic, but in that world, people who use magic are outcasts and are doomed to die. There is some deep stuff here if you stay with this game. In the game, you will meet the already said Polka, Allegretto and Beat, two brothers who lived in the sewers, Viola, a headstrong farm girl who is skilled with the bow and arrow, and Salsa and March, two sisters who guard a magical forest that the Count wants to destroy. Later, the group will meet the rebel group, Andantino, consisting of Jazz, the calm-headed leader, Falsetto, Jazz’s lieutenant, and Claves, Jazz’s girlfriend. In the PS3 version, you get Crescendo, a young prince and Serenade, Crescendo’s fiancé. All of these characters are fully developed and you really feel for some of them, like Chopin and Polka.

The gameplay is a mix of action and turn-based RPG mechanics. You only have 3 party members at once, which require some tactical planning later in the game when you have about 7 team members. You take turns freely moving the character around the battlefield and then start hacking away at the enemies and bosses. You can choose between a quick and combo-making attack or a super strong attack and they all run on a timer. Each time you make the character move, a timer will start and count down to zero, which will make the characters turn over. You have to think logically to choose between using more weak attacks and using two strong attacks, since enemies are tough in this game, but are tougher in the PS3 version. The other main gimmick of this game is the light and dark mechanic. In the battlefield, there are areas covered in shade that will affect your strong attack, but can also affect the enemies, either changing their attack or turning them into different monsters entirely if they stay in the shade. Lucky for us, in the overworld, enemies are visible so you can easily dodge them, but like my disclaimer goes, grind a couple of fights to make sure you don’t get wailed on later in the game because it will happen. I’ve died a couple of times going through this game. Each time your party levels up after a boss fight, a few things change, like the time to idle and the amount of time in battle that you can take. It gets pretty hard near the end of the game when you really have to think on your feet due to you not having a lot of time to plan out your strategy, but you can also get some benefits from these changes. Just expect a challenge later in the game. I’ll explain my thoughts about that later.

Graphically, it’s beautiful. It’s one of the best-looking games I have ever seen artistically. It doesn’t push the limit of the consoles, but I think it looks amazing. The detail of the anime-style look is amazing. It doesn’t take a Tales of Vesperia look, but everything from the characters and monsters are all well-designed. The music is what holds this entire game together with great tracks that are wonderful to listen to and are beautifully composed. The composer in charge of this is Motoi Sakuraba who helped rework some of Chopin’s work while making some original tracks for the game. She is, of course, famous for working on the Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, and the Tales franchise. There was also some help from Stanislav Bunin who also helped record a few tracks. The voice acting is top notch and is definitely worth talking about. Each character sounds great even when some of the characters are more annoying, but even the annoying characters sounds great. There are some impressive voice actors like Sam Riegel, Patrick Seitz, Mona Marshall, Megan Hollingshead, Amy Rose, Tara Strong, D.C Douglas, Tara Platt, and other great voice actors.

I could easily go on why this game is great, but there are some flaws that I just don’t like and might be the deciding point in which you invest your time in this game. The whole party level idea is interesting, but it makes combat tedious later in the game and some of the benefits are not worth it for less time in battle. I mean, I really enjoy the combat system, but the Party class totally ruins it for me later in the game. There is also an early dungeon in the game that will drive you nuts with an extremely tiresome puzzle. Clearly, no one went through this part thoroughly because it is a major roadblock in the game and halts the pace due to a somewhat unclear way of solving the puzzle. I am also surprised that they didn’t use other mechanics, like if the monsters are weaker than you, they run away. I just think they could have added more little touches like that instead of making battles tedious later on.

This could have easily been one of the best action/ turn-based RPG’s of any console, but due to some confusing game mechanic decisions, I can’t fully say this game is for everyone. If you want a good challenge and beautiful music in a RPG format, then I would highly recommend this game. It is still a bit pricey, but it isn’t like 60 bucks or anything. The PS3 does have more content, but the game is much harder and with annoying party class mechanics, I can’t fully agree that it is the better version. I say, get the 360 version since it’s about 20 or so dollars. I would really like to see a sequel to this game or some form of spiritual sequel. You will just lose yourself within this magical, musical, and creative world of Eternal Sonata

This game gets a solid 7 out of 10.

Kameo: The Elements of Power for the Xbox360 review

2012-01-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

What has happened to some companies these past few years? Silicon Nights hasn’t made a hit game since Eternal Darkness (I don’t care for it, but still), Midway shut down, Factor 5, creators of the Star Wars Rogue Squadron series, released a game that made them shut down due to the poor reception of it, and well, you get the idea. I think the worst offender in these strings of companies is Rare. It seemed like after Microsoft bought them out, they have just been going downhill and are now only working on Kinect games. One of the greatest companies on earth now works on a gaming peripheral that has a bone-dry list of quality titles with only a few of them being worth owning. This company made some of the best games of all time like Banjo Kazooie and its sequel, the Donkey Kong Country series, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Battletoads, and other great games. Slowly after they got bought out, their games have been slipping in quality. We then had mediocre games like Grabbed by the Ghoulies, the Kinect Sports series, Perfect Dark Zero, and one of the more decent games, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. Even the two founders of the company left to work in land development. How sad does that sound? You leave one of the coolest and most entertaining jobs on earth to work on LAND DEVELOPMENT! However, out of all this garbage and idiocracy, there was a small glimmer of hope of the company actually knowing what they were doing. This was a launch title for the Xbox360 known as Kameo: Elements of Power. While considered the last good game from Rare, Kameo: Elements of Power does have some faults to its overall design due to the huge amounts of delays and console changes, but I would still recommend checking it out. Let’s dive into the elements and review Kameo: Elements of Power for the Xbox360.

The story revolves around Kameo who has the power to shape-shift that was given to her by her family. Her sister, however, hates that idea. The evil sister then decides to go make a deal with Thorn, the king of trolls, to kidnap Kameo’s family and rule the land alongside the trolls. It is up to Kameo to get the powers of the elemental warriors and make everything good again. The story can be interesting enough to keep you playing, but it doesn’t have the charm like Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Banjo Kazooie had. It isn’t bad overall though with some memorable characters and a great soundtrack.

The gameplay is a 3D action platformer where you play as Kameo and you go around a massive world to take down the army of trolls and take down huge monsters that are keeping your family hostage. Kameo alone is pretty weak, and your main weapon of choice is the elemental warriors you gain throughout the game. Each warrior has a special ability to use in combat and moving through the levels. You gain these warriors by taking down shadow trolls and saving your family members from said “huge monsters”. Some monsters are better at combat and some are better at traversing the landscape of the huge levels. Some have the abilities to grapple from place to place, sliding on ice bridges, swimming underwater, gliding on water, breathing fire, and moving underground. Outside of the single player mode, there are specific areas that you unlock that you can play offline or online with a second player, but I’ll explain the tedium of that later. There really isn’t much to do after you play the game, besides going through the entire world map, beating down trolls, doing challenges, upgrading your health and warriors, and completing the main story.

Graphically, for a launch title it looks great. It is amazing how many trolls and soldiers you will see on the screen at once. The warriors and bosses are all also well designed and are fun to watch move. The music is epic and memorable. The composer for this game was Steve Burke who also worked on the Viva Piñata series, Jetpac Refuelled, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and Perfect Dark Zero. He mostly works on games from Rare.

There are some glaring flaws though, and of course you could blame them on this game’s long development time, but I’m still going to point out the flaws. A couple of the elemental warriors can be extremely tedious to control. This comes into play with a few areas of the game, like the second major boss fight where you have to use not one, but two warriors who control awkwardly. This is ironic since one of the warriors you use has the special ability to swim underwater, but is surprisingly tedious to control when you are in the water. The game is also pretty repetitive. You go through the pattern of going to one level, beating one or two shadow trolls, beating a major boss, and then going to the overworld and taking down a threat from the troll army, and repeat. Some of the levels can be extremely annoying to go through due to not knowing enough about where you need to go. The map only shows you where you need to be, but it doesn’t give you the right direction about where to go. I really hate pointing out all of the flaws in this game, but I expected better from Rare.

Overall, it’s one of the more decent games to come out of Rare from the past decade, but it still isn’t worth your time this time around due to better games like Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Gunstringer, and Blue Dragon being more worth your time. I would recommend at least renting it to check out one of the more decent games from Rare’s partnership with Microsoft. I could totally see a sequel for this game, but due to Rare not listening to their fans anymore and ONLY working on Kinect now, I can’t really see it happening. I think now is a good time for Rare to sell their Banjo Kazooie, Conker, Kameo, and Battletoads rights to Nintendo or Sony. They would do a much better job for those franchises.

This game gets a 6 out of 10

WWE All Stars for the PS3 and 360 review

2012-01-04T17:30:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone, welcome to the New Year! WOOOOOO! It is 2012 and time for more new games and time for me to make them into game reviews. I decided to spook you all a little and do something different with this year’s first review. I decided to review a sports game! I know, I can hear you all gasping, since out of over 200 reviews, I haven’t really reviewed any sport games. This is mostly my fault for being biased towards these games. The other fault though is that sports games come out year after year after year. They don’t take their time and make something special, they usually do it to make money for the consumers who do enjoy and play sports games. Don’t get me wrong, I love the thrill when you play a football game and you are running down the field and no one is tackling you. I understand why these are popular to some extent, but they don’t really make me want to review them or put the money down for these games. I just want to play a sports game that is over the top and arcade-like, and doesn’t result in a realistic simulation of that specific sport. This is where this first review comes from, WWE: All Stars. Admittedly, the sports games are turning into the Guitar Hero and other music-based franchises, where we are getting kind of tired of seeing them, but WWE: All Stars decided to take a more fun approach, with an odd, but cartoony art style, more arcade style gameplay, and not too simulated like every other sports game out there. Let us see if this game succeeds! This is WWE: All Stars for the PS3 and 360. There really isn’t any story here, and all I could say is that all of the famous wrestlers old and new are in this game, and it’s a fan-serviced game where you can fight Andre the Giant with Rey Mysterio and take him down with your finishing move. Let’s move onto the gameplay then, shall we?

The gameplay, instead of being a tedious wrestling simulator, is more like an arcade wrestling and fighting game. You have your usual wrestling mechanics like pin downs and ringside take downs, but there are some light and heavy fighting moves like punches, kicks, throws, and even special moves that are easy to pull off. In the normal case of each match, you will either need to knock out your opponent or pin him down for 3 seconds. There are special cases, like in the cage match, where you need to knock out your opponent and get out of the cage as fast as you can. In extreme rules, you fight in a normal match, but can use weapons like 2x4’s to add some extra damage. Sometimes, you will be fighting only one opponent, or in make a million viewer episode, forced to fight multiple wrestlers at once. There are other modes, like tag team, where you team up to take down another team of wrestlers. The 3 main campaigns will have you fight the Undertaker, another will have you fight Randy Orton, and the other one has you fight against D-Generation X as the final opponent. A fun feature is the dream match-up fights where you can choose from either one or another wrestler that was paired up for a “dream match” like the Ultimate Warrior vs. Sheamus and they show live footage of both wrestlers, which is pretty cool. There is also online multiplayer with the usual suspects that you can play with offline, like cage match, and or just brawl each other to the ground. There is also a character creator, but due to the kind of silly art style, you won’t be able to truly make a dream wrestler. Either way, there is a lot to do with this wrestling game to keep you going with simple and easy to-get-used-to controls, a good deep combat system, multiple wrestlers old and new, and other things that make this game worth a purchase around the 40 dollar range, or simply for hardcore wrestling fanatics.

The graphics and art style are pretty silly-looking. The art style makes all of the wrestlers sometimes look the same body-wise with their over exaggerated muscle bound bodies. The graphics just get the work done. Don’t expect them to be Castlevania Lords of Shadow or Uncharted 3 good. The licensed music, like in Splatterhouse, really works here as you do get pumped a little when you see yourself go down to the ring and see the other wrestlers you will be going against. It is definitely how wrestling is in real life, over the top and flash-over-substance mixed with fake wrestling. Oh, and I don’t care if I offended you by saying wrestling is fake since it’s somewhat true. There are also some small bits of humor put in, like when in one cut scene, one of the wrestlers advertises his own game to the masses and the other looks at him like an idiot. Either way, they did as good of a job as they could do using the Unreal 3 engine.

However, there are some major faults in this reboot and makeover of the wrestling game genre. There is no god dang training or tutorial mode. This made getting used to the controls and knowing what you can do with the controls really awkward and clunky, making for some unfair and terrible first fights. I mean, I am not saying that I need my hand held, but a proper training or tutorial stage would have worked so much better with this game where you can learn about the controls and techniques you can pull off. I took off a whole point from the score because of this one screw-up. Another major complaint I have is that the AI can be a mixed bag. One fight you are breezing through this fight with no trouble at all and the next fight, you are struggling to get out of harm’s way since you can’t block well or dodge attacks easily. Difficulty should be given to us slowly as we play through the game more and more as we get to the end and not just random spikes in difficulty. It is the same problem with games like Virtual On Marz where in one fight, I am having a huge issue with taking down two opponents, and then after a couple of times fighting the same fight over and over, the AI just got dumb and I got lucky. The next few complaints are just minor, but do add up. The cage match is tedious since it isn’t just taking down your opponent, but you also need to get out of the cage and do a timed button press to get out successfully. That is tedious and not needed. The other is that the Unreal 3 engine is showing its age and in the character creator, everything looks blocky, but that could easily be the art style that makes everything blocky.

Overall, for the first major sports game to be on my list of reviews, this one is pretty good. Maybe the future of wrestling games and or sports games can learn from this little experiment. I have wished for years that sports games be more than just simulation games of that specific sport. While this game does have some minor flaws that keep it from being perfect, I could still recommend this to anyone who is looking to get into wrestling or sport games. Hope you all are having a great beginning of the year and hope you all come back for more.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

Super Hero Holiday Special Part 2: Spiderman: Edge of Time for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-12-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

Who here has played Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions? It was a pretty favorable game from last year and yet some people didn’t care for it due to the repetitious nature of the game. While I do hate it for that reason, and that there were some glitches and little replay value, I still think it’s a really good Spiderman game. If you put it into context with the pile of Spiderman games we have gotten this past decade, it’s the best. The developers Beenox did a good job in making the Spiderman franchise get a good clean image in the life of video games. Now we have another Spiderman game called Spiderman: Edge of Time! I did have my concerns about this when I first heard about it. It had just been a year since the last Spiderman game was released and there were only two Spiderman characters to play as, Amazing Spiderman and Spiderman 2099. This game also has the draw of famous actor Val Kilmer playing the villain. Is this a worthy Spiderman game to check out or should you just leave this at the end of time? Let’s find out in Spiderman: Edge of Time for the 360 and PS3 here on Cam’s Eye View.

The story starts with two different worlds as the setting of the game. The modern time with the Amazing Spiderman voiced by Josh Keaton, and the future of 2099 with Spiderman 2099 voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes. Future Spiderman is tracking down a mad scientist Dr. Walker Sloan voiced by film actor, Val Kilmer. Some of the stuff Walker Sloan does actually effects the past in some major ways. One of the things happening is that Anti-Venom, voiced by Steve Blum, is acting weird and out to kill Spiderman. It is up to Spiderman 2099 to stop Spiderman from the past from being killed and get his help to stop Dr. Walker Sloan. The story itself can actually be pretty good, if a bit confusing at times. However, due to some issues I will explain later, the story kind of loses itself to me due to some boring aspects of the game that really drag on. However, there are some good and memorable moments. Let’s just say the story is weaker this time than in Shattered Dimensions.

The glue that holds this game together, a.k.a the gameplay, is of a typical action game. You play as both Spiderman characters, and this time, they are a bit more fleshed out, but they play a bit like they did in Shattered Dimensions. Spiderman is more melee-focused while Spiderman 2099 is more agility-based in their fighting styles. Each Spiderman has their own unique spidey sense ability. Spiderman’s spidey sense ability makes him more agile, which makes dodging enemy attacks easier. Spiderman 2099’s spidey sense ability can make a decoy clone of himself to take on heat-seeking missiles and act like a dummy for enemies to hit while you attack enemies from behind. You can buy upgrades like new attacks, more health, more power bar energy, and the usual action game upgrades. You will mostly be going around bashing enemy heads into one another and from time to time taking on one of the few bosses this game has to offer like Blackcat or Anti Venom. It is very simple and straightforward, and isn’t really that deep. The two Spiderman characters have the same move sets, but Spiderman 2099 does have areas where you need to dash downward or upward to either get out of trouble or, in a later part of the game, save Mary Jane.

The graphics are good, but nothing mind-blowing. I do like the details put onto Spiderman since during the game, his suit gets worn and torn through many tough encounters. The details on Anti-Venom are impressive and make Anti-Venom look really menacing. The voice acting is great with all 3 of the main actors, Josh Keaton, Christopher Michael Barnes, and Val Kilmer doing a good job with their roles, and not sounding as bad as Spiderman does in Spiderman Web of Shadows. The music is epic at times and is handled well, but though it isn’t anything memorable, it’s well done. The cinematic cutscenes however look great and are pretty impressive-looking

This game has a lot more flaws than Shattered Dimensions, which disappoints me a little since I was expecting more from this game. The fighting is BORING. It is just so tedious and repetitious due to cookie-cutter enemies that act the same, no matter what Spiderman you play. I was also expecting a game that had multiple endings since they marketed this game with comments like “whatever you do in one time, will affect the other.” Well, that’s true that it happens, but it’s more for story purposes and doesn’t really help curve the ending to a different finish like Resident Evil or Mass Effect 2. I also felt like Doctor Octopus and Black Cat were a waste of space, since they didn’t really do much. Black Cat 2099 is especially pointless since she ends up being a major boss a couple times in the game and is rather unbalanced. I actually had to move to easy mode to even get a chance to beat her. Doctor Octopus didn’t really play a major role either and was really there to make a huge monster combined with Anti-Venom. You can tell this game feels unpolished, because when you keep playing, it doesn’t feel fully tested or fully thought out. It’s just boring in the last half even though there is a pretty nice twist in the story. I think the thing to blame here besides the Beenox team is the time they had to make this game. They basically had a year or less to complete this game, and for a retail game, that isn’t enough time to make a retail game. Due to the boring last half, I felt unattached to the story, and my brain checked out an hour before I beat it.

Overall, this is a pretty disappointing Spiderman game. This is definitely not worth your time purchasing as of right now. I would wait till it’s cheaper. If you want a really good Spiderman game, play Shattered Dimensions. It might be as repetitious as this game, but it’s a heck of a lot better than this. I guess I would recommend renting it if you really want to try this game out. Play about 5 hours and see if you want to play more. Maybe you will enjoy it more than me, but man, I felt like I wasted my time when I hit the halfway mark of the game. You will get about 10 hours or so out of this game, but I think Beenox should wait awhile before releasing another Spiderman game, or at least a better one.

This game gets a 5 out of 10

Super Hero Holiday Special Part 1: Batman Arkham City for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-12-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

Batman Arkham Asylum definitely has made quite a name for itself, hasn’t it? I mean, who thought that it would have been such a hit with the past Batman games being, well, terrible? It was one of the best games of 2009 and maybe the best license game of all time. That statement might be a bit on the fan boy side since there are other great license games, but this one definitely pushed the bar high for other games based off of licenses. That is until the sequel was announced at the end of 2010. We didn’t hear things for quite some time until E3 2011. I mean, there are big things going for this game. It was going to be bigger and better. The sad thing though was that this would be the last time Mark Hamill would voice the Joker. So, how does this game stack up? Is it better? Or does it have the vibe people had after seeing Batman and Robin? Well, read on to find out.

The story begins with the new prison for Gotham called Arkham City. All the villains are now placed in a small city-like prison and closed out from the rest of the world. Bruce Wayne, voiced by Kevin Conroy, is giving a speech about shutting the place down due to some mysterious things happening that are being decided upon by Doctor Hugo Strange, voiced by Corey Burton. While Bruce Wayne is giving the speech, he is arrested under false pretenses and ends up in Arkham City. He is surrounded by villains and is almost whacked by Penguin, voiced by Nolan North. After a few minutes inside the prison, Bruce gets his Batman suit and decides to take down the villains running this city and see what the heck is going on. The story is great and is filled to the brim with Batman villains. Of course, it is also filled with heroes like Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing. In the end, the story is dark, creepy, gripping, and will make you feel depressed in the end, kind of like when you watch the end of The Dark Knight. It gives you a feeling that no matter how much you do, you don’t feel like you’ve won. Just get ready to feel incomplete in an emotional way after beating this game.

The gameplay featured in Arkham City is a free-roaming action/stealth game. You play as Batman for most of the game, but through codes you receive through pre-orders, you can play as Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing. You go through the city beating down thugs and getting your hands on the main big bad guys that are handed to you like the Joker, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter, Solomon Grundy, and other villains. You can also fight and beat other villains through side quests, like the Riddler, Deadshot, and Poison Ivy. It will be weird to see that even some of the villains from side quests actually want your help, like Bane who wants you to get rid of the remaining Titan serum from the last game. Throughout the game, you get gadgets to help you through, like a stun gun that can also help turn on old run-down machines, bombs that can literally freeze people, and an item to turn off landmines. You also get the same assorted gadgets like batarangs, explosive gel, bat claw, and other gadgets you got in the last game. There is a lot of variety in grunts to fight off, and you will have to change your strategy depending on what grunts are in the group. It is definitely not an easy game. There are a lot more boss fights, and even the final fight seems perfect. All the fights are perfectly set up, like how Batman takes them down. There was supposed to be multiplayer, but to be honest, I don’t think it would have worked. I don’t think multiplayer would have made this game better. You see, developers? You don’t need multiplayer modes to make your game better!

The graphics are beautiful. They definitely take full use of the Unreal 3 engine, and the entire city and its people are greatly detailed. There is definitely no texture-loading like in Gears of War 3 and Last Remnant. The voice acting is outstanding, and out of all the voice actors, Mark Hamill does a great job with his final time voicing the Joker. There are also other wonderful voice actors like Tara Strong, who takes over the role of Harley Quinn, Danny Jacobs, who returns as Victor Zsasz, Catwoman as played by Grey Delisle, Two-Face as voiced by Troy Baker, Mr. Freeze voiced by Maurice LaMarche, Stana Katic voices Talia Al Ghul while Ra’s al Ghul is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, Fred Tatasciore voices Solomon Grundy, and there are other voices actors. Heck, I’ll list them off also. Peter MacNicol voices the Mad Hatter, Kevin Conroy voices Hush, Chris Cox voices Dead Shot, Wally Wingert voices Riddler, and Tasia Valenza voices Poison Ivy. They all do a great job voicing their characters and giving them such personality that isn’t seen in a lot of licensed games. There is a huge amount of things to do that will take you about 30 or so hours to complete, maybe 20 if you rush it, but overall, this isn’t a short game. The music is amazing and does a great job fitting the scenes together well.

This game is just almost perfect. Seriously, this is 10 out of 10 material! However, there are a few things that ticked me off. Even though I like how they made it free roaming, I would have preferred it to be a straight linear adventure like the last game. I mean, they stuffed so many villains in this game that I wish a lot of them could be more than side mission villains. Overall, that is really the complaint I have. I just wanted the additional villains to have the same impact as the ones like the Mr. Freeze and Penguin. I understand that the side villains fit their persona, like Deadshot being hidden or far away from Batman, but still it would have been nice to see more of the villains play major roles. Mad Hatter could have been a major player with his mind control gimmicks.

Wow, just wow! This is the best Batman game of all time. I would highly recommend buying this game! I mean seriously, this is the best license game of all time. I know you could argue that statement, but seriously, Beenox could learn a thing or two with their Spiderman games. Hmm, maybe I’ll review that game next. Stay tuned for part 2 of this super hero holiday special! Next we look at the rather disappointing Spiderman: Edge of Time.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

El Shaddai for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-12-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

After I played Alice: Madness Returns, I came to the conclusion that I needed a break from unique-looking games. There was so much wrong with that game, resulting in nomination of worst game of 2011. It was a terribly flawed action game. The story and characters might have been interesting, but the gameplay dragged the game down, including only ONE [insert bad word here] BOSS! I mean, why can’t action games have an interesting story, a unique and simple combat system, and a wonderful art style? Oh wait, there is a game like that! Its called God of War 3! WAIT WAIT WAIT! That isn’t the right action game to mention. Let’s see, I know there was a game released in 2011 that was like I described. Oh yeah! Its called El Shaddai! Yes, a game that was in a form of limbo for a while coming to America until the almighty Ignition Games decided to grab life by the balls and release this game here on August 16^th 2011. It might be a tiny bit odd that this action game is based on Deuterocanonical Book of Enoch, which is a cultural thing that I’ll explain later. It turns out to be a very stylized game with a simple, but easy-to-get-into combat system, a pretty well-paced story, and an amazing art style that makes it one of the best looking games art-wise of 2011. Let’s dive into this somewhat confusing culture mixture of Christian Old Testament and action. and review El Shaddai!

The story is about a man named Enoch, a priest who is sent down to a fake world created by 7 fallen angels. It is his job to go down and send them back to heaven so they can be imprisoned and not have a giant flood take everything out. It’s not a bad story, but it definitely takes a backseat to the gameplay. Though that isn’t a bad thing, there are some interesting elements here and there that keep it from being a totally boring story, but it isn’t fully interesting even though it is told pretty well by your Navi-like comrade, Lucifel. Just be prepared to not fully know what’s going on unless you pay attention or know about the Book of Enoch story.

The gameplay in El Shaddai is an action and platforming heavy game. In the game, you can control 3 kinds of weapons. The first one is a sword-like weapon, the second are these floating projectiles that can be launched with an unlimited number, and thirdly, two large gauntlets. You start out with your hands and feet to defend yourself, but you will need to steal these weapons from the enemies that wield them. At first, this game can come off as a button masher, and there are some elements of button mashing, but you are going to get banged up if you do that. There is always a different situation with a different weapon to use. There might just be 3 weapons, but you will need to use all 3 during the game. The 3 weapons even have secondary abilities that will help during platforming sections, like a air dash, floating down, or having a huge shield to block damage. There is also a spirit you get later in the game that can cause a super attack with whatever weapon you get.

The graphics are beautiful and El Shaddai is definitely the most beautiful game artistic-wise of 2011. Each layer of the tower you go through will have a unique art style added to that floor. It’s just a very gorgeous game, and it’s hard to explain if you don’t see it for yourself. There is just so much work put into the art style and animation that you could tell the developers worked hard on this aspect of the game. The music is also very beautiful, with far eastern themes taking up most of the soundtrack. It’s definitely very beautiful music to compliment a very beautiful game. Voice acting is also well done, but the main hero Enoch voiced by Blake Ritson is mostly silent for a good majority of the game. The only other character I liked was Lucifel, who was voiced by Jason Isaacs. He did a good job with narrating about the world and its history around you.

However, no game is perfect and there are some flaws in this beautiful game. Even though there is strategy to the fighting in the game, it does usually end up being a button masher, which makes the game have a shallow fighting system at times. While I love the art style in the game, it does get in the way because of the built-in camera that is only in one place. Sometimes, the platforming is tedious because of the gorgeous art style gets in the way of knowing what to do. I also found the game to be a little boring. Yeah, the boss fights can be intense, but it’s a very calm game. While I love a calm game like Flower, in this game I’m just a bit bored at times, since all I’m doing is just running from place to place or to the next group of 3 enemies.

While I can’t say this is a stellar game, I do think it’s a good game. I couldn’t recommend this to everyone, but I’d recommend renting it if you want to try it out, since the demo doesn’t do the game justice. However, if you love action games and want a new one to add to the collection, then I would recommend it when the price drops. It’s nice that this game came out here in the states, but I think a little more thought could have gone into this game to make it one of the best games of this year.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

Y's: Ark of Napishtim for the PS2 review

2011-12-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to my review blog. Do you remember a company called Nihon Falcom? This company was more well known during the late 80’s and early-to-mid 90’s, and was mostly known for the Dragon Slayer, The Legend of Heroes, Zwei, and Y’s series. The game this time is from the famous action RPG Y’s series. It is the 6^th game in the series that was released for the PC, PSP, and PS2. This review is of Y’s: Ark of Napishtim for the PS2. Out of games to review, this one was not the most requested, but I decided to review it because a friend of mine recommended it and the other games that are on the PSP. While not a totally original game, it is a pretty fun and challenging game for the PS2, and is one of the better-unknown games for the system. So, let’s take a look into the underrated gem, Y’s: Ark of Napishtim.

The story puts you in the shoes of the redheaded protagonist known as Adol. You get on a ship to go on your next adventure. The ship gets attacked, and you end up falling into the ocean and washed up on an island. You then get the task of helping a village with some issues like mystical beings and giant monsters. It is up to you to save the world. I think the thing I want to complain early on about is how unoriginal this story is. It is about as clichéd as it gets, everyone. Play Link’s Awakening, Final Fantasy 10, and Klonoa 2 and you will get the idea of why I am calling this story clichéd.

The gameplay featured in Ark of Napishtim is a mix between some light platforming with RPG, action, and some light puzzle solving. It is like Final Fantasy Adventure and the Zelda series since action is played out in real time and the only way you get stronger is by upgrading swords and armor. You run around a large island fighting off monsters, and of course, taking out the occasional boss that has patterns and weaknesses. The main gimmicks in your swords are that you get three different swords. They each are better for certain fights, like the red sword is good for heavy hits and the lightning sword is good for quick close range hits. You can also pull off super moves once you fully charge an energy bar by your health bar. You upgrade your swords by obtaining gems and taking them to a special shop where you can increase the strength of that sword. There are some areas you need to be careful about, like going through areas you are not strong enough to go through, because the monsters can get pretty tough if you are not careful. The puzzle sections of the game are not too hard, so you won’t be beating your brain to a pulp when you can’t find out what on earth you are supposed to do. Be careful for some of the monsters on the island. Each monster has a certain pattern that you have to take into account or else you could get destroyed within minutes. During the game, you will be able to go through challenge rooms where you go through an array of rooms and monsters, and at the end, you usually fight a boss or so and can choose from three different awards. Sucks you can’t just take all three, but then the game would be too easy.

The graphics are good, they are nothing to gawk over on the PS2, but they are not horrible to look at. Sometimes, they look great. The music is also pretty good. It is definitely one of the best RPG soundtracks on the PS2. The music ranges from the calm and soothing trek through the forest to amazing battle music when fighting a large boss. Then again, this game was made by Nihon Falcom. This company is famous for mostly the Y’s action RPG series, Faxanadu on the NES, the difficult Tombs and Treasures on the NES, and the Legend of Heroes series. It’s a solid company that makes a pretty good action RPG series that I would highly recommend to certain people.

Sadly, there are some small faults that start to build up in the long run. While the platforming is a nice touch to all the action, but it is awkward to jump from place to place at times since you will have to run AND jump to get to some areas. I also hate that even though you have a shield, you can’t really use it. You basically either have to run from the enemy attack or jump above it. I mean, Link was able to use his shield in his games and it helps out A LOT. I am also not a fan of a couple of the plant bosses due to the fact you have very little time to hit them and they will end up summoning more enemies than you can actually deal with. This is just a minor gripe, but I hate how small the enemies can be. Sometimes, they are very hard to see and you end up getting attacked or hit because you can’t see them. I also don’t like the whole leveling system since it is still level grinding. Why couldn’t they take the approach of games like Mana Khemia and Threads of Fate and make it so you get stronger by buying stronger armor and weapons?

