[weasel]

Half-Life 2
"Yeah, great job Gordon, throwing that switch and all? I can see that MIT education really pays for itself."

Developer/Publisher: Valve
Platform: PC/XBOX (PC version reviewed)
ESRB: M
WSRS: Be advised of lots of blood, plenty of charred/mutilated corpses, disturbing monster designs, and some cuss language. Keep the kiddies outta the room when you reach Ravenholm.

So many reviews of HL2 have already been written. So what makes mine different? Well, nothing really.

You start this game with a little message from our favorite mysterious-guy-wearing-a-suit from the first game. Then you're whisked away to the magical realm of City 17, where all the happy little villagers get beaten with sticks on a regular basis by the Combine Metro Police.

Yeah, this isn't much of a magical realm, is it?

So you, as Gordon Freeman, wander around the city aimlessly. Until some cops start chasing you through a building, and the citizens inside urge you toward the roof. And it's there that you meet the (cough) love of your life, Alyx Vance. Then you get to meet a couple more people and then you're sent on your merry way again.

...yeah, the way I'm describing it, it sounds like a pretty crappy plot, doesn't it?

I suppose this game doesn't need too much plot - in fact, it almost does better from the lack of restrictive scripted scenes (there are quite a few of them, but you're still free to do whatever while they're going on, much of the time). Even in Black Mesa East, while Alyx and Dr. Mossman are arguing, you're free to pick up soda cans and heave them at people. They don't seem to care, since it doesn't do anything to them. (Shortly after this scene, when you get the gravity gun, you're also free to smash crates against Alyx for no good reason.)

Ahem, the gameplay...

You recieve a decent array of firearms with which to wage war on the Combine. While you start the game empty-handed, Barney hands you a crowbar after a while (the very same one from HL1). Then you can beat up a cop and steal his USP handgun. Other guns include a Colt Python, an MP7 (which for some inexplicable reason has a 20mm grenade launcher on it), a "pulse rifle" (which has this awesome bouncing energy bolt as an alternate fire), a shotgun, a crossbow (which for some reason launches red hot rebar instead of bolts), hand grenades (which can be picked up and thrown back), and a rocket launcher.

But the one thing that'll probably make you forget all about those is a little thing I like to call the "Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator" - better known as the gravity gun.

This thing adds a whole new dimension of ammo scrounging. Out of ammo? Bored of your shotgun already? Pick up a toilet or a radiator and launch it at high velocity towards your target. Need to pull a switch, or unplug something? Just pull it with the gun. This thing actually becomes your chief weapon by the end of the game (I won't say how - but it's an incredible sequence). Explosive barrels, gas cans, sawblades, meathooks, crates, and such...all can be turned into deadly weapons with this tool.

But even the gravity gun doesn't round out the impressive array of tools.

Even before you get the gun, you can drive a neat little airboat. While it's not armed at first, it eventually gets fitted with a machine gun from a Combine gunship (which can then be used to destroy other Combine gunships, and clear paths through treacherous waters full of mines). You also get to drive a buggy through the highway, which is fitted with the Gauss gun from HL1. You even get to screw around with a crane, and drop shipping containers on top of groups of bad guys (or don't and just swing the gigantic crate around, knocking everything around). Despite the game's inherent linearity, there are many ways you can go about things, which is quite fun.

The game's plot development is limited to other characters conversing amongst themselves and occasionally ordering you around (since you never speak or see yourself in the game). Yet it still manages to be compelling later on. Voice acting is superb, with such names as Robert Culp (from TV's "I Spy"), Michelle Forbes, and Michael Shapiro (who not only played Barney in the first game, but also Ishmael from Blood 2). Superb acting, well-written dialogue, and the events that tie things together are pretty enjoyable as well.

The game looks pretty nice, but only if you have the system to beef up the graphics quality. The minimum requirements are listed on the SteamPowered.com official website as a 1.2 GHz processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 7 capable graphics card. I myself run the game on a P4 3.0 GHz with hyperthreading, 512 MB of RAM, and a GeForce FX 5200, and can still manage to get 45 FPS at 800x600 with details set to medium. The only issue is that level loading times tend to get very high with the higher texture details - so if you want to play the game at anything above low quality graphics, either shell out for a gig of ram or be prepared to wait a long while between maps. To be honest, though, the game does still look okay at low quality, but nowhere near as nice as it would be with cleaner textures and smoother models (and reflective water too). There's also support for DirectX 9 shaders, which looks fantastic, but unfortunately it degrades performance by quite a lot.

The sound effects in this game pack quite a punch, since they're all recorded at 44 KHz, 16-bit, in stereo for most sounds. This sounds incredible with a good surround-sound setup - if you hear an explosion in front of you, you can hear the echo of it right behind you. Gunfire - from both you and the enemies - has a sharp, powerful sound behind it, making it an utter joy just to shoot the shotgun into the air and hear the sound it makes. The vehicles have great motor sounds behind them (especially the buggy, when you kick it into Turbo). The voice acting is phenomenal, with lines rarely being heard more than once in the same play session. The music is pretty good too, and I have many of the tracks extracted from the Steam cache file and in my Winamp playlist.

Unfortunately, the game's distribution method is a little lacking. No matter whether you buy it online, or from a store, you'll ultimately have to use Steam to register your game. Even if you only intend on playing single-player, you must verify your CD-key with Steam's servers before you're allowed to play. But this registration does come in handy, eventually - say you've lost your CD's and want to play the game again. Fear not. As long as you're connected to the Internet, you can always download the game again directly from Valve. It takes a while to retrieve all that data (three hours just for the single-player portion, another couple for Counter-Strike Source and HL2 Deathmatch). Even when Steam says the game is ready to play, it's still not finished - it'll continue downloading and updating the game files as Steam runs in the background. This, thankfully, can be disabled temporarily in case you want to conserve bandwidth for...other things...while you're blasting through headcrabs and suchwise.

I did have a few crashes once the game was playing though - it turned out this was because Steam's download was corrupt at some point, and the game continued to encounter corrupt data and crashed. I merely left Steam to its devices for a while and the game was just fine afterwards.

There are also a few minor nitpick issues that I had with the game. For example, there are a few controls that don't seem to have any use. While there is a Walk key that you can bind to move slower, this doesn't seem to have any effect at all in the game. I also never did get a handle on how the Squad Command key worked (even near the end of the game, I didn't seem to need it). It's also difficult to steer in the buggy at times, which makes things a bit frustrating when you've dived off the edge of the highway for the fifth time in a row.

These issues aside, HL2 is still a game more than worth your time and money. And if you insist on the PC version (I recommend it over the XBox version, since it has multiplayer and support for mods), it'll be a lot of time. A heck of a lot of time.

9/10

[weasel]

LEGO Star Wars

Platform: PC, PS2, XBox(?), GameCube
Developer: Traveller's Tales
Publisher: LucasArts
Genre: Action Adventure
ESRB: E (Violence)
WSRS: Violence is mostly comical. There's nothing offensive about lego people getting hacked up, to my knowledge - so even the goriest moments from the Star Wars films are kid-safe within this game.

In the most absurd commercial cross-over since The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons, we have the first three episodes of Star Wars re-enacted with Lego people. The Lego elements are realized pretty well, and it does the Star Wars universe justice.

