[weasel]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
"You're lucky I like you. Otherwise you'd be dead already."

Genre: First-person action RPG
Developer: Bethesda
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: PC, XBox 360 (PC version reviewed)
ESRB: M (at least, it SHOULD be)
WSRS: Well, I can't say I disagree with the re-rating. T-rated games usually don't have bloodstains on the walls when you attack enemies. That alone bumps up the rating, but there's other factors as well - such as a book entitled "The Lusty Argonian Maid" (I'll let you just guess what that one's about).

Oblivion got the crap hyped out of it.

Usually when a game is hyped so much, I don't expect it to be much good - but at the time Oblivion was being hyped, I was in the middle of playing through Morrowind, so naturally I had high hopes for Oblivion. The only issue was that I was scared of how much system would be required to get a decent framerate out of it.

Now that it's out, and now that I have a super rig capable of playing it...here comes a review.

You start in a cell in the Imperial Prison. It's dark, it stinks, and there's a jerk in the cell opposite yours that hurls insults at you the moment you step up to the door. Then, out of nowhere, come Emperor Uriel Septim and his three bodyguards.

As it happens, there's a secret passage leading out of the city - and coincidentally, it leads through your cell. So you have little choice but to follow them out (because you're not going to be serving your time, that's for sure).

During the Daring Escape, the Emperor comes under attack by a bunch of assassins. He survives, but one of his bodyguards is killed in the process. This serves as your combat tutorial - take the guard's sword and fight stuff. As you progress through the underground tunnels, you are given a complete game tutorial. Well, almost complete. The game holds off on some information until you happen to get to the point that you need it (like lockpicking, alchemy, repairing, etc).

The entire prison escape sequence is actually a cleverly disguised personality test. Rather than ask you a series of questions like in the past 3 Elder Scrolls games, the game puts you through the prison escape sequence to gauge what skills and abilities would best suit you. Of course, you have the option of choosing (or creating) your own character class if you don't like the game's decision.

Once you get out of the prison, you're given Complete and Utter Freedom to romp about the lands of Cyrodiil and kill stuff, take quests, or do your own thing. There's no restrictions. There's even a complete line of quests geared toward evil, mass-murdering characters.

Though the game doesn't just drop you into the world without the first clue of where to go. You are given a single lead - shortly before the Emperor meets his demise, he gives you the Amulet of Kings and directs you toward a man called Jauffre. This initiates the game's main quest - to locate the Emperor's illegitimate heir, and ultimately seat him in the throne. This is vastly complicated by the fact that, with the emperor dead, there are gates to Oblivion (TES's rendition of Hell) popping up all over the place, spewing out Daedra and other nasty things.

Of course, this being a game about Freedom, you don't even have to partake in this quest - you can ignore it as long as you want, and nothing will ever happen.

The other quests can be just as compelling as the main quest. Some of the tasks given to you by other entities, such as the Fighters Guild, can lead you to some of the coolest quests in the game. Somewhere in the game is a concerned wife that asks you to find her husband, who happens to be a famous artist that has been trapped inside his own painting. There are lots of compelling quests in this game, and there's rarely a dull moment as far as the story is concerned. Some quests are even interconnected - you'll meet certain characters more than once. Sometimes they'll turn on you and try to kill you as you accomplish tasks for others. Sometimes, it'll be you that does the turncoating - upon locating a certain book and turning it in, you can optionally take another quest that involves you breaking in and stealing the book back.

Graphically, Oblivion must be the best looking game in the world. Just look at any of the game's various forests, towns, mountain areas, lakes, dungeons...everything is downright beautiful. Unfortunately, with this comes the price of hardware requirements - even on a Pentium D 3.0 GHz with 2 gigabyes of RAM and two GeForce 7900 GS's in SLI mode, the game occasionally has some performance hiccups. It only gets really bad in higher resolutions like 1280x1024, but there are still some stutters and pauses at resolutions as low as 800x600 (with maximum details applied, naturally). A Pentium 4 with a gig of ram and a single GeForce 6800 could probably manage the game at the lowest detail at a modest framerate.

The game's audio is also quite good - though of all the characters you meet in the game, there's only ever one voice actor per race - so all the Imperials sound the same as each other, all the Elves, the Khajiit and Argonians. While the acting is quite good (and lip-synced to boot), listening to the same Elven voice does tend to get a little old. Also, the music begins to grate on one's nerves when the game repeats the same few tracks over and over for each situation. I ended up turning the music off completely, but upon discovering that musical cues are the only way to tell if you're in combat, I turned it back on and replaced it all with music of my own selection (you'd be surprised how well the soundtrack to Fable fits here).

What remains of the game are a few minor interface gripes. I don't much like the new Journal interface. While the actual journal part and map are well done (and vastly improved over Morrowind's), I don't like the inventory system. Instead of Morrowind's grid-based inventory window, Oblivion uses a text list. Inventory clutter is a serious problem, so only being able to see eight items on screen at once can be very troubling. If you're playing the PC version, there are mods that change the inventory window back to a grid-based system, but it would be far better if one did not have to install a mod to get such functionality (and too bad for the XBox 360 owners).

On the whole, though, Oblivion is an excellent game. Providing you've got the hardware, I would immediately recommend picking it up. Just be warned of the system requirements.

9/10

[weasel]

Valkyrie Profile
"You think it's foolish, brother...because you're content with what you have!"

Genre: Action RPG
Developer: Square Enix
Platforms: PS1, PSP (PSP version reviewed)
ESRB: T - Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol
WSRS: Agreed, but I've never really seen why the ESRB puts "Use of Alcohol" with their descriptors...

The end of the world draws closer, and the Aesir are in dire need of more forces to help fight in Ragnarok. It is your task as Valkyrie, Chooser of the Slain, to seek out human souls on the verge of death and train them to become worthy of being heroes.

Valkyrie Profile is, initially, a very intimidating game - a very non-standard battle system, combined with a time limit, means that you won't necessarily "get it" on the first play. You might find yourself restarting the game a few times to ensure that you make the most of your time on Earth.

This game is notorious for having one of the longest introductions in the history of video gaming. Starting off with a rather long credit sequence, followed by Lenneth Valkyrie's assignment, and the first two human souls that you acquire; then a dungeon tutorial. None of this is skippable. Fortunately, however, there are a few save points in the middle.

VP's battle system is rather unique. Instead of having a menu with which to issue commands, you instead order your characters to attack by pushing their respective face button. Timing is the key - the order in which you push the buttons can make a big difference as far as damage is concerned. Later in the game, you also acquire weapons that allow characters to attack more than once per turn. Watching all four characters unleash large combo attacks at once is truly satisfying - but the best part is the Purify attacks.

As you attack, the Combo Meter is filled. If it reaches 100% in a single combo, without interruptions, you can order any character to use their finishing strike. These moves show off amazing displays of flashing lights that take quite a while to finish (and this was even before Final Fantasy VIII made such things truly popular).

Dungeons are also of interest - rather than presenting you with an overhead map, or a pre-rendered background in which you can move freely, VP's dungeons are side-scrolling. Valkyrie can run, jump, slash with her sword, climb ladders, and shoot ice crystals at the walls to serve as platforms. Making contact with an enemy sends you to a battle scene. If you make the first strike with Valkyrie's sword, then you are guaranteed the first strike in battle. Likewise, if you just run headlong into the enemy, there's a good chance that they'll catch you off guard in battle.

You won't always have the same stable of characters. As you train your Einherjar (spiritual warriors), the Aesir will have need of characters with certain skills. You can train your characters in such skills and then send them to Asgard to help fight the war. If you train them enough, they will succeed and gain ranks as gods. If you don't, they'll perish in battle, or worse, be made a fool of by the other gods. So it's up to you to make sure the Einherjar are worthy of becoming heroes - you must teach them skills, give them equipment and weaponry, and enhance their personality traits (because being a good fighter isn't much good if the likes of Thor and Loki don't like you).