Overall, this is a really solid action RPG that I would highly recommend. The sad thing is that you will have to get ready to shell out 15 or more dollars for a good condition copy. It’s not the hardest game to find, but it will take some time to get it unless you plan on going to Ebay. The Y’s series has always been kind of the under-the-radar cult-followed franchise here in America due to it being overshadowed by the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games. It might have its faults that get tedious, but other action RPG’s like NIER also have that problem. I say, if you can find a copy, buy it. A lot of other people will probably recommend this series to you and I say, take my word and their word for it, the Y’s series isn’t leaving anytime soon.

This game gets a solid 7 out of 10

3 game special Part 3: Alice Madness Returns for the PS3 and 360

2011-11-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

I have been playing a lot of unique games this year, with Portal 2 and L.A. Noire being the two big hitters for me. Sadly, I think I just hit the wall with unique games to play for a while. I say this since this next game is American McGee’s Alice: Madness Returns for the PC, PS3, and 360. I know this is a bit sudden for me to announce the game I am reviewing, but I have kind of had enough of playing unique games for now due to this game. I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love it for specific reasons, but I really hate it for technical and other specific reasons. I don’t like to scream and rave and rant about a game so early in the review, but that is how I feel about this game. Alice Madness Returns is a flawed, but interesting experience brought by American McGee to the gaming world. So, let’s dive into the madness of Alice: Madness Returns. Before I continue I just want to say this is my opinion and if you don’t like it, that is fine, just make your own review of it.

The story starts off with Alice, still a little crazy and living in a somewhat orphanage/asylum for kids who are not right in the head. While exploring the city, the world of Wonderland and the real world start to merge and Alice is back in Wonderland. The Cheshire cat tells Alice about an unknown train that is causing mass chaos and destruction all over Wonderland. It is up to Alice to find out why the fantasyland is corrupted and learn more about her past. The story has some interesting parts, but it can overall be pretty silly. While the game is trying to be dark and twisted, it comes off as silly, and well, Alice isn’t the most interesting lead character in a game.

The gameplay in Alice: Madness Returns plays a lot like Darksiders and the 3D Zelda titles where you backtrack through huge areas, solving puzzles and using a target-like system to take care of enemies. Alice has 4 weapons she finds throughout the game, not counting the DLC you can get for more outfits and some new weapons. The first weapon is the Vorpal Blade, which is for fast and quick combos. The second weapon is the Pepper Grinder, which is used like a gattling gun for quick and rapid shots. The Hobby Horse acts very much like the Barbarian Hammer from God of War 2 or the Ball and Chain from Twilight Princess, with it being your heavy hitting, but slow weapon. The final weapon is the Teapot Cannon, which is helpful in taking care of the harder enemies and wiping out waves of smaller enemies. You could go into battle with any weapon and take out the enemy just fine, but it’s easier to know what weapon to use against what enemy, which make battles go by faster and easier since each weapon is matched to a face button. If your health gets too low Alice can activate a super mode, where she can kill enemies, while being invincible, and regain some health. Alice also has the ability to shrink down in size to either dodge enemies or find hidden clues and see hidden platforms, which is necessary to get past some areas. There are also hidden rooms where you can complete challenges to gain health upgrades. Alice also has a helpful triple jump ability and the ability to glide to reach far away areas. The game is filled with side games, like a 2D shooter, puzzles, a side-scrolling level, and on one occasion, a Guitar Hero like mini-game. Some of these can be skipped since they can get pretty tedious from time to time.

The one area that Alice: Madness Returns does well is its presentation area. Every world is very creative and unique. so it doesn’t look like you’re going through the same area over and over again. The enemies are well-designed and creative, with enemies like crabs with a cannon in one arm smoking a cigar, samurai wasps, baby doll parts mixed with oil, and many other creatures that roam the lands of Wonderland. The music is also nice and creepy when it needs to be, but isn’t very memorable. The voice acting is also very good with secondary characters with memorable personalities and all the charm American McGee’s games have.

However, it is time to talk about what the heck is wrong with this title. The first thing I noticed is that the graphical look, while nice, can be pretty hit-and-miss, with some graphical flickering that I have seen throughout the real world section of the game. The second thing is that the platforming is sloppy. A lot of times you think you’re going to make your jump, but you don’t make it because Alice has no grab- the-ledge action. It’s annoying as heck, and this happens A LOT during the game. Even though the worlds themselves are creative, they all have the same dang puzzles. It’s always the same puzzle and there aren’t exclusive puzzles to each world. Battles also get repetitious since you fight the same corrupt enemies alongside the same world exclusive enemies. The nail in the coffin for me is that there are NO boss fights. I mean, yes, there is a boss fight, but only at the very end of the game. What was American McGee thinking?! The last game had more bosses, heck, even the first Devil May Cry had more bosses in it, and that game reused bosses! Alice Madness Returns turns into a boring time-wasting slugfest without a boss in each world. You could count those giant corrupt oil-like enemies as bosses, but that is just lazy. American McGee, you are a hack! I mean seriously, when I want to play an action game, I expect more from this game since it takes ideas from other games, but it’s just sloppy and isn’t fully polished. Alice also isn’t that interesting of a character. I never felt fully pulled into the story because of her. It just made me realize I was playing a terrible action game with only ONE FREAKING BOSS IN THE ENTIRE GAME!

Overall, I can’t say this is a bad game since it does have some simple, but somewhat fun-at-first combat, interesting characters, and amazing looking worlds, but it isn’t a very good game either. The whole game feels half-finished, and it really shows that this game wasn’t tested enough. The fighting and puzzles get boring and repetitious, Alice is a borefest, the presentation is hit-and-miss, and there is only ONE BOSS! I seriously am surprised Spicy Horse, the company who developed this game didn’t lose money to this waste-of-time game. If you really want to play a good new action game, play Darksiders and Bayonetta. Heck, you can pick up the God of War Collection for only half as much as Alice: Madness returns costs. This game is terrible and I can only recommend it as a weary rental since it isn’t a competently made game. It doesn’t deserve

a 7 out of 10 that some reviewers are giving it. It is just a rough ride going down the rabbit hole this time.

This game deserves a 4 out of 10

3 game special Par 2: L.A. Noire for the PS3 and 360

2011-11-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it is nice to play something different. I mean, it seems like the industry is buried in Call of Duty games, Street Fighter 4 games, and thankfully, no more music games. I like to see companies break out of the mold and do something different. I think the company I am most proud of is Rockstar. I have played their Grand Theft Auto franchise, but I don’t really see the big deal about the games. I can understand their popularity and well thought out story to some extent, but it really isn’t my kind of franchise. That is why I was pleasantly surprised about Red Dead Redemption. I mean, yeah, the story dragged on near the end, but it was a very solid game and definitely worth the Game of the Year award. Personally, I would have chosen Super Mario Galaxy 2 or Mass Effect 2. When I heard Rockstar was doing a game where the setting was the 1940’s and you were a detective, I was intrigued and when I saw the trailers, I was excited. Some of the review scores for this next review can be a bit biased and overblown, but it is definitely worth playing, rather than games like Bullet Storm or Gears of War 2. The game in question is Team Bondi’s first game and hopefully not their last, L.A. Noire. Like I said, this game does have its share of faults, but they really aren’t that big. Besides, I have to talk about the game first and not just say all the bad things first. So, put on your nicest suit from the 40’s, this is my review of L.A. Noire

The story puts you into the shoes of detective Cole Phelp, a post-war hero and small-time police officer, who throughout the story rises from the ranks of police officer to a homicide detective. During the story, you meet interesting characters, from the different sidekicks you get through the story to the suspects and criminals you encounter. The story overall is well told, interesting, and keeps you guessing as to what was going on with Cole Phelp during the war and why he wants to bring justice to the crime-ridden city of Los Angeles. It kind of reminds me of Law and Order: L.A. since it has the same atmosphere. However, as an early warning, the third act in the story where you are the homicide detective can drag on a little more than it should. Still, an entertaining story

The gameplay is mixed between a sort of linear adventure game mixed with gunplay, driving, and detective work. You get a case handed to you, and you go to each location looking for clues, and interrogating the suspects or witnesses. The main gimmick in the game is to talk to the suspects and watch their facial reactions to your comments. You then have to know if they are either lying, doubtful, or telling the truth. If you think they are lying, make sure you have evidence to back it up. It can be rather difficult at the beginning to get used to this mechanic in the game, but you get used to it as you play through the game more. The other mechanics are to drive around town to each destination or to other side cases like shoot-outs or suicides to name a few. The other part is just standard third person shooting. A lot of things can score you on each case, like how you drive, how many clues you find, and how many questions you get right. Overall, you should get about a 12-hour experience, which is worth the money, in my opinion.

The graphical look of the game on the PS3 looks great and the whole 40’s look of the game is amazing. A lot of attention has been paid to detail and making sure that the 40’s in L.A. was about as accurate as you could get. It might not be super accurate, but I think it looks the part, from he shine on the cars, to the facial animation captured on the people’s faces, it all looks great. There are a few glitches here and there, but it is an overall polished graphical package. The voice work is also amazing with some great voice works done by the actors. For example, the actor for Cole Phelps is Aaron Staton who if you’re a Mad Men fan is Ken Cosgrove. There are other actors like Michael McGrady from Southland and John Noble, but there are a lot of TV actors that you could probably recognize more than me. The music is also very well done with great jazz tracks, and different songs from the 40’s. It’s fun to listen to and it fit the part most of the time.

However, in this game, as unique as it is, they could have used a few more months to iron out some of the flaws. A lot of people have asked why there isn’t some co-op play, but I am not going to complain about that since I don’t think the game needs it. My complaint comes from the sluggishly repetitious 3^rd act. All the cases are basically revolving around this one killer and no other killers. It’s tedious and it drags the end of the story and the game on a little longer than it should have. People who haven’t played this or are not accustomed to this style of game will probably get bored and not want to play. There is no other game like this coming out this year, so in my opinion, they could have polished things out a little before it was released. I also wish the game was a bit more open-ended since it is more of a linear game even though it has side missions you can do during the main mission. I say this since it’s being published by Rockstar, the king of free roaming games, so I expected more freedom to the game.

Overall, L.A. Noire is pretty unique, and it is one of the better games of 2011. I would say if you’re a fan of Rockstar, get it. It still has that good story and character development you get from Rockstar games, even though the third act is a bit rough and slow. You could wait for the price to go down and then pick it up. Sometimes, we need to play something different from our usual catalog of games. Maybe you all should do the same. Why not start with L.A. Noire

This game gets an 8 out of 10

3 game special Part 1: Portal 2 for PS3, 360, PC, and Steam

2011-11-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

I love to be surprised by games that everyone loves and I just didn’t get. Portal was one of those games that I just didn’t get. It seemed like some first-person puzzle game that was going to be hard to push to the gaming public. It also didn’t help that it was part of the Orange Box with Half Life 2 and Team Fortress. However, it got a lot of good reviews, and besides being short and having some clunky mechanics, somehow won Game of the Year Award from a couple of publications. Personally, in 2007, Super Mario Galaxy was Game of the Year for me, but we need to move on. After working on and milking every PC and Xbox360 gamer out of their hard earned cash with Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, I heard they were going to make a Sequel for Portal that came out this year. At first I still wasn’t impressed and just pushed it aside for other games that were coming out. I then decided to see what Valve had to show by watching all the trailers and footage they had of the game, and then I got a little interested. Portal was a game you had to play to get what people were talking about, and I bet this game was going to be like that too. I had it on my Gamefly list and got it about a week after it was released, and here I am today to talk to you about Portal 2 for PS3, 360, PC, and Steam. I was very surprised at how good this game was, and I could see why this series has received so much respect. It’s different, unique, and no one can match it. Let’s dive right into Portal 2.

The story starts off many years later as our main female hero Chell is thawed out of frozen hibernation in a pretty cheap-looking hotel room. She then meets a new Personality Sphere named Wheatley, voiced by Stephen Merchant. He tries to lead her safely out of the facility. Chell soon finds a portal gun and starts to use it like you would in the last game to make portals, to get out of rooms. Sadly, however, you eventually end up in the same room as the recently brought-back-to-life super computer Glados, who is still very ticked at you for killing her. The rest of the game is really all about going through the Aperture Science Center again, going through tests, and then ending up in an underground area of the science center with the voice of the CEO of Aperture Science, Cave, voiced by J.K Simmons. There is also a co-op multiplayer section of the game where you and your friend play as two robots named Atlas and P-body, a modified personality orb and a modified turret. You are sent through challenges made for two people by Glados that actually mixes with the single player campaign at certain points. Overall, the story is pretty well thought out with some really good moments that Valve is known for, since they are the makers of Half Life 2, one of the most acclaimed games of the past decade. It is an entertaining story, and it is worth your time.

The gameplay in Portal 2 is very much like the last game, but with a few tweaks. The stuff that stays the same is the portal gun where you can shoot two portals to get from point A to point B. A lot of puzzles must be solved by making portals in specific areas. Sometimes, you will need to accelerate yourself by falling through the portals at high speed to launch yourself across the room to another area. The portal mechanics mostly work the same as the last game. The new gimmicks come in the form of three different gels. The first gel is orange and it can increase the speed of your running. The second gel is blue and can make your character bounce higher. The final gel is in the form of white gel, which helps you make more areas to make portals. These gels are sometimes required in multi-tasking puzzles within the game, like having to use one gel and then spray another gel on top of it. These puzzles look hard, but they aren’t, and I’ll explain my hatred for that later. Portal’s main appeal though comes in the multiplayer mode, where you play as 2 personality cores and solve challenge puzzles that require good timing and pulling levers. You can play online or offline, and for online modes, if you don’t have headphones, you have specific signs, like in the Splosion Man series, to do certain actions with your partner.

The graphics for the game look slick since, well, you’re in a science center half of the time, but there are some blemishes since some areas don’t look as polished and some areas look way too similar. The graphics have the same issue like Transformers War for Cybertron has, everything looks too similar, and it gets boring after awhile. The voice acting on the other hand is great, with some phenomenal voice work by Stephen Merchant as the new personality core, Wheatly, and J.K. Simmons voicing the crazed owner of the Aperture Science Center, Cave Johnson. Of course the main draw of the Portal series is Glados, voiced by, I guess, Valve-owned voice actor, Ellen McLain, who has done a lot of work for Valve games. The music is pretty good, a lot of techno beats composed by Mike Morasky, who is famous for doing the music for a lot of Valve games, like the Left 4 Dead series, Team Fortress 2, and, um, Portal. The two original songs for Portal 2 are “Want You Gone” composed and played by Jonathon Coulton, who did the Still Alive song from the original Portal, and “Exile Verify” by a band called The Nationals. The humor is also pretty funny with some good interaction between the characters.

However, there are some flaws that I just get peeved at when I think about this game. First off is, of course, the graphics. I mentioned already that the look gets repetitious after awhile. The second gripe I have is the difficulty. I feel cheated when I find out how simple the puzzles can actually be at times. I mean if you’re going to make a challenging puzzle, then don’t hide it behind an overly tedious outer coating with an inner coating revealing itself as an overly simple puzzle. There are also some little things like the jumping controls and the voice acting being a little annoying at times.

Overall, Portal 2 is a good experience to try out on the PC, PS3, or 360. It’s dropped in price by now, and I would recommend it if you like the first game. For other people however, I recommend just renting it. It isn’t a game for everyone, but if you want to try something different, I say go ahead. Now, it’s time to move on, time to move back in time, and no, I’m not talking about reviewing the Back to the Future games, but I am talking about going back to the time of the 40’s, where jazz ruled the streets of L.A. with sex, murder, conspiracies, and a game published by Rockstar. Get ready for L.A. Noire.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

3 Year RPG Special Part 4: Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Crused King for the PS2

2011-10-31T10:23:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the next part of the 3-year RPG special. I remember reading a pretty harsh statement from Bioware stating that Japanese-style RPG’s lacked innovation. While that may be true in some areas, I don’t think they should say that when Bioware’s Dragon Age 2 was not as good as the original, with a not-so-well-developed story, bland characters, and still had what critics called an identity crisis of wanting to know what kind of game it wants to be. It also doesn’t help with the whole controversy about that Bioware employee giving the game a perfect 10 out of 10 and calling any other reviewer biased and stupid. Even though RPG’s from Japan still use common gameplay elements like turn-based combat and have fairly simple melodramatic stories, it works out for some series since sometimes we don’t need a fully complex story with underlying political or religious themes. Sometimes, we just need a simple story with enjoyable characters and a sense of adventure and excitement without having to pay close attention to the story’s many underlying themes. This is where the very popular Dragon Quest series comes in. This is probably the most popular series back in Japan and for good reason. The franchise has had very simple, but entertaining plots (it differs from game to game since Dragon Quest 4 and 5 have great stories) and great characters with a combat system that hasn’t changed in about 20 or more years. While I have admittingly stayed far away from this franchise due to extreme levels of difficulty that does turn some people off, if you stay with the games you will learn to love them and be hooked on them for the rest of your life. This is where Dragon Quest 8 comes in for the PS2! A game that I think is far better than Final Fantasy 12 and 13 entirely, Dragon Quest 8 with its simple yet entertaining story, great characters, simple combat, and of course the artwork of Akira Toriyama added for some flare is a great RPG. Any RPG fan that likes old traditional turn-based RPG’s should get this game immediately! It’s one of if not the best RPG on the PS2 and one of my favorite RPGs. Let’s dive into the wonderful world of Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King.

The story tells us of a kingdom that was cursed by a jester turned evil wizard named Dhoulmagus. This event doesn’t end well with the results being the king turned into a sort of frog-like man, and his daughter turned into a horse. The king is accompanied by a hefty thief named Yangus, and of course the main character named Hero (I called him Alan). It is their quest to save the king’s land and stop Dhoulmagus in his tracks before he rules the world. Along their journey they will meet two more characters, Jessica a hot vixen with a headstrong attitude, and Angelo a suave yet clever swordsman. The story might not be original, with a pretty simple plot, but if you look at a lot of Japanese styled RPG’s of today, their stories aren’t that original or unique either. Dragon Quest 8 fixes this by having only 4 main characters and the story being well told with some touching scenes, funny scenes, and some pretty dark areas. It all results in a wonderfully told story and one that you will be sticking with for awhile.

The gameplay is very simplistic in design, but like I said in so many other reviews about RPG’s, there are some tweaks done that makes this franchise so charming. Battles take place in a first person perspective, kind of like if you were playing a turn-based version of the Elder Scroll games. You take turns smacking around monsters and leveling up. Surprisingly, all of the characters can excel in specific weapons, like the Hero, who has no name of course, is actually really good with boomerangs since they can hit all enemies on the screen, Yangus can do heavy damage with an Axe, Jessica can use a whip, and Angelo is great with a sword or bow and arrow. This gives the game a lot of variety since having a hero who can hit all the enemies on the screen with one normal attack is a great thing to have since the battles can sometimes have up to EIGHT enemies on screen. Heck, I even ran into a battle with TEN enemies. Battles can be tough depending on what monsters you are fighting in that exact battle. Sometimes, they can be pushovers and sometimes they can be even harder than the boss! I kid you not, I got killed at least twice by normal enemies that happened to be in big groups, and then I blazed through the boss like melted butter. Each time you level up each character, they get skill points that you can use on different attributes that can help you. For example, Jessica has an attribute called Sex Appeal. If you focus on that specific attribute, monsters in battle will be swayed by her and not attack your party. Or if you level up Yangus’s humanity, he can have an attack later where he has a bunch of old people run over the monsters. There is a deep strategy here since the encounter rate is high, which require you to be a few levels stronger than you already are to defeat the bosses that will hit you hard if you don’t level up enough. You can also increase your attack power by doing a sort of buffing move called psyche up where your tension rises and you do more damage. About half way through the game or so, you can fight visible monsters in the overworld and recruit them to make a sort of backup army, and if you group certain monsters together, they can do special attacks and moves, kind of like in Dragon Quest 5. As you travel across the world from a third person perspective, you can find items to mix together in an alchemy pot to make new, rare, or normal items for your party, but you will have to wait awhile for the alchemy pot to finish the first item before moving onto the next. This is a smart idea since you don’t get a lot of money in the game, and items cost a lot. Sometimes, it’s better to find ingredients for one weapon instead of buying the current weapon you see at a store.

The graphics are beautiful for the PS2. Level 5, the developers of the White Knight franchise, the Professor Layton series, Dark Cloud series, Rogue Galaxy, and Jeanne D’Arc knew how to make the next game in the Dragon Quest series. They tuned this series tightly so it isn’t as drawn out as Dragon Quest 6 or 7. The characters are memorable, and they are complex and 3 dimensional, and I say that even when Jessica wears a somewhat sultry outfit and an even sultrier outfit if you find the playboy bunny outfit and the Hero doesn’t talk. They both have so much character in them that you cannot find in games like Final Fantasy 13. The character and monster designs by famed manga artist Akira Toriyama look great in this cel-shaded 3D environment. One of the best things about the design of the monsters is the personality they give off that only Akira Toriyama’s designs can do. Even their personalities affect how they attack in battles, like the Jailcat and its many color-pallet-swapped cousins will sometimes just lick themselves, and there are enemies that will just stare off into space. Even if some of the names of the monsters are terrible puns, there is just a charm to them that just brings you more into the game. The voice acting is terrific! Yeah, you can say it sounds bad because of the hammy accents, but that is part of the charm. It is like if you were watching the love child of a Monty Python and Princess Bride film. I mean, sometimes in RPG’s, the voice actors aren’t given good direction and they sound silly pulling you out of the game in result. You hear the voice acting in this game, and you just get pulled even more into its unique world. For a while, I wanted to know who the voice actors were for this game, and after some research here is what I found. Ricky Grover voices Yangus, Emma Ferguson voices Jessica, Blake Riston voices Angelo, Jon Glover voices Trode, and there are some other great voices, just look up this game on IMDB. The music is heavenly, and I get the feeling of great adventure awaiting me when I pick up my controller and turn on the PS2. The composer for this series is Koichi Sugiyama. He is famous for making that great and awe inspiring theme song that again gives you the feeling of an awe inspiring adventure awaiting you. He is also famous for working on the entire Dragon Quest series, along with film and T.V like Cyborg 009, Gatchaman, and even Godzilla vs. Biollante. His music is great and is definitely I-pod worthy, so go find the soundtrack for this game right now!

Oh my goodness, this is such a perfect game! I mean, I might be fan boyish right now with this game, but there are some minor faults. The encounter rate can be high and a tad annoying at times when you are trying to get to place to place and are stopped by constant random encounters, but that’s really only if you’re traveling by night when certain enemies come out and the encounter rate is higher. For some reason, they decided to keep the gimmick of reviving your dead friends ONLY at the church. Granted, you can get out of areas faster by using specific spells to get to the church, but it’s just the fact that you can’t revive them on the spot, which is tedious, since fights get tougher and tougher. Before I move onto the conclusion, here are some tips for people who want to play this game. Have the Hero focus on boomerangs and lances, grind until you’re about level 6 before you fight the first boss, and don’t just flail away at the boss. Look at the situation, and when you get Angelo, make sure you use him as the main healer along with the Hero, and make sure you’re about 4 levels above your past level before you go onto each boss fight. It will make boss fights much easier.

Well then, what can I say that I haven’t said already about this game? I…LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this game! This IS one of my favorite games of all time. It’s basically everything you want in an RPG, it’s almost perfect. Heck, it IS perfect. I declare Dragon Quest 8 to be the best RPG on the PS2. You can get this game for about 10 bucks and more. If you can find it, BUY IT! You will not regret it. You could say that Dragon Quest 8 is being stubborn with how traditional it’s staying, but really? Is that a bad thing? It’s like people complaining about how Super Mario Galaxy 2 is just more Super Mario galaxy? Again, is that REALLY a bad thing?! Sometimes, it’s better if we don’t invest our time into some new-fangled game gimmick that in the end is unpleasant, like Fable 3 and Mindjack. You will probably see me review Dragon Quest 4, 5, and 9, so make sure to look for those in my 2012 reviews. Dragon Quest 8 is hands down one of my top 20 favorite RPG’s of all time and is one of my top 25 favorite games of all time. Now, go out and have yourself an amazing adventure through the land of Dragon Quest 8!

This game gets a 10 out of 10

3 Year RPG Special Part 3: Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox360

2011-10-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone! Welcome back to the third part of this 3-year special! Now then, since I got my “hello” out of the way, let’s talk about the Tales games from Namco. If you are blinded with confusion about this series and saying to yourself, “what is this Tales series?” Well, you are not alone, and no, I was not insulting your intelligence. I’m serious, since, um…let me explain. The Tale franchise is apparently a huge fan-followed-action RPG franchise from Namco that has been going on since the first game appeared on the Super Famicom. It officially started to come here when the PS1 came to be, and FF7 made RPG’s a huge moneymaker here in the states. Namco caught wind of this and decided to start releasing the Tale games over here to take the big boys like Final Fantasy down a couple of pegs. This plan failed, but we did get some of the games over the years. The first game we got in the series was Tales of Destiny, the first game to be released over here in 1998 with good reception. They then released Tales of Eternia over here under the title, Tales of Destiny 2 with generally positive reviews, despite some complaints about the graphical presentation and sound work, but well received nonetheless. Sadly, after that, they basically have been releasing some of them over here, but not all of them. I think this is due to a good chunk of gamers really liking this series, but not a big enough chunk of customers to port over the entire franchise in the U.S. For example, we got left out of the ACTUAL Tales of Destiny 2’s release on the PS2. We got Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube with it ending up as one of the console’s best and ONLY RPG’s with a cult following. Namco left us in the dark about Tales of Rebirth for the PS2, but gave us Tales of Legendia for the PS2. Namco also gave us Tales of Abyss, and are going to give us Tales of Grace for the PS3. I am going to review the most recent of the Tales game to come over here in the states known as Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox360. In my opinion, this could be the best Xbox360 game. This is debatable, due to people saying that Gears of War or Halo is the best game on the console, but this is my review, and I am going to say that Tales of Vesperia is the best game on the console, and I could highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great RPG for the console. Let’s dive our way into no man’s land and get onto part 3 of this 3-year Anniversary Special.

The story takes place in the planet of Terca Lumireis, where people live inside kingdoms and towns protected by barriers so that monsters don’t kill them. The story then takes us to the kingdom of Zaphias. Our main hero, Yuri Lowell, voiced by Troy Baker, is an ex knight who is kind of like a Robin Hood or V-like character, who watches over the little people of the lower areas of the kingdom and makes sure the royal knights don’t harass them. One day, there is some commotion when a magical item called an Aque Blastia is taken from the lower quarter’s fountain area and causes water to overflow. Yuri sees that the knights don’t really care, and decides to find out what has happened to the Aque Blastia and find who stole it. After letting the thief who stole the blastia run away, Yuri is accused of breaking into the mansion and thrown in jail. After the help of another captured hero named Raven, voiced by Joe J. Thomas, Yuri escapes the castle and takes along with him the princess of the castle named Estellise Sidos Heurassein, or for short, Estelle, voiced by Danielle Judovits. Yuri decides to leave the kingdom with Estelle and his dog partner Repede to find a friend of his named Flynn Scifo, voiced by Sam Riegel, to find out what is going on. The story is great, with some very well-developed characters that might be anime stereotypes in some ways, but they are fleshed out in such a way that you could care less about that. The story itself might be not the most original, but it’s a deep and multi-layered story with some interesting outcomes from both sides of the guilds and the royal knights. Later in the game you will even question some of the character’s later judgment and decisions. Besides Yuri, you will meet the human acting dog partner Repede, Estelle a shu- in princess with no knowledge how the outside world works, Karol Capel a young monster fighting guild member, Rita Morido a very stern and serious female spell caster, Raven, a laid back and smart-alecky veteran archer, and Judith an elf-looking spear-wielding woman with a mysterious other persona. In the PS3 version, which is only in Japan, you could also play with Flynn, a very stern and serious knight, and Patty Fleur, a mature-acting young pirate girl.

The gameplay featured in Tales of Vesperia is of an action RPG. The battle system used here is an upgraded version of the battle system from Tales of Abyss, called the “Evolved Flex-Range Linear Motion Battle System”. This is where you fight on a 2D plain, but you can also hold one of the trigger buttons to move around a 3-dimensional plain to dodge enemy attacks and flank them from another side. You can also block attacks and pull off combo attacks. Each character also has his or her own set of special moves they can pull off to do things from super attacks, healing others, strengthening others, and other abilities that your characters can pull off during battle. You yourself can only equip 4 special moves at a time, but you can equip them anytime outside or inside battle. Sometimes, the special moves will have to be used to solve a puzzle from time to time within a boss fight. Monsters are all visible on the overworld and dungeon map so you can pick and choose your fights, but like I said in Grandia and Lunar: Silver Star Story, you will need to grind a bit to make yourself strong enough with the huge amounts of boss fights that are in the game. Sometimes, you can surprise the enemies and get a lead in the fight, but that can work against you also. When enemies catch you by surprise, it will cause your team to be mixed up, and you will usually have characters swapped with other characters that are not cut out for those specific enemies. While the super moves are nice, you can also pull off Over-Limit mode, where your attacks are stronger, and you can pull off an even stronger move while in this mode. There are even elements of quick-time events, where you can pull off a quick attack that will usually end up killing the weaker enemies and cause major damage to bosses. There is a lot of strategy, and even though button mashing will help in some areas, you will need to be more strategic in some fights or else you will get wailed on. There are other RPG elements, like an alchemy system, healing items, buying better equipment, but I think one of the best features is the leveling-up system. You level up normally, but the best part is that your unused party members aren’t left out of the leveling up since they level up and learn skills and new moves along with your used party members. Oh yeah, there is offline multiplayer where your friends can take charge of the characters that aren’t being used by you. It’s an overall complex action RPG that is easy to grasp for any gamer old and new to get into.

The graphics, while not pushing the limit of the 360, look amazing. The cel-shaded anime look is taken full advantage of here, but it looks glorious. What I am trying to say is that everything is colorful, detailed, and it’s an overall beautiful package. The character designs are great, with anime and manga artist, Kosuke Fujishima who is known for his work on You’re Under Arrest!, Oh My Goddess!, Sakura Wars (1997-2005), and some of the other major Tales series like Abyss, Symphonia, and the recently released Xillia. His artwork is amazing, and it’s really well-animated, with each character having a bunch of personality to their movements. The game also uses in-game, CG, and anime cutscenes to tell its story, and they all look great, especially the anime opening the game with the song, Ring a Bell by BONNIE PINK. It all works well. The voice acting is great, with voice actors like Troy Baker, Danielle Judovits, Julie Ann Taylor, Michelle Ruff, Joe J. Thomas, Megan Hollingshead, Sam Riegel, and other great voice actors make up the cast of the game. The funny thing is half of these people aren’t that famous, and I think they do a great job. I know there isn’t a Japanese track to this game, but I don’t think it’s needed. The music is wonderful with the composer being Motoi Sakuraba. He is mostly known for his work in Star Ocean: The Second Story, Beyond the Beyond, Shining Force 3, Valkyrie Profile, and is the main composer for the Tales games. There are a lot of great tracks featured in the game, and it’s definitely worth looking for the special edition of this game just to get the soundtrack. He has also worked on the Mario sports games, the other Star Ocean games, and the Golden Sun series. I know I already talked about how great the characters are, but I’ve got to talk about Yuri as an example. At first, he might come off as the “rebel leader”, but later in the game he will kill off two main villains without the others knowing. I won’t say whom, but their deaths are gruesome and he won’t even tell everyone that he did it. He is also very calm-minded, but he makes sure to put the team’s priorities first hand unless he needs to take things in his own hands. I could easily stretch this into a 30-page review and take up half of the review talking about the characters, but they are all just amazing and I don’t feel like making this a 30-page review.