As the game starts, you find your first two heroes standing in Dexter's Diner (which serves as the main hub for the entire game). Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn are free to roam about the diner, exit into the parking lot, and generally screw around with stuff. There is a series of doors inside the diner which lead to the different episodes of Star Wars, and they also allow you to select individual chapters therein (providing you've completed all the chapters before it).

In the game, you can explore the area, fight enemies, destroy things with your lightsaber (or blaster), and - my favorite part - use The Force on different things in the environment. Nearly everything that's made of Lego can be interacted with somehow, ranging from making chairs dance (complete with that ubiquitous cantina theme from Episode 4) to building platforms out of loose bricks, to taking doors apart and making other stuff with them.

There is a gigantic variety of characters that you can play. At some points during the game there are up to six characters that you can switch between at will, and once you unlock the Free Play mode for a given level, you have up to 12 to cycle through, from a grand total of almost 100 unique playable characters. Each one of them has different special abilities (the various Jedi can interact with bricks, young Anakin can crawl through hatches, Jango can fly, and Jar Jar can jump really high), though there are a fair share of worthless characters like young Boba Fett. But the fact that you can control some of the villains more than makes up for it (like General Grievous and his four lightsabers).

The main currency in Lego Star Wars is the stud. You can pick up studs in the various levels by finding them on the floor, floating in the air, or hidden inside various objects (which you can either blow up, or manipulate with The Force to make them eject a whole bunch of them). Using Studs, you can purchase new playable characters for Free Play mode, various Extras (such as an option that puts moustaches on everybody - clone troopers look hilarious with them), and hints (which are incredibly cheap and not worth much outside of completion).

Within the levels, you'll find various Mini Kits - collect all ten from a given level and they will assemble a new starship. These aren't really useful, because all you can do is look at them in the parking lot outside Dexter's, but it's fun to collect everything. There is also a Super Kit, which you can obtain parts for by collecting a certain number of studs in a level.

The plot, such as it is, follows the movies as closely as needed. The cutscenes have been redirected, and contain no dialogue whatsoever. These are pretty amusing, but they don't connect the levels together at all - you need to have seen the movies to be able to understand what's going on. But the major events are portrayed well enough (like the various deaths - wherein the lego people get limbs hacked off, or just keel over, complete with X's for eyes).

The game's graphic style is appropriately plastic. While the general architecture would certainly be at home in the movies, only the important elements of the levels are actually made of Legos. This does aid in detecting objects that you can interact with, and there are helpful indicators that will tell you what you can do (like the glowing halo that indicates an item that you can use The Force on). The animations are very well done, if you can forgive the fact that characters don't rely on the actual Lego joints (the plastic instead warps and morphs to make the animations appear more human). But then, if they stuck with the Lego joints, lightsaber combat would be a lot less fun.

The sound is very good, but this is expected from Star Wars, seeing as Skywalker Sound is in charge of the sound score. The music is all the John Williams stuff you've heard hundreds of times before, sometimes fitting, sometimes completely absent - but if you get sick of it, you can turn it off.

The game's controls are very simple and effective. Jump, attack, special ability, and switch characters. The default control layout for the PC version works pretty well, requiring practically no setup if you have a gamepad (and it's very easy to change things if you don't quite like them).

Overall, this is a nice little diversion. A good amount of fun, especially if you have a friend to play with (since the game supports co-op play!). I only wish it were longer though, or had the original trilogy in it (though the sequel is in the works with its focus on the original trilogy).

9/10

[Val]

SUPER SMASH BROS. DOUBLE-REVIEW
My LORD, people! You haven't reviewed these two chunks of history yet? Shame on you! I'll do them both.

Super Smash Bros.
Publisher: Nintendo
Rating: T
System: N64

Yay.

Graphics
Ick. The graphics are ick. The objects are sprites so they look okay, but not great. The charecter models are hideous- for crying out loud, Mario's hands are just 3 triangles put together! But this game's not all about the graphics.

Sound
Whee! All of your favorite tunes from the classic Nintendo games are back, each with their own stage.

Gameplay
YSE. This game is unbelievably fun to play, especially with friends. That's a big problem, though- it's sort of boring without friends to play it with; after all, it's a fighting game. However, this game does have a great AI system.

Replayability
This game will have you playing it again and again and never gets old.

Overall
7/10

Super Smash Bros. Melee
Publisher: Nintendo
Rating: T
System: GC

I still have no idea what the "melee" in the title means.

Graphics
yayayayayayay. Beautiful graphics. The items are fully 3D now, and Mario's hand looks like a hand!

Sound
Uuurh. The sound has me confused. Since WHEN was that Hyrule Castle theme a Zelda song? That Mario theme remix is eek. Other than that, it's good.

Gameplay
:D! Around fifty charecters, around fifty stages, several modes of gameplay and 51 minigames ensure you'll NEVER get bored of this.

Replayability
NEVER

Overall
9/10

[Goshi]

Guy's reviews need a heavy make-over so because I'm nice I'll do a good review for the N64 one.

Smash Bros
Publisher: HAL, Nintendo
ERSB: E (Well where I'm from its E)
System: N64

Plot:
There is no plot to speak of, yes thats right. None whatsoever.
0/10

Graphics:
HIDEOUS. The character models are hideous, the game suffers an overuse of sprites, however the scenery is moderately decent. Quite possibly on of the ugliest games availble for N64.
3/10

Gameplay:
Here's where the gmae truely shines. You have sveral chracters to choose from, all with their own unique moves and all from various Nintendo games. Each chracter has 3 special moves performed with the B button and several basic attacking moves all performed with the A button. The controls are VERY simple for a fighting game which is a HUGE plus. The arenas are cool with the various obstacles pitted in as well. Also unlike most fighting games the objective is to knock the player off the stage rather than drain all his/her health. I personally think this is better this way though. Lastly, comparing it to its superior GC version, the game moves rather slow and some of the chracters are overpowered or underpowered, but these factors aside the gameplay is great. Oh yes, they're also two mini-games (Break Targets, Board Platforms) but these are nothing interesting and once you complete them you'll most likely never do them again.
9.8/10

Music and Sound:
The sound effects are suitable and nothing too annoying to hear really. The music is mostly remixes of classical songs, there is a wide variety of the songs and its nothing you'll be too bored of, however the original songs are nothing to wirte home about.
9/10

Multiplayer:
Hahaha, do I really need to say more?
10/10

Replay Value:
They're's numerous unlockables, and multiplayer is always a lot of fun.
9/10

Difficulty: Varies
It really depends on your learning curve really. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able to understand the game's system. The game's very easy if you can understand how it goes well.

Overall:
9/10

"Excellent game but the GC one is IMO, 100 times better. Get if you want or if you have something against the GC"

[weasel]

Blast Corps
"You runnin' away or somethin'?"

Genre: Action
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
ESRB: E
Platform: Nintendo 64

A nuclear arms carrier is barrelling through various cities - and if it hits anything, it spells radiation doom for the whole world. Enter the Blast Corps, an elite team of demolitions specialists, to clear a path for the carrier to get through without detonating.

You are the most recent arrival to the Corps - as a newbie, you get behind the wheel of a gigantic bulldozer, and plow through Simian Acres as a training mission. Eventually you find other tools of destruction - Ballista, a motorcycle with twin missile launchers; Backlash, a dump truck with an armored rear; J-Bomb, a flying mecha that divebombs into stuff; and many others. There is no single vehicle to select in a given area - you can hop out of your vehicle at will and climb into another one, but while you're outside of your vehicle, you run rather slowly and can't do anything to the buildings. You can also use cranes to lift and move vehicles (and TNT crates), ferries, and trains.