VP is further added to by the fact that there are three different endings. The best ending can only be achieved if you're not playing on the easiest difficulty setting.

VP is, graphically, the best 2D game that the PS1 has to offer. I seriously want Konami to make a Castlevania game that looks this good. Sprites are extremely well animated, character portraits are just plain beautiful, and the backgrounds are very, very well done. The PSP version sports some additional CGI cutscenes for major events in the game, but the rest of the game is merely scaled up to fit the PSP's screen. If it wasn't for the bilinear filtering used on the screen, it would look rather poor by comparison to the original PS1 version.

On the audio front, we've got a positively rock-your-socks-off soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba (Tales series, Star Ocean, Shining Force 3) - featuring a wide variety of musical styles, from the slow and sappy to the fast and powerful. As expected, it's quite good. As for sound effects and voice acting, they're bearable for the most part - characters don't tend to get annoying, but there's clearly room for improvement, especially in the female characters. It's nowhere close to Star Ocean 2 - at least, I can manage to sit through the voices for several hours. If you happen to get sick of them, though, you can always mute them in the volume settings.

The differences between the two versions are rather negligible. The PS1 version has quicker load times, but the PSP version has a few extra CGI cutscenes and doesn't need to swap discs (since it all comes on a single UMD). Outside of the scaling, the PSP version looks just as good as the PS1 version, and the music sounds exactly the same as well (I'd have it no other way).

Valkyrie Profile is exceedingly rare as far as the PS1 version goes - a mint-condition copy can go for as much as $125 USD. Fortunately, Square Enix's PSP re-release is fairly common in stores, and is typically around $40 (a mere pittance compared to the PS1 version, but still a little spendy for a handheld game).

9/10 - A little intimidating at first, but this is quite a lot of fun.

[weasel]

Activision Anthology

Developer/Publisher: Take a wild guess
Genre: Retro Compilation
ESRB: E
Platform: PS2, GBA, XBox(?) - PS2 version reviewed

This is my first time buying a retro game compilation. I've rented them in the past, and have been mainly disappointed in most offerings (like Midway Arcade Treasures, which I hated because of its rather tinny FM emulation and fake low-res mode display).

Activision Anthology is a step above those. A small, child-sized step. On the wheelchair ramp.

The Anthology is a single disc that contains 30-some Activision classics. Some of them are games that you might have grown up with. Others may be new to you. Others still you may wish you never played in the first place. And then there's a few prototype games that were never released, outside of trade shows.

Activision has most of their bases covered. Their main classics, like Pitfall, Megamania, Pressure Cooker, Laser Blast, and Freeway are all here, along with some of the more forgettable ones like Boxing. All games come with their original boxes, instruction manuals, and cartridges - rendered in 3D for your viewing pleasure. Some games also have hidden TV commercials, patches (replicas of real jacket patches that you could win by taking a picture of your high score and sending it to Activision), and different display modes for the games. Thing is, though, outside of the commercials, there's little actual reward for playing these games. The patches look nifty and might bring back memories for those that may or may not have earned them in the past, and it is kind of satisfying to see "You've earned the high score on this game!", but in general there's little reason to play the games to death so you can get one more point.

The games themselves are emulated almost perfectly - "almost" meaning that there are some obvious flaws, the first of which is the screen resolution. The PS2 renders the games at 640x480 interlaced, which means that the image must be scaled up to be visible on the TV. The image isn't scaled up quite enough. On a standard-definition TV, there is a rather large black square surrounding the picture. On a wide screen TV, this is even more obvious. Heaven forbid you have an HDTV - that just makes it worse. There are no scaler options, not even bilinear filtering. There are, however, a bunch of really stupid special effects you can apply. Rotation. Cubes. Ripples. Y'know, dumb stuff that has no discernible use.

The presentation of the set does have the 80's vibe down to a tee, however. The disc comes with a bunch of music from all manner of 80's artists - Men Without Hats, Blondie, and Wall of Voodoo are among the artists represented. If you hate 80's music, you can turn it off. The game selection menu mimics a rack full of Atari 2600 games. There's a bulletin board on the wall where your patches are displayed.

The major flaw with the set, though (outside of the lack of any incentive to play, outside of nostalgia) is the controls. I understand that you pretty much have to emulate every switch on the 2600 to support all the features of each game. But they could do a better job of explaining the controls, especially in the case of paddle games like Kaboom. Sure, you can read the manual, but then it's a task of separating useful information from the fluff (like the games' backstories).

If you're an Atari nut, feel free to pick up the collection. It's about $4 used at most places that carry it. Or you can wait until Activision Hits Remixed hits the PSP, which is exactly the same thing except it's portable and it costs more (and they probably took the commercials out, too, but I'm not going to call them out on that because there's always YouTube). Otherwise, buy a better retro compliation, like pretty much any one of Capcom's.

5.5/10

[weasel]

Exit
"I'm stinky!"

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PSP
ESRB: E (Cartoon Violence)
Genre: Puzzle

Mr. ESC is an "escapologist" - a man who makes his living by rescuing people from disasters. It's his job to get into the disaster areas, locate all the survivors, and figure out a way to get them all the exit safely.

Exit is a unique side-scrolling puzzle game, where you control Mr. ESC as he attempts to rescue everybody and get out before his coffee gets cold. The play mechanics are similar to games like Prince of Persia or Flashback, with a notable absence of enemies - the only life-threatening hazards in this game are natural phenomena, like fires, floods, shocking floors, and long falls.

Mr. ESC is quite mobile, able to jump long gaps and climb most ledges. His companions are not as skillful as he is, though. Just because ESC can jump a gap with ease and bolt for the exit doesn't mean that the survivors will.

The companions come in three flavors - Young Adults (closest to Mr. ESC in physical fitness; can push boxes and climb ledges without assistance), Adults (heavy people - can push very large boxes without assistance, but need help climbing ledges) and Children (can jump very small gaps and need help climbing ledges, but can fit into spaces where Mr. ESC cannot). Mr. ESC's main goal is to get these people to the exit, but more often than not you'll need to take advantage of their abilities to ensure that everybody gets out safely.

In addition to controlling Mr. ESC, you can also give orders to your companions by using the analog nub and the Triangle button. This way, you can optimize the rescue effort by ordering a companion to pick up a fire extinguisher while you're pushing a crate, or whatever situation might come upon you. The command interface is fairly intuitive and doesn't require much explanation, though I wish it were possible to select multiple companions to perform the same action (like getting two Young Adults to help an Adult climb up a ledge).

Exit comes with 100 puzzles - 10 tutorial puzzles, 60 main puzzles, and 30 more that can be unlocked. It's also possible to download more via Wi-Fi. The puzzles can prove to be real brain-scratchers, while others are a test of timing (like getting companions across electrified floors).

If you want to try Exit before you buy it, you can always try out the Kangaeru Exit demo - it's actually for the sequel, and it's in Japanese, but there's surprisingly little text. It's barely an eight meg download and it'll at least give you a taste of what the game is like. The full version of Exit can be found for around $20 used. If you want to buy the sequel, that's about the same price at Play-Asia.

9/10

[weasel]

Phoenix Wright: Justice For All
a.k.a. "Gyakuten Saiban 2 DS"

Developer/Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Adventure
System: DS
ESRB: RP
WSRS: There's a little bit of blood (not quite as much as the first game), and a bit of language. Content-wise, PW2 has less objectionable content than the last game, making it a good candidate for an E10+ rating. Key quote: "You're lying, dammit! And I can prove it!" That's as bad as it gets.

Phoenix Wright - attorney at law. Undefeated in his five cases. With the assistance of his mentor, Mia Fey, Wright is a force to be reckoned with. And now he has four brand new cases to work through.

Like the last game, PW2 throws you directly into the courtroom. There is still a tutorial, which even if you've played PW1 before, will come in handy as it tells you that you can now present people's profiles as well as physical evidence.