Even though this is just a wonderful game there are a few minor flaws. Switching from the 2D plain to a 3D plain feels a tiny bit clunky. I also don’t like how Namco is selling level upgrades on the Xboxlive market place. I really didn’t need any of them since grinding is cut like a fine steak to where you don’t really need to buy the level upgrades. My final complaint is a common one amongst RPG’s and its unbalanced boss fights. Seriously, there are everywhere in RPG’s! Last Remnant has them, Final Fantasy has them, and of course the older Dragon Quest games have them. It’s annoying when you are feeling good and then you have to fight off a giant beast that is overly powerful. It isn’t as bad here, but it has happened a couple times, but mostly in the early part of the game.

This is a GREAT RPG for the 360. I dare say it’s even the best RPG on the system. I could recommend this to anyone more so than Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. This game is a bit pricey still and 40 bucks is the cheapest I have seen. You could also get it for about 20 bucks off the Games on Demand series. The collector’s edition is about 10 bucks more, but it is totally worth it. It’s one of my favorite games and is my favorite out of the Tales series. I say go find it. It is totally worth more than other games like Infinite Undiscovery and the recent Star Ocean game. This has been part 3 so let’s get moving to an adventure that you will never forget. Next time we will jump into the grand adventure known as Dragon Quest 8: Journey of the Cursed King.

This game gets a solid 9 out of 10

3 Year RPG Special Part 2: Blue Dragon for the Xbox360

2011-10-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to part 2 of this 3-year RPG Special. We last left off on one of the developer Mistwalker’s most celebrated titles, Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360. For a console that is covered in shooters, Lost Odyssey is one of the best games you could get if you want Japanese-style RPG’s. While you could complain that it shouldn’t have used random battles (and to some extent I agree), I love the game. I enjoyed and was pulled into the story, I enjoyed the characters, and I love the turn-based fighting mechanics. It’s one of the better games you can get for the 360, and for about 10 to 12 bucks, I could totally recommend this 4 disc long game. However, there was a game that came out before Lost Odyssey that is still solid, but might be the weakest RPG in this special. I mean it’s not a terrible game since I don’t want to play a terrible RPG like some RPGs in the past, but it is probably in the same area where it has good and bad points that could be the deciding point for you as a gamer as to whether or not to invest in it. Let’s try to catch our shadows and review Blue Dragon.

Blue Dragon takes place in a fantasy world where once a year, weird things happen in different parts of the world. Later, these occurrences are revealed to be caused by ancient machines thought to have been destroyed or buried forever. During one occurrence in a small place called Talta Village, three teenagers named Shu, Jiro, and Kluke get wrapped up with the main villain of the game named Nene, who somehow knows how to control these ancient weapons. Along the journey, the three teens will be joined by a little demon character named Marumaro and a warrior girl named Zola. Here is one of the deciding points that I talked about. The story is very weak and pretty generic. It’s a shame, since this is by the guys behind Final Fantasy and the artist of the Dragon Quest franchise. The characters are pretty bland and don’t really have anything that separates them except probably their gender. There are some grand and epic moments, but there really isn’t a wow factor that the story has going for it. Just like another great RPG, Lufia 2, the story is a missed opportunity and I don’t think Microsoft really wanted to put down the money for a truly solid translation for the game, which in the end, makes the story come off as generic. It boils down to the point where some of the side characters and the main villain have more character to them and that’s bad when you feel more attached to the side characters and the bad guys, since Nene is not that bad of a villain.

Like the story, the gameplay is pretty straightforward. It’s a turn-based RPG, which is how Japan loves their RPG’s. It has a bit of a wall system like Lost Odyssey. Since you only have 5 characters to control, you can have 3 characters up front who will take most of the damage while the two other characters will be in the back casting spells and taking less damage. There are a few tweaks to the system, which are nice. Random battles are thrown out the window in place of monsters that are visible on the field and overworld map. Your main weapons are the giant blue shadow monsters that resonate within your character. This means you are only equipping items that will make your health higher, take less damage, and increasing your attack powers to name a few. Your shadow monsters are also class specific, and can change classes throughout the game, like for example, Shu’s shadow is a warrior, but can learn attack and defense magic. Each class has specific abilities that you can carry over from that class to help customize your party to the perfect fighting force. Some of the abilities learned from these classes can be used outside of battle, like make a sphere around your character that can defeat monsters kind of like an instant win mechanic in Earthbound, but you only gain part of the experience that you would have gained from fighting them. There is even a battle grid that you can make appear, entrapping any monsters that are within it to fight in order to gain bigger awards, but also risk fighting monsters that are stronger than you and get wailed on. Another added bonus for the battle is that sometimes if you entrap specific monsters, you can pull off something called a monster fight that will make certain monsters fight other ones, making some fights easier. Later in the game to pay tribute to Final Fantasy, you can unleash super moves that take forever, but bring in the pain, usually killing all of the monsters. Even if the gameplay in this game is straightforward it’s deep enough to be enjoyable.

The graphics are beautiful. Instead of taking an anime cel shaded look, like the Naruto Clash of Ninja series, which I think looks cheap, everything here looks like it was made out of clay. Everything is smooth, and there are basically no ridges on any of the characters. It looks great, and it helps with the added art style of Akira Toriyama due to his creative approach towards enemies and characters. I especially love how the machines look, definitely very original looking. Famous composer, Nobuo Uematsu, does the music. While this isn’t his best work, there are some great tracks that range from soft piano playing to techno music, to even a terrible, but addictive boss fight music that is like shredded up rock and roll. It’s a great package if you’re looking for good presentation in this game.

However, I have a lot of complaints for one of the better RPG’s on the 360. The story is weak! I think it’s because it was a poor translation. I mean, there aren’t any grammar issues, but I just never felt blown away by a lot of the events in the story. This is a flipping RPG! You HAVE to HAVE a GOOD STORY! The characters are bland and forgettable except for a few side characters and the main villain. That is sad when you can’t feel connected or even care for the 5 main characters! I also hate the character design for most of the main cast. Marumaro is like the only main character design I like. The other 4 main characters have huge heads that would in real life make your neck snap. There aren’t even a lot of emotions in their faces, usually the same facial emotion through the entire game. This is Mistwalker Studios by the way, the people who made Lost Odyssey and hopefully coming here in the states, The Last Story. Two greatly well-received games! Lost Odyssey’s story might not be original either, but it’s actually interesting and keeps you going while you play with memorable characters! Did Microsoft not have that much faith in this game? I mean, you’ve got a legendary RPG designer, a legendary character designer, and a famed composer! I think you could have at least given up the money for a good translation. I also hate how you can’t level up everything at once, like in Tales of Vesperia. In that game, even if you aren’t using specific characters, they will still level up! It’s so tedious, since later in the game you will need to grind all of your classes and for a while, you will lose one of the main characters that happens to be the attack magic user. I also hate this barrier spell that you can kill enemies with on the overworld and level screen, because unless you level up your barrier magic abilities, it takes up a huge chunk of magic points each time you run into a monster and kill it, while only gaining a small amount of experience and shadow points that you could have gotten. In Earthbound, with the instant win mechanic, you wouldn’t have to lose any of those experience points, you would just have to run up to a monster weaker than you and BOOM! Fight’s over, and you gain all of the experience you would have gotten if you were forced to fight it. Of course, later in the game, if you level up your barrier magic abilities, the “kill weaker monsters” barrier will give you more experience, but it’s usually a bad idea to switch classes, since you will basically drop in everything from health to attack power if you choose a different class.

Even though I pointed out some annoying flaws with this game, I enjoyed it more than other more terrible RPG’s, like the first Two Worlds and Risen. Heck, Blue Dragon is very cheap now with the highest price I’ve seen being 10 dollars. I still recommend this game over a huge number of RPG’s and shooters that are on the system. Now, the story is terrible and the characters forgettable and this might be the deciding point if you want to buy this game or not, but trust me it’s a good game. It has solid turn-based mechanics with a more streamlined customization feature, and it doesn’t have random battles. Thanks for reading and see you in part 3 where we travel to a no man’s land and I take a breath and take a chance with Tales of Vesperia.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

3 Year RPG Special Part 1: Lost Odyssey for the Xbox360 review

2011-10-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome, everyone, to the multi-part RPG 3-Year Special. Since a lot of people liked how many RPG’s I did leading up to the 200^th review of Lunar: Silver Star Story, I decided to do some more RPG’s since it’s slowly becoming my favorite genre of games. I have played about 20 or so RPG’s and reviewed about as many on my blog. I decided to review a modern day Japanese-style RPG that did surprisingly well over here in the states, and sold a total of 348,000 copies in America. The more amazing thing is that it is on the 360. Even though there are some pretty solid RPG’s on the 360, like Blue Dragon, the amazing Tales of Vesperia, and again depending on who you ask, The Last Remnant, the console is more known for its group of male-centric bullet-riddled shooter games like Halo and Gears of War, to name the two big dogs. This game is made by the famous Mistwalker’s Studios, founded by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. This game is known as Lost Odyssey. While some people could complain that it’s stuck in old world style of RPG’s with turn-based combat, random encounters, and a somewhat generic story, but I think it’s one of the best games on the 360 if you’re not interested in the shooters on the console. Let’s dive into the mysterious world of Lost Odyssey.

The story is focused around a man named Kaim Argonar, voiced by famed voice actor Keith Ferguson. A pretty awesome warrior in the opening cut scene suffers from two things. The first thing he suffers from is amnesia, where he sometimes gets random memory flashes of his past that he can’t fully remember. The second thing he has going for him is that he is immortal. He has lived for about 1000 years in the world where a Magic Industrial Revolution is taking place. Due to these random memory flashes, Kaim decides to partake on a journey to understand what is going on with him and to undertake a task of finding out the true intentions of a structure called Grand Staff. Along the way, Kaim is joined up with many heroes. He is joined on his journey by Seth Balmore, another Immortal who was once a famous pirate, Jansen Friedh, a womanizing and powerful mage, Sarah Sisulart Kaim’s immortal wife, Ming Numura, another fellow Immortal who is nicknamed the 1000 year-old queen, Cooke and Mack, two young spellcasters, Tolten, the heir to the country of Uhra, and Sed, Seth’s son and famous pirate captain. The story might seem clichéd in some areas, but it’s a really entertaining tale if you like stories that moves at a slow pace. The characters are great, even if some of their characteristics might be, once again, a bit clichéd, but they are entertaining characters and you feel for them in some pretty dark moments in the game. It’s an overall entertaining story, but I can see why some people don’t care for it. You kind of have to change your mindset for this kind of game, and when you do, it’s really good.

The gameplay is about as old-fashioned as Japanese style RPG’s go. It’s turn-based and there are random encounters. The turn-based mechanics are improved though, so it isn’t as tedious as some people make it out to be. One of the mechanics used is the wall mechanic, where you place the characters in one row in the front and one row in the back. This makes the characters in the front row take more damage, but have a higher attack power, while the characters in the back have more defense, but weaker attack. Boss fights and some tougher fights will end depending on whom you have in the front and back row, like have the magic users in the back and have the melee users up front. The next mechanic is the ring mechanic, so when you attack, you can hold and release the right trigger button at the right moment to add an extra effect to that character’s melee attack. Another mechanic used is a somewhat buddy system, where immortals like Kaim who can’t learn magic and special abilities, can be learned by a mortal character like Jansen or Tolten. The other turn-based mechanics are the typical ‘choose your attack’ and wait for your enemies’ turn to end. On the other hand, enemies also use the wall system, so battles are more strategic due to you having to be wise about what enemy is better to kill first instead of just wailing away on everyone with no strategy at all. A good example of this is the first boss fight with this giant bird-like creature when you have Kaim, Seth, and Jansen. It’s smart to have Seth and Jansen in the back while Kaim is in the front, due to Seth acting as a healer and also an offensive character. You can also have up to 5 characters on the field, so the strategy grows more complex depending on whom you have up front and in back. There are some small side quests and mini-games, but even without those, you will get about 30 to 40 hours out of this game if you include the DLC for the game.

The graphics and look of the game are beautiful with the use of the Unreal 3 engine, even though some of the hair in the game doesn’t look as good as it should. The whole steam punk world has a misty hue to add some realism to the look of the game. The music is fantastic with famous composer, Nobuo Uematsu being the guy behind the soundtrack. It’s filled with some great Irish folk sounding music and of course epic scores and rock music to round out the package. The voice acting is great in Japanese and in English. They went all out with the English voice acting and got some really talented voice actors. The list includes Keith Ferguson, Tara Strong, Kim Mai Guest, Salli Saffioti, Michael McGaharn, Kath Soucie, Mika Futterman, Chad Brannon, Jesse Corti, and Michael Bell. The entire cast does a good job even if you don’t care for some of the characters, which can be understandable.

Even though this is a great turn-based RPG, there are some minor flaws. Even though I like how it does use random battles, I think they could have easily done the Blue Dragon or Last Remnant route and have enemies visible, since its 2011 and Lost Odyssey still runs on a random encounter system that does make some RPG’s annoying. I also don’t like some of the mini-games, like the stealth section that happens early in the game that is just tedious since you go all the way back to the beginning of that min-game if you get caught. That’s really all I have against this game. There are some minor things like some texture loading and long load times, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.

Overall, I love this game. It’s one of my favorite games on the 360 and I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a great RPG on the 360. Lost Odyssey is cheap now, so it should be easy to find, and if you can find it, I would get it. This has been Part 1 of this 3 Year Special, and see you for Part 2.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

Yakuza Retrospective Part 2: Yakuza 2 for the PS2

2011-10-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to part 2 of Cam’s Eye View’s Yakuza Retrospective! So, as you all know, I liked the first game, yeah, it had its faults and demanded commitment, but it was a great game. I just wish I knew about this series sooner so I could find a good condition copy of the game, but I know some people would rather rent it to see why it was so great. So, let’s dive into the sequel and one of the better late-coming PS2 games from 2008, Yakuza 2. If you liked the first game and wanted to bash some more skulls in Japan, we’ve got a sequel that definitely brings in more Japanese crime syndicates to fill your prescription of skull bashing. Now, granted, nothing much has changed, but there are some pretty good improvements. So, let’s clean off your brass knuckles, whip out Rosetta Stone Japanese, and read on about Yakuza 2! Personally, I wouldn’t recommend going through the hassle of Rosetta Stone, but do what you want.

The game’s story takes place an entire year after the first game, with Kazuma Kiryu is living with young Haruka as basically father and daughter. While going to the cemetery to pray for some characters that were in the last game, the 5^th Chairman of the Tojo Clan meets Kazuma to discuss some business, but is then assassinated. Kazuma finds out that there are some more major clan wars going on and some foreign mafia groups from Korea are getting into the mix of things. A lot more twists happen, and we get to see what has happened to some characters from the past game. Now, this is a long game, so make some popcorn and get a few beers or whatever you drink, and get ready to go through a lot of text and cut scenes.

The gameplay is very similar to the last game with a huge city to run through, and people, who for some reason get mad by just looking at you, ready for your fists. There are some more mini-games, like a first person fighting game that is fun, but most of the game is the same as the last one, but with some minor changes. This time, the game takes place in Osaka and in the Shinjuku district in Tokyo. There are multiple missions to do, like help a guy get a specific doll from those crane games, catching a freeloader, and picking off Yakuza people. The fighting has been improved with a lock-on feature that you can implement, that makes you strafe from side to side when focusing on a single opponent. This means no more flailing around when enemies sneak up behind you to hit you. The rest is the same, a blue bar will fill up where you can execute special moves, and you get health from normal items and can buy disposable weapons like guns and swords. Kazuma can also help out in a host club as one of the side stories in the game. It’s like a dating simulator, so basically, say the right things and get more money. Another improvement they’ve added is that you can finally play on the easy mode from the beginning instead of the last game where you started out on normal and then if you died too much get switched to easy mode. The mini-games range from the crane games, slot machines, the first person fighting game, Mahjong, Shogi, batting cages, golf, and many others. Again, you get a lot of stuff to do, just like in the GTA series.

Yakuza 2 definitely takes control of the PS2’s power, since the game looks amazing! It still has a lot of that Japanese film noir charm and is executed well. The language stays as Japanese with English subtitles, which is great since the voice acting in the last game seemed called in. The music is also very well done with calming music and rock and roll sounds. Four different people composed the soundtrack. The four people are Hidenori Shoji (F-Zero GX), Hideki Sakamoto (Echochrome and Shinobido), the third is Norihiko Hibino (Bayonetta, Ninja Blade, Zone of Enders, and Boktai), and Takahiro Izutani (also Bayonetta and Ninja Blade). It’s interesting since the Metal Gear Solid games often pop up between these 4 composers. Just a fun little fact I thought I would tell you all. Overall, Sega did a great job giving this game a great presentation.

However, it does fall flat on some areas that are kind of surprising to me. While I didn’t mind the length of the last game, for some reason I don’t like how long this game is. In my opinion, it is kind of boring. Maybe it’s just how long and tedious these chapters can be. It also doesn’t help when it comes to finding certain people, and then the map doesn’t show you where that person is. I also think that the game borrowed too much from the last game and is more like Yakuza 1.5.

All and all though, this is a good game. It’s very solid, and the story is quite captivating with love and betrayal everywhere you look. It is much more of a polished game, and it is better than the last game in a lot of ways. I would recommend picking this game up over the first one, but I think both games are very good. Now then, it’s time to get Yakuza 3 since we got Yakuza 4 this year, and a newly announced Yakuza game with zombies was announced, so it is a good time to be a Yakuza fan.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Ratchet and Clank series part 5: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PS3 review

2011-09-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another Ratchet and Clank retrospective review. We are now finally finished with the PS2 games in the series. So far, I think the series is good, but it hasn’t really done anything special. Each game has been basically being more polished than the last one, but that was it. They didn’t really do anything, well, evolving with the series until Ratchet Deadlocked came out, but after playing that, I missed the old formula of the series. Like I said, they didn’t do anything special, and never really gave me the wow factor that I was hoping for, besides the amazing voice acting and the creative humor. I have my hopes up for the new Ratchet and Clank game that is multiplayer-centric, but is an all-out platformer. I am very excited for it, but before I can review it, I have two more PS3 games to review of this series. I am not going to review the downloadable PS3 game, but if they drop the price, then I will. Let’s get started with Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. This is definitely yet another step in the right direction of what the series should have done in the PS2 games. Let’s dive into Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PS3.

The story starts out with Ratchet and Clank working on some sort of flying motor vehicle when they get a distress call from Captain Quark. Quark reports that the city is being taken over by a league of robot commandos. Ratchet and Clank rev up the engine to their vehicle and make their way through the city to find out that a short being named Emperor Perceval Tachyon is leading the robot commandos. During the story, Clank then finds out he has an unknown destiny to fulfill, but I won’t spoil this for anyone who hasn’t played the game yet. The story is definitely more engaging this time, and there are some pretty good moments in it that made me keep playing. I’m surprised, since I didn’t think the stories were that engaging during the PS2 games. I am happy to say though, that the story is much more engaging and there are more memorable moments.

The gameplay doesn’t really change much here besides going back to the old form of gameplay featured in the first three PS2 games. This means you will be playing as Ratchet and Clank separately from time to time. The Ratchet levels are the same run-and-gun platforming. The gadgets are definitely more memorable here since you don’t just carry guns. You can now carry combat gadgets that help you beat down the enemies or assist yourself. Some of my favorite weapons are the nano swarmer, shard reaper, the groovitron, predator launcher, shock ravager, plasma beasts, and a personal favorite, a little flying robot named Mr. Zurkon, who is hilarious. You also get the same gadgets like hover boots, a grappling hook, magnet boots ring upgrades for Clank, and you get the idea. The Clank levels are now much more interesting due to the little creatures you get to control called Zoni. The Clank levels are set up the same, but the Zoni will automatically attack any enemy in sight, repair technology, and help Clank levitate over large gaps. Clank also has the unique ability to slow down time to get past certain puzzles. There are some Star Fox inspired flight levels, but they feel more like rail shooters than an actual Star Fox Experience.

The graphics are amazing and are definitely a lot better looking than Insomniac’s first PS3 game, Resistance. Everything looks bright and colorful, and the attention to detail and how huge the levels are is glorious. It is definitely on the list of the best-looking PS3 games. The music is now more orchestrated and has a much more epic feel. I kind of wish they had this kind of music during the PS2 games since the PS2 music sounded like Daft Punk demos. The voice acting is also very well done with the usual people returning for Ratchet, Clank, and Quark. The ones I want to talk about are the new antagonists. Andy Morris does a great job portraying Tachyon, and besides his height, makes him sound like a real threat. One of the new antagonists is a robot pirate named Captain Slag, who is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who voiced Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes, Alexi from the Ninja Gaiden 2 games, and Luxord from Kingdom Hearts 2. Rusty Pete is Slag’s right hand robot that is voiced by Wally Wingert, who does the voice for the Riddler for the recent and upcoming Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City games, Renji from Bleach, Maximo from the Maximo games, and Brago from Zatch Bell. These three new villains bring so much more to the plate as villains, and are up there with Dr Nefarious from Up your Arsenal. Of course, things happen, and Pete becomes a good guy or so it might seem. There are also some pretty good voice actors for the good guys like the two old robots, Cronk and Zephyr, and Yalwyn Apogee who is voiced by Tara Strong. It’s nice to know that Insomniac gets the best of the best for these games since everyone does a pretty good job. The humor is also top notch since later in the game you get a pirate disguise, and you need to use it to activate a pirate-dancing-mini-game to get through certain areas. It is just awesome to hear the pirates talk at times.

However, I do have some common complaints about this game. The rail shooting levels felt tacked on and it seems like not a lot of thought was put into the gameplay. Yeah, you can use Clank on a turret in the back, but that’s about it. I saw that they made it better in A Crack in Time, but since I am not on that game, I can’t talk about it. The game again feels safe, since there are no multiplayer or online modes. It has the usual clichés like the tournament challenges and death matches, but they make it more polished where you can win bolts and gadgets, buy armor, and have the same gameplay from the last games. This isn’t bad since it’s still fun, but I think Insomniac needed to make this game pop out more. I know I might be a little nit-picky, but it bugs me a little when there isn’t really anything new here. Wind Waker had the boat traveling and the wind esthetic, Twilight Princess had the wolf form, and those Zelda games built around those gimmicks while keeping the main gameplay intact.

Now, even after all my complaints, I still enjoyed this game because of the story and characters. The gameplay might be the same, but I would highly recommend buying this game over the PS2 games. I only have one more PS3 game after this one, and then I will be ready to review Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One when it comes out. This is a good game series, let’s just hope they can put it into overdrive when I play the 2009 Ratchet and Clank Future: a Crack in Time.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Beatdown Fists of Vengeance for the PS2 review

2011-09-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

What games do you think of when you look at the beat ‘em up genre? First, you got your 2D beat ‘em ups that took place on a 2-dimensional plane. When I think of those kinds of games, I think of games like Final Fight, Knights of the Round, King of Dragons, Streets of Rage, Ninja Warriors, Kung Fu, Splatterhouse, TMNT Turtles in Time, and many other classic beat ‘em up games. Sadly, the 3D beat ‘em up genre doesn’t really have a lot of good games in that genre. Of course, we have the awesome Yakuza series for this answer. However, we usually think about bad or just average (some slightly above average) games that really come to mind in this genre. The games I can think of are The Bouncer, Final Fight Streetwise, and you get the idea. The 3D beat ‘em up genre isn’t that good. It isn’t the genre’s fault. It’s just hard to make a good 3D beat ‘em up. I recently was watching a video about 200 PS2 games and I saw one that caught my eye and it happened to be a 3D beat ‘em up. I put it on my Gamefly.com list and I rented it. The game in question is what people consider to be an underrated gem known as Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance for the PS2 and Xbox. Made by our now defunct friends from Cavia, who made Nier, Beat Down is yet another attempt to try and make a 3D platformer, and from the big name reviews, I could see I was going down a bumpy road ahead. However, I only read the reviews to see what I was getting into. It is my turn to see what I think about the game. This is my review of Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance.

The story is about 5 different characters. You can choose one of them, and mostly you will probably start out with the titular Irish character, Raven. You find out that one of the other 4 characters has betrayed you during a mission. It is up to you to find out who betrayed you and to take down the big mob boss that runs the city named Zanetti and beat him down to the ground with vengeance. Normally, I would save the bad stuff for later in the review, but man, when I turned on the game and played through it for a few hours, the story is utter crap and is ultimately pointless, with bland characters and voice acting that is just awful. I will go into deeper detail later in the review. All you need to know is that the game starts out bad, and it just gets worse story wise. Just a heads up, I might trickle bad thoughts about this game throughout the review so don’t be surprised by me bashing the game even before I talk about the bad.

The gameplay is like a weak version of Yakuza or God Hand. That is saying something since the last time I played it, I didn’t like it, but that game is for another review. The gameplay is basically a free roaming beat ‘em up with some interesting things thrown in that that were poorly executed. The main meat of the game is, of course, beating random thugs into the ground, and after the fight, stealing from them. However, you can do multiple things besides beating thugs into the ground. One thing you can do is recruit the thugs into joining you, or putting them on call just in case your other teammates get their pants knocked off. You can also rob from them, and get information from them, though the information is pretty useless. There is one thing you do actually have to be careful about. Above your health bar, you have two meters that stand for your awareness by gangs and the police. This means that you have to be careful how many times you beat people up, and well, that just seems really stupid. To get around this however, you can also buy different clothes, and oddly enough, plastic surgery, and make yourself unnoticeable. If you are however noticeable by both groups of enemies, you will automatically get into fights. There are also one-on-one fights that I guess are supposed to be boss fights, but they play like broken versions of Virtual Fighter. In the end, this game does try to break things up a bit with a beat ‘em up style gameplay that makes you level up and gain more combos with stealth, and squad-based fighting, but they ultimately fail in multiple areas.

This is a hard area to go through in this review since I don’t really have a lot of nice things to say about the presentation of the game. The graphics are muddy, grainy, and way too dark. Before even playing the game, I tried to make the game brighter, but in the end I couldn’t. The really only good thing I could say is, well, the main character is original with his accent…he is Irish…. for some reason…Anyway, back to the review. The voice acting is terrible. I will say my reason in the next paragraph. The music is standard and not very memorable in the least.

I probably should have left all my complaints here, but I will explain in better detail what is horribly wrong with this game! Since I already talked about the graphics, I’ll move on. The voice acting is BAD! Everyone, especially the guys, sound the same, and they sound like Steve Blum voices them all. This is kind of like two of the main characters in Vanquish. The AI is simply and utterly stupid. I mean, they are really dumb, both ally and enemy AI! Yeah, the AI will throw a few punches here and there, but they will mostly stand still and not help at all, and the same with the enemies. The camera is awkward! It is way too close to your character and this ends up hiding hidden enemies. The hiding system with the thugs and police is utter garbage! It is only for the sake of buying new clothes and plastic surgery. At the end of the day, you look like Tim Curry from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I mean, it’s like Cavia took the bare basics of all of the gameplay mechanics above, and well, didn’t really improve on them. Even after playing this game for a few minutes, I didn’t care about the story. I said to myself that I should play further, and I did, and boy, am I sorry that I did.

This game is garbage, plain and simple. There is nothing properly polished about this game, and anyone who considers this an underrated gem is probably in denial at how bad this game is. I mean this is one of the worst! Bland characters, bland story, awful gameplay, and all a complete mess. If you want to play a good 3D beat ‘em up, go play the Yakuza series and God Hand. That is weird since, like I said, God Hand isn’t my game, but after this game I would prefer God Hand to this. As with most games I think are just awful, it will end up on my black list of just overall poor games.

This game gets a 2 out of 10.

Xbox360 Back Track Part 1: Deathsmiles for the 360

2011-09-06T16:04:00.001-07:00

I recently got my first Xbox360. Now, I can review Xbox360 games! I decided since this is a very special occasion, I would make this a new section of reviews called the 360 backtrack! This is where I will review new and old 360 games that I might have missed. Let’s start off this new section with a recent fan favorite game that has gotten pretty popular even though it’s a bullet hell shoot ‘em up. This little title is called Deathsmiles. In the long line of recent bullet hell shooters that have made it onto the 360, Deathsmiles isn’t the hardest of the shooters since there are much MUCH harder bullet hell games out there. Deathsmiles is a very entertaining game that is definitely worth picking up if you’re running out of exclusive games on the 360. Let’s get into the world of shooters and check out Deathsmiles.

The story is very, how you say…, translucent since there is no story, or not enough story in this game. From what I can get, you play as 4 maid-like girls who are trapped in a demon infested world, and are kind of like the guardians of the place. There is also a guy opening a new portal to some other world believing it to be the real human world. So yeah, it doesn’t make sense, but then again, this is a shoot ‘em up and you shouldn’t really care about the story in this kind of game.

The gameplay, like I have mentioned a hundred times, is a bullet hell arcade-style shooter. The unique thing is that it’s a side-view bullet hell game. Usually, a bullet hell game is from a top down perspective. Anyway, your basic goal in each level of this game is to get to the end by shooting bullets and whatever the heck the game throws at you. You also get these little animals that are different for each girl. The thing I especially like about this shooter is that you can shoot in front and shoot behind you. In other shooters you either just shoot forward or have the awkward ability to shoot backwards, like in R-Type, Eco-fighters, and Last Resort. This makes playing a game series that is already difficult as heck a little easier to enjoy, since you won’t get blindsided by enemies who attack from behind. There is also a counter on the bottom left side of the screen that adds up how many enemies you kill and when it reaches a thousand enemies, you can unleash a sort of invincibility mode where other bullets can harm you, but nothing else like running into enemies. I could never really understand how it worked, so sorry if I get it wrong. There is also a 2-player option, which is nice, but I feel like it would get in the way a little since so much stuff flies across the screen. There are other modes on the 360 version of the game, like a perfect arcade version and a 360 version where you can play as another character that you fight in the original arcade version. The other modes just make small changes that don’t really add anything major so I won’t go into them.

The art style and graphical presentation is quite nice with a very arcade-look of a Vanillaware game. The animations are nice and the enemies look great. The boss fights are what take the cake for me since you fight some pretty weird bosses, from a giant head that is buried in the ground, to a giant cow. Weird. The music is also pretty catchy, but since a lot of arcade game songs don’t really get stuck in my head, I didn’t find it memorable. Composer, Manabu Namiki, who has worked on games like Bloody Roar, Mushihime-sama, Opoona, and the Konami Rebirth games does make the music very lively and hectic during the levels and boss fights. It’s also a very colorful game with a great use of colors, as opposed to games like Bulletstorm where it’s just brown and gray.