Destroying buildings is only part of the fun. The first run of any mission involves clearing a path for the nuke truck. If you return to a level, you can also earn medals by destroying all the buildings in the level, illuminating all the RDU markers, and "rescuing" all the survivors (by flattening the buildings that they're trapped inside).

You also get to play in various timed challenges - from race tracks, to destroy-all-buildings levels, an oversized pool table, and even a homage to Pac-Man. They're good distractions from the normal missions.

Being a first-generation N64 game, this actually appears to be the defining standard for all that go after it. The texture resolution isn't too high, but the models are pretty detailed (for 1996 anyway), the explosions are very cool, and the cities all look quite convincing. There are also some special effects that were quite impressive for their time - from J-Bomb's environment-mapped jetpack, to the bump-mapping on Backlash, and the water.

The musical score, composed by Graeme Norgate (also responsible for the Goldeneye and TimeSplitters series soundtracks, among others), ranges from hard rock, to electronica, to some sort of mix between country and techno. The tunes are very catchy, and even shift into more tense and pulse-pounding variants whenever the carrier is about to hit something. The sound effects are appropriately powerful as well.

The game's controls are a bit on the touchy side. To use Backlash, you have to handbrake-spin so that its rear end plows through the buildings. Doing this is no easy task. Also, the camera is zoomed in quite a bit, which occasionally makes navigation a pain - though there is a handy radar and an arrow which will tell you where the carrier is, and where the next building is in the carrier's path.

There's a lot of secrets to find in this game. Cleverly hidden shortcuts in the race tracks (it's a lot easier to clear a couple of them with the bulldozer than it is with a sports car, simply because you can plow a shortcut through the buildings), new vehicles to race in (including the Ford Gran Torino from Starsky and Hutch, the A-Team van, and a more politically correct version of the General Lee), and even a whole new set of levels once you've obtained gold medals on everything. It adds a lot of replayability.

The only thing Blast Corps is severely lacking: multiplayer. In the time when Nintendo revolutionized multiplayer by having 4 controller ports right out of the box, Blast Corps would be a game that simply wouldn't hold up in a party. At the very least, a two-player cooperative mode would have been welcome for the tougher missions (like Outland Farm).

Overall, this is one of the many reasons that the Nintendo 64 doesn't suck.

8.5/10

[scorch3000]

Warbears: A shockwave puzzle game
http://www.newground...tal/view/296606

Warbears is a strange but fun puzzle game. Taking command of a SWAT style squad, your mission is to save Bedtime City bank from the evil groundhogs, saving the hostages also. In your team is the leader Lucas, who is armed with various Grenades, Kla, who is unarmed, but a hacker, Ryoh, the swordmaster and Stevie the sniper.

Gameplay: Easy to learn, just scroll over a warbear to view his actions, move, open, throw grenade, shoot, ect. Some actions such as access computer can only be performed by Kla, while Stevie is the only one able to shoot.

Dificulty: When Stevie arrives, he can't get inside. Have somone on the inside order pizza. The puzzles are great, and some are difficult.

Bugs: Never saw any.

Overall: 8/10

[CJA]

Red Dead Revolver

Action/Shooter
Made by Rockstar Games
For PS2
Rated M

"Better load up them guns of yours. Nobody plays hero- THEM GUNS OF YOURS."

The main character here is Red Harlow, son of "Falling Star" of the Red Wolf Tribe and settler/cowboy/whatever Nate Harlow. It takes place in whatever decades everyone began heading west. (So I don't study history. Sue me.) The first level, when his father is killed, takes place when Red is a boy. The others take place when he is an adult. The best part of this game is that you can play multiple characters-- as both friends and enemies of Red.

Gameplay - If you like a good shoot-em-up, this is the perfect game. You can notice your own improvement in aiming and technique as you progress. You also notice enemies take more hits. This game has a nice difficulty curve... it's usually on your level. Except when you fight that dynamite guy and the circus dude (spoilers averted). I found those hard, but they occured early on in the game. You can also cover behind things. There are also unlockable harder modes. And at one point in the game there's an awesome bar brawl. You can buy new items as well as journal pages and Showdown characters and stages.

Duel Mode is cool. Slow motion starts. You move the right stick around the enemy and lock on up to six targets. The darker the cursor, the more deadly the attack. Deadeye Mode is similiar except it is used in the heat of battle, and you "paint" targets on the enemy. Overall, this gameplay is full of features. 8/10


Graphics - The graphics were very nice... not anything special, but I found nothing at all wrong with them. 9/10


Sound/Music - BOOOMB! TOTAL FAILAGE. Maybe because the disc was scratched (I rented it from Blockbuster). Anyway, sounds would often "leak over" and distort or be inaudible, or a combination of them. For example, in the train,

"If you want this train to make it to Brimstone, you better load up them guns of yours." Someone else: "Better load up them guns of yours. Nobody plays hero-- THEM GUNS OF YOURS."

Yes, the voices overlap. This is true for the music too- "[5 bars of music] DIING! *chuffachuffachuffa*" and repeat. The voiceacting that DID show up was fine and sounded well-acted. It was probably the disk, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt. 5/10


Plot - Well, the plot can get confusing at times. I still haven't grasped exactly WHY he went to the [end level]. Maybe if I could have heard the voices. Basically the plot is 'avenge your father.' 6/10


Multiplayer - I guess the Showdown Mode is multiplayer, but haven't actually tried multiple players. The Showdown Mode is neat-- kill enemies to get cards. You can play a variety of characters and on different stages, but you have to unlock them first.


Overall - Well, we returned the game to Blockbuster and I could get another one for free because the sound was messed up. And, I even got a whole week out of it. Oh, the game, uh, it's well put together, but it features only the action scenes of the story. So basically shoot people, possibly watch a small cinema, shoot more people. Not a bad thing though... the "shoot people" part has a lot of variety.

And a little comment... it's funny how they named him Red, like "Red County" in GTA:SA. Gotta say that's a clever name.

8/10. *GAVEL*

[weasel]

Ultima VII: The Black Gate
"NO! You cannot do that! You must NOT!"

Genre: RPG
Year: 1992
Platform: PC (an SNES version was released but it's almost completely different)
Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Electronic Arts
ESRB: T (on the "Complete" package)
WSRS: You barely walk ten feet from your starting point before seeing a man completely dismembered on the ground, with his limbs strewn about. There is a fair amount of gore elsewhere as well, and in addition there are some situations that could be considered sexual (like the baths). I'd kick it up to an M, but it's a borderline M.

The original computer RPG series' seventh part is considered by many to be the high point of the Ultima games. While it may appear archaic, and the interface may seem a bit confusing by today's standards (unless you read the manual), the gameplay is every bit as open-ended and enjoyable as more recent entries in the RPG market - like Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, or even the Baldur's Gate series.

As you start the game, you're greeted by a very pretty title screen - an open meadow with some trees, blue skies, and a rainbow-colored Ultima VII logo - complete with a butterfly perching on it.

But suddenly, the image disappears amid static and white noise, and you find yourself staring into a shimmering blue void. Various red shapes surface momentarily only to sink again, until they all arrive at once and reveal the visage of The Guardian.