As you present evidence, there's a good chance that you'll present the wrong thing. Instead of PW1's "five strikes and you're out" system, you now have a health bar that does not fill up between court days. Depending on how risky your accusation is, there's a greater likelihood of losing health, and a greater chunk is taken from your bar. The game is nice enough to tell you how much you'll lose if you screw up.

To fill your health bar, there's another new feature - Psyche Locks. During your investigation, you may encounter people that are trying to hide something from you. When this happens, you'll see a series of locks appear over them. By presenting the right evidence to them, you'll shatter their Psyche Locks, and they will eventually tell you the truth (which fills in half of your health bar).

The cases this time around are rather diverse and interesting, with some excellent plot twists. The one issue I had, though, was with Case #3 (Turnabout Big Top) - there are a good number of illogical solutions that the game doesn't give you enough information to solve. it seems quite obvious what the solution is and why it's true after you've solved it, but the game simply doesn't tell you enough. The other cases are fairly generous about this, though.

The new characters are just as endearing as those from the first game, and a good number of the old characters make return appearances in the sequel. You will once again meet Detective Dick Gumshoe, your assistant Maya Fey, and photojournalist Lotta Hart. You'll also meet new characters, like Maya's cousin Pearl, Franziska von Karma (the daughter of Manfred von Karma from the first game), and Moe the Clown.

If you just can't wait for the US release next year, you can order Gyakuten Saiban 2 from Play-Asia for a mere $30 (plus shipping). However, I'd recommend that you wait for the US release - the translation in the import is a bit sketchy in places (typos and missing punctuation here and there). Also, rumor has it that Capcom may plan to localize GS3 (the best game in the series so far) based on how many people order/preorder PW2.

Overall, PW2 is a worthy successor to the first game, but Case 3 kinda hurts the final score a bit.

9/10

[weasel]

Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded

Genre: Retro Compilation
Developer: CAPCOM
ESRB: T
WSRS: It's only T because of the beat-em-ups and Street Fighter 2.

CCCR is a collection of around 20 Capcom arcade games. Being the second volume (the first being Remixed), this one contains some of Capcom's more obscure games, and some that they missed the first time around.

1942 - Capcom's original World War 2 shoot-em-up. A single P-38 fighter lays waste to the entire Japanese navy (the manual laughably calls the P-38 a "jet" fighter). The gameplay is fairly outdated - you can only have a couple shots on screen at once, and the plane moves rather slowly so it's harder to dodge shots.

1943 - The far superior sequel. Several weapons to choose from, more targets, and a health bar for your plane instead of one-hit kills.

1943 Midway Kaisen - This one was only released in Japan. It's a remix of 1943, which makes the game MUCH harder and replaces many of the graphics and bosses. Your plane becomes a red biplane. (For some reason, though, the manual still refers to your plane as a "P-38 jet fighter.")

Vulgus - Capcom's very first game. It's another vertical-scrolling shooter that at least one person is going to get enjoyment out of.

Son Son - A sidescrolling game with a lot of enemies to shoot at.

King of Dragons - A beat-em-up with RPG elements, appearing to be the spiritual precursor to Capcom's D&D-based arcade games. Five classes to choose from, with the ability to gain levels based on how many points you score.

Knights of the Round - Another beat-em-up featuring King Arthur and company as they beat the ever-lovin' crap out of enemy soldiers and knights. Features an interesting combo-attack system, so it's not just smashing the attack button.

Street Fighter II (plus Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting) - This one's a bit of a disappointment. It appears to be based on the PS1 version of the game, which means you'll be putting up with load times between matches. It does, however, feature wireless gameplay and training modes (but that's little consolation for how much waiting you're going to be doing).

Ghosts & Goblins, Ghouls & Ghosts, and Super Ghouls & Ghosts - A series of brutally difficult sidescrolling games. Even on the easiest difficulty, you had better seriously amp up your reflexes and plan every move so you don't find yourself jumping on top of zombies.

Commando - Kinda fun overhead shooting game, but tends to be a little difficult due to the one-hit kills.

MERCS - The sequel to Commando, which grants you all sorts of neat extra stuff (like an anti-tank cannon, destructible environments, and a whole lot of soldiers to plow through).

Pirate Ship Higemaru - Roll barrels at enemies to clear levels. Looks like a variant of Pengo at first glance.

Exed Exes - I have no idea what this one is about because I haven't really tried playing it...

Eco Fighters - Perhaps the strangest concept for a shooting game ever: protect the environment by blowing up intergalactic robotic fish. Also contains the silliest Continue screen ever (your fighter is going down, but you catch a glimpse of a cute girl in a bikini and regain the strength to fight).

The selection of games is pretty good (save for the Street Fighters), and each game has customization options that let you tailor the difficulty and switch the soundtrack for a "remix" version. For vertical games, an option exists to play the game with the PSP rotated on its side (which is pretty cool for games like MERCS, but it gets uncomfortable after a while).

When you've recieved a game-over on any game, you are sent to the Play Stats screen, where you'll see a rundown of your accomplishments for the play session. CCCR awards you coins for all kinds of stuff - High score places, whether or not your score is a multiple of 1,000, how many button presses you made during the game, how many continues, and how many different games you played in succession without quitting or turning off the PSP.

These coins can be used in the Slot Machine minigame, where you (obviously) gamble for prizes. But rather than more coins, the Slot Machine prizes are unlockable goodies like artwork, music tracks, and cheats for the various games.

CCCR supports gamesharing for the 2-player games (1943/Midway Kaisen, King of Dragons, Knights of the Round, Eco Fighters, and Son Son), and wireless network play for all of the above plus the Street Fighters. So even if your friend doesn't have CCCR, you can still co-op through a game of 1943 with them.

CCCR is a fairly good collection of games. It's a good supplement to the earlier Remixed, but the load times (especially those of the Street Fighters) make some games take much longer than expected. The unlockables are kinda cool, which should at least motivate people to play the other games.

8/10

[weasel]

Sega Genesis Collection
RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

Developer: Sega
ESRB: T
Platform: PS2, PSP (PSP version reviewed)
WSRS: Most games should be fine - the ones that I consider T-rated are the Golden Axe games, Shinobi, Altered Beast, and Comix Zone. Most everything else should be kid-safe, or E10+ caliber at most for the Phantasy Star games.

Sega has gone and released nearly 30 of their most classic games from what is arguably gaming's Golden Age - the 16-bit era. They've included everything from Sonic, to Golden Axe, to almost the entire Phantasy Star series, as well as a few games that most people (even those that grew up in the 16-bit days) have never even heard of.

A complete list of all the games included:

1. Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
2. Altered Beast
3. Bonanza Bros.
4. Columns
5. Comix Zone
6. Decap Attack
7. Ecco the Dolphin
8. Ecco: The Tides of Time
9. Ecco Jr.
10. Flicky
11. Gain Ground
12. Golden Axe
13. Golden Axe II
14. Golden Axe III
15. Kid Chameleon
16. Phantasy Star II
17. Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
18. Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
19. Ristar
20. Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi
21. Shinobi III
22. Sonic the Hedgehog
23. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
24. Super Thunder Blade
25. Sword of Vermillion
26. Vectorman
27. Vectorman 2
28. Virtua Fighter 2 (Genesis version)

From what I can tell, the PS2 version has a few of Sega's arcade games (Tac/Scan, Altered Beast, and Zaxxon) as unlockables.

As is expected of most retro compilations in this day and age, in a time when CPU power is literally disposable, the Sega Genesis collection is simply a collection of licensed ROM files and an included emulator on a UMD disc. Sega goes above and beyond the call of duty for their collection, however, by including over half an hour of interviews with the designers who created these games. You can also unlock trailers of the successors of these classics, namely Virtua Fighter 5 and Phantasy Star Universe.