However, there are some serious problems with this release. It isn’t ugly or glitchy, but I bet some people have found some glitches. My problem is the content with the game. There isn’t much to it. Don’t get me wrong. The game is as fun as it could be, but it wouldn’t have hurt to add some more modes in the game, like Gekioh Shooting King and its Japanese version, Shienryu. They added more modes that made the shooter more fun, but in Deathsmiles, there is very little to make you come back to it. The game is short, even though it’s nice that they give you that Ironclad feel where you can go through the levels how you want to and even skip some levels overall. It just seems like the 40 dollar price tag alone isn’t worth it, and that’s why they released a limited edition of the game with all the other stuff for two bucks more

Even though this game has some glaring flaws that bug the heck out of me, I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it. The action is fast-paced, the graphics are beautiful, and it’s a fun little arcade game for a console that is slowly losing if not already lost a lot of original games for its system due to the rise of multi-platform releases. I would recommend finding the limited edition since I’ve seen it around and its only about 50 dollars for the soundtrack and some other stuff, but if you can find it for cheaper, I would recommend it. Thanks for reading and see you next week for more 360 reviews and other reviews.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

200th RPG Review Special part 6: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for the PS1 review

2011-08-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 200^th review and the final part of the Game Arts Tribute. I knew that I wanted the 200^th review was going to be special, and I wanted it to be a very special review for an RPG that I found to just be one of my favorites. It is also one of the games made by the recently passed co-founder of Game Arts. The sad thing about this RPG is that it only had a direct sequel, a spin-off title only for Japan for the Sega Saturn, and a very very terrible DS game. This game didn’t get the kind of respect that the Final Fantasy series received here in America. Due to this fact, these games are very hard to find and are almost near triple digits in price. Lucky for me, I got my hands on one of these games in the mid-double digits in price, and it’s a game that has aged pretty well. This game is called Lunar: Silver Star Story. Now, the original game came out in the U.S.A on the Sega CD with generally favorable praise, but the one I am reviewing is the Playstation update with animated cut scenes, redone voice acting, updated music, and just an overall charm that a lot of RPGs have lost in today’s gaming. It’s one of the hardest RPG’s to find, but it is one of the best old-time RPG’s that you could play. Let us begin this very special 200^th review of Lunar: Silver Star Story.

The story tells us of a young man named Alex. Alex lives in a small town where he, just like Justin from Grandia, yearns for adventure and to become like his idol Dyne, a Dragonmaster. One day his friend Ramus wants to go to the Dragon Cave to find a diamond that will make them a lot of money. They are joined by a girl named Luna who has the best singing voice in the village, and Alex’s flying pet thing, Nall. When they get back from the cave, Alex is told by the dragon of the cave that he is destined for great things, and must go on an adventure to stop a looming evil that is slowly starting to spread across the world. Along the quest, the three kids are joined by Nash, a hotheaded mage, Jessica, a headstrong white mage, Mia, the princess of a floating city, and Kyle, a womanizing swordsman. They do get help from other characters like Tempest, an archer, and Laike Bogard, another Dragonmaster. The story is great, with a lot more stuff being put into the PS1 version of this game to add more development and story to the entire package. A lot of the characters are more fleshed out, there are more scenes and it’s just a much longer adventure. Game Arts did a great job with the original story by Kei Shigema, enlisting novelist Keisuke Shigematsu to add on to the parts of the story that needed some expansion. Now, granted, some of the jokes and gags that were put into the American version will probably make you shake your head, but they are not that bad. It might come off as a typical Japanese anime-style RPG, but back in the day this was great! And it surprisingly holds up in a lot of areas.

The gameplay is a traditional Japanese-style RPG. This means you will have to fight groups of monsters in traditional turn-based styles you see in games, well, like a lot of games I have reviewed. Sometimes, it is tricky for me to explain a game that has similar gameplay styles, like the Yakuza games (second game review coming soon), and RPG’s have the same issues here. Lunar, however, mixes things up a bit. While the battles might take place on a flat plain and you take turns attacking enemies, just like Grandia, you can move around the battlefield, which is required at times to get out of harm’s way or else get your butt handed to you. The rest of the game is pretty typical of RPG standards, like you buy new equipment, learn new spells and techniques as you level up, and level grind. The enemies are once again visible in the dungeon areas, and will come at you if they see you. This is a good thing that your character can run fast, since the enemies run at a speed like the Roadrunner when they see you. This makes random battles a little more frequent, but you can still evade the enemies, just not as well as you could in Grandia. Spells are learned by basically leveling up, unless you’re Alex, who later in the game learns his abilities from the Dragons he meets. The good thing about this is that most of the characters have a lot of their spells already learned, so when you level up, you only need to get about 2-3 more spells for some of the characters. Having your characters in different parts of the battle screen is required, since to use standard close range melee attacks, you need to move your character right up to the enemy. In games like Final Fantasy 4 and Lost Odyssey however, you can make a formation with your characters, like the offensive characters being up front and the spell casters, long-range fighters, and healers be in the back. It’s not played like Lost Odyssey’s wall system, but it still requires strategy to place your fighters in the right position, since this game will actually be kind of tough in some areas if you don’t grind or bring enough items with you. Items are bought normally at stores in towns, so there isn’t much to speak of here. About midway through the game, you will be able to gain a special item to teleport to different areas of the map, like if you need to grind, you can go to a specific area to grind in and what not, since some parts of the story require you to go back to certain areas. Like I said, this mostly plays out like a very traditional RPG, like Lufia 2 and others like it.

The graphics are stuck in the 16-bit area and a lot of critics have badmouthed that section of the game, but if you grew up in the 16-bit era, I think you can forgive it. If you look past that the graphics are 16-bit, then they are brightly colorful and well animated. They did some updates to the Sega-CD version and it looks nice. The animated cut scenes, while some look grainy by today’s standards, still hold up. The animation is good, and the character designs from Toshiyuki Kubooka who worked on anime classics like Nadia: Secret of Blue Water and Giant Robo, look amazing in this game. The scenes in the game using the animation just add more emotion than simply looking at animated pixels. I think one of my favorite moments in the game using the anime cut scenes is Luna’s boat song, which is probably the most famous scene out of the entire game, where Luna sings a song about the unsure future of their adventure and wondering if her destiny will show itself to her. This made a lot of the gamers who played this cry since, well, it’s a touching scene with a beautiful albeit cheesy song that just makes you feel a bit emotional. If you look at the bonus disc that comes with the PS1 version of this game, one of the designers talks about how happy they feel when fans tell them that their game made them cry because of the story and characters, and that’s what I love about Lunar: Silver Star Story. I haven’t felt emotion from an RPG in awhile, since Final Fantasy 9 when Vivi learned about his creation and inescapable death. The music is by the same guy who did the Grandia music, Noriyuki Iwadare. The voice acting is a mixed bag, with Game Arts using family and friends of the people who worked there to voice the characters, and they do their jobs pretty well most of the time. I like it even though sometimes it’s a bit, um, bad. In the PSP remake however, the main character Alex who was voiced by Ashley Angel is replaced by voice actor, Yuri Lowenthal. While a lot of the cast is replaced in the PSP version, it loses its charm and silly nature, since if you have played any of Twisted Pixel’s games you will get what I mean. For those people who don’t know what I mean, Twisted Pixel likes to use their own staff members, family members, their testers, and local people in the city for some of their scenes in their games. You can have some of the biggest talent in the world like every Metal artist in Brutal Legend, but Lunar: Silver Star Story has such a charm because family and friends of the American Game Arts company were used. Plus there is a bit of laughter when you read the cat dragon character Nall talk about how she ate her Wheaties in a very early part of the game. I also enjoy the little things about this game, like how you see all your teammates follow you, and how enemy encounters are held only in the dungeon unless specific parts of the story call for them to take place elsewhere.

Just like Grandia, I would like to give this game a perfect 10, but this game has its faults also. The enemies, while visible on the screen, if they see you, they will run at you like shark to a drop of blood. It’s almost hard not to run from them when they can chase you down in like a second if you don’t move fast enough. While I enjoy the graphics, I’ll agree with the critics that the battleground is flat and it doesn’t age well in some areas, even though this is just a remake. That is just a minor gripe though, since I love the chibi-style-looking form of the characters.

I cannot recommend this game enough, but I do have good news and bad news. The good news is that you can find this game in the PSP remake called Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, and can download it off the PSN store for your PSP or I guess your PS Vita next year. The bad news is if you want to find the PS1 version, get ready to lay down about 70 to 100 dollars for this game. I was fortunate to pick up my copy for 48 bucks in a sale at a local used game store. This is just a great traditional Japanese-style RPG that if you can find, I would instantly pick up. It might not be the easiest or cheapest RPG to find, but like I said, it’s an amazing journey and a wonderful experience. Just a little note, while I would love to do a review of the other PS1 remake of the sequel, Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete, I don’t think I will be able to get my hands on it unless someone gives it to me or I find a good deal on it, due to how rare it is. This is has been the 6-Part RPG special and tribute to Game Arts. Thank you all for reading my reviews for 200 reviews straight. I hope I can see you guys for another 200 reviews, and to those at Game Arts, thank you for making such great games.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

199th RPG Review Special part 5: Grandia for the PS1 review

2011-08-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome to a very special review for the 199^th and 200^th game. On June 29^th 2011, one of the founders of the wonderful developing company known as Game Arts passed away at the age of 45. This wonderful man is named Takeshi Miyaji. He is a man who was behind many classic games like Grandia and Lunar Silver Star Story. These are two of my favorite games of all time and in my top 10 favorite RPGs of all time. These last two reviews will be a tribute to not only Game Arts, but to Mr. Takeshi Miyaji and the hard working people behind these two games. Let’s start with the wonderful and much loved, Grandia for the PS1. The classic RPG was originally released on the Sega Saturn in Japan and was brought here to America for the Playstation 1, and is now downloadable on the Playstation Network store. It is a wonderfully lighthearted RPG that stands the test of time. This results in Grandia being one of the most memorable and one of the best RPGs of all time. Let us begin my 199^th review of Game Art’s classic, Grandia.

The story of the game starts off with a young boy named Justin who lives in a town called Parm. He lives there with his mom and his young friend Sue. He dreams of becoming an adventurer, and travel the world finding new places and people. He ultimately wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and find out what’s on the other side of a giant wall named the End of the World. After doing a few adventures outside of Parm, he sets off across the ocean to see what the world has to offer him. Along the journey, many companions join him. Childhood friend Sue, Feena, a famous adventurer of New Parm, Gadwin, a powerful knight from Dight, and many others that are very memorable, join him on his quest. The story as a whole focuses on Justin, Feena, and Sue, but the thing that makes the story great is how light-hearted it is. It’s more family friendly, like Castle in the Sky or Porco Rosso’s stories are. It gets dark near the end, but it’s an overall great story since it doesn’t fall back on stereotypes, like brooding young men with giant swords, or females with abused pasts, and of course melodramatic storylines. It’s a cheerful tale, even if some of the jokes and the voice acting are bad at times.

The gameplay is a typical Japanese style RPG, but with some fine-tuning. The whole world is viewed from an isometric-style camera, something I mentioned before in my Xenogears review, which was popular with games during that time like Final Fantasy Tactics and Wild Arms 2. Enemies are visible on the overworld and dungeon areas, and will run at you if they see you, or are close enough. The good thing about this, though, is that you also have a run button so you can escape the enemies if you don’t want to get into battles while getting to an area. This takes care of the issue of slow walking and random encounters that make for long hours of grinding. However, I’d recommend getting into a few fights so you can level up and not get wailed on by the boss and tougher enemies down the road. Battles are turn-based, but all actions are done on a timer on the bottom part of the screen where icons for each character and enemy are on the bar on the screen. If your icon reaches a certain part of the bar, you can then select your action, like attacking more than once, doing a single strong strike, using special attacks, using magic attacks, using an item, or defending yourself. You can move your character around the screen, which is a good idea, due to some of the stronger attacks having a large amount of range and area that can hurt multiple enemies or your party. The unique thing about the magic and combat system is that the more you use your magic and a certain weapon, they grow stronger. It’s like the magic system in Secret of Mana or Secret of Evermore. You can also learn special moves depending on what magic you have and what weapon you are using. Even though some characters are better as one kind of character than another, it still gives you a good amount of freedom as to how you want to build your party. The only drawback is that you learn magic by finding Mana eggs. There are not a lot of them and you can only use each egg once, so make sure you put the right spells on the right person. Outside of battle, if you see an enemy and he doesn’t notice you, you can get him from behind and get an advantage in the battle. If the enemies get you from behind however, they will get the advantage. It’s like the systems used in games like Blue Dragon and Earthbound.

The graphics are brightly colored and look nice. If you liked the graphical style of games, again like Xenogears, Wild Arms 2, and the Breath of Fire games on the PS1, then I think you would like them here. They might not age well in some areas, but I still think they have a charming way of making me look over some of the aged spots. The voice acting is hit-and-miss. Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it’s so bad that it’s good. Though it does have that Xenogears problem where the voice acting isn’t used a lot, there is much more voice acting in Grandia than Xenogears. The music is amazing. It gives you that feeling of adventure over the horizon. It makes you feel like you should take every day to the limit and live it! This is, of course, thanks to the composer for this game, Noriyuki Iwadare. He is famous for doing the music for the entire Grandia series, the Lunar series (not including the DS game), Megaman X7, Growlanser, Radiata Story, Y’s 3, and he worked on two games in the Phoenix Wright franchise. It’s a great soundtrack with a lot of lighthearted themes. Even if some of the songs in the soundtrack can get annoying at times, due to a couple of them being short, the soundtrack for the most part is very calming atmospheric music, with simple beats and drums in some areas. I just love this soundtrack.

Even though I want to give this game a perfect 10, there are some minor faults. I wish there was a program inside the monsters that would make them back away from you if you were stronger than them, like in Earthbound or Dragon Quest 9. That would be so cool and would get a lot of the annoying battles out of the way due to the speed that the enemies come at you. I also wish there was an unlimited item-holding container instead of a limited amount of items on the character. There is a storage bin to store items in, but it is inconvenient because it is only in towns. Like I said earlier, the voice acting can be bad at times and although it’s not Game Arts’ fault, I wish they could have gotten people like Tara Strong or Steve Blum for some of the characters. It is also a tiny bit tedious to level up your weapon and magic skill, since you have to keep using those spells and weapons to power yourself up, but there are certain ways to easily level yourself up, so this is just a minor gripe.

This is one of my favorite games of all time and one of my top 10 favorite RPGs. I wish it wasn’t such an overlooked, but pretty popular classic Japanese style RPG. It will cost you a bit to get a hard copy of this game, but you can easily get this game off the PSN store for 10 dollars, which is an easy steal for such a long and memorable RPG. This has been part one of the Game Arts tribute and the 199^th review from me. Get ready for the long awaited 200^th review and the final part of the Game Arts tribute.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

198th RPG Review Special part 4: Paper Mario for the N64 review

2011-08-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars. What could I possibly say about this Super Nintendo game that hasn’t already been said? Granted, I do want to review it, but I’ll just give a short summary here. The gameplay is fun, the characters are memorable, the story isn’t too complex, and the music is great. It was one of Square’s last things they did with Nintendo until the Gamecube and Gameboy Advance came around. It’s one of the best Super Nintendo games, and one of my favorite Mario games. Sadly, they didn’t make a sequel to it due to its limited release all around the world and other reasons I don’t want to get into. However, I do want to get into an RPG that stars Mario that sadly, no one really talks about. It’s a great game, but no one really seems to talk or give it as much praise as Super Mario RPG. It isn’t an underrated gem since it did do well in the gaming market, but I don’t think it gets as much love as it needs to. Let’s dive right into one of the best and one of the ONLY RPGS on the Nintendo 64, Paper Mario. I decided to do this game some justice. Not only did it get a lot of the votes, but also the new Paper Mario 3DS is coming out, which I am excited for. It is one of the Nintendo 64’s greatest games and one of my favorite RPGs. Let’s get started then on this wonderful N64 game.

The story starts off with Mario and Luigi getting a letter from Princess Peach to come to the castle. When they get there, Mario FINALLY gets some alone time with Peach, but then Bowser attacks the castle! I know it’s shocking since this hasn’t happened before at ALL! However, Bowser does have tricks up his sleeve, like lifting up the castle into the sky, and having a powerful weapon known as the Star Rod at his disposal. After a quick fight, Bowser blasts Mario off the castle and onto the ground below. After meeting a surprisingly friendly Goomba family, Mario sets off on another adventure to stop Bowser, regain the Star Spirits, and get back the Star Rod. The story is very light-hearted, which is a nice change of pace from the usual aiming toward the female demographic with male heroes with huge hairdos and giant swords. It is wordy since there is no voice acting, but it’s an enjoyable story with characters with different personalities. It’s a fun game with a fun story.

The gameplay is, of course, a turn-based RPG like its older brother, Super Mario RPG. The difference here is that you only have two people in your party at a time, instead of the 3 members, which seemed to have been some big fetish with RPGs during the late 90’s to only have 3 members in the party instead of 4 or 5 like in Lost Odyssey. Anyway, you wander around a huge world filled with the typical Mario characters like Koopas and Goombas, but there are some truly unique and interesting character designs for the monsters in this weird little world. When you explore the world of Paper Mario, enemies are visible, and it can go either way. You can actually hit the enemy and get a first strike in the turn-based battles, or the enemy could do the same to you and get in a first hit. When you get into the turn-based battles, you can choose from a large variety of attacks and your partner can do the same. Just like in Super Mario RPG, if you press the attack button before hitting the enemy, you can perform more damage with your attack. Mario has a few normal abilities, like his famous jump attack that has many variations, and he also has a mallet that can more damage, and depending on what badges you wear, will also have multiple attacks. One of the major gimmicks in this RPG are the badges you can buy and collect that give Mario multiple different kinds of abilities, like resistance against spikes and poison, always getting first strike, added ice damage, and you get the idea. Your partners also have their own abilities that can be leveled up by upping their rank. Each partner has his or her own set ability in the overworld, like there is a fish ally that helps you swim across watery areas, a bomb character that can blow up cracked walls, and an electric spark character that can light up dark areas. Sometimes in battles or just going across the world, you will need all different kinds of abilities to get to where you need to go. The other battle gimmick comes from the Star Spirit. Each time you beat a boss, you get to gain a very special ability that runs off a different energy bar than your special attacks. These abilities stem from having an all-enemy attack, putting the enemies asleep, healing yourself a bit, and you get the idea. They come in very handy during boss fights, so make sure you save your star powers for boss fights. There are other little things like finding crystal shards to trade for badges from a fortuneteller-like character. You can also use items in battle like the fire flower, pow block, and mushrooms to either heal you or attack the enemy. Let’s just say you have a deep combat system and a large amount of stuff to do.

The graphics are very impressive with the surrounding environment being in a very watercolor children’s book style, while all of the characters that populate the areas of the world are 2 dimensional, like a paper cut-out from a book. It has a very unique charm that isn’t seen a lot in video games. The composer for this game is one of the most influential female composers in Japan, Yuka Tsujiyoko. She is mostly famous for the fan favorite Nintendo Tactics franchise, Fire Emblem. She has also done music for Tetris Attack, Battle Clash, and also worked on the music for Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The music is very cheery and quirky, kind of like the music for Final Fantasy Mystic Quest since there are not a lot of dark moments that require an emotional attachment.

There are some minor flaws in an overall very well put together RPG package. The story is very light-hearted and enjoyable, but it’s very wordy. It’s kind of like the text-heavy Yakuza franchise, where there are just times that have nothing but text. It is also kind of annoying about where I need to go or what I need to do next. This isn’t as big of a problem like in Xenogears, but I bumped into a few areas about what I need to do. My biggest complaint is that you can’t have 3 members or more in your party, you can only have 2. This means that when you get into a battle, you better have the companion right for the occasion or else you will have to take a turn to switch out your partner, which can get tedious if you’re going against some strong enemies. This is also a problem in the sequel, but that’s for another time.

All in all, Paper Mario might not be Super Mario RPG 2, but I think it deserves a little more respect than what is given to it right now. I would highly recommend this RPG for any RPG fan or any Mario fan. You can find a hard copy of the game for about 20 or more dollars, but I would recommend getting it off the Virtual Console for 10 dollars. We are now 2 reviews away from being at 200 reviews and I hope you guys are up for an adventure into the world of Grandia!

This game gets a 9 out of 10

197th RPG Review Special part 3: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the SNES review

2011-07-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 6, Secret of Mana, and Super Mario RPG. What do all of these games have in common? They are classic RPG’s on the Super Nintendo. I know Final Fantasy 4 was named “2” here in the states and Final Fantasy 6 was named “3” in the states during the 90’s, but that doesn’t matter right now. The Super Nintendo had a lot of great RPG’s and many of them are still played today. However, there are other great RPG’s on the system like Lufia 2 and Breath of Fire 2. With every game system however, there is that black sheep out of the bunch of classics that it is either loved or hated by fans of that system. I absolutely love this game that I am reviewing and it’s Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the Super Nintendo. Every one knows about this game due to the minor popularity of RPG’s back in the day, and this game was made to help American gamers get into RPG’s. The results, though, were that Mystic Quest was a failure and was not very popular. Though by today’s standards with RPG’s that require hours on end and a huge amount of multi-tasking, there is a certain charm to this wonderful and simple RPG from the 90’s. I guess I should jump on the bandwagon as well, and admit that I love this RPG. Let’s start the review of the cult classic and guilty pleasure-inducing Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

The story stars a young warrior who’s default name is Benjamin. He is climbing the Mountain of Destiny when an earthquake destroys his entire village. Benjamin then meets an old man on top of the mountain who tells Benjamin that he must fulfill the Knight’s Prophecy and save the world by reclaiming special crystals. The story and character development is terrible and is so paper thin, you feel like you’re watching the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. However, this is definitely one of the unusual high points of the game. How many times have you played a current RPG and found your self utterly confused by the story’s plot and not feeling attached to the game’s main characters? Granted, you are not attached to them here either, but it’s much better than a lot of RPGs like Metal Saga. (By the way, don’t play Metal Saga.)

The gameplay is very simplistic for an RPG. You only have one ally, you never fight more than 3 enemies at a time, and that is just a few of the things that make this game loved or hated by fans of the franchise. The battles are turn-based, where you can do everything manually, or set it to automatic where the computer does everything. You find multiple weapons, like claws, shurikens, grappling claws, bombs, axes, and swords that can all be upgraded. Magi- wise, you get all the simple spells like fire and heal. The way that makes this game even more simplified is that the game is linear. There are no side quests at all. Grinding is also stripped down, with enemies being visible and none of them moving on the screen, and battle tokens on the map screen where you can fight through 10 battles each token. When you are in the levels themselves, it plays out much like a Zelda game, in a way, since you use said tools to solve puzzles that range from crossing gaps, climbing walls, or blowing stuff up. When you are fighting monsters, the battle system is a simplified turn-based system. Bars represent your health, but you can change it to numbers and your enemies don’t have health bars. If you want to know how well you are beating an enemy, their sprites change after a certain amount of damage. This takes out pretty much any strategy, and means you can just wail away while healing when needed.

The graphics might not look as good by today’s standards, but I think they look fine. They are not ugly looking, they don’t look out of place, and things look like what they are supposed to. There is a lot of variety in level design, where in other games like Resonance of Fate, everything just looks drab, repetitious, boring, and or uninspired. I guess the thing I am trying to say is that you will not be in the same area in two levels. The music is amazing. It’s catchy, memorable, and fun to listen to. The two composers for this game were Ryuji Sasai, who did the music for Bushido Blade 2 and Yasuhiro Kawakami who worked on Chocobo’s Dungeon 2 and Tobal No. 1. The story might be light, but there is some good humor that is in that “so bad, it’s good” category. The game isn’t that long either, with about 10 or so hours to complete fully.

However, there is reason to hate this game if you are an RPG-style gamer. The game is way too simple for its own good. Yes, they are design choices to get Americans to get into RPG’s, but there is a limit to how to properly introduce American gamers to RPG’s, and then there is the area where you feel insulted by how easy it is. While this doesn’t bother me as much, I can see why people do not like this game. The story is thin as rice paper. The story should be the most important part of an RPG due to you having to play through 50 or so hours. In Mystic Quest’s situation however, everyone comes off as bland and not interesting whatsoever. Then again, how much have you cared about an RPG character in recent RPG’s? How many times have you played modern RPG’s like Blue Dragon and just did not care who died or who survived? It is kind of hard to complain about this game since these were all design choices, so it’s hard to say that it’s a terrible game due to how simple everything is

All and all though, this is a great game to get young gamers into RPG’s with. I know some people argue that Super Mario RPG is the game to do that, but I think that’s the next step up after Mystic Quest. From what I have seen, Mystic Quest isn’t hard to find, but you can easily get it on the Wii’s Virtual Console. It’s a fun RPG for those who don’t want to play the next massive 50 hour RPG like Xenogears or Paper Mario. It sets out what it wants to do and while it isn’t fully successful, its cult status is there for a reason. This has been Cam’s Eye View and this ends part three of the six-part RPG special. Stay tuned for three more RPG’s.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

196th RPG Review Special Part 2: Xenogears for the PS1 review

2011-07-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome back to another part of the multi-part RPG review, counting down to the 200^th review! I decided to take a look at a great and somewhat untouched RPG from the vault of Square’s gaming library. It’s weird that they haven’t touched this game to make loads of money on. I mean, they do know they don’t HAVE to do Final Fantasy. I know they have bought a lot of companies and their products like I.O Interactive and their Hitman and poorly done Kane and Lynch franchise. They also bought out Crystal Dynamics, who made the Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider series, but that is for another time. We are here to talk about RPG’s. Today, we are going to talk about a game that is amazingly good, and for some reason, no sequels have been made for it. There is a so-called prequel trilogy that is supposed to be connected to the series, but the producer denied any connections to it. This game I am talking is the beloved Xenogears. Like I said a couple times, it’s weird that they don’t touch this game. I mean, it sold over a million copies by 2003. That should declare a sequel. Anyway, just like Threads of Fate, this game is great, and I would highly recommend it if you’re a rabid RPG gamer and love the old Squaresoft titles.

The story starts off with our main hero, Fei Wong Fong. Enter your Gundam Wing, “Hey, he looks like Chang Wufei!” comment here, and move on. He lives a peaceful life in a small village named Lahan with his close friends. However, after meeting up with another main character, a doctor named Citan, Lahan is under attack by giant Gundam-like robots. Fei is forced to take control of one of the robots known as Weltall. While fighting the enemies in this new robot, he goes berserk, and without him knowing it, kills his closest friends and destroys part of the village. After finding out this dark fact, Fei leaves the village to get revenge on the other kingdoms that are having a war over the land of Ignas. The story has some good moments, some dark moments, and some hidden religious themes of reincarnation of destiny, but there are a lot of side stories that kind of make the entire story confusing as a whole. The characters are well fleshed out to an extent, and it’s enjoyable. It is better than Final Fantasy 13’s story.

The gameplay is very unique in Xenogears. It uses the usual active-time battle system that the Final Fantasy franchise used to use, but it has some very interesting touches to the formula. Instead of just choosing an attack and waiting for the turns to be over, you get to control what attacks your character does. All of the main characters can perform combo attacks by pressing a certain pattern of buttons, like “square, square, triangle”. Throughout the game, the character can perform super moves ala Street Fighter if you press certain buttons in order. Characters can also learn magic-like moves, like the usual fire, earth, water, and wind attacks, but updated for the post-apocalyptic world of Xenogears. The other main gimmick is the Gears, your giant Gundam robots for the game. During most parts of the game, mostly boss fights, you get to control your own giant robots. You usually get your small, medium, and strong attack, and can only perform combo moves when you get attack points. This can happen when you perform a simple and successful hit on an enemy. Your Gears also have special powers, but they usually are what magic style attacks your characters have. You can’t always use your gears due to the fuel system that is used each time you use an attack. During the exploration of the dungeons or levels, whichever you like to call them, there are minor platforming sections and some puzzle solving, but it isn’t as in-depth as the combo system.

The graphics have that isometric look that a lot of late PS1 games had, like Final Fantasy Tactics, Wild Arms 2, Grandia, and Journey to the West shared. Battles take place in 3D, but your characters still stay that pixilated sprite look, and the animations are nice. The music is amazing with the composer being Yasunori Mitsuda who is famous for the music for Chrono Trigger and its sequel, Chrono Cross. He has also worked on games like Tobal No.1, Mario Party 2, Front Mission Gun Hazard, Graffiti Kingdom, Xenoblade, and Radical Dreamers. He is a very super talented guy with some great tunes put into Xenogears that sound in the right place due to the whole post-apocalyptic world setting. I mean, the world itself isn’t like damaged or destroyed, it’s more like an earth with grassy fields, mountains, and stone buildings that hasn’t been taken over by technology. The voice acting is nice, but there isn’t much of it. Grandia and Lunar: Silver Star Story had much more voice acting.

However, this wonderful RPG does have some glaring flaws. The first thing I noticed during the platforming sections is that the controls are awkward since you have to use the D pad to control your character. Why didn’t Sony do analog stick controllers at the beginning?! It makes platforming just frustrating and not that fun since you have to be very accurate with your jump or else you will miss it. This game came out in 1998 and it should have used the analog stick technology! I also find it hard to progress sometimes through the game due to very vague ideas on what I’m supposed to do next. I mean, it’s easier to know what to do sometimes, but it took me awhile to know what the heck I was supposed to do during some of the parts in the game. This game does use anime-style cut scenes, but you don’t see a lot of them, nor do you hear a lot of voice acting. These elements are rare and far between, and it’s annoying! If you are going to use them, USE THEM MORE OFTEN! I also wish there were more healing abilities for your Gears, since potion-like items won’t work on them.

Xenogears was a big surprise for me when I first played it. Yeah, the story might be a little Gundam-esque with some plot holes here and there, and it might be tedious at times, but it is one of my favorite RPGs. It has a unique combat system, and you get to pilot giant robots! You could go out and find a hard copy of the game, which is about 30 bucks, maybe more, but you can easily get it for 10 dollars from the PSN store. Again, 10 dollars for an RPG that takes about 40 hours to complete, if that doesn’t sound like a great deal, then I don’t know what is. Thank you for reading this, and we are now down to 4 RPGs left!

This game gets an 8 out of 10

195th RPG Review Special Part 1; Final Fantasy 13 for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-07-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome everyone to a very special multi-part event. Since we are now heading toward number 200 in my written reviews, this will be a multi-part review of role-playing games. This is a genre that I hold dear to me. I have played the best, like Final Fantasy 9, and the garbage, like Quest 64. Good lord, I hated Quest 64. For this special event, I am choosing multiple different rpgs from Enix to Game Arts who I think make the best rpgs. For the first in this multi-part review, I decided to kick things off with a bang, and review an RPG that I promised myself I would never EVER review. Let’s start part one with Final Fantasy 13. It’s weird since I just hated the look and idea of the new Final Fantasy. I thought it went way too far from the source material, and it deserved a lot of the bad and negative reaction it got from the fans. It is definitely one of the worst in the franchise, but is it really that bad of a game? I played it and maybe some of my opinions of this game might have changed, but who knows. Let’s begin on this unusual adventure, shall we?

The story in this game takes place in a mystical floating world known as Cocoon. The government in Cocoon, named Sanctum, is doing a purge of all the civilians who have come in contact with the world below, known as Pulse. A former soldier of the government named Lightning is the main protagonist, and she plans to take down the government and save her sister who was captured. She joins up with 6 other characters and ends up on Pulse itself. They are tasked with an unknown assignment that is unclear to everyone. There are some interesting parts of the story, but it feels flat. It isn’t my favorite of the franchise since I think 6 and 9 have the best story in the entire Final Fantasy series, but like I said, there are some interesting points that come up from time to time. Overall, it feels like a clichéd Japanese RPG. I’m sorry I started my criticism here, but this game really bugs me. From now on, I will make sure to keep the criticism for near the end of the review.