"Avatar!" his voice booms forth. "Know that Britannia has entered into a new age of enlightenment!" He continues taunting you, until he finally disappears again. You instinctively reach for your Orb of the Moons, so that you can travel to Britannia yourself and investigate - but there is already a red moongate open in your back yard.

You arrive in the town of Trinsic, to a noticeably darker atmosphere than when you saw it last. Your old companion, Iolo, is conversing with a peasant about a foul murder. Once you begin investigating, you find that it's no ordinary hit and run. The victim has had all his limbs severed and marked with candles. The victim's assistant, a gargoyle named Inamo, is nailed to a wall in the next room.

Thus begins your quest. Along your path, you'll meet a hell of a lot of unique people (several of which will gladly join your party), encounter several different varieties of monsters, discover some pretty interesting situations (like the travelling performers that are trying to put on a play about you), and hold intelligent conversations ("Name. Job. Bye.") with influential leaders.

The game world is downright huge. We're talking Morrowind caliber. It's big enough that the game comes with a cloth map with coordinates marking the various cities and landmarks of Britannia, so that you can find them more easily (using the sextant to pinpoint your location). There's a lot of stuff to do, and lots of attention to detail. Want to gamble your funds away at Buccaneer's Den? Or bake a pie? Maybe do some experimentation with drugs? Yep - they're all here. And considering that the game only takes up about twenty megabytes, that's a real testament to how much work the folks at Origin put in to squeeze the most from the hardware.

However, the interface tends to be a bit annoying to deal with.

There is no way to move the Avatar with the keyboard. Instead, your mouse pointer is an arrow that points in whatever direction the Avatar will move. Holding the right mouse button will make the Avatar walk. The longer the arrow is, the faster he'll run. Navigating like this is quite a bit of hassle, especially if you're using the original game through DOSbox or something (it's a little easier using the fan-made Exult game engine, but not by much).

To interact with objects, you have to double click on them - the problem is, many NPCs will be in constant motion. The game moves slowly enough that this is not an issue most of the time, but smaller characters (like Sherry the mouse, in Lord British's castle) are a little hard to click on.

The inventory system is also a little annoying. To pick things up, you have to click and drag them on to the party member you wish to carry them. If you want to look at their inventory, you have to double-click on yourself first, then on the party member (if you don't open your inventory first, the avatar will instead talk to that party member). If you have a lot of items in your inventory, shuffling them around to find what you're looking for (like a small key or other important item) also gets a little frustrating - but on the plus side, the game is paused whenever you open any inventory window.

The graphics look rather strange at first. The isometric perspective is not three-quarter view - it's a traditional overhead view, but everything is skewed oddly. You'd have to look at screenshots to see what I mean. It looks confusing at first but things eventually get a little more intuitive (and it's also easier to judge height in this perspective than it is in three-quarter view, like in Ultima VIII or Crusader). The palette is bold and bright - adjusting dynamically for night time. And most everything looks like you'd expect it to - and if it isn't, you can always click once on it to see what it is.

The soundtrack is pretty awesome. Royal fanfares to announce your arrival in Lord British's throne room, ominous chords for the dungeons, tense stuff for the battles. And if you have a Roland MT-32, all the better - as the game seems to have been designed with that in mind. There are some digitized speech samples as well (like the Guardian's occasional taunt), and these are pretty nicely done.

If you're looking for Ultima VII these days, your best bet would be to either look for the Ultima Collection box set (which contains Ultimas I through VIII), the Complete Ultima VII package (which contains Ultima VII, the Forge of Virtue add-on, Part Two: The Serpent Isle, and its expansion, The Silver Seed), or Ultima IX: Dragon Edition (which contains the Collection box set). Just make sure that all manuals and maps are accounted for - you won't be able to progress past Trinsic if you don't have your map (as the Mayor will quiz you on it before he'll allow you to leave).

I give Ultima VII a 7.8/10 - it looks and plays good, but the interface could be much better. Though most of my complaints are ratified with the fan-made Exult engine, which allows you to play both parts of the game in Windows, Linux, Mac, or Amiga, among others, it's still a bit more difficult than it should be.

[weasel]

Medal of Honor: European Assault

Platform: XBox, PS2, GameCube (XBox version reviewed)
Developer: EA Games
Publisher: EA Games
Genre: FPS
ESRB: T (violence, blood, mild language)
WSRS: I mostly agree with this. The game is very intense, but it's not as graphic as Saving Private Ryan - or even Brothers In Arms.

In what is probably one of the few World War 2 shooter games that doesn't rip off of Saving Private Ryan, you control OSS agent Lt. Holt and a squad of British dudes in your efforts to push the Nazi invasion back to Berlin.

The game begins with your boat landing at a German dock. The game takes this moment to try and teach you your controls, and encourages you to grab one of the machine guns and mow down some Nazi scumbags.

Once you've reached the first real mission, you start noticing what MOH:EA is all about. It's not a hyper-realism game like Call of Duty. It's not absolute arcade madness like Wolfenstein 3D. It's somewhere in between, with a few liberties taken to make it more console-like.

While you are in control of a full squad of buddies (which you order around by clicking the right stick, and can recall by pushing down on the D-pad), they can usually fend for themselves and will follow you around if you haven't given them orders. Even if they run directly in front of you (like AI buddies usually do), your bullets will merely pass right through them. You can even walk straight through your buddies. It's like they're not there in the first place - like the British army insisted upon sending holograms to help you out. But their cover fire does help a lot in many situations.

Moving and shooting is a breeze. The controls are mostly Halo-like, with the two sticks moving and looking. You can aim down the sight with the left trigger, fire with the right, and bash some skulls with the left stick. You can carry two weapons at once, Halo-style, and you can switch to your grenades as well.

Despite this, the game heads for more of an arcade-style approach - nearly all of the pickups have little icons hovering over them, and there is a meter in the bottom right of the screen called the Adrenaline meter. As you perform certain maneuvers in game (melee kills, head shots, grenade kills), the meter fills up, to the point where you can become invincible for a limited time. As an added bonus, your weapons will have infinite ammo while in Adrenaline mode. It seems kinda cheesy to have a feature like this, though. To make matters even more arcade-like, you are given a limited number of Medkits and Revives (and you can find more along the way). Medkits can be used any time to heal you or your squadmates, while Revives are essentially extra lives. If you die during a mission, a Revive is automatically used to restore you to 50% health (at the cost of your entire adrenaline meter).

The final piece of arcade-ism is the bosses. In nearly every mission, there will be an SS officer that has taken command of the area. Killing him will never be easy - it's usually a good idea to find a rocket launcher or a machine gun and fill up your adrenaline meter, or else send your squaddies ahead and make them weaken him for you.

The weapons with which you can kill those Nazi scumbags are varied enough for a WW2 game - pistols, SMG's, rifles, rocket launchers, even a shotgun. Most of them are fairly accurate to their real-world counterparts to some extent. My only real complaint is the notable absence of the Sten sub-machine gun - considering that it was very commonly used by British soldiers, I have no idea why they instead opted to put in the American Thompson M1.

MOH's visuals pretty much stand up to par with the rest of the games available. There's really nothing that makes this stand apart from the rest, though I did notice a few of the weapon animations were a bit robotic (particularly the melee attacks).

The sounds are also par for the course, with some fairly powerful weapon sounds ensuring Hollywood accuracy. It's THX-certified too, so that's gotta say something. Though the music in the game is unremarkable for the most part, since it wasn't composed by Michael Giaccino(sp?) like in Allied Assault.