SGC also includes a Museum section, which allows you to read facts, strategies, and view the box art for each game in the collection. Strangely, while the US and European box art is available for each game, the Japanese box art is missing entirely - and there is practically no difference between the US and Europe boxes aside from the fact that "GENESIS" is replaced with "MEGA DRIVE." (The box art viewer is rather unstable as well - I managed to freeze the PSP by repeatedly cycling back and forth between a pair of covers.)

Each of the games is emulated near perfectly, with my only complaint being sound issues in a few games - some higher-pitched sounds tend to warp and warble due to the sound being played at a lower sample rate, and in games like Phantasy Star IV, the music sometimes overlaps itself or pauses for a moment while the next song loads. Sega has added several video setting options, allowing you to play the games at their original screen size, zoom them while keeping the aspect ratio, or stretching them to fill the entire PSP screen. In addition, there is a Save State option included for those games without save or password features (and even the ones that have them - so you can now save anywhere in PS2 without visiting Data Memory, and in the dungeons in PS4; whereas you couldn't do this before). The save state feature adds to the portability factor - these games are great for taking with you on a long road trip.

For all the amazing games included, though, there are a few stinkers - the Genesis version of Altered Beast is not much fun at all, and the same goes for the likes of Super Thunder Blade and Sword of Vermillion. Still, though, thats 3 bad games versus 25 excellent ones.

Sega Genesis Collection is well worth the price, if only for Phantasy Star IV, which to date, has never been re-released since its original appearance on the Genesis (not counting the Japanese Phantasy Star Collection for the Saturn). There are some Genesis classics curiously missing (Streets of Rage, Toejam & Earl, and Revenge of Shinobi), but there's always the possibility that Sega will put out another one of these collections in the future.

9.5/10

[weasel]

You Don't Know Jack Vol. 6: The Lost Gold

Developer: Jellyvision
Genre: Trivia
Platform: PC
ESRB: Unrated
WSRS: The official website has this to say: "WARNING: This product contains mature content, including suggestive sexual references, language and saucy icon movements that may not be suitable for children. Besides, they won't get it anyway."

Quite a popular trivia game back in the day, You Don't Know Jack had a three-year hiatus after 2000's "5th Dementia." In 2003, Jellyvision opted for self-publishing and finally released The Lost Gold, possibly the ultimate Jack game to date.

The backstory (yes, it has a backstory!) is as such: a pirate captain in search of treasure stumbles upon gold - JACK GOLD, that is! Unfortunately, the cardboard box full of gold master discs happens to be cursed, and the captain finds himself trapped in a video game (that just so happens to be YDKJ).

When the game proper begins, the effects of the pirate's curse are evident: the captain is now forced to do pre-game preparations, taking down everybody's names and assigning buzzer keys. But if you accumulate enough loot (the game keeps a running total of how much money you've earned), the captain is free!

For those who don't know, YDKJ is a rather off-beat and downright hilarious series of trivia games that follows a game show format. One to three players can compete for cash, answering some very tricky questions that almost always cause burst-out laughter. Your host, Schmitty, gives the questions and all kinds of burning insults to the guys that get them wrong.

YDKJ is obviously not your ordinary quiz game. While there are the usual multiple choice questions, there are also fill-in-the-blank questions, Dis-Or-Dat questions (you are given seven names and are asked to file them between two categories), Gibberish Questions (you are presented with a phrase like "Diet, Ron, ya sweat!" and need to figure out what it rhymes with - the answer to this one is "Quiet on the set!"), Anagram Questions (unscramble the phrase), and the final round, The Jack Attack.

During most of the questions, players have the option of "screwing" their opponents by buzzing in and pressing the S key. By using a screw on someone, players can force another player to answer a question, which is useful if you know that that person has no clue what the answer is. But if they guess it correctly, then not only do they win cash, they win the cash from you.

Every game ends with the Jack Attack, a fast-action word-association game. You get one clue (like "What Level Did We Park On?") and a set of phrases. One phrase will linger on the screen for a few seconds, and a series of answers will float by in succession. If you buzz in when the phrase and the answer match (according to the clue), you get points and the next phrase rolls around. But it's not the right answer unless it fits the clue.

While YDKJ is very fun to play by your lonesome, it's an absolute blast when played with two or three players.

Strangely, at least one type of question from the last few games was removed (Wendythap'n), and there is no option for a 21-question game (the game always gives you the 7-question "short" game). This does make it very good for quick plays (the average game will take around fifteen minutes to complete).

I have this to say in conclusion: The Lost Gold is probably the best YDKJ ever. The host doesn't suck (like Vol. 2's Buzz did), the questions are top of the line, and the action is fast and frantic (especially when you're trying to beat two opponents to the buzzer). Best of all: it's only $20 when ordered from youdontknowjack.com.

Speaking of youdontknowjack.com, head over there now to play the Daily Dis-Or-Dat question, and you'll get a good idea of the style of humor used in the games. I wonder when they're going to put out a Volume 7?

9.5/10

[weasel]

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Platform: DS
Developer: Konami
ESRB: T (Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence)

The year is 1944. World War 2 has resulted in the deaths of thousands, and the combined sorrow ends up resurrecting Dracula's castle. Jonathan Morris (son of Castlevania Bloodlines' John Morris) heads in to investigate, accompanied by his good friend Charlotte Aulin. Assisted by a priest named Vincent, and a mysterious ghost calling himself "Wind", Jonathan seeks to find out how the castle was brought back, and how he can stop whatever evil is about to occur.

Portrait of Ruin is the latest in the "Metroidvania" style of CV games. But rather than a single massive game map like the last few games, PoR is split into several smaller areas. You have the main castle area, which is home to the usual CV staples like the entry hall, the clock tower, and the master's keep. But then you have all the portrait worlds, which are essentially pocket universes contained within the evil magic of the castle's paintings. You'll encounter such diverse environments as the Dark Academy, 13th Street, and the Sandy Grave (an Egyptian pyramid).

PoR puts a heavy emphasis on using both Jonathan and Charlotte to complete tasks. You can switch between characters at will, CV3-style, or you can have both characters out at the same time to do things like push crates or use your Co-Op Move (similar in style to Dracula X's item-crashes). There is also a feature where you can summon your partner to use their sub-weapon quickly, after which they will disappear again. This comes in very handy for using spells like Charlotte's Owl Morph on Jonathan, or applying Jonathan's Defensive Form to Charlotte.

Most of the CV series conventions hold true here. Lots of weapons and equipment, huge bosses, and plenty of neat secrets. One thing I also noticed: for the first time since Circle of the Moon, Castlevania is truly difficult. The boss fights can be quite challenging if you don't figure out their attack patterns right away, as most boss attacks can do at least 20% damage to your character. Some attacks can actually kill you instantly if you don't avoid them. Thankfully, though, there is usually a save point near every boss room, and the boss rooms are clearly marked.

Though I do have a few complaints over the game balance.

First is the frequency of save points - in some areas (like the Dark Academy), the save points are too infrequent, which can make it rather difficult to survive. Second, there is too much equipment - both characters have eight equipment slots to fill up, and there is no way to tell whether something is equipped or not when you're using the shop interface. So you may end up accidentally selling all of a character's equipment without realizing it.

PoR supports wireless play over local area and Nintendo Wi-Fi. Much like other Wi-Fi games, you can either play with complete, randomly-picked strangers, or use Friend Codes to connect to people you know. The wireless modes include Co-Op Play (which, sadly, does NOT let you go through the single-player game - it's merely a boss rush mode) and Shop Mode, which lets you put items in your saved game up for sale or browse other people's shops to buy things. It's actually kind of dumb, but if you screw up and sell the wrong item and end up needing it to complete Wind's quests, it's the only way to get it back, outside of restarting the game from scratch.

The graphics are as good as we've come to expect of the CV series, but I notice that there are a lot more recycled graphics this time around. There is a fair bit of stuff coming from Dracula X, including the giant rock golems from stage 1. It doesn't look terribly out of place, but those that are familiar with the graphics are certainly going to notice.