The gameplay is a surprisingly linear active-time RPG with some turned-based elements and other elements from games like Final Fantasy 10 mixed into it. The party again only holds 3 characters at a time. I am sorry, but what is with the 3-person-only party? I mean Suikoden 5 can have up to 6 or more people during the RPG parts of the game. It just amazes me that this company has some weird fixation on the number 3, with a lot of the later games in the series only having 3 people in the party. Anyway, the gameplay kind of reminds me of Grandia, since there is a loading bar-style battle gauge, that when fully charged, you can pull off your moves. You only get to control one character and that is the leader of the group. The main gimmick in the active time battle is where you can pull off different formations called Paradigm Shifts. This is where the different characters change what class they are. There are offensive fighters, offensive magic users, healers, sabotage artists, defense masters, status helpers, and you get the idea. Each shift is useful and will be the deciding point on certain battles, which at times can get very tedious if you are not informed about what the weakness of the boss is. Each character also has a guardian they can summon to fight alongside battle, or combine with them, and for some reason, the guardians then become something that reminds me of Transformers. You don’t really level up as much as you do in Final Fantasy 10. The leveling up system from Final Fantasy 10 is basically used here to a better extent, and isn’t convoluted. Each time you win a battle, you get experience that is used to upgrade a sphere-like system for each class that your character can be. Each class will be upgraded during different times in the story.

The graphics are almost way too good for its own livelihood. I mean, yeah, the hair looks cheap at times, and sometimes you can find flat textures, but I haven’t seen such a good-looking game since God of War 3, Little Big Planet 2, Uncharted 2, and Flower. The time between games definitely gives Square time to make their main game franchise look good. The music, while not as good as Final Fantasy 6 and 9, is still pretty good and has really catchy battle music. The music was composed by Masashi Hamauzu. He is mostly famous for games like Unlimited Saga, SaGa Frontier 2, and Sigma Harmonics. The voice acting also is good, but it feels more like a game from the Tales series, which isn’t bad, but it makes me feel like they could have done better. I mean, it’s not that the cast is bad. They have big stars like Ali Hillis, who was Dr. Liara T’Soni from the Mass Effect series. We also have people like Troy Baker, who was Jetfire and Zeta Prime from the recent Transformers: War for Cybertron and Reno Wilson who was the Black Baron from Madworld. They all do a good job, but the script kind of falters at times.

Now, this is the part I have been waiting for, the bad parts! When I first played this game I didn’t think it was that bad, but after playing it for a few days, it just showed more and more problems. First off, when I was playing through the game, I didn’t mind the linear style since it didn’t mean no free roaming monster hunting quests, like in the last game. However, it just got WAY too linear since there are no towns to visit and no people to interact with. It’s just one long corridor with no stops. There might be a few puzzles here and there, but it just got way too tedious, since you were just going in a straight line the whole time. I also hate the weapon customization feature, since when you get a new weapon, you can’t just de-equip everything. If you do unequip everything from that weapon, you only get a few things back. The parts didn’t seem to do much either. It just made me wish I could just use a stronger weapon like in Final Fantasy 9. While I like the fast-paced turn-based elements, I felt like there wasn’t too much depth to it since I kept just doing the auto battle and battle stance change. It’s like I wasn’t even playing at all. The characters are just bad and annoying. I couldn’t care less for half of the cast. I mean later in the story some characters become tolerable, but it still doesn’t change that this game feels like a clichéd JRPG. That is basically the biggest complaint I have about this game. It doesn’t feel like a Final Fantasy game. There is not one thing of fantasy left. It’s more like science fiction fantasy. If I wanted to play a game called science fiction fantasy, I would play Xenogears, which is so much better than this game. When I play Final Fantasy, I want to see some small steam punk themes here and there, but no spaceships and robot dragons. Like I said, I want to play Final FANTASY! Not Final Science Fiction Fantasy. Why are they going this way? Do kids not like swords and magic anymore?! I mean Demons Soul sold really well, and it’s dark fantasy. KIDS CAN ENJOY FANTASY SQUARE ENIX. Stop investing in games like Kane and Lynch 2, and invest on some fantasy artists, and bring back the original team for the Final Fantasy games. Heck, I would love to see a remastered version of Final Fantasy 9. At least you have a different team working on Final Fantasy Versus 13, and at least that game plays similar to Kingdom Hearts from the looks of it.

Overall, Final Fantasy 13 might be liked by few, but I HATE this game. It isn’t Final Fantasy at all! It is one of the worst games in the franchise. I feel sorry for people who played this. I feel sorry that people think this is what Final Fantasy needs to be. I cannot recommend this game for people who haven’t played this game yet. If you want to play a truly great Final Fantasy game, then download Final Fantasy 9 or just look for the Final Fantasy Chronicles or Anthology on the Playstation 1. Or just invest in that cool Final Fantasy 4 collection that’s out for the PSP and I think PSN. Square has lost a lot of my respect since Final Fantasy 11 and ongoing. Let’s hope they don’t mess up Deus Ex: Human Evolution. Now, let’s move onto an even better RPG in the next part of this special.

This game gets a 6 out of 10

Mass Effect 2 for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-06-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

You are all in for a treat! This is a game that at first I had decided never to review because I never saw what was so special about it. The other reason was that it was on the 360. Now, it’s 2011, and it was released a few months back in January for the PS3. This is also a surprise to me since it is now one of my top 25 favorite games of all time. I won’t delay the tension any longer, here is my special review of Mass Effect 2! I was seriously surprised at how deep and great this game is. I kind of blew it off ignorantly due to the fact that it was a space shooter. However, it is from the critically acclaimed studio, Bioware, and winner of multiple Game of the Year Awards from many publications. It is definitely a game that is worth the money and time if you’re old enough. Let’s dive into this wonderful game simply known as Mass Effect 2.

The game takes place weeks after the ending of the first game as the ship “Normandy” is on the look for a remaining Geth ship. When they actually find one, they are then attacked by a Collector’s ship and, as a result, get heavily damaged. As Commander Shepard is getting everyone out of the ship, he then is forced to help the pilot of the ship, Joker, escape. After he gets Joker into an escape pod, Shepard is sadly blasted into space by the Collector’s ship. Two years later, Shepard wakes up in a bed in a medical ward on a Cerberus ship. Shepard is now working for Cerberus and is assigned to get a team of soldiers to take care of the Collectors who are planning something mysterious. This game has a really great story with deep and complex themes of politics and the different alien races, as well as the characters’ philosophies on life. This is a sign that this sci-fi shooter would be good, since it actually has a really good story that isn’t bland or something we have seen before. It just shows how good Bioware is at their job.

There is a lot to cover in this section of the review so let’s get to the gameplay. The gameplay is in the form of a third person sci-fi shooter with a mix of RPG, team-based shooters, and free-roaming elements. You take control of Commander Shepard and have a good array of weapons to use, like the normal machine gun, pistol, and shotgun. The weapon variety is basically the same, but you can always find better versions of those guns, or upgrade the default weapons you get. Each character can carry about two guns, with the exception being you, of course. You can get preset armor from preorders and DLC, but you can also find customized armor to give you more speed, defense, headshot percentage, and melee attack power. When you begin the game you can actually upload the data from the last game if you have the Xbox360 version. In the PS3 version, you just start from scratch. You can also choose what class of soldier you want to be in, like Warrior, which gives you better strength in fighting. Each class gives you specific abilities that are pretty fun to use in the game. When you go to different planets, you get sent down with two other teammates. This is where the squad-based shooter mechanics come into play. You can move your two comrades to different areas on the field and can use their specific abilities in battle. Each character has an array of moves, like a strong power shot, using their cybernetic enhancements to toss enemies around, using those enhancements to blow people away, doing a stealth kill, summoning an AI assistant, and many others. You also get multiple abilities, like I said, depending on what your class is. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Bioware game without having multiple endings and multiple paths that you can take throughout the game, by what your actions are. When you talk to ANYONE, you can choose different options on what to say, kind of like that bad game, Alpha Protocol. However, in this game, it’s done a lot better. Even coming down to the final level, where you need to decide who does what, will alter the ending of the game. There are also personal missions you can take on with your teammates that will make them even closer teammates and will show more character development. It’s nice since in a lot of games I see, they have a bunch of characters, but you only really care about a few of them. In this game however, I listened and cared for every teammate I had, and did all of their personal missions just so I could hear them talk and develop as characters. You can even fall in love and have a romance with one of the many female teammates. Just be careful what you say.

The graphics in the game are top notch since I played the PS3 version, which has the new game engine that the sequel, Mass Effect 3, is going to use. All the characters have amazing detail and great animations, even if you don’t see them move around a lot. The voice work is top-notch with great voice actors and some that may surprise you if you haven’t played the Mass Effect franchise. For example, the voice actor for Shepard is Mark Meer, who has used his voice acting talents in a lot of the games Bioware has made. Let’s get to the other voice actors that really impressed me, and just to spoil it, I loved a lot of the characters’ voice actors: Ali Hillis, Brandon Keener, Liz Sroka, Lazarre-White, Keythe Farley, Steve Blum, Courtenay Taylor, Michael Beattie, Maggie Baird, D.C Douglas, Kym Lane, and Robin Sachs. That is just a little bit of the voice work here if you only count the playable team members. The one that surprised me the most is the voice actor who played Joker, Seth Green. This was a shock to me since, well, I only know Seth Green from Family Guy and Robot Chicken. He does an amazing job here, and I think he could do well in this kind of genre of voice work. The music is also amazing with a lot of great tracks composed by Jack Wall and three other composers. Jack Wall is mostly famous for The Mark of Kri, Vigilance, Myst 3 and 4, and Jade Empire. This is definitely one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard. I also love how the branching paths give this game so many possibilities and so many endings. It just makes me think how long it took Bioware to fully complete this tiny bit of the game.

This game is almost perfect, with great gameplay, great graphics, great voice work, great music, an amazingly compelling story, but it just has a few technical issues that makes me pissed off about modern games. The text is so hard to read in this game. I have gotten lost so many times in the shopping planets because I couldn’t find where the store was that I needed to go to. It was as annoying as it could be. This is why I hate modern games, the text can be unreadable at times, and it is even worse if the color of the text is the same as the background. I mean, seriously developers, STOP IT! I also don’t like how harsh some of the choices are, like when you are trying to find a woman to romance. If you do something wrong near the end of the game with them, they will ignore you for the rest of the game and they will repeat the same thing over and over again. I went through three girls because I screwed up with them, but I ultimately got Tali who is a fan favorite amongst the Mass Effect Community. The other thing I didn’t like was the freaking planet scanning. I know everyone hates this because it’s really tedious to upgrade my items and ship. I have to scan multiple planets of their resources instead of just getting all the resources at once. I probably spent around 5 or so hours out of the 25-30 hours I spent on this game scanning planets for resources.

Even with these minor flaws, Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games I have ever played, and is rightfully the winner of multiple Game of the Year Awards from 2010. It is one of my favorite games and I know Mass Effect 3 will be even better and will topple the second over by a landslide. I would highly recommend getting the game for either platform since it is well worth the money and is one of the best shooters I have ever played.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

DLC Domination part 6: Stacking and Stacking DLC

2011-06-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

The adventure game genre is definitely not one of my favorite genres. It isn’t that I think they are bad games, I mean, I enjoy the humor of the Monkey Island games and the Grim Fandango game. I just feel like the gameplay is clunky and very confusing at times on how to progress through the game. The puzzles would be so obscure and confusing that it would take me right out of the zone that the game has. and well, I would be right back in reality. However, I think I have found one of my all-time favorite downloadable games, and maybe another runner-up in my favorite games of my all-time list. This is yet another brilliant game from the minds at Double Fine Productions, called Stacking! An adventure/puzzle game, based on those Russian stacking dolls, Stacking Is a very and I mean VERY good game. It is one game I would recommend in the first top 5 games to download if you are new to the market. Also, since they just came out with DLC, this will be a double-stacked review including Stacking: The Lost Hobo King DLC! An extension to the amazing awesomeness that is Stacking, The Lost Hobo King just continues with what works with Stacking. You have really clever puzzles, really funny wit and humor, a creative presentation, and just an all-around enjoyable story. Stacking is one of the most entertaining games I have ever played, and it is a game I would highly recommend downloading instantly. So, let’s get onto the review of Stacking and Stacking: The Lost Hobo King

The story of Stacking stars the Blackmore family, where the father of the family gets a high paying job working for an evil man named the Baron. After awhile, the father didn’t come back from work, and the rest of the family is taken away to become slaves, except for one little doll named Charlie Blackmore, who isn’t taken away due to his small size. He gets some help from a friendly hobo, who in the game is the cause of global warming, and is off to rescue his family. The Lost Hobo King DLC’s story picks up after the ending of the first game where Charlie is on a quest to help his hobo friend’s country called Camelfoot, and find, well, the crown of the hobo king. The entire story is well thought out, even if it is simple with a great script, and is just a blast to play through. It might be simple and take a backseat to the gameplay, but it’s cute, and anyone can enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, you have no sense of wonderment or, well, have no fun in your soul.

The gameplay in Stacking and its DLC is a mix between puzzle solving and adventure game play where you play as Charlie, the smallest of the Russian dolls. You travel around in a huge overworld train station in the first game and a hobo-infested town in the DLC. The main gimmick in the world of Stacking is to solve puzzles using the people all around you. How do you do this? Well, since you are the smallest person there, you can get inside and stack into people and use their abilities. Puzzles in the game can be solved by using different kinds of characters. For example, in the DLC, you use a guy who has really smelly cheese to get past an underground passage surrounded by ghouls. This game could be considered short, but the genius and the replay value come in the puzzles themselves. What do I mean by this? Well, let me explain. Each puzzle in the game has up to 4 or more alternative solutions. You can easily just blow through the game and the DLC in a couple of hours, but then you wouldn’t get the charm and the creativity each puzzle reveals. For example, one of the first puzzles you have to complete in the game is to clear out a building full of people. One solution is to open up the air duct system and use a character that farts to make everyone cough and exit the building. Another solution is to enter the building as someone who isn’t supposed to be there. Another puzzle takes place on a huge titanic-like ship where you need to ruin the caviar bar by one solution of spoiling it by putting too much seasoning or sending the caviar dispenser off the boat. All the puzzles in this game are well put together and range from easy to pretty tough. The way of solving the puzzles might mean stacking up into very specific dolls. During the later part of the normal game, you have to get into a doll to get past guards of the Baron, since if you get caught, you get put in jail. There isn’t a multiplayer mode, but I don’t think the game needs it. There are also special side quests you can do, like find a specific family of dolls or cause hijinks by using different dolls. You can slap people, put buckets on people’s heads, and give unsuspecting people an uppercut to the jaw.

The graphics in the game are amazing presentation-wise. It is like you took a bunch of Russian dolls and shined them up with wood polish, made an entire world out of toys from the 20’s and random junk and called it a world. It’s all very detailed, and all the dolls in the world have unique charms, and it is just fun to try and find every single doll to collect. The music is also very charming, with tracks that sound like you’re watching an old 20’s or 30’s silent film. The best way I can sum up the look of the game is if you dug up a time capsule from the 20’s and 30’s and just brought everything back to life from the capsule. I think the reason why all this works is because the founder of Double Fine, Tim Schaeffer, worked on adventure games with Deathspank creator Ron Gilbert, who actually worked on the recent Monkey Island game. Tim Schaeffer also made a cult classic adventure game called Full Throttle, which I have actually seen, but was nervous to pick it up due to not knowing if my computer will make it work. Anyways, the company knew what to do to make an adventure game with a new twist, and it rocks.

So, with all this great stuff I just mentioned above, what are the downsides to this classic downloadable game? Well, if you don’t want to take on the task of solving every puzzle, then you will find the game to be short. For 15 dollars, you get what you need, but like I said, if you don’t find all the solutions for the puzzles, then it’s going to be a little on the overpriced side of things. As for the DLC, you can do all of the solutions for the puzzles in about an hour, but for 6 dollars that isn’t bad. The camera is a bit awkward, but it is just a minor thing due to it being a little higher up than your character.

Overall, if you haven’t bought this game, then I feel so sorry for your life. This game is worth the 15 dollars, plus the 6 dollars for the DLC. If you are not big into adventure puzzle games then I won’t recommend it. If you are into great solid games with great humor, and just an interesting gaming experience, then I don’t know where else you could look besides Thatgamecompany’s upcoming game, Journey. Anyway, go download this game.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

A Boy and his Blob for the Wii review

2011-06-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

Many people my age remember a lot of retro games that are, well…not that good, but remembered fondly for some reason. When I was taking game industry classes, some people talked about the somewhat cult classic/bad game, A Boy and his Blob for the NES. What I remember hearing is that the concept is bizarre, and it’s very unforgiving in difficulty. Nowadays, people are always trying to bring back old classic games with varying results. The Blaster Master reboot was bad and the remake for Splatterhouse was pretty good. Nothing about these remakes has really blown my mind, until I picked up a specific game. What is this game I am talking about? Is it some whimsical underrated gem that is a remake…okay, the punchline is the remake of A Boy and his Blob. This game was a change of pace out of all the 2D style Wii games that are usually garbage. This game actually took some careful execution and actually results in it being one of the better Wii games. Now, from the look of it, I can see how you would need to take a second look to make sure it is a good game, but trust me, it’s one of the better Wii games out on the market.

The story is very light as well, there isn’t much to it. This game is more about immersing you into its world. The only story I could tell is that an alien-like thing fell from the sky and a little boy finds it. The thing turns out to be a little white blob. It is also shown that there is an evil blob that is trying to take over the world, and it is up to you and your jellybean-loving blob to save the world! It’s a simple story since this is a re-imagining of an NES game, so the story is very light. I will say, though, that it’s a cute story

The gameplay is like the recently released game, Stacking, where it’s a mix of adventure, platforming, and mostly puzzle solving. The main goal in this game in each of the four worlds is to get from point A to point B with your blob. Throughout the 10 levels in each of the worlds, you are equipped with a certain variety of jellybeans that can make your blob transform into multiple things to get you through the level. The blob can turn into stuff like a ladder, a trampoline, a robot, a protected ball, parachute, a jack, an anvil, and many other things to help you take down all 4 of the bosses and get around the monsters in the levels, since the blob is the only thing you can use to destroy the enemies. If you get hit ONCE, you are dead. This results in the game being very difficult at times, and somewhat punishing. There are also a couple of treasure chests throughout the levels and will give you extra stuff for your hideouts. This game does give you a good amount of stuff to do since you will get done with this game in around 10 hours or so. Oh, and by the way, there is a hug command to where you can give your blob a hug. It has no purpose but to look cute, and to calm the nerves after a tedious boss fight.

The graphics are beautiful for a 2D game. I mean, they aren’t as good as Muramasa or Odin Sphere, but if you have played games like Wario Land Shake it! or the upcoming Rayman Origins, then you won’t be disappointed by the visuals. It has a very soft warm look to it and somewhat reminds me of art styles like the Studio Ghibli films. The music is also very whimsical. It isn’t like Final Fantasy 9 or anything, but it’s very calming, like in Flower. The whole game definitely has a charm to it, and it pulls you into its cartoon-like world.

Even with its charm, it does have some flaws. The game has very little reason to replay through it. I mean it has a good challenge and there are some challenges to complete, but I never found a reason to play through it again. The game, like I said, can be rather difficult since you can’t attack. It’s like in Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers on the NES where you have to use boxes to hit every enemy. You can say that this game is more platforming oriented, but if you have enemies, at least have one transformation, like a vacuum cannon or something like in Ratchet and Clank. Since this is the case, you will die often. This game also has the old time formula of you dying if you jump off a high cliff. I also found the boss fights interesting, BUT they are tedious to find out what you need to do.

All and all, this game won’t make you want to get a Wii, but it is a small-underrated gem that is worth renting from Gamefly. You can also get this game on the cheap side by now, and is worthwhile if you are into platforming puzzle games. I know a lot of people are not fans of the original game, but this one is definitely worth your time if you’re into great animation and cute-looking settings. Maybe, some day, we can all have a little white blob to love and feed jellybeans to.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

Bujingai: the Forsaken CIty for the PS2 review

2011-05-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a question. What other kind of game genre dominates the home console market besides the shooter? Research and sales results have shown that for a while, action games have dominated the market. I mean, for example, when the PS1 came out, there was a huge amount of rpgs released for the console from Square Enix and Game Arts. Another good example of this is the huge explosion of action games coming out for the PS2, when a little-known title known as Devil May Cry came out. Seriously, there were so many action games. There were games like Blood Will Tell, Nanobreaker, Gladiator Sword of Vengeance, Shinobi, Genji, Blood Rayne, Devil Kings, Onimusha, and even modern games today like Conan and Bayonetta. Yes, some of these were made by the same people, like Bayonetta had the same person from Devil May Cry, but my point is that even today the action genre is still very popular. One of these games is today’s review known as Bujingai: The Forsaken City! Now, this game has a lot going for it. You have a pretty good developer who made a personal underrated series of mine, Gungrave, and the lead character is based on one of the most popular glam rock stars in Japan, Gackt. One other thing that makes this game interesting is that it’s based on fast paced action films from China known as Wuxia. However, this game might have some flaws that keep this fast-paced game under the radar for most people. Let’s take a look at this game and see what’s inside! This is Bujingai: The Forsaken City for the PS2.

There is very little story in this game, and is sadly more flash than substance. What I could get is that you play as Lau, an ancient warrior with two huge swords and J-pop-style red hair. After coming back to the forsaken city riding on a comet for some reason, stuff goes through the drain and demons are everywhere. Another thing is that the main girl lead gets kidnapped by Lei, who I think is your brother or used to be your brother. Lei is the one responsible for doing all this, and halfway through the game, kidnaps the main girl. It is up to you to save the world and destroy all the demons. There is very little story here, and later in the review, I will explain why this is bad. Yeah, as you can tell I am somewhat not happy about this game. Oh well, let’s continue. Taito published this game. The game was created by Red Entertainment who made games like Gates and Lords of Thunder, Thousand Arms, and the two Gungrave games.

The gameplay takes the form of a linear action game with some minor platforming elements. Since this game is based on Wuxia style films, the combat is very flashy and combo-oriented. You can pull off huge combos to whittle down the opponents health bar. You can do spin moves, uppercuts, and jump kick your opponent. This hero has also taken some notes from Prince of Persia and can wall jump. He can also glide through the air to get to other platforms. You also have an upgradeable magic system where you can pull off super powerful spells, like a giant tornado and shooting energy arrows, to doing a drill spin attack. You can upgrade everything about you from how well you defend, to how strong your magic is, increasing your health and magic bar, and well, that’s pretty much it. The only other thing I could talk about here is the interesting counter system. If you are in front of an enemy and you block an attack at the right time, you can do a very cool counter attack and take out the smaller enemies faster. The boss fights are big, but they usually end up being only pattern-related bosses, like in the Ghouls and Ghost series of games.

Graphically, it’s pretty cool looking. Everything looks gritty, and the areas do have a charm to them if you can get past the major faults in the game. The monster designs are all pretty detailed and the normal soldiers are kind of creepy-looking. The animations on everything also look wonderful, and you can tell Taito put a lot of money into the animation besides putting it all on Gackt. The flashy moves and all the ridiculous looking martial art moves are very cool, and make you feel like you’re in movies like Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I also like that at the very beginning of the game, you make your own cut scene when you’re chopping down on the villains for a few minutes. It’s just kind of a nice little treat.

However, like all games, Bujingai has some pretty major flaws in its design. The first is the camera control. It is very limited and can leave you in some awkward positions when you are fighting enemies and there are enemies behind you. This game can also get very tedious since mini-bosses later in the game get tougher and harder to hit, and you can’t cancel out of a combo so easily since you’re stuck in that animation until the combo is done. This has led to some unneeded damage taken and deaths. While there are some cool looking bosses, they are pretty boring, since like I said above, there are patterns you need to follow. This game is also awkwardly linear, like there is no deviation from the path. No, it isn’t as linear as games like Kung Fu, but still there isn’t a lot of variation in the levels. Then, when something different does come around, it’s too late in the game and feels like it was just tacked on. While this is a game that proudly shows that they got Gackt, they don’t really use him besides the design of the character and voice. Yes, he does do the intro song, but he has NO LINES in the game. It’s annoying. It’s like they used a lot of their budget to pay Gackt and advertise that they have him. The English voice acting sucks. It’s like it was done on a shoestring budget. There also isn’t much to get back into the groove of the game after finishing it once. Kind of a shame, it could be amazing if they just added more stuff besides GACKT!

Overall this is a horribly flawed game, but it has its fun moments, and I would only recommend renting it for everyone else, unless if you are a hardcore action gamer and are looking for something that’s different or like the PS2 Shinobi. Action games come and go, and sadly, this one came with more flash than substance and just went as soon as it came. Shame, too, because it is almost an underrated gem. Good thing we have games like God of War.

This game gets a 6 out of 10

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 for the PS3 and 360

2011-05-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I am reviewing a game based on an anime license that, in my opinion, is mostly overrated, but the games based on the anime have been getting pretty good reviews. Why is that?! I mean, the show itself ran on for far too long, the characters turned annoying, and just like Bleach and Inuyasha, it just ran on FOREVER. It basically had the Dragon Ball Z illness, where there would be too much filler and not enough fighting. So, how could you take this series and turn it into a somewhat successful series of fighting games? Well, even though it has its bad fighting games, this one is probably in the top 5 best fighting games based on an anime series. Today’s review is Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 for the PS3 and 360. Based on the overrated yet popular anime series of the same name, Ultimate Ninja Storm tries to iron out its faults from the last game, and ends up making a pretty solid game. It isn’t perfect, but if you are not a super fan of the series, then you will probably think of this as a solid and simple fighting game with a few faults that keep it from being anything super amazing. Let’s dive into the Ninja action of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. They need to make the name shorter for the next game.

The story basically follows the Shippuden series, but cuts out the filler that ruined the last series by showing the most important parts of the series. It has Naruto returning to the Hidden Leaf Village after two years of training. The story then revolves around a group of renegade ninjas known as the Akatsuki. These ninjas plan on stealing the sealed demons of certain ninjas like Naruto and Gaara, to use their powers to rule the world and mold it into their favor. It is up to Naruto and friends to stop them and save the village and the world. The story is about as clichéd as it gets with predictable outcomes, but the thing that it does better than most anime-based game story lines is that it has some interesting twists here and there, with some sad moments to make an enjoyable yet predictable story. Even if you don’t like the series, you can still admire the twists and turns that it shows. Before I continue, I want to say that I don’t care if I didn’t say every detail of the storyline that happened in the anime, I don’t really care. I am just saying the sum of the story in THIS game, and that’s it.

The gameplay is a mix between a fighting game and an adventure game, where you take on story-specific missions and minor missions on the side. You will reenact multiple fights from the anime storyline and travel across the land to get to those fights. The game is completely linear, with side quests adding as the only diversion from the main storyline. During the fights, you will be using a simple combat system with some tweaks from other fighting game. For one, you are not stuck on a single plane during the matches. You can move around the entire area with some fights, making an exception where you take control of gameplay styles, like a shooter and a God of War-style boss fight. You can also use support attacks ala Marvel Vs Capcom, but no super three-person combo. You can use two types of super moves, one is when you power up once, and the second is when you power up twice. During some fights, you will need to use the modern day gimmick of quick-time events to get through major parts of the fight. If you mess up on one of the commands, you will just restart during that one part of the quick-time event. You can also use items to give yourself an advantage in battle, like a faster chakra recharge pace or a stronger defense. You can use weapons, like bombs and throwing projectiles, to poison your opponent. There is a good amount of depth to the fighting system since you only use one button to activate the moves. When you are not fighting, you are basically either doing side quests or running from one location to another while watching cut scenes and watching the scenes in either Japanese or English dub with English subtitles. After you are done with the main storyline, there is an extra chapter you can play through, but I will make sure you find that out for yourself. The game will take about 10 to 15 hours in the single player campaign, with a pretty typical multiplayer mode after that, where you can play as all the characters you have unlocked. Overall, you have got a lot to play with.

The graphics are just extremely well done, matching the anime series it’s based on, and even surpassing it a little. It’s creepy how good the graphics are for this game. The music is also well done, but there are not a lot of the show’s original tracks. Some of the fights are just amazing to watch and take part in with a lot of amazing moves and in my opinion are much better to watch than the animated version. They are so dynamic and well executed, which makes me wish I could just get extras where I could watch the pro players or programmers play through the game, like the super guide in Donkey Kong Country Returns. The Japanese voice acting is actually more enjoyable than the English cast, even though you have some big names from the industry in the game. The Japanese dub just makes some of the bland and annoying characters stand out more with a little passion added into the acting.

However, there are some faults that really stick out and makes this game a flawed experience. A lot of the running around is just boring since you can’t travel by jumping from tree to tree and I would have felt more like a ninja doing that, than just running around. The boss fights are interesting, but a lot of them are downright frustrating and unbalanced. It made me keep hitting a wall when I fought these bosses due to the character not having a solid dodge ability and the AI being super aggressive. It made those specific boss fights not fun, since I couldn’t move and kept on getting attacked. It was just a drag to get through those areas of the game. During the fights, there are side affects added into the fight, like you can’t use your ultra move or you can’t go through this certain status. While it gives the game a good challenge, the boss fights don’t have to go through those same rules, and it made using certain characters just a pain in the butt to control. Just because you want to go through the same fight like in the anime, doesn’t mean you have to make a stupidly unbalanced boss that because of the limitations during the fight, I beat by pure luck after 5 times.

Again, Naruto Shippuden does have its flaws, but it is a pretty solid game and that’s surprising since it’s based on an anime that I said was overrated. I say check it out if you’re curious, since it’s worth a weekend rental, and buy it if you’re a fan. Hopefully, more licensed games can take note from games like Batman Arkham Asylum and now including Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. Let’s just hope they can make the next game even better. Thanks for reading!

This game gets a solid 8 out of 10

Gladiator Special part 2: Gladiator: Sword of Vengance for the PS2 review

2011-05-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

So, yeah, I am doing a retrospective on games based off the brutal sport of gladiators. The first one, Colosseum: Road to Freedom wasn’t as good as I wished it was. It had clunky combat, no story, and was all-around boring to play after a few hours. I just wish it was more action-oriented, like Blood Rayne and Devil May Cry, which both came out around this next title’s time. What is this next title in the Gladiator Retrospective going to be? Well, it’s a game by Acclaim Entertainment. Now, I know that Acclaim isn’t really a GOOD company, but let’s see if they have redeemed themselves with Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance. What could possibly go wrong here? An actual story, more action-oriented combat, and a pretty cool-looking cover. I mean, yeah, it’s nothing like today’s games, but hey, I can’t just judge a game by its cover, now can I? So, let’s dive right into the blood pool again and review Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance!

Unlike the last gladiator game I played, this one actually has a story. The story is about an evil new Roman emperor named Arruntius. He decides to hold the most deadly gladiator battles known to Rome. Just like the film, Gladiator, there is one gladiator that doesn’t want to fight for the corrupt ruler. This rebellious Roman Skywalker is known as Invictus Thrax. After going through a couple of groups of soldiers, he tells the evil emperor that he has had enough of this and wants to kill him. Luckily, somehow, the new ruler has Thrax killed by two evil demon gods named Phobos and Deimos. Thrax then wakes up in a place called Elysium. The two sons of Mars, Remus and Romulus, brought him there. He is sent on a quest back to the living world and he has killing the emperor and his two demon gods on his list. This story is nothing special really, and you can basically go through this game like you would Colosseum: Road to Freedom.