For the most part, MOH:EA is a decent World War 2 shooter, but the arcade stylings just seem to be taking it a bit too far. At least they didn't go the Commandos 3 route and put in synthesizer music.

7/10

[weasel]

Polarium

Developer: Mitchell
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: GBA, DS (both versions reviewed)
ESRB: E
Genre: Puzzle

Developer Mitchell Corp. is no stranger to making original and addictive puzzle games, considering that their past library of games includes games like Puzz Loop (better known among the shareware community as "Zuma"). With Polarium, it seems they wanted to make something a little slower-paced and less arcadey. They almost succeeded.

In Polarium, the objective is to clear rows of blocks. There are only two colors of block on the board, and to clear the rows, you have to flip the blocks until the whole row is the same color. You can flip blocks by drawing a "path" through them - this path can be as long as you need it to be, but you cannot cross over it.

As poor a job as I did explaining the game, it's amazing I even learned how to play - unless you factor in the comprehensive interactive tutorials included in both versions of the game.

The core gameplay lies in Puzzle mode. Here, the objective is to eliminate all of the blocks using only one path. It's quite a bit harder than it sounds, considering the patterns that are thrown at you. In fact, out of 100 puzzles in the DS version, I've only managed to complete 35. In the GBA version, this is just about the only game mode there is - outside of linked multiplayer.

The DS version also contains Challenge Mode, which is basically the same concept as Puzzle, except there is no limit on the number of paths you have to make, and new patterns are continually being dropped from above. If they fill both screens, you're screwed.

For all intents and purposes, the game doesn't really control very well in either version. The GBA version's scheme is more intuitive - you can press a button to start your path and then use the D-pad to guide it around. However, various functions (like the ability to call up a picture of what your last path looked like, if you failed the puzzle before) are hidden in obscure places - rather than using the buttons that aren't used, they insist on making you hold the Start button.

The DS version is actually the inferior one in terms of control - rather than allowing you to use the pad and buttons, they force you to use the touch screen. It wouldn't be quite as bad if the blocks weren't so small that you might accidentally draw your path in the wrong direction. The buttons do absolutely nothing, save for the power button. I suppose Mitchell was just desperate to find ways to take advantage of the touch screen.

The game is a pretty good concept, I must say. But the controls really kill it for me, as does the fact that outside of the puzzle mode (and the DS's frustrating Challenge mode), there really isn't much to do. Sure, you could challenge your friends to multiplayer, but that's about it.

There is a puzzle editor though. But barely anybody has actually written decent puzzles for it - or if they have, they haven't bothered to post them online. The only puzzles I found were on GameFAQs and they were just too easy.

Between the two versions, I would prefer the GBA version over the DS version.

6.5/10

[weasel]

WarioWare: Touched!

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Your guess is as good as mine
ESRB: E (Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor)
Platform: Nintendo DS

The ultimate justification for owning a DS.

While a good number of DS games simply use the second screen to show HUD elements and ignore the touch-screen and microphone entirely, WarioWare is the first game that I can think of that takes advantage of absolutely everything (save for wireless multiplayer).

Some background...in the last game, Wario noticed that a new game, Pyoro, had been released and was earning monstrous amounts of money. So he gathered together a band of developers to create a crapload of games so that he, too, could earn said monstrous sums.

He's still doing this, as far as the player is concerned. Which is no big problem, because it means a lot more stuff to do.

In this chapter, however, Wario learns of the existence of the Nintendo DS - two screens equals twice the game, and twice the money for him. So he (and his rag-tag band of buddies) gets straight to work, amassing nearly 180 different games that utilize the touch screen (and microphone).

The way WarioWare works is that, in a given stage, you're presented with several "microgames" - five-second-long minigames where you are given a simple one-word goal and must accomplish said goal before the timer runs out. The more games you complete, the faster things get. Screw up on too many games, and it's all over. But that's not all! Every 15-20 games, you're presented with a longer "Boss Stage" which is a more difficult type of game that requires a bit more skill and concentration than the others.

So during a playthrough, you'll be hacking vegetables (and planets) in mid-air, throwing hammers, filling up jars of candy, waking people up by bashing on loud things, cleaning windows, and picking your nose - all with the stylus. (I'm not kidding about the nose-picking either.)

In addition, there are some games that must be played by blowing into the DS's built-in microphone. Blowing boxers out of the ring, keeping hang-gliders afloat, shooting peas and tin cans, and playing aerial jump-rope by hovering a miniature senior citizen with your lips. It's all here.

As you progress through the game, you'll not only unlock more characters (and more microgames), but also a bunch of Toys. These Toys range from the useless (Pet Brine Buddies), to the useful (Calculator, Metronome, and Turntable), to the ten-second-amusement variety (the Yo-Yo, the pet chameleon, and the custard jiggling simulator), to the what-where-they-on variety (the Grandma Simulator) and the unlockable minigames (Pong Ping, Pyoro T, Juggle Boy, Air Dude, and Snore Rope, among others).

The graphic style shifts wildly through the different games. While it may look normal at one point, it might shift into a minimalist black-and-white, or a colorful 3D render, or even a child's drawing. There's nothing that'd make you say, "This game looks like crap" - because it's obviously meant to be that way. That being said, bravo to Nintendo.

The sounds are also good. The music is pretty high-quality (considering that it's only played in short 5-10 second bursts, outside of the cinemas and menus), and the sound effects fit as well. I should make some notes on the music - despite the shortness of all the tracks, they all flow together with perfect rhythm - and in one stage, the music actually contains lyrics (which as far as I know, is a first for a hand-held system). And what's more, unlike the original WarioWare, the "old-school" game music is 100% accurate to its original NES counterparts, as opposed to just sounding kinda like it. And there's even a big-band remix of a song from Mario Paint. Awesome.

It's fun, addictive, and full of secret stuff. Do yourself a favor and go buy this thing.

10/10

[CHEZZY]

Name: Oddworld: Strangers Wrath
Maker: Oddworld inhabitants
Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: Xbox
Year: 2003 - 2005 or sumthin

Very cool game, involving you as a bounty hunter. No one knows your name, you are referred to as 'Stranger'. You have some kind of grudge against guns, instead you have a double barreled crossbow strapped to one arm. You catch live ammo like StingBees, ThudSlugs or even the old favourites, Fuzzles. Set traps, catch bandits and collect your bounty. Plus half way through the game there is a twist...

It gets an 8 / 10. I loved this game!

[Syrup Lad]

Final Fantasy XI: Online


This has been one of my favorite MMOs. It has things many players will love, it's not all fighting seeing as you can do a viriety of crafts and other non-violent things.

Graphics and Sound:

The graphics are good, like most FF games but, there are no great looknig cutscenes like FFX and there are no real voice actors except in the opening movie. It has a more realistic style to the graphics the WoW and the score is good but it never exactly stands out.
7/10

Gamplay:

Being an MMORPG you need to have player contact. SquareEnix had done a wonderfull job of trying to let players act in many ways like, marrige, partying (as in fighting togather), and the ability to let your friends join you for a free thirty days. In terms of battle the game is good but its nothing overly special, it has a large list of abilitys and classes to youse along with many types of weapons and armor. There is a bit of a story but as an MMO most people don't use it much. (Including myslef.)
8/10

Community:

This game by far, has one of the nicest communitys I've ever seen. They are always wiling to help and have left a good impression on me and all of my friends. THough there is a 12$ a month fee, most people could easily afford it.
10/10


Overall:

This is a wonderfull game and I strongly encrouge everyone to go to, www.playonline.com to find out more about Final Fantasy XI.
8/10

(okay SquareEnix You can pay me now!)

