[Goshi]

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

Platform: Gameboy Advance
ERSB: T (I think it is.)
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Nintendo

The first Castlevania game on the GBA, released quite a long while back.

Gameplay:
Plays like most Castlevania games, good old whip smacking action, it also introduces the DSS system which allows you to gain cool spells, summons many other things, the bosses are very BIG O_o
9/10 for not trying to some stupid fancy pancy things that ruin everything.
9/10

Graphics:
Not too bad, bosses look nice except some look er... kinda dodgy but otherwise they're fine, character graphics are nice, bosses are pretty well designed, they're not too bad.
9/10

Music/Sound:
Not a variety of music, its pretty good but god I'm starting to hate the Abyss Staircase theme >.<
Surprisingly a lot of songs have come from other Castlevania games, ESPICALLY Castlevania III. It must've been hard to convert the Requiem song from the Saturn game. The sound effects are fine too, but sometimes you just keep hearing the same old sound effects but otherwise its fine.
8/10

Controls:
Nice and easy to use, just the way I like it. Nothing at all to extremely annoying to use etc.
10/10

Plot:
I always seem to forget this part *sigh*
Three Vampire Killers enter the castle to seal Dracula who has been raised by Camilla. As they engadge Dracula, Dracula knocks two of the Vampire Killers into the abyss, surviving they venture off in search of their master who is fighting Dracula.
Not too bad, bu for some reason I find it uncreative.
7/10

Difficulty:
Hard
Not too hard at first gets very tricky later, the bosses are very challenging, espically Necromancer >.<
And the Battle Arena's difficulty is insane this quite a challenging but short game.

Replay Value:
Maybe the Battle Arena will intrigue you to replay this but later you can unlock other modes which add additional replay value and challenge. So this game will played a fair bit.
7/10

Overall:
8/10

Great game. It bit short but very good.

[weasel]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
"What is a man?! A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk! HAVE AT YOU!"

Genre: Action/RPG
Platform: Playstation/Saturn
ESRB: T
Price: $20 on Greatest Hits label

One of the only "true" sequels in Castlevania - this one takes place a little over 5 years after the events of Dracula X: Chi no Rondo, and even goes so far as the repeat the final boss battle before thrusting you into the role of Alucard.

In 1792, Richter Belmont defeated Dracula once again. Five years later, he went missing, and his sister-in-law Maria Renard (actually the little sister of Annette Renard, whom Richter married after Dracula X) set out to look for him. Dracula's castle appears before her eyes, as if to show her the way. Meanwhile, Alucard rises from what was supposed to be an eternal sleep, and heads to investigate a new source of evil at Dracula's castle.

GAMEPLAY

When you beat the "final" boss in the beginning of the game, you are thrust into the role of Adrian Farenheit Tepes (Alucard). Although you start with all of your family heirlooms (the Alucard equipment), Death soon steals them all from you, leaving you with nothing but a short sword. After that, Alucard has to explore the castle, learning new special abilities like super jumps, transforming into a wolf, a bat, and mist, and discovering many of the seriously awesome secrets in the game. The secrets alone give this game INCREDIBLE amounts of replay value - four different endings, tons of equipment and special moves, and the ability to play through the whole game again as both Richter and Maria (unfortunately, Maria is only availible in the Saturn version).

Alucard can level up, find new equipment, and generally be an RPG character. The spells you can cast are performed by fighting-game-style stick twiddles. Some pieces of equipment have hidden little moves in them (especially the Shield Rod).

In two of the endings, you may think you have beaten the game - but these are the worst possible endings. If you've explored the whole castle, then beat the boss in a different way, then you can go through the whole castle again - except it's harder, and upside-down! Like this, you can actually achieve a score of 200.6%. (It's possible to go higher with glitches.)

10/10 - No wonder this is the standard every other side-scrolling RPG is based on.

SOUNDS

WHOA! Full voice-acting (not very good in the US version, exception being Dracula), lots of sound effects with satisfying crash sounds (for vases and the like), and best of all, the greatest soundtrack in any console game ever created! Even though I tend to heavily criticize games for errors in the sound, I can't find a single thing wrong with the audio in this game (save for voice acting, which is actually pretty good in the Japanese version).

Credits worth noting are Rika Muranaka (composed for Metal Gear Solid, and produced "The Best is Yet to Come" in MGS2) and Osamu Kasai, who worked on the sound effects. Props to you guys.

9.9/10 - Voice acting never appears that much in the game, so it's only .1 off instead of .5.

GRAPHICS

For a Saturn game: Pretty darn good.
For a Playstation game: Is that it?