The gameplay featured in Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance is a pretty straightforward hack-and-slash action game. The combat is very simplistic, with only two attack buttons, one magic button, and a button to execute brutal death strikes. There is also a lock-on command, which makes combat a lot easier since enemies will surround you A LOT in the game. You can also pull off powerful spells like Hercules, which will give you stronger attacks for a very short amount of time. You can also dodge more easily and even do a kick backflip against an enemy. The level design is VERY and I mean VERY linear. There is basically only one way to the end. This means no alternate areas like in Castlevania 3. Think of the linear level design like the old NES game, Kung Fu. Throughout the level however, there are challenges that if you complete them, you will gain new stat changes, like more strength, more health, and what not. Like I said, the game is very linear so don’t expect much, it’s very simple.

The graphics aren’t that bad even if some areas don’t age well. The lighting is actually quite nice, and I like the look of the game. The levels are definitely a lot more varied than the last gladiator-style game that had bland boring coliseums. The voice acting is definitely better, but it still sounds like they are trying too hard to be Greek-accented from time to time. I also like how there is a lot of enemy variety with monsters that have different patterns that you must take advantage of if you want to make it out alive. The game’s difficulty is ranged. Sometimes, it’s simple enough to get through, but sometimes it’s REALLY HARD. The music isn’t anything special, but for what’s there, it isn’t bad.

However, just like the last gladiator-themed game, there are A LOT of clunky features that show that Acclaim Entertainment made this. While it is a linear game, it is WAY too linear. I mean, there is nothing you can do. It is like you can’t do anything without the game telling you that you can do it. You can’t even jump unless you are at specific areas. The combat, while better and smoother, still feels clunky and just not polished enough. Enemies are still guard-happy and can even take away a huge chunk of your life. You feel like you’re at a disadvantage the entire time. The main trick you will be doing is going in, and hitting, then rolling backwards, and then repeating the same process. It just becomes tedious once you face the cyclops enemies. I just feel like these guys gave up halfway through making this game, like “ Okay, let’s see here. Linear, clunky and boring combat, no alternate paths, PERFECT!” It is just so boring to play through this game as it gets repetitious to fight a lot of the same enemies over and over again. When I was playing this game, I felt like I was wasting my time with it. I HATE doing that. I mean, when I get a game, I want to enjoy it and feel like I am inside the game. When I played this game, I felt like I could be playing a better game. I don’t see why people can’t make good or decent gladiator-style games. I mean, this came around when Bloodrayne and Devil May Cry were big. At first, it seems like it could be fun, but then they strip you of your cool weapons and then give you bland and boring power-ups and weapons.

I don’t see the big deal with this game. It is boring, clunky, way too linear, and isn’t that fun to play, in my personal opinion. I say, pass this game up and just go pick up a PS3 and get the three God of War games instead of this one. Oh well, hopefully I have sorted through the garbage and can now move on to games like Spartan Total Warrior and Shadow of Rome. Maybe, however, I should take a break and play a different game. If you do ever encounter this game, make sure you have something to light it with. Stay tuned for more gladiator retrospective and other games here on the blog.

This game gets a 4 out of 10

Enslaved: odyssey to the West for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-04-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

You know what bugs me about games of today? I hate how a lot of games don’t have a good story. It’s games like Kane and Lynch 2, the Call of Duty games, and other games in general that try to give a story, but then either ends with these various results. The story is either unimportant, which bugs me the most, the story is too long and boring, the story is too fast, or it just gets mixed with all of the above. Now, as a gamer, I like a good story, gameplay, and replay value. I usually judge the story in a game a lot in my later reviews because with games like Heavy Rain and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow have made storytelling in games an important aspect of the gaming genre. I think a great example of another game that is a legitimate format of storytelling is Ninja Theory’s hit game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. A post-apocalyptic version of the famous oriental story, Journey to the West, Enslaved gives us a different taste of gaming outside of all the clustered shooters and other bombs in 2010. Well then, let me enslave your eyes for a few minutes and enjoy my review of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Just a heads up, this review might be as long as the No More Heroes 2 review or other reviews that are 6 pages or more. Grab a drink is the only advice I have for you.

The story revolves around two main characters, a strong warrior-like man named Monkey, and a red haired girl named Trip. After escaping a slave ship, Trip enslaves Monkey with a headband that will kill him if she dies or if he doesn’t follow her commands. Throughout the story, you will actually be pulled in by the convincingly human characters and an ending that really makes you want to see what happens next. This is one of those games that is a legit format of storytelling. Now then, lets move on to the gameplay.

The gameplay in Enslaved is a little bit of everything. You have Uncharted and Prince of Persia-style platforming, some simple puzzles, weaponized combat, Uncharted-style chase scenes, simple quick time events (literally one button), some stealth, and some third person shooting. You will mostly be controlling Monkey, with Trip just tagging along. Monkey uses a staff that can be used for close range combat with a simple combat system that is kind of hard to pin down. It isn’t God of War or Ninja Gaiden-style combat system. You can also use the staff to stun enemies close range or from afar. You can shoot energy bolts at enemies and customize it so that you can kill them with one shot. Like I said, you can customize Monkey with multiple stat bonuses like more attacks, more health, better shields, more ammo for the energy bolts, more stun time, and you get the idea. It’s simplified here, so don’t worry about everything being so complex. Now, when we first saw that you HAD to travel with someone else and protect that person, we all groaned a little since, well, who likes escort missions? Trip, on the other hand, is actually more useful with her abilities to scan the field for mechs, send a shock wave if she is threatened, and make a decoy so you can get past the gunners. From time to time, the gameplay is separated with Monkey manning a turret or flying on his hover disc. It’s pretty fun to do both, and I bet for the people who have played it, they had fun blowing up mechs.

The graphics are amazing since it runs on the Unreal 3 engine. While it does show its age, it looks incredible with nature taking over the landscape, and just the epic feel of fighting robots through green grass fields. The voice acting is top notch with famous actor Andy Serkis doing the motion capture for Monkey and the voice acting. I also like Trip’s voice actress Lindsey Shaw who I actually saw on a Nickelodeon kid show once. It was a big surprise to me that she did such a good job in the role as Trip. Kudos to her! By far, one of my favorite secondary characters ever is the loveable, yet slimy Pigsy, voiced by Richard Ridings. He has got to be one of the best characters ever. He is slimy, yet he is loveable in his role in the story, and how he represents the humor in the game that helps round out the already human cast. Like I just said, the whole story is believable because of the story and how the actors, well, act. It isn’t overblown like Devil May Cry or just ridiculous like the more recent Final Fantasy games. I don’t see a lot of human-like characters in games today, and that is what bugs me. More games should have more humanized characters. Stop doing the whole Gears of War character archetype. Even Kratos in God of War has human feelings, even if part of his personality is revenge and ripping people in half. Another example is Gabriel Belmont because he has twisted thoughts of what he is doing in Lords of Shadow. The music is also wonderful to listen to and I hope they make a soundtrack available for retail, since I would put it on my ipod to listen to when I type my reviews. The composer for the music is Nitin Sawhney. He is famous for stuff like Heavenly Sword, and multiple shows and films. It’s a wonderful soundtrack that sounds like east and west music were combined into one soundtrack.

Overall, this is a great game that has only a few flaws. They are not huge things, but they do hold the game back. The first thing I’ll mention is that the game is short. It took me about 2 to 3 days to beat it and it was about 10 to 11 hours long. This would be a bigger issue if the story weren’t so well-paced and interesting. The only other complaint I have about the game is that there isn’t much replay value besides great character development and an entertaining story written by Alex Garland who wrote the screenplay for 28 Days Later and books like The Coma. Sadly, there are no costumes or different scenarios or anything. I would have loved to see Pigsy make it out alive, rather than knowing that he died in the end of the story. The only other little complaint I had is that I wished Trip was more than a dead weight with a few tricks up her sleeve.

Overall, if you haven’t played this, GO PLAY IT! It is a great game and is one of my favorite games of all time. It has a great story, believable characters, simple, but fun combat, and a great script. I say, go out and buy it, or play the demo and make the choice on your own. It’s a great game that leaves itself open for a sequel, and it rightfully deserves it. Maybe one day we will come back to this Enslaved world and see our two heroes again. Thanks for reading and see you all next time!

This game gets a 9 out of 10

Gladiator Special: Colosseum: Road to Freedom for the PS2 review

2011-04-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

What is with Roman or Greek gladiators these days? I mean, we have a lot of entertainment today based on the gladiator sports. For example, we have films and shows like Gladiator, 300, and Sparticus. One genre of entertainment however has also gotten this attention and that is the video game industry. I was surprised to see how many games were made based around the gladiator theme. They were mostly on the PS2 and Xbox, but I am going to look at the PS2 versions. The first game we are going to look at today in this Gladiator Special is the PS2 game published by Koei, Colosseum: Road to Freedom! I know that one of the first things you notice on the cover is the publisher’s name, Koei. This worried me since I was hoping I was not playing another game that was trying not to be Dynasty Warriors (the game series they are known for), but somehow ending up like Dynasty Warriors. I can’t tell you right now if it is a Dynasty Warrior’s knock-off, but you have to read on to find out. So, let’s put on a helmet and a sword for some reason, and review Colosseum: Road to Freedom!

The story for the game is dead simple, and not a lot of thought went into it. You are a captured prisoner trained to be a gladiator. Throughout the game, you have to go through multiple challenges and fight other people to win money in order to pay off your freedom. It is up to you to become a freeman in this horrible world of gladiators. Like I said, the story isn’t much and there isn’t really anything too interesting.

The gameplay featured in Colosseum is an action game with some RPG elements mixed into the game. The main thing to do is to train and level up your attributes, like agility, stamina, and strength. After training for a day, you can also go get some food to gain even more attribute points added to your overall stats. After the day you train, you are sent to different coliseums, like the famous Roman Coliseum, to go through multiple challenges. Before you take on the challenges, you have to put on armor and weapons. At first, all you get are simple dull weapons and helmets. Throughout the battles however, you will face enemies who wield stronger shields and weapons that you can pick up and take back with you outside the Coliseum. You can also sell old and weak weapons for cash to help pay for your freedom. During the fights, there are a few things to watch out for. The first thing is that you don’t lose too much stamina. If you do lose a lot of stamina, that means your body gets tired after doing a charged attack and is open to the enemy’s assault. The second thing is to make sure you dodge, and don’t get your items knocked off you. The third and final is that you survive and not get killed. If you do get killed, you have to give up half of your cash to restart outside the Coliseum. The challenges range from staying alive, killing a certain amount of enemies, killing the general, and taking on special challenges against certain gladiators. A falcon up in the corner represents the different parts of your body that you must be careful not to get into the red. You can also use tablets that give you different attacks, and upgrade them depending on how many points are in that certain attribute. It doesn’t make a lot of sense typing it so you have to play it for yourself.

The graphics, while nothing special and are considered bland, look good by today’s gaming. It might not be as good looking as God of War 2 or Ratchet and Clank Up your Arsenal, but it holds up well. The opening cut scene definitely is the best-looking thing about this game. The voice acting is okay, but if you have played another Koei game, Bladestorm, then you would know that the voice acting is basically the same caliber. It doesn’t sound right at times and seems a little awkward. The music is, well, not that good. It definitely isn’t the game’s strong point and I think this is a budget title game.

I guess I have already started on the bad points, so let me continue with them in this paragraph. The combat is just awful. How can a gladiator game have horrible combat? Well, it mostly has to do with the controls. Since each of the face buttons are an attack, it makes the combat stiff and awkward. It definitely makes the game very hard to play when you are going against 2 or 3 enemies. The difficulty is also a bit unfair, since a lot of the time, enemies are really guard-happy. It isn’t as bad as Alter Echo, but it is still pretty bad. The enemies can also hit harder once you go up one rank. It’s also annoying, since like I said, if you die, you have to give up your hard earned cash. It’s just tedious when you have to fight against 20 gladiators in a row. The game also gets tediously repetitious, since the challenges don’t really change and it can get extremely boring after a few hours. I think one of my bigger nit picks about this game is that you can’t take every weapon that you gain from the enemies. This is annoying, since when you have to fight against 20 enemies in one of the challenges, they drop a lot of good items and you can’t simply just pick them up and store them in a bag or something. It’s irritating and it isn’t that fun. It is like they wanted to be realistic with the combat, but it just backfires on this game. At least this isn’t another Dynasty Warrior game that Koei just pushes into our face.

Okay, so I got good news and bad news, the good news is that there are way better Gladiator-themed games out on the PS2 and other consoles. The bad news is that this game just sucks. It has clunky controls, stiff combat, a tedious difficulty, and is overall just boring. It is just a bad game. I wouldn’t say it belongs on the blacklist since there are worse games that do deserve to be destroyed, but this game is probably only good for a weekend and then stored away. Stay tuned for more reviews and another Gladiator game.

This game gets a solid 5 out of 10

Ratchet and Clank series part 4: Ratchet Deadlocked for the PS2

2011-04-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am going to be honest here, I lied about the next game in the Ratchet and Clank Retrospective being the Playstation 3 sequel, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Believe me, I was ready to move onto the next group of Ratchet and Clank games. However, something was nagging at me. I was done with the main PS2 games, but something was telling me there was one more. I knew what game was nagging me, but it isn’t considered to be part of the main series. It is interesting since it does have references from the last game, but is radically different than the last 3 games. In my books, I think that’s a good thing! While I enjoyed the third game in the series on the PS2, I felt it was pretty safe. Like I said in that review, I enjoyed the third game, but felt it was safe. Now, we move onto this game, definitely the black sheep of the games, but certainly a great game in the series. The game I am reviewing today is the 4^th game in the series, Ratchet Deadlocked! The first thing you notice about this game is that Clank isn’t even in the title, which is odd since he was in the past games. This time however, you are ONLY Ratchet. What is even more odd is that this game is more combat-oriented, and has very little, if no puzzle-solving at all. Let’s dive into this odd experience, and review Ratchet Deadlocked!

The main story is kind of like Gladiator. One day, Ratchet, Clank, and Al are on the space ship, the Phoenix, from the last game. They get a call about a well-known space hero who was killed in an illegal fighting show called Dread-Zone. As they are getting the news about the person behind the fighting show, they themselves get kidnapped to compete in Dread-Zone. Lucky for them, in a way, Ratchet is the only one made to fight. Clank is in charge of giving Ratchet advice and missions, while Al upgrades Ratchet’s new robot friends. It is up to Ratchet to fight through multiple rounds and tournaments to move up the ranks and fight the number 1 Dread-Zone fighter and escape with all of the other heroes who have been kidnapped to fight in Dread-Zone. The story is definitely darker than usual and, well, I like that. I think the Ratchet and Clank series has needed a dark story, and while it isn’t Castlevania Lords of Shadow-dark, it is definitely not your normal Ratchet and Clank story.

The gameplay is basically the normal stuff except with a lot missing to focus on one part of the gameplay, the running and gunning. The whole game is about traveling to different planets and blasting your way through hordes of enemies and bosses. There are no Clank levels, and barely ANY platforming, so that leaves room for you and your guns and blowing stuff up! You also get your weaponry sized down with only about 11 main weapons. The side weapons, like the grappling hook, return, but other inventions, like the hacking ray are only useable by this game’s secondary combat gimmick, the two robots. They act as the replacement for Clank, and actually help you out in battle. You can buy them upgrades to their weapons and armor so they can hit the enemies hard! They also help out with solving puzzles, which was always a tedious thing for me in the past games. In certain levels, the game will task you with getting into vehicles like a giant land walker, a jeep with a gun, and a ship to finish certain missions. Like I have said through this whole paragraph, this is basically the entire action parts of the past game put into one game.

The graphics definitely look better than the past 3 games. It has a darker look to everything, while still having its cartoon-like art style. The music isn’t anything special with it still sounding like a small Daft Punk cover band who decided to make their own music that sounds nice, but isn’t memorable to me anyways. The voice acting is still very top notch with the usual cast of David Kaye as Clank, James Arnold Taylor as Ratchet, and Chris Hatfield as Big Al returning as their original roles. We also get a new villain who is a slimy businessperson willing to make a dollar out of the death of actual heroes. His name is Gleeman Vox, who is voiced by Michael Bell. Michael Bell is famous for his role as Raziel from the Legacy of Kain series. This series might be touched upon in the future of my blog. He is also known for his roles in the Ratchet and Clank series as Dr. Nefarious’s butler, Lawrence, The Fear from Metal Gear Solid 3, and his back catalog of voice work is almost as big as Jim Cummings.

Now, it is time for the bad parts of the game to be shown. At first, I was happy with this new direction with the darker tone and more action-oriented combat, but later in the game, it just becomes repetitious. I say this since you only get a limited amount of guns that can easily be upgraded due to all of the gameplay being action-oriented. This was the nice thing about the Clank sections of the past game. I mean, I loved blowing stuff up, but after awhile it just got boring. Again, the multiplayer seems tacked on, and not a lot of thought given to it, besides the norm back then. The game is also easier than the last game with better-executed boss fights, which is nice, but also a little boring. You can easily go through the boss fights with just using every weapon on him until his health bar decreases.

All and all, Ratchet Deadlocked is definitely a good game, but it doesn’t have much to offer besides a lot of awesome run-and-gun moments, and a darker story with the same great humor. I would recommend it if you’re a fan of the series, and I would pay for about 10 dollars or so for it and not 20 or more. Now that I have all of the PS2 games done and out of the way, it is time to move onto the next gen console and a good progressive story.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

vote for 2 rpgs ( and update video for my video series and blog)

2011-04-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

object width="480" height="390">

i am doing something special for my blog. i am doing a multi part rpg review and i want you guys to vote on which 2 rpgs to review along the four i am already going to review ( all details are in the video)

Ratchet and Clank series part 3: Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal for the PS2

2011-04-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well then, here I am talking about ANOTHER Ratchet and Clank game. I seriously don’t know why I didn’t want to play this series at first. Maybe it was because, like the Jak and Daxter franchise, each year after the first game was released, they came out with a sequel. It’s like the Guitar Hero and Rockband ordeal we are dealing with right now. Now, I am not saying this series is bad. I mean, I have only played three of their games, though the first two don’t age that well in areas. The first was funny and had a lot of the series staples in voice acting and writing, but it felt underwhelming and tedious at times. The second game was definitely better, but got WAY too hard near the end of the game. So, here I am talking about the third game, Ratchet and Clank: Up your Arsenal! I don’t know if I am going to review Deadlock as part of this retrospective, but since we have a new game coming out this year called Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, I think I will talk about what I consider the best game of the PS2 games in the series. So, let’s blast our way through Ratchet and Clank: Up your Arsenal.

The story takes place at the home of our two main heroes Ratchet and Clank as they are watching television and come across a news report about Ratchet’s home planet being under attack by an alien group called Tyhrranoids. After taking the aliens out, they find out that an evil mad scientist robot thing named Dr. Nefarious is behind all this and it is up to Ratchet and Clank to team up with some old friends and take him down. The story is basically a cat-and-mouse chase to stop Dr. Nefarious that will give you a good amount of play time for your dollar.

The gameplay is yet again like the past two games with running, gunning, puzzle solving, and vehicle combat. You again control Ratchet who can use a huge arsenal of weapons like the Suck Cannon, Blitz Gun, Agents of Doom, Flux Rifle, Quack-o-Ray, Spitting Hydra, and the Shock Blaster. You can upgrade each gun by using it more and more, and the more you use it, the better it gets. My favorite has to be the Quack-o-Ray since you can turn enemies into ducks. It is just pure awesome sauce. The Clank sections are more or less the same with some mixing up going on, like going through a stage set as Clank to being inside a giant robot suit. Clank still has his little minions, but can also use a gun that shoots a banana that is used to solve puzzles with his one-eyed monkey sidekick. This is also the first game that has multiplayer where you can choose what you look like, and can play through typical multiplayer settings like Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Siege. It wasn’t anything mind-blowing back when this game was out, but since this was the first game to have multiplayer, it was pretty good. There is also more vehicle combat in this game. There are also a lot more missions in each level, where they get harder, but you can gain more bolts. One more thing I almost forgot to put in is that there are more Colosseum-like challenges with some tricky platforming mixed into it if you need to get more money for weapons and armor.

The graphics still hold up pretty well by today’s standards. You can say it looks just like Going Commando and, while yes it does look like the second game, it still looks nice. The enemies and characters have such nice animation that it gives them more personality. The music is also nice to listen to, but, in my opinion, is nothing special. The voice acting however is just awesome as usual. The usual two voice actors for Ratchet and Clank, James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye, do their typically good job and deliver cleverly written lines. However, the best new voice talent to come into this game voices the evil antagonist Dr. Nefarious, Armin Sherman. Now, just to put it on the record, I think Dr. Nefarious is one of the best villains of all time. I just love this villain. He isn’t an evil maniacal fiend (well, not fully). He, literally, just has a few screws loose that make him insanely funny and somewhat threatening. He is kind of like Ratigan from the Great Mouse Detective or Hades from Hercules, where he is funny to listen to but is threatening too, since he could snap at any moment and blow something up. He wouldn’t know what it would blow up, but he would blow something up. I think one of the things that makes him funny is that he will freeze up at times and have soap opera recordings play until his butler slaps him outside the head. The other thing is his butler Lawrence, voiced by Michael Bell, is just so nonchalant about his disrespect for Nefarious in such a calm monotone. These two just make the perfect villain duo because of how they work off each other. Insomniac definitely knew that they were doing when making these two villains.

However, there are some faults with this game that still haven’t been fixed much from past games, and they just annoy the heck out of me. The final boss fight with Dr. Nefarious is complete and utterly unfair! I mean seriously, here is how it goes down. You first fight Nefarious with some easily dodgeable attacks, and then he starts throwing these blue and black shock bomb things, which are pretty hard to see if you don’t watch carefully. After you use up half of your weapons to take down half of his health, he flies off and then you have to run through hordes of the toughest enemies in the game, and you can’t have any source or way of reloading all of your ammo for your guns, and very little health when you’re running through the field. You then fight him a second time, and his attacks are faster, and you’re forced to use other weapons that barely do anything. It makes it so much harder than it needs to be if you don’t get the best armor in the game. Good luck getting it though, because it’s like a million or so bolts. Again, the problem with this game is that everything is way too expensive still. They fixed it up a tiny bit, but still, it’s very annoying. Another thing I don’t like is that when you complete those stadium challenges, the prize money drops. This means it’s going to take forever if you are trying to gain every last bolt for the best weapons and armor. Some areas in the game are also way too tedious. A few examples is going through Quark’s secret HQ, the invasion on the main hub ship, and well, the final boss. Another thing that I think hurts this game by today’s standards is that it feels like not a lot has changed in the PS2 series of the games. I mean, it just builds upon and fixes the problems the past game had, but you still play very short areas with Clank and, I don’t know, something just didn’t feel right about the PS2 series of games as a whole to me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the second and third game, but I don’t know. I hear that the PS3 series of games is better, and I won’t do a review of Deadlock due to it not being considered a real part of the storyline.

Overall though, this is a good game, definitely one of the best on the PS2, and I would highly recommend checking it out and buying it along with the second game if you like it. I am definitely looking forward to reviewing the PS3 games since it actually has a progressive form, and from what I have seen, a good story. I am also excited about the new Ratchet and Clank All-4-One. Ratchet and Clank is definitely a good series of games and are all pretty solid. I say, check out the first three PS2 games, and then try out the PS3 games. I might have been a little rough on this game, but here is just a quick summary. First, game is okay, but doesn’t age well. The second game is also really good, but is really hard. The third PS2 game is also very good, but didn’t feel really different from the last two games. So, yeah, signing off and thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more of the Ratchet and Clank Retrospective for the first PS3 game in the series, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PS3, and more reviews here on Cam’s Eye View.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Vanquish for the PS3 and 360

2011-03-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Platinum Games has done very well for themselves. They have made two quality games that I have played, Madworld and Bayonetta. Of course, the person to thank for this new game that is now available is Shinji Mikami. Yes, the brilliant mind behind Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4, and you get the idea. He has had a lot time in the game industry, and his recent game caused some buzz. It’s a third person shooter that is futuristic and, wait… why is this causing buzz? Oh yeah, because it’s Vanquish, a third person shooter that adds the amazing and for some reason, untapped ability to dash. I mean, granted, you have seen Gears of War, where you can run like heck to cover. I mean the only third person shooter that I thoroughly enjoy is Uncharted 2, but I’m not saying Gears of War is a bad game. I even played the first game on the PC and thought it was good. However, I am more interested in this game since it has some pretty good potential for fast-paced and tactical shooting. So, let’s dash our way through the muck of shooters and see why we should care for Vanquish.

The main story is that the big bad Russians are pissed at us for some reason, and have decided to mess with us by blowing up San Francisco. You play as Sam, a soldier from DARPA, also known as Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. You join the armed forces that are going against the Russians, and save the Earth! I am going to cut to the chase and say that if you haven’t played this game already, you shouldn’t take this story seriously. The story in the game is like a cliché sci-fi action movie and acts just like one, with last minute twists near the end, and stereotypes through the roof. So yeah, don’t set your expectations too high or else I’ll have to smack you with a Red Snapper.

The gameplay is a sci-fi third person bullet hell shooter. The controls are basically the same as other shooters that use cover base combat, and have the camera set to the right of the character like Army of Two, Gears of War, and other games in this genre. The main gimmick of this game is that you can unleash your jet boosters in your suit to dash in dashing speed around the area, resulting in some very fast paced combat. There are no people to worry about or slow-paced walks to the finish line. If you don’t become fast in the fight, you will die, a lot. You can also dash into enemies and use a rather powerful offensive move, like doing a jump kick into a giant robot or using powerful punches to beat the tar out of little enemies. Throughout the game, you can upgrade your weapons, like a shotgun, a disc-shooting/chainsaw gun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, and assault rifle to become more powerful and have more ammo. The gun variety is, well, typical. You can also hijack enemy walkers and unleash chaos on the enemy side. During the fast paced dashing moments, you can also slow down time to hit multiple targets if you’re good. The dash and the slow-down moments do, however, make your armor overheat, and if you were ever a PC gamer, you know how fast it can overheat. You have to be careful how you use everything. During certain moments in boss fights, you go through quick-time events, ranging from launching a missile back at a giant robot to going through an intense sword fight with a Russian prototype suit that your character uses. After beating the game, you can go through a challenge arena where you try to survive as long as you can against hoards of enemies. In a way, this is a fast paced tactical shooter, since you have to be careful what you do or else you will have an early grave.

The graphics are polished and look nice. I mean, this is the same company who brought us Bayonetta the same year this game was released. (Well, Bayonetta was released in 2009 in Japan and 2010 in America). The animation on everyone and the little bits of moving armor is amazingly detailed. This is definitely a very well polished game. The music is also very Devil May Cry and Bayonetta-style with fast paced and intense music playing throughout the battles. The voice acting is okay with the only real person worth noting is Steve Blum, who, I swear, voices two characters that sound the same.

This leads me to the bad parts of the game. The voice acting is bad. I mean, it isn’t horrible by any means, but considering the two big names attached to this game, Shinji Mikami and Atsushi Inaba could have pulled more strings to get a better English voice director. However, the worst offense of this game is that it’s incredibly short. Due to the fast paced combat and the super dashing ability of your battle suit, this game becomes about 4 hours long. 4 HOURS?! Why is it that every shooter these days has a freaking 4-hour campaign? This is what seriously makes me ticked off at shooters and the reason I don’t play a lot of them. They always have very short campaigns, and depending on what franchise you choose, usually relies on multiplayer that is either great or, well, average. There is another thing I don’t like about the game; there is NO multiplayer. You think the two big guys behind Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and Godhand could make a shooter that would have been better than most shooter franchises today! I am serious here, what the heck?! I mean, I like the fast paced combat, but if this shooter can’t be longer than other shooters, then what the heck is there to come back to?! There is very little replay value here.

Even with all of the glaring issues, Vanquish is a great game that is extremely fast and fun. You will definitely have fun within the 4-hour campaign and repetitious boss fights. Like I said, this isn’t a bad game by any means, but it’s just disappointing, and people who are praising this game, like naming it Game of the Year and giving it 9 out of 10’s, are extremely biased. I would only recommend spending 15 dollars on this game at the max, due to the lack of replay value and the length of the game. Hopefully, Platinum Games can make a sequel that is longer, but not dragged out. It’s kind of disappointing if you look past the big name producer and director and the fast pace gameplay. This has officially gotten my most disappointing good game of 2010 award.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow for the PS3 and 360

2011-03-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

So, what can you say about Castlevania as a series? Well, it definitely has its memorable moments in history, like having some of the hardest games of all time, reinventing itself with a new gameplay style on the PS1, and having some rough areas in its career by going 3D. It falls into the mold of having a bumpy, but good history of games. When I was growing up as a gamer, my taste really didn’t lean towards Castlevania, due to the high difficulty of the early games and the Metroid-style gameplay in the later games. I guess you can say this series is definitely an acquired taste, but I know a lot of people like the series, which is fine with me. In 2008, I saw a trailer for a game called Lords of Shadow. It looked interesting, but somewhat familiar, with the whole flame whip to Castlevania. At E3 2009, Konami then finally revealed that Lords of Shadow was turning into Castlevania Lords of Shadow. I was stoked. It looked amazing, it sounded amazing with the narration being mostly done by famous actor Patrick Stewart. We didn’t get a lot of info after that, which sucked, since I really wanted to know more about the game. I then read some info, finding out that it was going to be a revamp of the series. At E3 2010, we FINALLY got some more info about the game, and actually got to see a demo of it. Sadly, I had to wait, but I enjoyed the demo. Then, I preordered the Limited Edition version for my PS3. A few days later, I got it and now I am ready to review it. I know it’s been awhile since the game was launched, but I wanted this game to be special since I really do love this game. Yeah, it has some rough areas, but what game isn’t like that? Either way, this isn’t a game that should be skipped. As a revamp goes, it is a very good one. Let’s dive into the dark catacombs of Castlevania Lords of Shadow.

The story of this revamped number in the franchise starts us in the year 1047. The Lords of Shadow have made the land unbearable with nightmarish creatures all over the land, taking lives and in some cases, turning them into one of their own. In comes our main character, Gabriel Belmont. He is part of the Brotherhood of Light, and he travels across the land to find and defeat the Lords of Shadow to find the Mask of the Gods in order to bring back his deceased wife. While this is all happening, the story takes some pretty dark tones, like, is Gabriel doing the right thing? Are Patrick Stewart’s character’s good intentions actually good? Did Gabriel actually kill the people he does in the game? It is definitely a much darker-toned story, and I like that. I might not have played every single Castlevania, but from reading and watching walk-throughs, the stories can be a little silly, and well, not that good in my opinion. I think a darker tone was needed in the series, and boy, was it dark. The ending isn’t really happy, either.