PS: I am Feon on Fairy Server.

[weasel]

Black

Genre: FPS
Platform: PS2, XBox (XBox version reviewed)
Year: 2005
Developer: Criterion
Publisher: EA Games
ESRB: M
WSRS: Be on the lookout for not just intense violence, but also some major cuss language (I heard AI buddies shouting the F-word at some point). Plenty of wanton destruction to be had.

Given Criterion's previous successes in kick-starting the racing genre with their Burnout series, you wouldn't think their next move would be a shooter. But looking back, they did also have a hand in creating Kill.Switch for Namco. So when they said they'd revolutionize shooters, I almost took them seriously.

Black is all about action. Well, not all...there's still a fair bit of tactical movement necessary, lest you get your head sniped off. But it's more action-oriented than the average realism shooter.

You play this guy that works for the anti-terrorist organization BLACK. You're being interrogated by this guy so that he can clarify a few things about your record and prevent you from being court-martialed. So the core gameplay revolves around your character going through different flashbacks to tours of duty that he took part in - the middle east, Europe, and a few others.

The way you go through missions isn't quite the planned approach that you might expect from a "tactical" shooter. The levels aren't terribly linear, but you won't really be focusing on that too much. You're probably going to be too busy blowing things up to care, anyway.

Let's put this in perspective. There is no use button in this game. Instead of opening doors like any other normal person, you've got to blast them down. Throw grenades and blow them off their hinges, plowing them through any poor soul unfortunate enough to stand behind them. Or get up close and personal, wait for the right moment, and launch the door several feet with a shotgun shell. Or you could just go the stingy "I don't want to waste my hard-earned ammo" route and bash the door with your gun (but that's just not as satisfying).

Your enemies are at least smart enough to take cover and advance on your position, but you've got quite a number of ways to deal with that. Chuck grenades at them. Launch rockets. Or just hold the trigger on that AK-47 and turn their cover into a tiny little pile of wood splinters. Just about everything that the enemy can hide behind is destructable - it's not GeoMod (Red Faction), but it's close. Turn sandbags into dust with a well-placed shotgun shell. Vaporize the supporting columns of a museum with sustained Uzi fire. Destroy fuel trucks (and the buildings surrounding them) with just a few rounds from your Glock. You can even detonate parked cars with enough bullets (and totally waste whoever decided to take cover behind them).

The reason you're doing all this rarely has anything to do with the mission at hand. In each mission, you're required to complete your primary objectives, and a certain number of your secondary objectives (the number of which depends on your difficulty - easy mode disables them altogether, while normal, hard, and black-ops modes require you to complete more of them before your mission will succeed). While the primary objectives are fairly boring, the secondaries range from eliminating specific targets, to destroying objects and blackmail evidence, to collecting troop manifests and intelligence, or even hidden weapons (like an M203 grenade launcher).

As fun as this game sounds on paper, it's just too short. The main game probably takes about 8 hours to complete (enough time to beat it in a rental period, if you know what you're doing). There is no multiplayer, either - and the unlockables (unlimited ammo and a harder skill level) are barely worth it. It's a game that only thrives on the experience - and the experience is too short.

However, the game's aesthetics are quite good. The graphics are very well done, especially on the gun models. The game's lead designer once referred to Black as "gun pr0n" - and he's right. When reloading your weapon, the game has a blurring/depth of field effect that shows your gun clearly, but blurs everything else. It sounds annoying, but it's not too noticeable. The reload sequences are smooth and detailed, with good sound effects to go with them. Gunfire is well pronounced and powerful, and the action is accompanied by an original orchestral soundtrack performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

The controls are where Black starts to suffer. While the buttons are all easily reconfigured (and they barely need to be touched at all), the turning sensitivity is just way too low. I understand that you're supposed to be able to aim accurately, but when there's a soldier right behind you shooting at you, this can get a little frustrating. Another complaint that I had is that the trigger buttons are too sensitive in the XBox version - the slightest tap on the L trigger will chuck a grenade, so you have to keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to throw one (which is not the most comfortable thing to do with an XBox controller).

Overall, though, Black is a good ride - but it's just not worth $40. Wait for the price to go down, or better yet, rent it. Bottom line: it ain't the next Half-Life 2, but it's better than Medal of Honor: European Assault.

7.5/10

[weasel]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Genre: Adventure
Developer/Publisher: CAPCOM
System: Nintendo DS
ESRB: T
WSRS: Enough blood to make the deaths convincing, though this being an anime-styled game, I guess that doesn't warrant an M rating. There's little to no swearing, and even less sexual situations (though fans of Mai Shiranui would probably get a kick out of April May's breasts).

Way back in 2001, Capcom Japan released a little courtroom drama called Gyakuten Saiban for the Game Boy Advance. This game combined traditional adventure game elements with thrilling courtroom battles that draw the player in and motivate them to solve each case to the very end.

Gyakuten Saiban ("Turnabout Courtroom") was popular enough to warrant two sequels (with a brand new entry in the series on its way). The first game was also remade as "Gyakuten Saiban: Yomigaeru Gyakuten" - the game that we in the US know as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

The story centers around an up and coming defense lawyer named Phoenix Wright. Under his mentor, veteran attorney Mia Fey, Phoenix takes on his first case.

When the game begins, you're placed straight into the courtroom. It may seem daunting, but Mia will provide valuable assistance if you need it (though I seriously doubt anybody would, considering that the first case is pretty much a tutorial).

The characters you'll be dealing with are all unique. They have their own defining personalities, styles of clothing, and motives to be involved in each case. Not to mention the absurd names given to many characters - Sal Manella. April May. Redd White of the Blue Corporation. Manfred von Karma.

Just about everybody you talk to in this game is somehow involved in the cases you're investigating - which means on-site questioning, close scrutiny of what they're saying, and presenting any evidence that might get them to cough up more information that could help you in court.

And when the courtroom battle begins, you're tasked with cross-examining each witness and presenting any evidence that exposes contradictions in their testimonies. The more you do that, the better chance you have of utterly puh-owning the prosecution (and seeing the hilarious expressions on the witnesses' faces).

The game has little interaction, but the puzzles presented before you can turn out to be real head-scratchers (including several "traps" set up by the prosecution in later cases). Other times, however, you'll already be thinking of the solutions before the puzzle is even presented to you. You see, the difficulty tends to fluctuate in the first three cases - but the last two are consistently hard. Especially when you're dealing with Manfred von Karma. The man objects to absolutely everything you say, and even manages to intimidate the judge with his ruthlessness. ("Judge! Present your verdict. NOW!")

The graphics aren't particularly high-tech, but they most certainly get the job done. The animation is limited, but it's there, and every character is very well-drawn. Artwork is pretty good, and even the small details are there (they have to be, considering small details is a large part of what you're supposed to look at).

Sound-wise, the game's musical score does a good job of setting the mood. Most characters have their own unique theme, and (perhaps my favorite part) the dialogue in courtroom battles is accompanied by slashing and hammering sounds, as if the lawyers were having not a battle of wits, but a battle of weapons. The attorneys are depicted as warriors - their evidence serving as both their sword and their shield.