Musically, PoR is easily the strongest of the handheld CV titles, featuring music from not only series veteran Michiru Yamane, but also a handful of tracks composed by Yuzo Koshiro, and remixes of CV songs long thought forgotten, like Cross Your Heart from the arcade game Haunted Castle, and Iron Blue Intention from Bloodlines. And the entrance theme is as memorable as any others from the series, rivaling only COTM's Awake and SOTN's Dracula's Castle in catchiness.

All things considered, I believe PoR ranks very highly in the CV series hierarchy, second only to SOTN. It comes very close to dethroning it. I dare say it would take its place, if the shop system were revised a bit.

9.75/10

[duvel]

wildweasel, on Feb 3 2007, 12:04 PM, said:

It's actually kind of dumb, but if you screw up and sell the wrong item and end up needing it to complete Wind's quests, it's the only way to get it back, outside of restarting the game from scratch.

I need to correct this: you do NOT sell your copy of the item. You don't even need to have the item in your inventory currently. As long as you have owned the item at some point in time you can put it up for sale in Shop Mode. Don't worry about what you put up there, put up your best stuff.

[weasel]

What I meant by that was that if you sell an item by accident, you have to buy it from somebody else.

[weasel]

Deep Labyrinth

Developer: Interactive Brains
Publisher: Atlus
Platform: DS
Genre: First-Person Dungeon Crawler
ESRB: E10+ (Violence)

Some time ago, Deep Labyrinth made history in Japan by being the first fully-3D RPG designed specifically for cell phones. This isn't entirely unheard of in Japan, where cell phones are powerful enough to support games like this. After all, even Square Enix made at least one Final Fantasy spin-off on a cellphone.

Time passed, and a DS version was made, which included new touchscreen functionality and an entirely new scenario. This is the version that we have in the US.

Deep Labyrinth is a fairly straightforward dungeon crawler. Your only task is to progress as deep as you can, by exploring the dungeon, slaying random beasts, picking up keys, and occasionally stumbling upon a cinematic sequence. Your weaponry consists of various swords (which you can swing around by swiping your stylus across the screen), and a unique (but rather frustrating) spell system.

You cast spells by first entering Spell Mode, which is done by tapping a button on the side of the screen. This presents you with a 3x3 grid. To cast a spell, you have to memorize the exact stroke pattern of the spell, draw it on the grid, then hit the Cast button. The game is nice enough to give you a pattern guide in the status screen in case you forget, but the precision needed to draw most of the spells means you're risking your life most of the time if you need to cast a spell in combat. It's sort of like the gesture system in Arx Fatalis, except you can't pre-cast spells.

The combat system is not extremely deep. You can take down most foes by swinging your sword madly (or, given the game's rather slow combat pace, moving your sword around and tapping people with it). It's fun at first, but eventually it just boils down to hitting things repeatedly, which is never a good turn for an RPG combat system - even in a dungeon crawler. This is only made worse when you learn the Sword spell, which enables you to cast an elemental spell on your sword to do extra damage. You won't even need to use the rest of the spells - just make sure your sword is freshened up and charge on in to battle. The developers do try to limit this, however - you'll need to raise your sword skill to a certain point before you're allowed to use some of the elements.

So with the gameplay category being a little on the lacking side, the rest of the game is actually pretty good on an aesthetic level. Interactive Brains clearly put a lot of work into the graphics engine. Most of the graphics do look quite good, especially the people (when they appear).

But probably my favorite part of Deep Labyrinth is the music. The soundtrack consists of about 20 tracks, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda (yes, that Yasunori Mitsuda). You can download the soundtrack from Galbadia Hotel, and I recommend it.

As for the rest of the game, the awkward control scheme alone is enough to put me off, but the somewhat shallow gameplay will probably be unwelcome to most casual RPG players. If all you want is the dungeon crawling, though, Deep Labyrinth is your ticket.

6.5/10

[CJA]

Contact

Developed by grasshopper manufacture
Released in US by Atlus, Inc.
Platform: DS
Genre: RPG
Main gameplay is 1 player, but can connect via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to other Contact players for trading.

Story
The game starts out in a cartoonish, isometric environment. This is where you meet the professor, by poking him. The professor then treats you as a sort of supernatural being. The unique thing about this game is that you, the holder of the DS, are one of the main characters. The Professor is chased, and all of his power cells fall out of the ship. One of them lands near Terry, a boy of 10 or so. The professor lands nearby, grabs the cell, and says, "Quick! Get in!" The ship flies back into outer space. But, it's shot, and the two land on a deserted island. You must find the power cell on the island and move onward, visiting a wide array of locations and recovering the cells there.

The story is pretty, uh, captivating. Along with the main storyline, there are sidequests in which you save people. A lot of these just pop up randomly when you revisit an area.

*****

Gameplay
Did you like playing Earthbound? This game has EarthBound's humor, charm, and young, slient main character. It's a nice, bright game, too. And the pop culture references! There is a "massive damage" reference in this game.

Did you like playing RuneScape? No? That's understandable. Did you like its stats system? Well, as you train each of your stats, it will level up. When you get hit, defense and HP rise. When you attack, strength and dexterity rise, etc. Also, there is a very extensive fishing and cooking system. And you can even fight the livestock for ingredients! Unlike RuneScape, no painful clicking system...and hey, it's actually cool to show to your friends.

Did you like playing Secret of Mana? The game's nice weapons system is akin to and probably even surpasses Secret of Mana. There are three weapon classes: Punching(knuckles), Slash(swords) and Strike(bats). Your experience with each levels seperately, just like SoM.

The battle system is "action RPG," but it is by no means a hack-and-slash; your attacking speed depends on, well, your attacking speed stat. Terry automatically attacks the target you choose. You'll just trade blows until the battle ends somehow.

That's where Techs come in. You just press Y to select a tech and it is used instantly; no waiting for the next turn. You'll have access to any two lists of techs at one time. The first list depends on the weapon class (there are Punching, Slashing and Striking techs). The next depends on your outfit; there are four elemental outfits which harness magic, and outfits like Chef which has ingredient-gathering techs like Gut.

*****

Graphics
The graphics are absolutely amazing. They're usually still images in single rooms, but in larger areas, the tile-based stuff is great as well. Terry has no outline or anything, and it's always easy to see him, so they chose their colors well.

The Professor and his ship are very cartoony and contrast nicely to the rest of the game.

The only things I have a problem with are the various art, as in the anime depictions of Terry. They're, well, they just don't work very well.

*****

Music
The music is spectacular and fits spectacularly. Chiptunes for the Professor, and just awesome for everything else.

*****

Innovation
Great. First of all, you are a sort of controlling spirit. The Professor tells you "I won't tell Terry about you" a lot. Next, the weapons system and the punch/slash/strike systems are great. And, I've never seen that stat-specific leveling in a console game before. The cooking system is great, too, although you should be able to vary certain recipes more.

Oh, and another thing; there's a "digestion time" for each food. Each food has stat bonuses. As you eat each food item, a little "belly" diagram fills up. When it's full, you can't eat anymore. But as each food item is still in the belly, you'll recieve the stat bonuses. There are potions, which heal a lot and digest quickly, but things like homemade BBQ have more bonuses (like more Max HP!) and take up a lot of room.

The Decal System. You peel off a decal and stick it somewhere on the screen. There are '?' decals, which transform all things on the screen into things like cows. A ship decal returns you to the ship, a cell decal lets you take a power cell, and a Mochi decal brings down Mochi, the Professor's dog, to help you. Mochi can be played with every time you save by using your stylus and "petting" him. As you play with him, he grows stronger.

*****

Overall

Overall, it's a fantastic game. All the parts combine to create a wonderful experience. That's pretty much it.

I would spend up to $40 on this game, which is a lot for a DS game.

Final score: *****

10/10; perfect.