The gameplay featured in Lords of Shadow is a hack-and-slash action adventure game where you use your main weapon, the Battle Cross, as a whip to take out multiple kinds of creatures throughout the game. Yeah, the gameplay can be a little bit like God of War, but people who keep comparing it to like this, just SHUT UP! See, here is my argument, which basically makes your argument pointless. The argument goes like this, “ Oh, Castlevania Lords of Shadow is copying God of War, oh, wait, God of War is copying Rygar, oh, wait, Rygar is copying Devil May Cry, oh, wait, Devil May Cry is copying Soul Reaver, oh, wait, Soul Reaver is copying the old-fashioned Castlevania games!” See? Other games will take parts of popular games in that genre and implement them with their own mechanics, so just stop with this whole “ oh, he is copying that game and such”. Anyways, back to the game. You can use the Combat Cross to do multiple things with upgrades you gain throughout the game, like a piece to use as a grappling hook, a metal steak for vampires, and the chain just having more attack power. There are four side weapons in the game, the first are daggers that are used as your basic throwing weapon, the second are fairies that can be used as decoys so you can focus on certain enemies and distract others, and the third is holy water that is thrown at an arc and does a small explosion. The final weapon is a purple crystal that can be used to get rid of a ton of enemies or severely damage a boss, but is the hardest to obtain, so keep it for boss fights. During the game, you will find relics, like the boots from Cornell, to ram and dash across the ground, the gauntlet from the Dark Knight to smash walls and push objects, and the wings from Carmilla to give you an extra boost to your jump. The other main gimmick of the game is the light and shadow magic you can use in combination with the secondary weapons, relics, and your Combat Cross. Light magic will heal your health for each successful attack landed. Shadow magic increases your attack power. The magic system will become required to beat some enemies and bosses faster, and definitely comes in full swing during the final few boss fights. Another main part of the game are the titan fights! There are sadly only three of them, but they are probably some of my favorite parts of the game. Just treat these fights like you would when playing Shadow of the Colossus.

The graphics for Castlevania Lords of Shadows are outstanding, and it is definitely one of the best looking games from 2010. I just love the whole dark gothic look of the game, and it truly feels like a Castlevania game with mostly dark areas, and creepy looking monsters and just an overall grim atmosphere when going through the 20 plus hours of gameplay. One example of how great the detail is, is when you are riding on top of a giant spider to solve some of the puzzles within the game and you can see that the abdomen actually looks like an animal skull, and that is just awesome detail work. I also love how well the cut scenes are executed. I mean, yeah, some can be a little long, like the one before the final boss fight, but there are some that just have a lot of charm to them, like the first time you meet the fallen god, Pan. The scene with him and Gabriel is just incredible, and in my humble opinion, is one of the best in the game. The voice acting is just amazing with everyone sounding perfectly to his or her character. It is no wonder, also, with such a huge cast of actors playing the roles. The list includes Robert Carlyle, Natasha McEchone, Aleksandar Mikic, Patrick Stewart (awesome!), Grace Vance, Richard Ridings, Emma Ferguson, Eve Karpf, Adrian Schiller, Jason Sampson, Sally Knyvette, and Jason Isaacs. A big name cast with great voice acting. The titan fights are some of my favorite boss fights of all time. Yeah, you can say they ARE taken from the style of boss fights of Shadow of the Colossus, but really, who cares? They’re loads of fun, even if they can be a little frustrating at times. The challenge seems right, since I didn’t feel overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the challenge in the game. I also like the ending of the game. It’s delightfully dark and is a change of pace of “ oh, you save the princess! Ay, super happy fun!” Well, it isn’t happy, it’s depressing.

Before I move onto the bad parts of the game, I want to just say this quick little comment about people saying, “ Oh, it’s not Castlevania”. Just shut it! I am sick of people saying it isn’t truly Castlevania. Yes, it was originally meant to be just Lords of Shadows, but I think it was smart to make it a Castlevania game. It is also interesting that it was going to be a Castlevania game all along, but Konami didn’t want to overshadow their other 3D Castlevania game, Castlevania Judgment (even though Judgment sucked). I mean, yeah, it doesn’t have the Metroid-style exploration, and doesn’t have all the stuff you nitpicky people want in a Castlevania game. It’s supposed to be a revamp! This means that they take things, like characters, and redo everything about the game and mix it with new elements. This will not be deducting the score I give for this game.

Now then, let’s talk about the bad parts of this wonderful game. I felt like the camera control was a little weird, since it was taking the whole God of War approach. It doesn’t work sometimes due to enemies being out of your sight, but I never had a lot of issues with the camera. Another thing I didn’t like is that there was no map. Granted, the game is really linear, but sometimes I did by accident backtrack to the beginning of the level. My only really big complaint is with the final boss fight. It’s not that it’s “ Oh, I’m fighting Satan and not Dracula”, it’s more along the line of the first part being really tedious. That’s because there are multiple rings that have shadow and light magic in them. You have to keep swapping between the light and dark magic, and if you don’t time it right, you get launched backwards, and then you have to go through that process over and over again. One complaint I will agree with some people is that if you don’t finish off bosses correctly, that they regain energy. It is tedious at times, yes, but like I said, I didn’t have this issue of annoyance most of the time. I actually have one more complaint about the game; there are ONLY 3 titan fights! I wish there were more of them! Like I said, the titan fights are some of my favorite boss fights and I just wish they had more than just three of them.

So, this is my review of Castlevania Lords of Shadow. I loved it. The story is dark and well told, the gameplay is fun and challenging, the voice acting is top notch, and it has fun replay value since you can re-go through ANY level of the game. Yes, it takes elements from other games for its own use, but it does it well. It’s like saying Uncharted 2 is not original, but it does take common elements like Castlevania Lords of Shadow and really makes it work. I say, if you are looking for a great action game then I say buy Castlevania Lords of Shadow and its limited edition form since you get a cool art book and a CD with the soundtrack. Was it game of the year? No. Was it action game of the year? It could have been, but all I know is this is one of my favorite games of all time.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

NIER for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-03-08T09:29:00.001-08:00

Have you ever played a game that wasn’t a classic, but could have been? Like almost everything works, but a lot of things get in the way? We kind of have a lot of those games this last year, haven’t we? We had games like Dark Void, Alpha Protocol, Final Fantasy 13, Army of Two: the 40^th Day, Spiderman Shattered Dimensions, and other games from the past year. What happens? Is it time? Is it the budget? No one really knows, but we all knew that they could have been great games. A very good example of this was an RPG coming out from Square Enix known as Nier. It doesn’t seem like this was Square Enix’s year was it? I mean, Final Fantasy 13 isn’t a bad game from what I hear, but it’s not what fans want. That is why I’m not touching it. However, I was looking forward to Nier, but sadly, it falls into the “almost works” category. Now, let’s get near - well, Nier, and take a look.

The main story revolves around one of the oldest protagonists in the game industry name Nier, who lives with his daughter, Yonah. Yonah, sadly, has a severe illness that could possibly kill her. While searching for a cure, Nier runs into a magical book named Grimoire Weiss. Since Nier is in a world being tormented by evil beings called Shades, Nier has no way around this situation, but to stop the Shades to cure his daughter’s illness. After teaming up with the scantly clad female swordsman Kaine, and the powerful mage Emil, they set off the save the world. The story, while slow throughout the game, definitely has a lot of good moments, in my opinion, with some pretty emotional scenes that made me feel moved and attached to the game. Like I said though, it’s slow so I hope you have a lot of time on your hands.

The gameplay in Nier is more along the lines of an action RPG. You only control Nier, but can give simplistic commands to your two teammates. Nier can equip two-handed swords, spears, and one-handed swords, but I would stick to the one-handed swords, since wielding a two-handed sword is asking for an early grave. The whole game is kind of set up like a Zelda game, but without the polished areas like Zelda has. I’ll explain later. Nier can also use the power of Grimoire to use multiple magic spells, like making lances, giant fists, and rapid fire beams of magic at the enemy, but most of the time, only one or two spells really work out through the entire game. You can also do multiple side quests for the villagers, like getting letters, slaying animals, slaying animals for food, and getting food for people. The game can take 20 to 25 hours to beat, so you are looking at a lot of playtime in this game. During different parts of the game, the gameplay changes a little. One time you’re going through a level like an old-fashioned 2D action game, and then you’re going through a level like Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. It definitely has a lot of variety.

The whole look of the game is nice with creative monster designs and main character designs giving a lot of variety. Granted, the enemies usually look like something from Twilight Princess, but overall, they are not bad looking. The landscapes are somewhat beautiful to look at. One of the high points, though, has to be the music and voice acting. Takafumi Nishimura composes the music and the vocals are voiced by Emi Evans, who does a wonderful job with the music. It’s all very fun to listen to and sounds pretty good. Voice acting isn’t half bad with voice talent from Jamieson Price, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, and Julie Ann Taylor who usually do a good job with the lines they are given. I also like the small bits of humor they throw into the game. I think one of the weirdest things here about this game is how long it has stuck to me. Sometimes, after playing different games, they don’t usually leave an imprint on my mind or anything, but NIER is different. I think out of this past year, it is one of the top 10 games that has been stuck in my mind after playing it.

Sadly, this game has a lot of rough areas. Like I said, the look of Nier is somewhat beautiful, if it was released in 2007, but now in 2011, it is pretty dated. It is not PS2 quality, but it looks like PS3 and 360 launch titles. I think the visuals could have been better if this game had been released years earlier. However, there are a lot of bland and flat textures, and for some reason during cut scenes there are bars on the top and bottom of the screen that are distracting. The controls feel stiff and wonky. They don’t really get in the way until the end of the game where it’s crucial to have perfect platforming and running controls. This will cause many gamers to get frustrated and annoyed. The side quests are basically pointless and repetitious with 99 percent of the side quests being the same thing every time. While I like the humor of the game, it kind of detracts from the main story, which gets lost at times. My final complaint is that when being released here, the in-game character Nier is actually different from the Japanese version. The Japanese version is much younger and looks like someone from Final Fantasy. What is the point of that? I mean, would we really think differently if the character were 22? I don’t mind the older Nier, but it just puzzles me sometimes, looking at the two side to side. I have read that it’s due to a relationship thing of Yonah with the US version being the father and the Japanese version being the older brother to Yonah instead of the father. Why would they do this? It sounds like they had a big budget but used half of it to make the two separate games.

So, that is my review of Nier. What is my final conclusion? Well, out of all the disappointing games of 2010, next to the new Spiderman game, this one has the least amount of disappointment. It almost works. The character designs are not that bad, the voice acting and the music is pretty good, and the story has some pretty dark turns and is overall enjoyable. While that is said, this game does have some pretty rough edges and just hits the line on underrated gem and above average game. It’s a little bit of both, and it is definitely worth checking out since this was the last game made by Nier’s developers, Cavia. I just wish there would be a sequel, since it definitely has much more potential than other games I have played in 2010. However, this is a new year, and I still have a lot of games to go through.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

Under the Skin for the Playstation 2 review

2011-03-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, I must apologize right now for saying that Chulip was the weirdest game I have ever played. Now, I won’t hang or electrocute myself for my screw-up, but I will tell you guys about a very unknown video game made by Capcom. I will warn you though that there are not enough therapists in the world to solve what mental problem this game has. So then, I guess you’re wondering what game I am talking about? It’s a chaotic mental case of a game simply known as Under the Skin for the PS2. This little gem of a game is basically yet another over-the-top weird Japanese game that somehow got past the psyche screen. There are not enough medical pills to cure what kind of madness this game brings onto our mental stability. Let’s dive into this mental case of a game, and see what makes it tick.

The story of Under the Skin is about a blue alien named Cosmi, who is traveling to earth in a ritual that he must do to become a great warrior. He accidentally crashes into a satellite and lands on earth. His goal on the planet is to cause as much chaos and mischief as possible. It’s a cute little story, but it seemed like not a lot of work went into it, but I’ll talk about it later.

The gameplay in Under the Skin is hard to explain. It says on Wikipedia that it’s an action adventure game, but it’s more along the lines of stealth, action, and mini-games mixed together. There are about 8 levels, and some of them share the same goal, like collect 500 on your own or with another alien, get more coins than the other alien, team up to take down Nemesis from the Resident Evil game, and others. The main goal is to pretty much collect coins. The way you do this is to take a human disguise and use multiple array of weapons to get coins from the humans, like rocket launchers, elephants, pins, bowling balls, T-rex, laser guns, shotguns, hula hoops, and you get the idea. There are a lot of weapons you can use, and you somewhat have to be tactical on how you tackle each level. There is also a multiplayer mode and a co-op mode where you can do a lot of what you did in the single player. You can also choose different aliens after you beat them in the single player mode. You have to be careful though; if you’re hit once, your human disguise loses its clothes, leaving the human in its undies, and if you’re hit again, you turn back into an alien and lose some coins. You then must scan another human and make it your disguise. Some levels also have threats, like fast cars, gunman, thieves, and alien-tracking robots.

The graphics in the game are very bright and colorful and everyone has a cartoonish look. The areas are small so you won’t get lost. However, even if the areas are small, large hazards like the cars, elephants, grim reapers, and etc make it easier for you to get hit by them. The music is, while not memorable, really wacky and crazy. It definitely has a rather unique art style, which kind of reminds me of Costume Quest, and Wind Waker since it has that unique cel-shaded look. The aliens also have unique designs that are different throughout each level. The humor, while out of my age limit, is rather cute and it is funny to see people fly around when you hit them with a boxing glove and when they all panic.

There are however, a lot of glaring problems with this game that wouldn’t pass if it were released today. The game is really and I mean REALLY short! You thought Kane and Lynch 2 and Vanquish were short, it took me two and a half hours to beat Under the Skin’s single player mode. That would not fly today. It just annoys me at how short this game was. This game also came from Capcom, so I feel a little betrayed they would do this. Two-and-a-half hours are more like a 4-dollar DLC game. I also don’t like how repetitious the single player mode is and how simple and weak the story is. It’s like no thought, besides the opening and ending, were put into the story. I just hate how games of today think they can make a 3 to 6 hour campaign and just focus on multiplayer. Stop doing this, game developers! JUST STOP DOING IT! I mean seriously, I might have grown up with the N64 and into the modern days of gaming, but there are still things in the modern day game industry that piss me off! Make a worthwhile story mode and focus on multiplayer only if you have made a good story and worthwhile single player, which this game fails on both accounts of story and multiplayer. There just isn’t enough substance to make this a full price tag buy. There is just nothing memorable about this game! This seems like a game you would give a video game school as an assignment to see how you could make it better or something.

This game is a mess, and there is nothing memorable or noteworthy about it. The levels and missions are repetitious, the story is half-baked, it’s way too short, and it just gets everything wrong besides a decent graphical presentation and just a really weird premise with cameos from the Resident Evil franchise. If you like this kind of weird crazy Japanese style game, then I could easily say yes, but for everyone else, just don’t go buy it. I mean if you were to buy it, just don’t pay 10 bucks for it. Now, it definitely isn’t black list worthy, but it almost falls in that area. The only reason I would recommend checking out this game is if you have some time to kill before the next big release or you just want to play a really bizarre game.

This game gets a 4 out of 10

Prince of Persia Retrospective part 2: Prince of Persia 2008 for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-02-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

Hey, guys. Welcome back to Prince of Persia Retrospective part 2! Now, if you guys read the first part, then you know what I am going to review next. If you haven’t read the first part of this retrospective, then here is a short version. Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time was an okay game in my opinion. I thought the combat was tedious and platforming overly difficult, but it was worth a rent to see what the big deal was back in 2003. However, it is time to move on and play a different game. I decided to skip the two sequels and move on to the Prince’s first HD appearance in the 2008 Prince of Persia! I remember when people saw the new art style, everyone was overreacting and freaking out wondering what had happened. It turns out that, in my humble opinion, it’s a better game than the 2003 game, though it does have its faults, and I will get to them later in this review. So, let’s get into part 2 and review Prince of Persia.

The main story of this game stars our hero, the Prince, as he wanders through a desert looking for a camel that has a king’s worth in gold on it. While he looks for the camel that probably is dead from the weight and the heat of the sun, he meets a princess running from some guards. After some more running, they run into the princess’s father inside the Temple of Light where the father then releases a powerful dark god. It is up to the prince and the princess to restore the sacred areas of the land and take down the dark god. So, yeah, it’s basically “ I’m a guy who is normal but is thrown into an impossible mission that I probably won’t survive”, but it works for who the Prince is.

The gameplay featured in Prince of Persia is mixed with intense swordplay along with some very creative Prince of Persia platforming. The main platforming comes in the form of wall-crawling, ring-grabbing, walking on ceilings, jumping on poles, and running faster all over buildings in the specific area. In each section of the world, one of four bosses resonates in each area, and you must defeat them to restore the area, kind of like Okami in a way. After you purify each area, you have to collect light seeds to gain access to special powers, like launching yourself from one pad to another, to getting the ability to run up walls and ceilings without needing to use rings or vines to grasp on to. The sword combat in my opinion is much MUCH better. This time you can pull off more offensive combos with the help of the princess who can stun enemies to where you can use your acrobatic sword skills to take down enemies. The final main gimmick I have to tell you all about is the infinite continues you can get if you mess up. Each time you miscalculate a jump or do something bad, you can always get a helping hand as the princess will pull you back up and put you a few feet away from the area you died in. It is a much more direct approach to combat, and the execution of the game, instead of making it all acrobatic like the last game.

The graphics are purely beautiful. Granted, some areas look a little repetitive as you walk through them, but the moments when you restore sacred areas just look amazing. The animation of the Prince also looks really good in some areas, like when he climbs upon the ceiling, he looks realistic, but in real life, you would be dead if you did that. The voice acting is, again, hit and miss, but the company definitely upgraded by kicking the last person who did the Prince’s voice out the window and bringing in Nolan North, who you guys all know as Nathan Drake from Uncharted. He does A LOT better on this role than the last guy. Everyone else is pretty hit and miss, but it’s good overall. The music is also nice since the same composer of the last Prince of Persia game I reviewed is back doing this game’s musical score that sounds really good.

However, it does have some major faults, which could either make you buy or rent the game. While the platforming is fun, you could easily get lost and go the wrong way, and it takes a while to get back to the area you started at. That is another thing that bugs me; it takes forever to get to point B from point A. While finding light seeds is required to progress through the game, it gets boring REALLY fast. It just gets repetitious since, later in the game, you will need to find every single little light seed to get the new powers. It’s the same kind of collecting issue as in the Ratchet and Clank series and the early Spyro games. It also doesn’t help that platforming takes over fighting 90% of the game, meaning that battles will not be consistent throughout the game. I also kind of wish puzzle-solving aspects were kept out of the game since some of the puzzles are just overly tedious in some areas of the game. I also find the dialogue to fit somewhat, but most of the time, the lines are cheesy

Overall though, what are my thoughts on this game? While some areas don’t age as well from three years ago, it is definitely a better game than the Sands of Time. I say, rent it if you haven’t played it yet, or buy it if you like this franchise. I just wish they continued with this art style instead of going back to the old style like with the most recent games in the franchise. That’s right, I said games with an ‘s’ at the end! Stay tuned for more reviews and a special two-part finale to the Prince of Persia Retrospective!

This game gets a solid 8 out of 10

Modnation Racers for the PS3 review

2011-02-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

Who here likes Little Big Planet? I know I do! I love that game so much. Great graphics, great platforming, and an overall great package that is a good reason to buy a PS3. Though what do you get if you take the simple version of Little Big Planet’s creation formula and combine it with Mario Kart-style gameplay and those mighty mug doll things? Well then, you get one unique package of a game known as Mod Nation Racers for the PS3! Although it isn’t as amazingly creative or as polished as Little Big Planet or Mario Kart, Mod Nation Racers holds up on its own as a great and fun racing game where you can create your own character and tracks. It definitely isn’t in the top 10 PS3 games, but it is definitely in the top 20. So, let’s create a character and drive our way through Mod Nation Racers on the PS3.

Unlike a lot of racing games, this one actually has a story, but its simple so I won’t talk too much about it. The story is about a young driver named Tag as he dreams to be the best racer. He signs up and goes through 5 different tours to win the gold. There isn’t much as of story and there are some predictable outcomes and twists, but it does have some memorable characters. I warn you though, don’t expect a deep story for this racing game

Like I said, the gameplay is a racing game. It’s more along the line of Little Big Planet and Mario Kart combined into one. You get the Mario Kart-style racing with item uses and the size of the karts. The Little Big Planet parts come in with the Mod creator and level creator. You can design your own Mod and your own kart and get more pieces by winning races and completing specific challenges within the race. You also get the usual kind of online play as you can race up to 12 people. You can also play with up to 4 people in split-screen action. The challenges within the races are usually like get multiple points by drifting or spinning and even hitting opponents. The main gimmick, which seems to be a common gimmick now in racers is drifting. Drifting is the only way to gain boost in your boost meter. You will need to master this if you want to get through later races. Like I said above, there are 5 tours that you need to go through and you either need to be in third, second, or first to continue on in the tours. They usually have about 5 to 7 races.

While not the most graphically accomplished game on the PS3, since God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 cover that territory, I can safely say that it is a very good-looking game. It definitely has its own charm with the people looking like those Mighty Mug figures in motion. While there isn’t much story, the voice acting is pretty good. The conversations that the two announcers have get you through the story pretty well, and are fun to listen to at times. The music is also fun to listen to with some cool songs through certain levels. I also like that there is a hub world that you can share your creations with. You can easily kill a few hours just driving around in the hub world. I should know, I did.

However, if you thought I didn’t have anything bad about to say this game, well you-are-WRONG! I actually have a rather big list of faults that this game has. Number 1, the load times. These load times are awful, since it seems like it takes forever to load the levels and it just gets tedious when you don’t want to race and want to go to the hub world and etc. Number 2, the AI is overly aggressive midway through the game and to the end also. This has to be one of the most unbalanced racing games I have ever played in my life. This isn’t like the rubber banding like in Mario Kart, oh no. The AI in this game will do anything to make you screw up! Number 3, the AI is trigger-happy. This has happened A LOT throughout the game for me. I am in first place and I am driving my merry way through the final lap way ahead of the opponents and then BAM! A squad of missiles or something hits me and then 6 racers pass me. I mean it happens A LOT more so than it should. Number 4! Poor design flaws in the tracks. Sometimes when I am racing it seems like the tracks themselves are not fully polished. Not that they look bad or anything, but I feel like I could have made it through the game easier if there weren’t certain obstacles, or better designed roads to ride on. I had to restart like 45 to 50 times because I fell off a cliff or into the water because I made one wrong turn or didn’t drift at the right moment. Finally, we got number 5, unforgiving gameplay. This is basically an issue of all of the above problems. If you mess up once, it always seems like the game won’t give you any time to recover. You fall off a cliff, 7 racers pass you. You get shot, 5 racers pass you. You don’t land correctly after being thrown in the air, you’re stuck on the other side of the road and all racers pass you. My final complaint however is the unbalanced online multiplayer. It always felt strange since it was like I was working at a disadvantage for some reason; it’s hard to explain. I felt like a lot of this game could have been polished more, but that is just me.

So, that is my review of Mod Nation Racers. While it is definitely a flawed game that should have been more polished instead of trying to release it by a certain time, they should have saved it for the fall. I would be lying though if I said I didn’t have fun with the game. It is definitely a good kart racer, but like I said, it needs some work done on it. I say for now, rent it, but if you are hardcore about your racing, then yeah I would be glad to tell you to get it, but for little kids and for people like myself, I don’t see any reason for them to get it. Just go get a PSN card instead and go buy Joe Danger, which is more polished and more fun, in my opinion. Like I said, it’s definitely one of the better PS3 games, but it definitely isn’t top 10 material.

This game gets a 7 out of 10

Metroid: Other M for the Wii review

2011-02-09T20:36:00.000-08:00

I have to be honest with you all, there are some franchises that I just don’t get, sometimes. I don’t see why people want to be thugs and sleep with hookers in Grand Theft Auto, but I have heard that the stories and characters are good, so I don’t hate it as much as I used to, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t like other franchises for some odd reasons. For example, I don’t get the Metroid series. I can understand the action and exploration, but it doesn’t seem right to keep pushing the gamer to see Samus without the armor. Yes, she is hotter than any woman ever, but it isn’t like she’s naked under there. That’s all going to change since I decided to rent and try out, Metroid: Other M! Yes, I am finally going to try out a Metroid game since I am sick and tired of not playing one for some reason or another. However, I did have my doubts at first since Team Ninja (people who made Ninja Gaiden) was doing a co-op thing with Nintendo. My first thoughts came up like “ Oh dear, this is going to be frustratingly Ninja Gaiden hard”, but I will look past that and give an honest review of this game. Well, as honest as I can be. I also want to give a heads-up to everyone that I will not and I mean WILL NOT review the prime series. I don’t like the games in that series and I’ll explain later in this review.

The main story of Metroid: Other M takes place after Super Metroid, as Samus returns to tell the Federation that Mother Brain and the space pirates are all gone. Months later, Samus is out in space when she picks up a tracking signal of an unknown ship known as the bottleship. As she takes a look around, she finds out that a group of Galactic Federation soldiers are on the ship also. Of course, like any sci-fi flick, it turns out that the abandoned space ship has quite a few secrets up its sleeves. It is up to Samus to stop whatever is happening. The story has a lot of unexpected twists throughout the narrative, which is told by Samus, by the way. I also want to get this opinion out of the way. I DON’T CARE IF SAMUS TALKS! It seems like everyone moans and groans about Samus talking a lot about her past and such. To be honest, I think the criticism is very overblown. I think it’s actually nice that she has some character development. I don’t really look too deep into these things, but I think people who complain about this feature in the game needs to take a chill pill. If you look at Samus from the past, she is BLAND! She basically had no character back then. She was just a chick with a gun. Either way, like I said, I like it. Let’s move onto gameplay.

The gameplay featured in Metroid: Other M is a mix between the normal action platforming, and mixing it up with item searching, backtracking, and first person shooting. The main portion of the game is seen from a third person perspective, like God of War, as you traverse the giant ship, looking for new power-ups like more missiles, health, more recharge energy, and so forth. From time to time, you will be able to get new beams, and armor abilities like withstanding heat and the powers of gravity. The beams range from freezing enemies, to going through solid walls to hit enemies. There really isn’t anything new, but considering this is Team Ninja’s first Metroid title to make, I think they wanted it to play a little safe to see what people thought. In certain areas, Samus will need to switch to first person to examine areas and launch missiles. It’s not used often, and isn’t much of a gimmick in the game. You can also do quick takedown moves to take out enemies’ quickly, since enemies do get tougher.

The graphics are very sharp for the Wii. Everything looks pretty good. Granted, some areas look a little “meh”, but it’s an overall nice package. A lot of time and money went into the well-done CG cut scenes. They are elaborate and well made. There are also certain areas of the game that use a very creative camera position, which gives the game a very cinematic-like feel. Metroid: Other M is more on the line of a story focused game rather than just pure action, and I like that. I think a lot of people need to get used to seeing some franchises change, like Metroid. When I first saw that Metroid was going 3D and saw that it was going to be first person, I thought it was going to be horrible. I think the reason why I don’t like it is that Metroid is a very explore-heavy game, and it just seemed way too complicated to do it in first person. I was right, and I don’t see the big deal with the Prime games, though that is just my opinion. The music for the game is very well done with some pretty good tracks and some remixed versions of old tracks. The composer of this game is named Kuniaki Haishima, who composed music for animes like Blue Gender, Alien Nine, and Neo Ranga, along with live action shows like Kamen Rider Kabuto. The voice acting is pretty good also. While some lines can go on a little longer than they should, it’s a pretty good script.

Now, it is time to talk about the bad parts of this game. While I like the idea of the controls being set up like an NES, they feel awkward at times. Sometimes, I kind of wish that the controls were set up on the Classic Controller Pro, since it would make dodging enemies and shooting them down A LOT easier. I also think the game should have been more linear, in my opinion, since it seems like backtracking is sent in ONLY to lengthen the game. It just seems pointless since all I am doing is backtracking through the same area. I also found some of the bosses in the game to be overly tedious, like the fight against the Queen Metroid, and the multiple, and I mean multiple, encounters with this prehistoric shrimp-like monster who uses its tusks to block attacks. I can’t count how many times I died because of some cheap hit from a boss.

All and all, this is definitely in the top 20 best Wii games list with a fun story, good gameplay, solid graphics, and an overall enjoyable experience. Even with its flaws, I still recommend it for you to check out. Will this be a sign for me to try out other Metroid games in the future? Maybe not, but at least I spent a few days with an interesting game.

This game gets an 8 out of 10.

DLC Domination part 5: Lara Croft: The Guardian of Light for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-02-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

What can you say about famous female video game protagonist Lara Croft? Well, I mean, besides her curvy Angelina Jolie figure, the ability to look hot while shooting two guns, and her ever lovin’ hobby of tomb raiding. She definitely has had a long career since her games during the PS1 and Saturn days. However, it seems like recently she hasn’t been doing so well, since it seems like every game just got worse and worse after the PS1 era. What happened? She was one of the first female protagonists that made women more than Princesses in distress. Now she is known as the game series that has poor camera placement among other mess-ups. It’s weird because you think they would have revamped it early on since a main criticism was the camera set-up in her game. It seemed like she needed to retire, put up her two guns, and just stay as a nostalgic look at females in gaming. That changes now, however, with the recent smash hit Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light! Finally, Crystal Dynamics did something different by changing up everything about the game. It’s still platforming-puzzle-solving goodness, but it’s more on the line of an arcade style game. This definitely caught everyone by surprise, and well, this is the first Tomb Raider I ever played, so let’s dive into the light with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light!

The story starts out with our loveable Lara getting into another situation with a mystical artifact and some evil gang wanting to get it first. Thankfully, they cut through the crap and have the mystical artifact summon a powerful demon wizard guy named Xolotl. The demon then kills the bad guys and is about to kill Lara, but the guardian of light, Totec, awakens and joins up with Lara to save the world from Xolotl’s evil plans. I’m going to have to agree with mainstream reviewers, and say that this game’s story is very weak and basically had about 5 pages of script, total. Though like Super Mario Galaxy 2, the story doesn’t really matter since it doesn’t get in the way of the pure sweet sensation of the gameplay.

The gameplay in the Guardian of Light is in the form of games like the 3D Gauntlet arcade games where it’s done from an isometric view and not side-scrolling like Contra. You control Lara, and if you play with a friend you can control Totec the Guardian of Light. You go through multiple levels fighting off evil henchmen, demonic lizards, giants, giant spiders, and an evil sorcerer at the end. Oh, did I forget to mention you fight demonic dinosaurs? I don’t even need to explain the rest of the game since I just told you that you fight demonic T-Rexes, but this review would suck if it were this short, so let’s continue. The main weapons in the game are guns, but you also get to use a golden spear to impale enemies with and use to solve puzzles. There is also an offline and online multiplayer option. The game pretty much says, “Hey, play with a second player”. I think everyone can agree it’s more fun with two people since you can do stuff like stand on top of Totec’s shield to get to higher areas, or use Lara’s grappling hook to help Totec to get across the area. If you’re playing alone, you can use the spear to throw at the wall to make a makeshift platform for Lara to cross.

The graphics are amazing for a downloadable game. Just because it’s a downloadable game doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice presentation. There is a lot of detail everywhere, and everything just looks great. The puzzles and platforming are perfectly balanced. I say that since I never felt overwhelmed by a certain platforming section or a certain puzzle. Granted, I might have died a couple times solving some of them, but just like God of War 3, I never felt that specific areas of the game halted the game for me. The voice acting is good if a bit over the top sometimes, with Jim Cummings doing the voice for Totec, and of course, Kelley Hawes doing the voice for our lovely Lara Croft. Just to cover my tracks, I think the main villain overacts just a bit. While the music is reused from old Tomb Raider games, it still sounds nice and doesn’t overshadow the environment or what is happening in the game.