The game's controls are as intuitive as possible. You can play using the touch screen exclusively, or the buttons. There's also an option where you can use the microphone to shout "OBJECTION!" when presenting evidence, but I could never get it to work (even shouting the Japanese equivalent, "IGI ARI!", didn't seem to work). No big loss, though - I look like enough of a fool shouting "BLUE! RED! BLACK! YELLOW!" when playing Brain Age in the living room.

Overall - if you want a good adventure game with thrilling battles of wits and an excellent plot (five excellent plots, anyway), grab a copy of this game. Just don't get it on eBay - $80 is too much. Instead, buy the Japanese or European versions. They're far cheaper, and the Japanese version has the English version in it (just touch the dark red button on the title screen to switch back and forth). Play-Asia.com has the Japanese version for just below $30 USD, so it's as good a deal as any.

9/10

[Pancake]

Title: Quake III: Arena
Developer: Id Software
Distributer: Activision
Language: English
ESRB Rating: Mature (Animated Blood & Gore, Animated Violence (Game Experience May Change During Online Play))
Licence: They still own it and update it, so...

Gameplay: 85%

In the field of gameplay, Quake III has its pros and cons. The pros are that it has the same style (good style) throughout the whole game. You can chat with the enemies while they respond and you could even play with your friends online. The experience, overall, is very entertaining. The game features great replay value that will allow you to come back at any time. However, there are cons. Nothing too major, but there are still some. Firstly, the level design get a little repeititive, even thought the terrains and obstacles don't. Secondly, the bots get repetitive as well. They seem to have the same responses to things and also seem to go in a circle around the course. Other than that, the gameplay is great. It deserves 85%.

Inovation-ness: 80%

Really, this is a "shoot everythig that moves or die" game. However, Id Software was nice enough to include a chat system that works online and offline. The online chat is similar to IRC, with commands starting with "/" are cheats. But, you don't really want cheats while playing online to give one person an advantage. ;/ But offline, you can chat with the enemies and they will actually talk back. They do have a simple list of responses, but they do respond to alot of things. There are even some easter eggs. Wink But the most inovated thing of all is the ability to mod it and realease those mods. You just have to extract the pk files, open those files in a C++ thingy, and start modding! I've never made a complete mod, but I changed a few things such as wepon strength and chat responses. because of the ability to mod Quake III: Arena, it boosts the inovation-ness to 80%.

Graphics: 85%

The graphics vary. The terrain and landscape is excelent. It's very realistic and is basicly eye-candy (On a high resolution). This is a first person shooter, so you'll be looking at it most the time. However, the character models aren't to be proud of. They look like old, Nintendo 64-like. They could be alot better. In the way of colors, again, it depends on your system and monitor. On mine, (highest-color) they look fantastic.

Music and sound effects: 90%

In the way of music, there is some nice rock. It blends in and goes well with the arena and courses. And, without music, there would be no point to this game. It's really good and adds alot to the overall game. The sound effects give the same experience, and again, without them, the game would suck--well, it wouldn't suck, it would just not be...as good. I was even able to do with only sound effects when I forgot to change the game settings to fit my computer when I first installed it.

Overall: 85% -- B

EDIT: The character models compared to how good the terrains look . That's what I mean by being better.

This post has been edited by Commander Pancake: 26 July 2006 - 05:47 PM

[weasel]

Commander Pancake, on Jul 26 2006, 10:17 AM, said:

They look like old, Nintendo 64-like. They could be alot better.

This game was made in 1999, dude. Of course it's going to look old.

[weasel]

Prey
"Such anger....such potential!"

Developer: Human Head Studios/3D Realms
Genre: FPS
Year: 2006
Platform: PC/XBox 360

If Prey doesn't have a storied development, then I don't know what does. Originally started in 1995 by Tom Hall as direct competition against id Software's Quake, the game went through several incarnations (each with radically different storylines and only one of which featured a Native American protagonist) and was eventually sent into development limbo. Eventually, Human Head Studios (Rune, Dead Man's Hand) started the project from scratch in 2004 and the result is what you see here.

You are Domassi ("Tommy"), a garage mechanic who's stuck on an Indian reservation somewhere in Texas. After getting into a bar fight (which serves as the game's combat tutorial), you notice strange things happening outside. A pickup truck suddenly disappears from view, then the power goes out. The truck eventually crashes through the ceiling and blocks the front door, various noises come in from outside, and when the power comes back on at last, the ceiling is completely missing - and in its place are a bunch of glowing green lights. Aliens. And in a bit of ironic humor, the bar's jukebox starts playing "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Once the game actually starts, you're exploring an gigantic alien ship that seems to have a mind of its own. Large portions of the architecture are made of what appears to be a skin of some kind. Portals open everywhere, allowing enemies to get to you more easily, or to allow you to jump all over the ship in search of the only person you (Tommy) care about - your girlfriend Jen.

At some point, Tommy learns how to "spirit-walk" - seperating his soul from his body in order to pass through force-fields and interact with computer panels remotely. The puzzles involving spirit-walking are fairly innovative, though most of them start feeling a little samey after a good portion of the game ("Oh, another forcefield? Better spirit-walk through it and find the button."). Thankfully, that's not the only kind of puzzle in the game.

Some of my favorite moments in the game involve playing with the gravity-rotation switches. Shoot any of the glowing floor panels, and the entire ship rotates beneath your feet and causes anything loose to fly around for a bit. There's also plenty of areas where you can walk up walls and ceilings (just be careful if the enemy decides to turn off the magnetic floor).

Of course, being a shooter, it's not going to be much fun unless there's some fighting to go around.

And on that note, fighting is really just filler material in this game (for the most part anyway). Enemy AI is particularly harebrained, sometimes tending to stand in one place while shooting at you. Other enemies seem almost unfairly smart, but thank goodness you can't actually die in this game.

When you die, you enter the Spirit World to do battle with the dishonored dead. Kill enough of the weird flying creatures, and your health is restored to the point where you can return to the land of the living right in the spot where you died (or a close approximation therein).

The selection of weapons given to you is...interesting to say the least. Most of your equipment is basically just standard shooter-fare under the guise of some disgusting-looking creature or pulsating blobby thing with gun-barrels on it. You've got an assault rifle with a zoom function, an autocannon with a grenade launcher (actually the severed arm of a boss monster), an acid spitter (which is basically the game's shotgun, but it can also launch the entire capsule of acid as a projectile), and these little crawling bugs that can be used as hand grenades (by pulling their legs off). My personal favorite, though, is the Leech Gun - it acts similar to the vacuum cleaner from Luigi's Mansion, in that its function is different depending on what element you've sucked into it. This weapon alone serves about four different functions - plasma gun, freezer, railgun (probably the best railgun I've seen in a shooter to date), and a beam of light that acts vaguely like Quake 1's lightning gun.

While the single-player game may be a little too short or easy for most (given the fact that you can't die), Prey also includes a multi-player game. However, it's mostly the same as your average online deathmatch mode. Players can still spirit-walk (much more limited than before though), and every weapon is included pretty much intact. The level design involves plenty of portals, but surprisingly very little of the gravity switching panels. It at least looks really neat, though, and players can select pretty much everybody in the game as a player model (though for some reason, I didn't see Tommy's grandfather in there - he would have been really fun to play as).