This post has been edited by CJA: 09 March 2007 - 02:25 PM

[nooodl]

"CJA" said:

The unique thing about this game is that you, the holder of the DS, are one of the main characters.

So... That's why it got the name 'Contact', right? ;D
EDIT: Whoops, maybe it's the 8-player wi-fi function. It must be kinda awesome if you get it to work...

I'm definately buying this one.

This post has been edited by HappyFoppy: 10 March 2007 - 03:09 PM

[CJA]

Yep, actually being the main character is why it's called Contact. You're sort of like the "master of fate" of the game, or something I guess. Well, that's pretty much any game, but this is the only game that acknowledges it.

Also, you use the Wi-Fi connection like in any other game (with either a router, or the USB connecty thing from Nintendo). Guy and I are going to try out Contact wi-fi sometime.

[CJA]

Magnetica

Developed by Mitchell, Inc.
Platform: DS
Genre: Puzzle
Main gameplay is 1 player, and there is also a Wi-Fi mode.

Gameplay: *****
The premise of Magnetica is to use your stylus to flick marbles towards other marbles, which are rolling along a track towards a central pit. If any marble hits this pit, you lose. When a group of 3 or more marbles comes together, they're eliminated. Hitting 2 marbles with a launched marble eliminates them.

Chains happen when marbles, who are attracted to the same color, come together after marbles between them are eliminated. For example:

OO###O
The yellow marbles are hit and explode.

OO O
The red marbles come together,

###
and you get a 2-chain. Of course, this can happen with a lot more marbles. This is basically the premise of the game. Don't get the wrong idea, though--it's very, very addictive.

Graphics: ****
Meh, they suit the game. They could have made the metal bearing marbles more rotation-friendly, and they could have varied marble designs for each color.

Story/Plot: ***
Even though there's a "Quest" mode, there's no story or plot. A story would improve the game, but it doesn't really need one.

Sound: ***
There's one theme for Quest, one for Challenge, and one for Puzzle. A little variation between levels would be nice; for example, when you're over level 50 in challenge, or maybe every 15 quest levels the music could change. But the three established themes work pretty well.

The chain sounds are pretty awesome, and the other sound effects work pretty well.

Overall: *****
Hey, even though there's three tracks, the graphics don't change a lot and there's no plot, this game is pretty fun, entertaining and addictive. A small storyline would be beneficial.

9/10

[Torte]

Resident Evil 4 (PC Version)
Developer: CAPCOM, SourceNext (doing the awful porting)
Genre: Action/Adventure Horror
Rating: I think it's either 15 or 18+ here, and I guess M in the states.

Alright, so it's a bit old now, and chances are you've either played it on the PS2, GC or Wii. This is a review for the PC port.

It's almost entirely (99.9999%) based on the PS2 version, so all those extras come with it.

Righto, so let's get down to it.

Plot (7/10): You're Leon S Kennedy, from RE2. After the events of RE2, you were hired as the president's family's personal bodyguard and went through a lot of training. Just before you were to enter service, however, the president's daughter Ashley is kidnapped and you're sent after her, to a rural part of Europe after she was sighted there. Well there, you realise the villagers have gone totally insane. Something's gone terribly wrong with them, and it's not a virus...

The story isn't all that wonderful, but it's still a good one. It unfolds at a good pace, but it's not a story driven game. Regardless, good enough to warrant a 7 (very good).

Graphics (5/10, 8/10 with mods and patches): The game looks pretty bad with version 1.00, and I'd only advise against updating the game if the performance of the game suffers (shouldn't on any decent computer, really). The textures are very blurry at spots and oftenly pale, the lightning effects are... well non existant, rendering the flashlight totally pointless. The only graphical setting you can change is the resolution, however it does support widescreen if you so wish.

The patch doesn't adress the textures nor the fact that you can only change the resolution, but the lightning effects are brought back into the game making it look a whole lot better. Smack on the texture pack and the game looks great. I'd give it 9, but it's incredibly lazy of the developers not to use the GC version's graphics when the PC is more then capable of handling it.

Note that if you buy the North American version, the game comes with Version 1.10.

Controls (3/10 without a gamepad, 6/10 with mouse mod, 7/10 with a gamepad): Massive gripe here... the game does NOT support mouse aim. This is just inexcusable. I can see that it's sorta troublesome, whatwith you having to press a button to ready the gun or knife, however, this could've easily been fixed by making you hold down the shift or ctrl key to ready either.

Incredibly lazy of the developers, that's for sure.

With a mouse aiming mod, it gets a lot better, however it should be noted that the only one I know off only emulates joystick movement making it somewhat sloppy and hard to control.

With a good gamepad, the control system is just like it was on the console (though you have to manually configure the camera controls), and works just fine. Still, I'd have prefered it to be keyboard and mouse, but for being controlled by the gamepad it works wonders.

Once you get accustomed to the controls, they work wonders. You hold down one button to pull out your gun to shoot, another to hold out your dagger to swing (making it far more useful then previous RE games), and then the usual buttons (action, cancel, inventory, map, etc).

At some points, you get a companion. Controlling your companion/s is easy, one button press for either 'wait' or 'follow'. At certain spots, you can also tell your companion to hide.

Whenever an action becomes available (check, open) it'll show in the bottom of the screen. New to RE4 is also timing games, where you have to press one or two buttons to dodge some form of attack or other thing that'd otherwise either hurt or kill you. Also, if something gets a hold off you, you can usually shake them off by pressing left-right (or if you have a gamepad, moving the steering stick left and right).

Sadly, like in previous RE games, you can't move while holding your gun or knife up, essentialy rendering you a sitting duck. I guess this is to make the game a bit more difficult, but it's kinda silly that you have to stand still to aim your handgun at a giant that's trying to smash you. This is somewhat offset by the fact that most enemies more damaging attacks, especially bosses, can be dodged by pressing two buttons when they come up on the screen. Regardless, it'd still have been nice to be able to move around while shooting.

Another complain regarding the control scheme is that you aim with the same buttons you walk with. I personally would've liked to move the other analog stick to aim, even if I had to stop while doing it.

Still though, the controls are responsive.

Music and Sound (9/10): Excellent stuff. The sounds for the guns might seem a bit weak, but the grunting of the enemies, the music in the background when the enemies have caught onto you, etc, is just spot on. Not much to say here, but I really enjoyed (and am still enjoying) the sound and the music.

Gameplay (9/10): Ah, the meat and bones of the game. Let's get it out of the way - the game kicks ass. It's a lot of fun to play, the action feels right, the game is pretty hard but not Ninja Gaiden hard, and very rewarding.

The game itself is pretty much like the previous RE games, however it's turned from weird camera angle to third person, and it's more action oriented. You have an inventory where you store stuff, however it's a lot bigger then in previous games (and can be upgraded significantly). Items come in more varied sizes that feel more right. There's also stores in the game now. Some puzzles are a bit annoying and vague, much like previous installements. These are few and far inbetween, though.

So let's get down to the changes: First of all, as said, it's a third person game now. You have full control over your aim (a lazer scope on most weapons), making the aiming more important then in previous installments. Some weapons come with scopes (like the Rifle), where you'll switch to a first persion view. This is nice for sniping, but cumbersome in close range, making it a nice tradeoff.

The inventory system has changed a fair bit since RE3. Instead of 8-10 slots where things either took up 1-2 slots, you now have a much larger grid with sizes of things ranging between 2x1 up to 8x2 in size. You can also turn the items around as you please to fit them into tight spots.

Health is somewhat different from what I remember, to. Now, you have a bar instead of an EKG thing in your inventory screen. It still goes from green to yellow to red, and you start limping when you reach yellow and worse when you go to red. However, it's nice to have such a good look on exactly how much health you have. Health can be increased by mixing certain herbs with one another.