Now, this game isn’t without its flaws, but for a reboot of the franchise, it got a lot right. What is puzzling to me is that online co-op was never released for both consoles on the same date as the game’s release. It’s even more annoying since I got it on the PS3 and I STILL had to wait for the online co-op. Did they expect this? I mean, granted, I’m glad they are not giving us online co-op as DLC and putting a price on it. Of course, the most common criticism is the story, and yes, we all know it sucks because not a lot of emphasis or time was put into making it good, but the game is more of an arcade game than a full-fledged Tomb Raider game of old. This means that story isn’t going to be the main role here. The main role is the gameplay, which is perfect.

Like I said, the story is the weakest part, but the good definitely outweighs the bad by a landslide. This is a VERY good game, and I would highly recommend downloading it for your PS3 and 360. It sucks that PS3 owners have had to wait for online co-op, but if you have a 360, then you didn’t have to wait. This game is definitely worth the 15 dollar or 1200 point price tag. Thanks for reading, and hope to see you guys again!

This game gets an official 9 out of 10!

Jumping Flash for the PS1 review

2011-01-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

The Playstation was a great console, wasn’t it? I mean, it changed gaming as it brought in more adult-rated games. I don’t mean stuff like XXX stuff, but stuff that had cursing and more adult-oriented themes. We got stuff like the Hideo Kojima classic, Metal Gear Solid. We also got one of the MOST OVERRATED games of all time, Final Fantasy 7, but to be fair, we did get the more awesome and amazing Final Fantasy 9. We also got horror classics like Resident Evil 1 that was then outdone by Resident Evil 2 and 3, and we got Konami’s other hit, Silent Hill. We also got other games from Capcom, like Dino Crisis and Rival School, though we did get some bad games like Street Fighter EX. There are games though, that are, in my opinion, underrated. We have Sol Divide, Star Gladiator, Devil Dice, Alundra, and classics like the first three Crash Bandicoot games, and the first three Spyro games, though there is one game series that I consider to be extremely underrated. I mean, even more underrated than Rival Schools. This series is simply known as Jumping Flash! This little series was very innovative, being one of the first 3D platforming series of games. Sadly, the greatness of Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 overshadowed this series. After that, 3D platforming games became something natural and it was hard for a series to stand out. This series disappeared, and only two of its games were released in the U.S. Oh well, now I can tell you people about this wonderful little series. Let’s get started with the first game released in 1995.

The story is light-hearted and shouldn’t really be taken seriously. An evil scientist named Baron Aloha, the first ever villain to wear a tacky Hawaii shirt is taking apart planets to make his own little paradises. Since taking apart actually planets can doom the planets themselves, Universal City Hall decides to stop this villain’s plan to make multiple resorts, by sending out a giant machine named Robbit (horrible pun!) to stop evil Baron Aloha and save the worlds along with stopping Aloha and his evil ways. This is definitely a video game story aimed for kids, but it’s a simple story, so don’t take it so seriously.

The gameplay featured in Jumping Flash is a first person platformer, taking the popular jumping mechanics of Mario, and combining them with a first person view, kind of like Mirror’s Edge, but not real life physics, and it has a rabbit robot. The main goal in each level is to find four rocket packs that are shaped like carrots, and then find your way to the exit. It is kind of like Wai Wai World where you need to find an imprisoned character, and then you free it and have to make your way back to the beginning. Your main form of movement is, of course, running, but it is a lot more fun jumping super-high from place to place. You can perform two jumps at one time that is shown by a meter on the right side of the screen. You usually have about 9 minutes to get all four rocket packs before losing a life. You can also shoot lasers, but it’s more effective to jump on the enemies. You can gain secondary weapons like super bombs, multi rockets, and other unusual weapons.

The graphics, while horrible like Star Fox for the SNES, hold up somewhat and still have a charm. There is just something about playing a platformer through a first person view that makes looking at the level you’re in with a new perspective. The people behind this fun series are known as Exact. They haven’t really done much since they published only a few games, but they are famous for making the Ghost in the Shell game for the Playstation, which has gotten good reviews. The music is very cheerful and fun to listen to. I still remember some of the first songs from the first level. The boss fights are also fun and creative.

However, the game does have some faults. Just like games like Rival Schools, Soul Blade, and Medievil use the directional pad instead of a analog stick, Jumping Flash has the same issue with “not stiff” controls, but it’s hard to make your character move around smoothly. I also find it odd since you can jump higher than Superman, where you need to go through levels when you are inside a building. It gets very tedious, and the sequel has the same issue, but that’s for another day. While the boss fights are fun and creative, I sometimes didn’t know what I needed to do and had to look it up. I also don’t like the saving system. You can only save what level you are in, but you will have to redo the levels if you turn off your game. My final complaint is how the controls are set up. It uses the same style of button layouts as in the Japanese version where you have to press the circle instead of the X button to accept anything. It becomes confusing and annoying.

Overall, Jumping Flash is a fun and wonderful early Playstation game that you shouldn’t pass up. I have seen it on the cheap side, but you can easily get it on the PSN for 6 dollars, so going to your local video store is pointless unless you’re a collector. I now have the sequel and am currently playing the game right now. Thanks for reading!

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Yakuza Retrospective part 1: Yakuza for the PS2 review

2011-01-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

Oh, Sega, how you have fallen. You used to be so great, but now you’re just making money, publishing other companies’ great works like Platinum Game’s Madworld and Bayonetta. It doesn’t help when you have released junk after junk after junk. Admittedly, you did release that Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing, which was fun and all, but it doesn’t help when you are the guys who made Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006 and the two Iron Man video games, which are considered to be utterly pointless and utter garbage. I’m not even adding all the other horrible Sonic games you have made that ripped off more popular games. Why not change things up a bit and work on a different franchise for once, and not rely on horrible Sonic games or the already released Sonic 4 and Sonic Colors that you guys released for the Wii? However, I am glad that Sonic Colors has done well. Why not dump him as your mascot and use a different franchise as your flagship series? Well, I’ve got one franchise you can use as your flagship series, Yakuza. Often seen as Sega’s answer to GTA, the Yakuza series is a well-designed series that is very popular in Japan and has a good fan base here in the states. Ladies and gentlemen, this is my retrospective on the famous Yakuza series. Just a heads up, I will only be doing a review of the three games that have come here in America, so no Yakuza spin-off game or Yakuza 4 (yet). Let’s start with the first game, Yakuza, for the PS2.

The story of Yakuza puts us in the shoes of a high-ranking member of the Tojo clan, Kazuma Kiryu, one of the coolest and toughest men around. He finds out that his friend and Yakuza brother, Nishiki, murdered the leader of his division. However, Kazuma, for some reason, takes the hit and is sent to jail for 10 years. He is punished by being expelled from the Tojo clan, and basically his life is in the gutter. After getting released from prison, Kazuma sets out on getting revenge and learning about 10 billion yen being stolen. Kazuma must find out why Nishiki did this to him and find out where the 10 billion yen has gone. It’s a great story, but granted, it is slow-paced, but I think it’s better if it moves slowly since you need to get the feel for everything that the game has to offer. It might start out slowly in your opinion, but if you just get through the first few chapters, then you will get the feel and the groove of the game. Let’s get to gameplay.

The game play is a mix between free roaming sandbox combined with beat em’ up action, some RPG elements, and some mini-games added into the mix. The main part of the game is to get info on where you need to go, walk from point A to point B, and break some skulls when you get there, or from in between. It’s funny, since for some reason, Kasuma manages to annoy everyone for no good reason, and you enter in random battles. Yes, I said it, a beat em’ up with random battles. You basically fight a group of normal people or gang members and get some experience and money. It’s hilarious since sometimes when you run into people they are asking you for money, and then when you beat them like silly putty, they give you like 200 grand. It’s funny. There are also some unique areas like one where you are riding in a car doing a third person rail-shooting-like ordeal. You will also have the option to go through some mini-games, like going to hostess bars, playing those crane games, baseball, and taking some side quests like guard duty or making your own Yakuza family. You can also equip yourself with weapons that you can use to fight enemies, but they only have limited amounts of time they can be used, kind of like the Axe from Animal Crossing or the to be more accurate, the weapons you use in Dead Rising. Kazuma can also equip items to increase defenses, like a bulletproof vest and what not. While not a deep fighting system, you will learn an array of moves that you can use against enemies. You also have a blue meter that rises when you hurt enemies, and you can pull off cool super moves or finisher moves, depending on how much health is left on the opponent or what item you are using.

The graphics are very good, in my opinion. This is during the time when people were using the Playstation 2 to its full potential, and this is one of those games. It gives off a vibe that you would get if you were watching a Japanese film with unique shading and lighting and different camera angles. The music, while it seems like it gets repetitive at times, is overall pretty good, with 5 composers making the soundtrack for the game. It also uses the song, Amazing Grace, by John Newton in the credits, which is nice. A lot of the characters here, while some play minor roles, are pretty likeable, I think.

However, there are some things that are not that well implemented in Yakuza, and I am going to tell you what. While the fighting works well, and the controls are good for most of the time, they should have put in a lock-on system since it gets annoying when you fight faster enemies. The dash moves could have also been better implemented since it’s awkward trying to dodge faster attacks later in the game. The voice acting isn’t that good. It’s like no one cared what they were doing, and even with the talents of Mark Hamill it doesn’t help. Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the voice actors in the game, but they just don’t do a good job. Sega could have easily gone cheap and just use the Japanese dub and English subtitles like the later games.

All and all, even with the game’s faults Yakuza is still a good game. Granted, some areas won’t age well, but overall it’s a must rent if you want to check out the beginning of the series, though now I need to check out the rest of the series. Check in for more reviews and more of the Yakuza retrospective on camseyeview.blogspot.com.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

3D Dot game Heroes for the PS3 review

2011-01-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes, Legend of Zelda, the first game in the long running Nintendo franchise to appear on the NES and still considered a classic. It had an open-ended world, great music, fun gameplay. Then, Link to the Past came out, and it was awesome and was the number 1 game for the SNES 5 years running. It’s hard to beat that. Then we also have games like Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Ages, Four Sword Adventure, Phantom Hour Glass, Spirit Tracks, and the Minish Cap that kept the top-down perspective and are really good games. However, today we are not talking about Zelda. You might be asking, “ Then why did I take up minutes of your time and nostalgia talking about Zelda when I am not reviewing a Zelda game?” Well, before I answer that, let me just say you won’t get those minutes back, though I will say that we will be talking about a game that took the Zelda formula and slapped it on a different console. No, I am not talking about Legendary Axe or Final Fantasy Adventure. No, this is much more recent. The Zelda formula this time was put on a PS3, and called 3D Dot Game Heroes! While you can say it isn’t an original game, I think it has a pretty original concept being a parody of the old NES and SNES adventure games of the time. It definitely stands out as a game that deserves to be in the top 20 PS3 games. Well, maybe in the top 10 for me personally. So let’s dive into a 2D world that’s gone 3D, and review 3D Dot Game Heroes.

The main story in 3D Dot Game Heroes takes place in a fictional 8-bit world called Dotnia. It tells of an evil being that was sealed away by a brave hero in the past. Fast forward years later, and the king has finally had it with being 8-bit, and decides to go 3D 8-bit! It’s hard to explain. When all of Dotnia was turned into 3D, the evil being was released. Seems like they forgot to lock the jail door or something as he now plagues the land of Dotnia. It is up to a lone hero to get all 6 sages and fight the evil being and lock him away once and for all! It’s a basic story that doesn’t take itself seriously, so just like Deathspank, you shouldn’t take it seriously either.

The gameplay in this game takes the form of action adventure games like Zelda, Final Fantasy Adventure, Legendary Axe, but mostly Zelda. You go around finding swords, solving simple puzzles from the 8-bit days of action adventure games, fight giant bosses, and find unique items to help get through the huge overworld. Of course, with games like A Link to the Past, there are side quests to be completed so you can get more health or weapons. Another thing to note is when you have perfect health, your sword is huge, and depending on which ones you get, can pierce through walls and do a spin attack faster. You can also go to the blacksmith in certain towns, and upgrade your sword’s size and length. Another main form of attack is the magic you get after meeting each sage, but it is kind of overshadowed by the main hero’s huge sword. I’ll let you come up with a sex joke for yourself with that last message. The final thing I need to mention is that you can create your own hero or choose from a selection of already made characters.

The graphics are really unique. Everything is made with little squares or called bits. When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING is made of tiny blocks. Even the water is made of little blocks and it definitely looks like an NES game with a 3D face-lift. The creature design is clever and some even look like they were taken right from an 8-bit Zelda game. I also like the heavy amount of game references that you see in the game. It gives the game a comedic edge. I bet you that old gamers can find a lot of references and find them really funny. Like I said, you shouldn’t take this game’s story seriously, kind of like Deathspank. The music is also well done with some pretty catchy tunes mixed with bleeps and bloops to give it a very unique feel, but it does get repetitious so be prepared. I also like how everyone’s movements are like two frames of animation, which reminds me of games like Zelda. The game is right in the middle of difficulty, but I’ll talk more about it in the paragraph below.

It’s time now to talk about the bad parts of this game. While I said the difficulty is in the middle, sometimes the game can be downright tedious. I know the main point of adventure games is to talk to EVERYONE, but it’s hard since the text is too small unless you have an HD television, or else you won’t know what they need you to do. I also find the attack movements of the main hero limited. I know it’s supposed to be a tribute to old games and such, but it makes the game a tiny bit more difficult than it should be. I also find it annoying that even though you can save anytime, I recommend you save inside a village inn or else you will start right back in the middle of the overworld. My final complaint comes from a common one I have with a lot of games that everything is way too expensive, and you don’t get that much money unless you slay a boss. I don’t like it where the first game in the series has items that are way too expensive to get.

Overall though, 3D Dot Game Heroes is a wonderful PS3 game that I would recommend to ANYONE who has a PS3 or the love for old-fashioned action adventure games. I say, if you want to buy it, wait for it to go down in price then pick it up, but in the meantime, rent it and play it for yourself. It’s really fun to play, and I enjoyed my time with the game. Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

Red Dead Redemption for the PS3 and 360 review

2011-01-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have wanted to see a lot of western films. I want to see films like Tombstone, Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, that one awesome Samurai Jack episode parodying that last film I mentioned, and you get the idea. I have also been wanting to play some western-set games like Samurai Western, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, and even a game I am currently playing called Wild Arms. Overall though, I want to play a really good western game. I am still currently playing Wild Guns, so don’t email me about that game. I also wanted to find a copy of Sunset Riders for the SNES, but there is one game from Rockstar that has gotten critical acclaim and I have actually been looking forward to reviewing it. What is that game? GRAND THEFT AUTO 4! No, I’m kidding. It’s Red Dead Redemption. That is right, people. I am actually going to play a Rockstar game. Don’t get your hopes up since I don’t really care much for Grand Theft Auto series, but I just like the idea of a free-roaming open world set in the Wild West. I mean, who didn’t want to be a cowboy when they were a young kid? It was like one of the big fantasies next to being a cop and a firefighter. Heck, sometimes I dream of being in those stand-offs and then wake up right when I hit the guy with a bullet. So, let’s put on our ten-gallon hats, get on our horse and ride into Red Dead Redemption!

The main story centers around bounty hunter John Marston who is sent to New Austin to kill members of his old gang he used to be a part of. If he doesn’t, the government will never release his wife and son back to him. This story is unique, since it’s like watching a marathon of western films all in one game. Granted, the beginning can be a bit sluggish in pace, but once you get going, the game sets you in an interesting world with great and memorable characters.

The gameplay is of a third person sandbox game that stretches through New Austin to Mexico, as you ride around stopping robberies, saving civilians, taking down bounties, skinning animals, playing poker, shooting down powerful men, and doing anything you want. Like I said, this is a Rockstar game, so this will give you A LOT to do since it will take about 30 hours or even more to do everything. John Marston’s main forms of attack are multiple varieties of guns, like a sniper rifle, rifle, handgun, and shotgun, to name a few. You can hoof it through the entire game by foot, but it’s more fun to grab yourself a horse and ride around. Sometimes, you will be able to ride on carriages to either get to locations or to defend people. On your down time outside the main missions, you can do multiple side quests like I listed above. You can collect bounties, play a lot of gambling games, or just take care of random encounters. You can also kill or capture animals to skin them and sell the meat and fur to shops to buy items and more guns. While gun fighting, you can slow down time and choose multiple targets and then shoot them all down like they were nothing! Outside of the main game, you can go online and do mostly the same stuff you can do in the main game, but with more people, like multiplayer poker, horse racing, shootouts, and liar’s dice. You will be getting a lot of playtime that is worth the price tag.

The graphics are pretty impressive with everything getting a lot of detail and shine. There are a lot of funny little glitches from time to time, and they are fun to find also. The voice acting is top notch as everyone sounds like they are supposed to, with not a lot of hiccups in the script. I also like the animation on everyone since it looks like everyone was motion-captured, including some of the animals. Horse riding during the sunrise in the game is so much fun. I have good memories of just running through the sunrise on the back of your horse to get to your family. The music is also nice to listen to, like stuff you would hear in a western film with a few songs that are pretty cool to listen to when you’re in certain areas of the game.

This is a pretty good package with very few low points that I am going to address. One thing I just don’t like about the game is its pacing. It just seems rather slow, and I don’t mind it most of the time, but it’s a really REALLY long game, and it just seems like some points in the story could have been easily cut out, since in my opinion, some areas didn’t really progress the story that much. From my time of playing it, I thought it never ended. It goes like this 1. You go kill a bad guy, 2. You go kill another bad guy, 3. You think you’re going home, but you then are forced to kill the main leader of the bad guys, 4, You think you have finally beat the game, you see your family, but you still do work around the family farm. Does this game ever end? It does, but it just seems like there could have been some way to make the official ending where you meet up with the family. It’s a little overwhelming how long the story is, and I just wanted to get it done. It also doesn’t help that most missions are time-based, meaning you have to be there at a specific time to do that mission. It’s just tedious and, in my humble opinion, not that fun to wait around.

Well, there you have it. My review of Red Dead Redemption. It’s a good game with a lot of things going for it. You will definitely get major playtime for the price tag, so I say go get it unless they come up with a gold edition or something. Overall, it was really good and I wonder if there will be a sequel for this game. For the time being though, I won’t touch the game for a while. Thanks for reading and have a good day.

This game gets a solid 9 out of 10

New Years Special: DLC Domination part 4: Costume Quest for the PSN and Xboxlive review

2010-12-30T22:40:00.000-08:00

Hey, gamers, and welcome to my New Year’s Special here on Cam’s Eye View. I am not going to do something elaborate, like my back-to-back Batman Christmas Special, but I do have something for you boys and girls to get on the PSN and XboxLive that, well, isn’t holiday-based. I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but I kind of ran out of time, and I decided to do a special DLC Domination that was released in October, decided to keep it locked up for New Years. Don’t ask me why, but here is Costume Quest! The first downloadable title by Double Fine Productions is definitely ambitious. Yes, these are the creators of two of my favorite games of all time, Brutal Legend and Psychonaughts. It definitely has the Double Fine feel with a creative premise and smart humor, but does it fully deliver as their first downloadable title? Get your noisemakers out and put in your favorite holiday movie and get ready for my New Year’s Special of Costume Quest.

Costume Quest stars two twins named Reynold and Wren who are new to the neighborhood they moved into. Their parents suggest they use Trick-or-Treating to make new friends in the suburbs, and the player can choose to play either kid. The only thing that changes is the starting costume. Reynold is a robot and Wren is a unicorn. While trick-or-treating, one of the kids gets kidnapped by a sweet tooth monster, and it is up to one of the kids to save the other, along with two other kids, using the power of their costumes to fight evil and save the holiday! It’s a creative idea and it’s a game made for kids so don’t take it too seriously.

The gameplay featured in Costume Quest often feels like a homage to old RPG-style games, like Final Fantasy and, more importantly, Earthbound. You travel along a couple of areas from the neighborhood, the mall, to a village in the countryside, collecting candy and completing side quests like bobbing for apples and finding kids who are hiding in the levels. The main goal is to stop at every place that has lights on and knock on the door. Some result in people giving you candy, and some result in a random encounter. When you encounter enemies in battle, it switches to you transforming into whatever your costume is, like a robot, knight, spaceman, unicorn, Dracula, and you get the idea. Each suit mainly has different abilities, but some share the same abilities. The battle system is turn-based, but when you plan an attack, there is a timer, like pressing a specific button at a specific time. There is also a charge meter, where you can use a special attack depending on what costume you are wearing. There is also a timer when an enemy attacks, where you can take less damage if you press the button fast enough. There are no potions or phoenix-downs, so be prepared to watch the screen for which button to press. The suits also have abilities outside of battles, like the robot suit will make you go faster, the knight will protect you from stuff falling from above, and the spaceman suit will light your way through dark areas. The suits are not so easy to find, since you need to search the levels for most of the stuff required to make specific suits. Don’t worry though; you can teleport to specific levels to finish some stuff that you might have missed. Oh, and one more thing, you can also sneak up behind enemies and whack them on the back of their heads, so in the beginning of the battle, they lose a bit of health, which is pretty cool.

The graphics for the game definitely get some extra points for charm, with a Wind Waker and Earthbound-style look that has a lot of charm. The music is also well done with creepy yet silly intense music for exploring the different areas on the game. The humor is also very funny and clever since this is Tim Schaeffer and Double Fine we are talking about, so it isn’t really a surprise that the lines are very funny.

Though this game isn’t perfect by all means, there are a few things this game has working against it. While the game is fun, it’s pretty short. I got through most of the game in a day and I also think it’s because of the easy difficulty. Granted, the timing during the battles can be challenging at times so I won’t blame the difficulty too much on the game. However, this game can get a little repetitious since you basically do the same thing every level with the only things that change are the bosses and enemies. I just wish this game was a little longer because I was really enjoying it, and in the end, is a bit overpriced since it cost 15 dollars to download this game. The issue could also be that it was aimed at kids, so it isn’t as time consuming as games like Final Fantasy 6 or again, Earthbound. I mean, I am all for making creative and fun kids games that are not shovelware that you can find on the Wii, but at least make them pretty long, like 10 to 12 hours. I think the other thing I would have liked to see in the game is a map. The places aren’t long, but when you are trying to find the last lit-up house, it can become a chore to find that one house since you don’t have a map.

Yes, the game is pretty gimmicky with its Halloween themes, and there are some small faults with the game, but I think it’s a really good downloadable game. It’s 15 dollars, but it is definitely a better buy than Blade Kitten and Deadliest Warrior: The Game. (Seriously. Who thought those two games had potential?). Either way, this is definitely another great title put out by the genius minds of Double Fine and I would recommend it fully for families or for Double Fine fans. Oh, and if anyone has a spare Earthbound copy, please send it to me.

This game gets an 8 out of 10

DLC Domination part 3: Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue for PSN and Xboxlive review

2010-12-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone! Welcome back to another episode of DLC DOMINATION! [Enter death metal song here]. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to the previous episode of DLC Domination to Deathspank, and it kicked [insert bad word here]! I mean, wow. Ron Gilbert made a great gem for the PS3 and 360 downloadable market, with awesome characters, great graphics, mindlessly fun gameplay, oh, and some of the best humor I have ever heard in a game. So, when I heard that there was a sequel coming out two months later, I was excited, but a little skeptical. I mean, I thought it was like, “ oh, umm so soon?” After doing some research, I found out that this game was being worked on during the same time as the first game, and now, we get one of the weirdest, but most awesome names of a sequel of all time. First off, it doesn’t have crazy ninja monkey pirates with jet packs, though that would have been awesome. Instead, we get a title simply called Deathspank Thongs of Virtue! Again, we have our vigilant silly-named hero Deathspank going after the mystical Thongs of Virtues that have made the land corrupt, and somehow Deathspank is pushed multiple centuries into the future. Then again, this is Ron Gilbert we are talking about so don’t be surprised, but oh my gosh, this game is awesome! It’s more on the line of Deathspank 2.0 with some added gameplay elements and more diverse quests, but we still get all the top tier humor and wit, like the last game. So, how much does this sequel rock? Well then, you will have to read on, fellow readers.

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue takes place literally right after the first game, and is still considered a “true story”. Deathspank was captured and put into a P.O.W camp and then escapes. He finds himself in the middle of a huge war where the humans are fighting against the most evil person that only Ron Gilbert could possibly come up with. He is simply known as Santa Claus! Deathspank decides to join up with the human army and help them by getting rid of the Bearers of the Thongs that get in his way, eventually killing the business world’s most marketable character (S.C.), who wants to do nothing else but take over the world! I guess all those years of being the Coke mascot gets to you. It’s a simply silly story, but it’s so epic in its own way, that it’s enjoyable.

The gameplay in Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue is basically the same style of Diablo gameplay, but with a few tweaks here and there. You still hold 4 weapons at once and can link up weapons to make combos. There is more emphasis put on long-range weapons like machine guns, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols, revolvers, bazookas, and multiple kinds of grenades. You can still carry around hand-held weapons like swords and axes, but the guns give the gameplay a little more variety. The guns do, however, run on ammo, so be careful not to waste them. There are also different side quests this time around, instead of just doing the same fetch quests like the last game. There are a lot of returning characters that bring their style of side quests back with them, like the cave explorer who is actually afraid of going into the cave. Some of the side quests include you helping tow rich tycoons outdo each other on how rich they are, putting up French flags, killing specific monsters that only pop up for that quest, and even one of my favorites, just leaving a hermit alone. Each quest has its own witty dialogue, and it’s really fun to listen to. There is still a co-op mode where you can play as two new characters along with the wizard from the last game. Expect a good challenge if you’re not vigilant enough, but don’t worry, it isn’t the hardest game in the world, just grind until you are happy.

The graphics still look pretty good, but are mostly the same as the last game since this was originally supposed to be one huge game, but got too big so it was split into two games like Sonic 3 and Knuckles. So, basically expect a mix of 3D and 2D stuff. The music is also the same, but it is still fun to listen to with my favorite song still being the start menu song when they show Deathspank continually running. The voice acting is also still great with new and old voice actors coming back to voice the characters in the game.

However, there are some bad things here that kind of annoy me with this game. The first and major problem is that there is a glitch in the game near the end where you need to kill Rudolph, but he never appears. Good luck if you saved your game after killing all the reindeer if Rudolph didn’t show up. This means you either have to save BEFORE taking the killer walking venison, or just restart the game, which by the way takes like 10 hours or more to beat. Hothead, have you fixed this yet? I really don’t want to be forced into replaying the game, even though it’s an awesome game. I also kind of wish they didn’t have to keep the ultimate armor the same as the last game, and just make it more modern, like the outfit at the start menu. I also wish they had added vehicle combat, like riding around in a tank. Think about it. Deathspank and all of his funny lines while riding a tank? Who wouldn’t want to see that? Maybe if we can get a new game in the series, we can see vehicle combat from time to time to break up the hand-to-hand combat and ammo buying.

All and all though, this is a really good game! I would recommend buying both games since it’s only 30 bucks total, basically half the price of newer titles. I just hope Hothead makes a patch for this game because it’s really good, and I hope that they can make Deathspank into a series. It is possible, since Ron Gilbert is the creator of Deathspank. I think it’s time now to take a break from the downloadable action game and play something different in the downloadable genre.

This game gets a 9 out of 10

Magic Pengel and the Quest for Color for the PS2

2010-12-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, everyone. I’ve got a mathematical equation for you all to solve with this next review. What is Pokemon plus the drawing ability from Okami plus rock paper scissors equal? If you said Graffiti Kingdom, then you would be somewhat right, but mostly wrong! I am actually talking about a very little known game from the PS2 library of games known as Magic Pengel: the Quest for Color for the PS2. Granted, Graffiti Kingdom is the sequel to this game, but I have actually seen that game, and while I don’t remember much, I heard a lot of people didn’t like it. However, I wanted to talk about this game first, since I just recently found out about it and wanted to give it a quick look. While it isn’t really a masterpiece of a game, and doesn’t really go in the underrated section of games, Magic Pengel is a worthwhile game to check out even with its small faults, though I can’t say what they are since you guys need to read the rest of this review to see for yourself. So, let’s dive into the colorful world of Magic Pengel.

The story starts off with a history lesson about how man and doodles used to live together in harmony, and how humans could create doodles. However, an evil king goes corrupt, something happens with the doodles, and now only pure-hearted people can create doodles. Skip to the future where a girl name Zoe lives with a young boy named Taro, who lives in a small town ruled by an evil king. It is up to you to bring freedom to the kingdom by creating doodles, and fighting other doodles through a tournament ala Pokemon Stadium. The story is well, very bland, and I never got pulled into it, but I will explain why later.

The gameplay featured in Magic Pengel is a mix between the Pokemon Stadium-style fighting, drawing from Mario Paint, mixed with a bit of RPG elements like leveling up and magic points. All you basically do is fight people who have doodles to fight against. Then, when you want to progress through the story, you go to the where the tournaments are being held, and fight people there. The gimmick here is instead of having fun little monsters that you have to capture, you have to draw them. There are three kinds of doodles that you can design. The first is basically the fighter, where he will have a stronger attack power than magic or blocking power. The second kind is of course blocking, which has different block moves. Of course, the final type is the magic type, where it has better magic attacks. Making monsters and what kind they are depend on the shape and colors used when you draw them. When you get into battles, the fighting system works like rock paper scissors system,-like fighting is stronger than shield, shield is stronger than magic, and magic is stronger than fighting. There is a fourth move called charge, which regains some of your health, but also makes your next attack stronger. After beating an opponent, you get different color gems to add to your color inventory. You can also go into town and trade the colors for money. Each time you win a tournament fight, you either get to create more on your doodle, or get another encyclopedia page for your book.

If you look at Magic Pengel by its presentation, then you know it doesn’t look that good. Everyone is really blocky and looks like an early Dreamcast game. However, if you look at its other elements, then it somewhat makes up for its bad presentation. Colors are bright and detailed, the music is calming, and all the doodles look unique, even if they look like something from a 5-year-old. It’s a nice innocent package that kids can easily get into.

Sadly, it’s time to draw, and then erase the bad parts of the game. The game is just flat out BORING! I say this since you’re stuck in one town, and you don’t go anywhere besides two different arenas for battles. It also gets repetitious, since all you do is just draw and fight, which gets boring. The story itself is so bland and boring, that I didn’t even want to finish the game. I played pretty far, but I just couldn’t stand it. The story also has a lot of plot holes, which is odd since it seems like EVERYONE in town, even the villains have doodles for battles, but it has been said that bad people with bad hearts can’t have the power to doodle. This game just had a shoestring-sized budget with the voice work since everyone doesn’t have a charming voice, and some people even sound older than they should. There are also a few issues with timing the voice work with the moving mouths. Sometimes, they speak two seconds BEFORE the sound kicks in and it’s just annoying. The final thing I have against this game is the battle system. Battles can become even more tedious and unevenly difficult because of the rock paper scissor-style fighting. This can lead to even the easiest opponents killing all of your doodles. That doesn’t feel right. Pokemon Stadium basically got it down, and owns the battle monster stadium ordeal, and this game doesn’t do justice to that classic.

However, even with its aggravating faults like a broken fighting system, horrible story, bad graphics, and just a boring experience, it’s a game at least worth your time for a few days. Granted, this might work for little kids, but I can see why not a lot of people remember or even know about this game. Still, check it out and see for yourself. You might like it, so by all means, do not just take my word for it. Thanks for reading and see you next week.

6 out of 10