Prey - great moment in FPS gaming? Or another Daikatana? I think it leans more towards the "Great Moment" category, even though it's really only good for one playthrough and a little bit of goof-off time in the online modes.

9/10

[weasel]

Guitar Hero

Genre: Rhythm Action
Developer: RedOctain
Publisher: Harmonix
Platform: PS2
ESRB: T (Mild Lyrics)

I confess: I didn't like music games. At least, not that much. I always avoided them because I feared it would just make me look like a fool trying to play them. The few that I tried before picking up Guitar Hero...well, let's just say that those sessions really didn't end well.

But it all changed when I picked up a copy for my brother's birthday. Complete with the Gibson SG guitar controller.

Guitar Hero is all about shreddin' hot lixx. Hammering the frets. Power chords, wicked solos, everything.

The game's main focus is the controller. This is essentially a miniature Gibson SG electric guitar, sporting five colored "fret buttons" along the neck, a two-way lever for strumming, and a whammy bar. The controller also has a tilt sensor in it, but I'll explain what that's for later.

Like most music games, the objective is to complete an entire song with as few errors as possible. In Guitar Hero, you play notes by holding the correct fret button and pressing the Strum lever at the right moment. Doing this well will produce the lead guitar for your favorite rock and roll tunes. Doing this not so well will produce some rather silly feedback noises and cause the crowd to boo at you.

As you play notes successfully, you gain points, multipliers, and Star Power. Missing notes will destroy whatever multiplier you had, as well as reduce the Rock Meter - if it gets too low, the crowd boos you off stage and you'll have failed the song. You can increase the rock meter by playing harder notes, making clever use of the whammy bar on held notes, and engaging Star Power.

Star Power is fun. To start using your Power, you tilt the guitar upwards (that old classic concert move). This makes notes worth double, enhances the sound of your guitar with a nifty echo effect, and causes your on-screen avatar to do some truly insane moves (like twirling the guitar around their back, or tossing it into the air and catching it again to play more of that face-melting solo). Star Power can be a real life-saver if you use it at the right time.

But what's a music game without the music? Harmonix has selected lots of songs for your strumming pleasure, organized into six different tiers - Opening Licks (simple stuff like Smoke on the Water, I Love Rock n Roll, and Thunder Kiss 65), Axe-Grinders (Iron Man and Sharp Dressed Man), Thrash And Burn (Killer Queen and Symphony of Destruction), Return of the Shred (Ziggy Stardust and Fat Lip), Fret-Burners (Ace of Spades and Crossroads), and Face-Melters (Frankenstein and Bark at the Moon). There's also a host of unlockable "bonus songs" from independant musicians, including my personal favorite, Caveman Rejoice by The Bags.

So the music is pretty damn good. The gameplay is tight and easy to get into (with a great tutorial to use for the noobs, too). This game is really nice. The controller is very comfortable to handle, as well - the only problem with Guitar Hero as of now is the relatively high price to pay to get the complete package (I paid $70 for the game plus controller). Hopefully the price will go down by the time Guitar Hero 2 comes out!

10/10

[weasel]

Tetris DS

Developer/Publisher: Nintendo
System: Duh
ESRB: E (game experience may change if you like to swear)
Genre: Um, it's Tetris, what do you think the genre's going to be? RPG?

One of the most anticipated versions of Tetris since the N64's "The New Tetris", Tetris DS looked like it had everything in the world going for it. There was no way this one could have failed. It had your unique gameplay modes, online wi-fi play, and most of all, it was frickin' Tetris. How could it go wrong?

Well, there are plenty of ways that Tetris DS goes wrong. Not to say it's a bad game by any stretch. It's just more flawed than one would expect.

Tetris DS contains six unique gameplay modes with a few minor variations therein. Classic, Mission, Puzzle, Catch, Push, and Touch round out the single-player modes; while Classic and Push mode are playable in multiplayer and over Wi-Fi.

Classic mode is about the same as the Tetris you're used to. Except this time there's an option to swap out the current piece for the one you have stored, which comes in handy sometimes but sorta feels like cheating (and there's no way to turn it off). There's also an instant-drop function which can be activated by pressing Up on the control pad, and the Next display shows you six pieces at once instead of the industry-standard 1 piece.

Mission mode is a more different way of playing the familiar Tetris game. You are given a goal on the top screen and must complete this goal before the timer runs out. Goals range from scoring a certain number of lines at once, to clearing one specific row on screen, to making lines with only one or two types of pieces. When the timer runs out, you're hit with garbage from below - but completing missions lowers the playfield.

Puzzle mode seems kinda stupid to me. You're given up to 5 different pieces and a playfield on the top screen, and all you have to do is choose what order the pieces are dropped in, and what rotation the piece uses. The game places the piece for you. So even if you can't complete a given puzzle, it's no trouble to just trial-and-error your way through.

Catch mode is the most radical departure from the standard Tetris formula. You have a clump of blocks that can be shuffled around the screen. To clear these blocks, you have to catch the falling blocks with your clump so that they form complete 4x4 squares. If your clump gets too large, or you catch too many Metroids with it, the game ends.

Push mode is the strangest multiplayer Tetris variant I've seen yet. Both players use the same well, but they drop their blocks from opposite ends. As a player makes large lines, the blocks in the well are sent in the opposing player's direction. The game ends when the blocks are pushed all the way into the other player.

Finally, Touch mode is the only mode that takes advantage of the touch screen. You are presented with a rather tall tower of blocks. Use the stylus to drag the blocks so they make lines. Your goal is to disassemble the tower until a cage filled with balloons reaches the bottom of the screen. On harder difficulties, you lose the ability to rotate blocks.

The various gametypes have their hits and misses. But in all the "traditional" types, there's a major glitch - the so-called "infinite spin" glitch. It goes as such: you can keep a piece suspended above the field indefinitely by pressing the rotate button repeatedly. So long as the button is hammered, the piece will never "land" on the ground, and can sometimes be maneuvered over small bumps. The fact that this glitch can be manipulated in multiplayer and wi-fi games means that the average match ends up being a battle of whose thumb is the strongest (providing of course that both players are aware of said glitch, which most of my opponents were).

Tetris DS's graphics are all NES-inspired, with music from old NES games for good measure. Super Mario, Link, Samus, and the Balloon Fighter all appear in the game with their respective theme songs. Unfortunately, this focus on theming makes the game unbearable to listen to after a while. Classic Mode does change the music every few levels (as well as the background and "mascot" character on the side), but every other mode has a unique theme that never changes. This is especially bad in the Touch mode, because every time you get a chain reaction, the Balloon Fight fanfare plays loudly. The number of times I had to hear that before finally turning the volume down...ugh.

The big draw of the game, 10-player wi-fi matches, is probably the only reason Tetris DS is worth getting (at least if you haven't already got a Tetris game for another platform). It's a snap to get into the game that you want (just specify the number of players and your gametype, and it'll find you a game that matches those and connects you to it). The only issue I encountered was random disconnects - though this was likely the fault of my Wi-Fi USB Connector than the game itself. But my fault or not, Tetris DS has the nerve to count your disconnect as a loss - which means that if you have a particularly bad day with your Internet connection, your wi-fi score is going to plummet.

Tetris DS is a decent implementation of the Tetris game. If you only want the online play, though, you might want to wait for the price to drop.

6.5/10

[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.