In combat, you can now pull up the knife by holding down a certain button, making it MUCH more useful then in previous RE games where you had to go into the inventory to equip it. Reloading your gun is either done by firing the gun when it's out of ammo or pressing another button. It's quite a slow animation for most weapons, making it dangerous to use close to enemies. However, if you are hit during it you'll still have your gun fully loaded when you recover, which is sorta weird. Headshots are MOSTLY lethal (won't spoil much, but there are some cases where you're hoping for their heads not to explode).

The enemies are no longer zombies, though they behave somewhat the same as them. Instead of slowly walking up to you and trying to bite you, they run up and try to attack you with various weapons or grab you to kill you. They do otherwise resemble zombies, however.

As mentioned in the controls section, you sometimes get a companion with you. Believe it or not, this companion is not in the way!

There's also money in the game, which can be used with a mysterious merchant to buy weapons and upgrades to your weapons. Upgrading your weapons makes them a lot better in just about every area, however, not all weapons aren't that useful even fully upgraded, some lacking their own niche. You can't upgrade all weapons either, because you won't have enough money.

Enemies now drop a lot more stuff then in previous games, healing items, ammo and money, which is wonderful as it's very much needed.

The game's fairly long, to. Expect about 20 hours of gametime your first run through the game, after that it'll obviously become faster.

I'd write more but I'm tired.

Overall (8/10): Well, apart from the clunky control scheme if you don't have a gamepad and the shoddy porting, the game's still great. I'd probably advise you to pick up another version of the game first hand, but with the correct mods and patches installed, the game probably has the best looks of any version, and with a gamepad, it controls about the same as the GC or PS2 version. Plus, it's usually cheap!

[scorch3000]

quite a few console to PC ports suck big time.

[scorch3000]

Scarface: The World is Yours!
Xbox version review

Story: I personally havn't seen Scarface, yet i wish to see it. The only time Scarface was on TV, it was really late, and i fell asleep during it. The game's plot may be slightly confusing, but otherwise, follows an alternate ending to the movies story. Instaid of being shot dead in his mansion, Tony escapes Miami, and returns some months later, to reclaim his turf, and can Sosa.

Gameplay: Control Tony is easy enough, left stick controls movement, right stick controls camera pan. B button talks/insults people, a selects options, y enters vehicle/weapon locker and x shoves people. Tony has an impresive arsenal of weapons, including a sniper riffle, bazooka, chainsaw (expecially fun, as you can cut people to bits before they hit the ground) and several other assault weapons and pistols. Missions usually consist of meeting a front owner (a shop, that acts as a drug den behind the scenes), and performing a mission for him/her. When the mission is complete, you can buy the front for a fee. Money can be made by wasting dealers (unadvised, as this raises your gang heat, and cop heat), buying coke and selling to dealers (advised), or running supply missions later in the game (driving from front to front, picking up money, avoiding rival gangs, ect). In addition to your weapon dealers, you have the exotics, where you can buy henchmen, mansion upgrades, furnature, boats, cars and investments.
Henchmen: Driver, weapon dealer, boat pilot, enforcer, assasian. Basis goons, drivers bring your cars on roads, pilots bring boats, drivers, enforcers and assasins perform duties when you switch to them.
Cars: A list of automobiles. Most function the same, except the limo, that automaticly drives you to a selected front
Boats: Same as cars. Float plane flys you to distant docks.
Furnature: Items for your mansion
Decore: Same as furnature
Unique collectables: Same as furnature
Mansion: Basic, modern, elatic. Change your mansions base appearence
Investments: Expensive, but worth it. Montana Legal for instance reduces your police attention by 50%

Shooting: Easy enough, aim, and fire. Some weapons have alternate fire, triggered by the black button. Sniper riffles zoom with L-trigger.

Blind Rage
What game would be complete without bullet time? Gain balls by killing, awsome driving and taunting victims, and you gain balls. Gain enough to fill the meter, and you can trigger blind rage holding any weapon, by holding down the B button. You switch to first person, and kick ass. In blind rage, you're invincible, and you gain 200 HP for each kill.

Game Scorch...sorry, score: 8.5/10

[weasel]

Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations
""You can't cry now. The only time a man can cry is when it's all over."

Genre: Adventure/Visual Novel
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Capcom
ESRB: T (Animated Blood, Violence)

The third and final chapter in Phoenix Wright's trilogy contains five brand new cases for both Phoenix and his mentor, Mia Fey to slog through.

The gameplay in T&T is pretty much exactly the same as the game's predecessors, and I'm pleased to say that this installment does NOT have an equivalent to Justice For All's god-awful circus case. There's not even one returning character from that case, so you needn't fear the worst (no more Moe, no more freaking pepper shakers...).

T&T rounds out the story arc quite nicely, touching on formerly undisclosed facts like Phoenix's first love, Mia Fey's first two cases, and what Edgeworth has been up to since the last game.

Many fan-favorite characters from the last games make return appearances here. Pearl still has the wrong idea about what's going on between Phoenix and Maya, resulting in quite a number of slaps. Larry Butz reappears a couple of times, apparently having traveled the world to chase his latest girlfriend.

But probably my favorite character would be the brand new prosecutor, the mysterious Godot. He's hard-boiled, addicted to coffee, and tends to make strange coffee-related metaphors that make no sense whatsoever. Strangest of all, though, is that he seems to have quite a grudge against Phoenix, for whatever reason, going so far as to call him "Mr. Trite". But mere seconds into his debut appearance, Godot throws forth several choice quotes that just cement how awesome he is, even if he is pretty much a jerk.

I like that they made the contradictions a little easier to evoke using the interface. Where before you'd have to present a very obscure piece of evidence in order to make the obvious objection to a witness statement, now it's possible to object using any of a few different related objects, and there are very, very few instances in which the information you need on an item is not written in its Court Record entry. So don't rely on what the Court Record says too much - make sure you memorize parts of it too.

This game is the perfect way to end Phoenix's trilogy. It's a must-own if you've played the first two games. In fact, I dare say that if you haven't played the first two games to completion, then this game is the best reason there is to do so right now.

9.5/10

[Pyro1588]

F.E.A.R.
First Encounter Assault Recon

Genre: FPS with a healthy dose of horror
Platform: PC, 360, PS3
Developer: Monolith Productions
ESRB: Mature

My first experience with F.E.A.R. was trying to play the single-player demo on my less-than-adequate laptop. My impression was a game with very pretty graphics that took quite a rig to run. In reality, F.E.A.R.'s sysreqs aren't that horrible. It was just that I had a crappy laptop.

Sysreqs aside, F.E.A.R. is an impressive game. Remember all those awesome secret areas in Quake, Quake 2, Descent, and all those other classic FPS games?

Remember the wonderfully-useful bullet time and instant-use medkits that made Max Payne playable?

Remember the atmospheric graphics that made the setting real and the particle effects that ensured plaster pieces went everywhere when you shot plaster (also from Max Payne)?

Remember the story-driven plot of Max Payne, Elfen Lied, and Noir that slowly revealed itself bit by bit and finally culminated in one big "ah, NOW I get it" moment?

F.E.A.R. manages to capture all of these and implement them in a way that feels new, fresh, and hi-tech. The game has tons of secret areas that feel really well-integrated in the environment. It's got the instant medkits that allow you to heal in the middle of a firefight. It has the awesome bullet time and the wonderful graphics to back it up. And most importantly, it has a great plot that takes its time revealing itself.

F.E.A.R.'s gameplay relies heavily on the same slow-mo formula that Max Payne introduced. You can hit the CTRL key and suddenly the world slows down, giving you plenty of time to aim your shots carefully. But where Max Payne had simple enemies that tended to either stay put or rush in a straight line, F.E.A.R. has enemies with decent enough AI to make slow-mo a much more precious commodity.

F.E.A.R.'s graphics are beautiful. The settings are detailed, the enemies are detailed, and even the weapons are detailed. Dynamic lighting adds to the creepy environment by making shadows go wild whenever a stray bullet hits a light. The use of parallax mapping is extraordinary. Every bullet you fire that misses an enemy will take a chunk out of a wall. The bullet holes are beautiful.

The same can be said about the smoke and dust. Firefights are more than just shooting imps with a shotgun over and over again. Real firefights are loud, noisy, dirty affairs that are distracting and scary. F.E.A.R. has a TON of particle effects that add up to realistic smoke and dust flying everywhere when the bullets start flying.

The sounds of the firefights are just as important, and F.E.A.R.'s sounds are pretty solid. The guns sound great and the ambient noises are pretty well-placed. Physics-based sounds tend to be pretty loud, so there are a lot of things that go bump in the night, but this helps to keep you on your toes.

F.E.A.R.'s music is pretty minimalistic. It only appears at certain points, and when it does, it's not really the focal point, nor is it particularly memorable. That's alright, because you really don't want it distracting you from the firefights.

F.E.A.R.'s real strength is in its horror, and there is no FPS that captures horror quite as well as F.E.A.R. does. The game goes beyond zombies jumping out at you and really tries to get under your skin. The key factor in this is a little girl who, as Gamespot said, is creepier than all of Mars put together. The game has many hallucination sequences that are really reminiscent of Max Payne's drug scenes, right down to the crying baby, the long hallways, and the excessive flames. In some aspects, they almost feel like a ripoff of Max Payne. But overall, the variance keeps them original, and they definitely make the game scary.

F.E.A.R. is not without its downsides, however. The first and most obvious one is the chokeup it experiences on lesser systems. As with all games in the past 5 years, F.E.A.R.'s minimum requirements are just the requirements to get you to the title screen. You do need a fairly hefty system to play this game.

What makes this annoying is that the game's graphics are largely at fault, and in many cases, a bit of a cut in detail level would've probably meant much lower sysreqs. Yes, the soldiers are INCREDIBLY detailed, right down to the gazillion polygons in their armor. Are you going to notice this in the middle of a life-or-death firefight? No. Yes, there's dynamic lighting everywhere. Does it need to be everywhere? Probably not.

F.E.A.R.'s gameplay also tends to get a bit formulaic. Most firefights are pretty straightforward. Sure, sometimes you get the drop on an enemy from above, but those times are fairly rare. Most of the time it's just you and an opposing squad of enemies, and all you have to make the battle winnable is your slow-mo.

F.E.A.R. tends to wait on giving you weapons until you need them, or even shortly after. There's nothing more annoying than finishing an annoyingly-difficult firefight only to be rewarded with a gun that would have made it IMMENSELY easier and more fun.

To its credit, F.E.A.R. has managed to incorporate grenades into gameplay in a manner very reminiscent of Halo. No longer are they separate weapons that require you put down your gun. Now you can chuck them out in the middle of a fight to flush an enemy from cover, and the explosions are very impressive.

Please note that this review only covers the single-player game. I have yet to try the multiplayer, but I may have to type up a quick update on it.

So, in conclusion, F.E.A.R. has a couple flaws, but it remains a strong FPS that is a must-play for any FPS or horror fan. I'm definitely ordering Extraction Point =)

8/10

[Dr Lancer-X]

Title: Aster
Japanese: N/A
OP video: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=xmJLMwtHJX0
Company: Rusk



Plot Synopsis
Sakaki Hiro confessed his love to his childhood friend and neighbour, Yuzuki Saya, and they started going out.

As the winter season approached, without warning, an event took place that would change everything for everyone.

There are no miracles. There is only hope.

Introduction
Aster is an eroge by Rusk, released in 2007. It's a romance/tragedy story, which combines elements from both the nakige (crying game) and utsuge (depressing game) genres. The visual novel does not have any choices or branching points - instead, it follows four intertwining stories, each composed of two parts, and the stories can be completed in any order after the prologue. There are four protagonists and five heroines.

Scenario
The story is definitely Aster's strongest point. It's essentially a story about the fragility of human life. While it's not an utsuge because each story ultimately ends in a happy ending, it doesn't hold back from putting every character in the game through torment of some kind. No-one remains unscathed.

The first part of Aster is the prologue, which is unusually long for a prologue, and introduces Hiro's arc. After reading the prologue, the first chapter of the four main stories all become available, and can be completed in any order. After all four are complete, the second chapter of all four stories becomes available. As the stories are heavily intertwined, events that happen in one arc often affect the other arcs, so by playing each chapter you eventually put the entire story together.

My only criticism of Aster's scenario is that some of the conclusions felt somewhat weak compared to the rest of the story, but on the whole it stands up very well. Don't expect any kind of complex, intricate plot, though - it's just a pure-love story written exceedingly well.

Characters
Aster has more primary characters than most eroges, owing to having a number of different protagonists. There are also a number of characters from previous Rusk games making an appearance - which makes sense, as the setting is the same.

Sakaki Hiro is the first (and, essentially, 'main') protagonist of Aster. He works part-time at a cafe/restaurant run by the main protagonist/heroine pair from Kimi to Koishite Musubarete. Lives next to Saya and Saki.

Yuzuki Saya (heroine of Hiro's arc) is Hiro's childhood friend and Saki's twin sister (although she is considered the elder sister of the two). Unlike the energetic Saki, she is not particularly healthy.

Yuzuki Saki (the other heroine of Hiro's arc), Saya's twin sister, is a somewhat tsundere-ish character, but loves her sister dearly. She is an athletic girl - part of the school's kendo club and in line to becoming the next club director.

Odamaki Masato (secondary protagonist), director of the school's kendo club and Hina's elder brother. An all-round good-natured person.

Yamabuki Miyuki (heroine of Masato's arc), Masato's junior and the class representative. She regularly visits her sick mother in hospital. Miyuki is unknowingly the cause of the tragic event surrounding the story.

Yanagi Kyouji (secondary protagonist), Hina's fiance. Kyouji is a bit of a bookish type, but while generally exceedingly gentle, can also be very hot-tempered at times. He is very attached to Hina.

Odamaki Hina (heroine of Kyouji's arc), Kyouji's fiance and Masato's younger sister. She is a member of the school's kendo club, and another direct victim of the central tragedy behind the story.

Hagiwara Mutsuki (secondary protagonist), a good natured, though clumsy character, and another member of the school kendo club. He is also an indirect victim of the main catalyst of the story, where his mother died.

Himehagi Haruna (heroine of Mutsuki's arc), Mutsuki's senior, a gentle 3rd-year student. Her piano tutor was Mutsuki's mother. She works as a part-time model, something that makes her relatively famous in the school.

Visuals
Nice, all-round reasonable quality art. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but everything looks good. I appreciated the unusual amount of attention-to-detail in the character sprites/paper dolls, particularly the uniforms. There's a decent number of CGs - plenty for the sort of game it is, and they are generally well done, although nothing special.

Voice Acting
The voice acting is performed quite well, and is generally fitting (but nothing spectacular nor particularly notable). One minor point is that although the male characters have voice actors, they are only voice acted when the current first-person point-of-view is from another character (e.g. the heroine, or one of the other male characters). The female characters, on the other hand, are always voiced whether or not the story is being told from their perspective or not. Although this is admittedly better than omitting male voice acting entirely (as most eroges do), it would have been nice to have all the characters voiced, all the time. Rusk's previous games did the exact same thing.

Music
A reasonable selection of tracks; the music is generally above average. Only real problem is that while the soundtrack has about a fairly large number of upbeat 'everyday' songs, it has a much smaller selection of tunes for the moodier parts of the game (which definitely could do with a bit more variety). Otherwise, nothing much to say about this.

Overall

Scenario: 8.5/10
Characters: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Voice Acting: 8/10
Music: 7/10

Overall (not an average of the above scores):
8/10

One of the better 'pure-love drama' eroges around, Aster is a good way of stressing out your tear ducts. If you buy the game you also get copies of Kimi to Koishite Musubarete and Colorful Box, earlier Rusk titles, which are nice stories in their own way. They aren't nearly as good as Aster, though.