Chiefly 2D graphics. Occasional 3D effects (like clouds in the higher areas of the castle, or one room in the Royal Chapel). All animations are nice and smooth, even for negligible things like Alucard crouching. When dialog is in progress, a portrait of the speaker is on screen - and the character designs are darn good. Characters are designed by Ayami Kojima (I don't know if this person is related to Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear/Snatcher fame or not), with a realistic/gothic style applied to characters that's almost reminiscent of the legendary artwork of Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano.

10/10 - Ooh yeah. Smooth, dreary, and plenty of attention to detail.

CONTROLS

Occasionally difficult to manipulate - especially when you're trying to attack with your shield up as well as backdash. You CAN rebind the controls however.

BUGS

Some glitches, but no show-stopping bugs. The glitches are really only noticable if you're a "power-breaker" and like to screw around with absolutely everything.

OVERALL

BUY IT! BUY IT NOW!!

10/10

[duvel]

DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution
System: PS2
Cost: $60 for the game/dance pad bundle.
ESRB Rating: E(Mild Lyrics)

WOO! DDR! This is the latest one for the PS2, and has a boat-load of songs to keep you interested.

Gameplay: The wonderful "hit the arrows at the right time" gameplay is back once again. There are some tricks to this, though, so listen here:
When you play a song, always get the beat down quick.
Don't worry if you lose to easy songs, you'll get better.
The real trick to this game is staying on arrows. You basically start at the center and move around the pad to step on the arrows without returning to the center by stepping on an arrow and keeping it there until you need to use that foot to hit another arrow.
If the above explanation was complicated, start on Lesson Mode.
On the harder difficulties, you'll need quick feet. Just keep training and you'll eventually get As everytime on them.
Now for the additions. The dancers on the screen have returned. There is also a new Begginer difficulty that has a dancer doing the moves on the screen.
As for songs, there are lots of good new ones to dance to. Some are awesome real songs like Get Down Tonight by KC & the Sunshine Band(and I'm not kidding, this song is on there) and The Whistle Song (Blow My Whistle Baby) by DJ Alligator Project. To balance the new, they have some returning favorites like Hysteria by Naoki 190 and Super Star by DJ Rich featuring Tail Bros. Not only that, but there are some great hidden songs like Burning Heat by Mr. T, challenge songs like Silent Hill 3rd Christmas Mix, and Extra Stage songs(getting their name from the fact that you get them as an extra stage if your last song completed was on heavy and you got a AA or higher), Maxx Unlimited by Z and Kakumei by dj taka. Then you have the return of Nonstop Mode, and the addition of Endless Mode, and you have ULTRA AWESOME STUFF. 10/10

Graphics: Not much. The dancer models are really badly made for a modern game, aside from the cel shading. There's one that has a shirt that goes back a bit from his body, and it sort of stays there, not moving realistically at all. 4/10

Sound: GLORY GLORY DDR MUSIC! The music in this game has amazing quality, and is very varied. You have your remakes of classics (Dream a Dream by Captain Jack(remakes In the Hall of the Mountain King), In The Nazy '99(XXL Disaster Mix) by Captain Jack, End of the Century by No. 9(Remakes Ode to Joy, a part of Beethoven's 9th symphony), and Kakumei by dj taka(Remakes Chopin's Revolutionary) are the main ones. Burning Heat by Mr. T could also be metioned, as it is a remix of the level from Gradius 2.), your great real songs (examples include Get Down Tonight by KC & The Sunshine Band, a remix of Lovin' You, and Days Go By by Dirty Vegas), and your great DDR-only songs (examples include Can't Stop Falling in Love by Naoki, Break Down! by BeForU, and Tsugaru by RevenG vs. DE-SIRE), all with different genres such as Rock, Techno, and Soft Rock. This is by FAR the best music on the PS2(FFX fans can go listen to their crappy music from their crappy game). I'd give it an 11, but there is none. 10/10

Controls: This is only a problem if you don't get an official Konami pad, because most of the others are much too thin and control horribally. Real Pad: 10/10 Immitator: 2/10

Bugs: None

Overall: Sure, you don't have some fancy graphics engine, and sure, you don't have any fancy plot, but this game is a definate must-buy. 10/10

[weasel]

Tony Hawk's Underground
"..but yeah, I gotta finish this meal before I chow down..."

Platform: PS2, GCN, XBOX (GCN version reviewed)
ESRB: T (Blood, language, suggestive themes)

The very latest entry in the series that always gets better. Trick on your board, and get tricked by people. A serious underground story involves skating, more skating, turncoating, and lots 'n' lots of crime.

GAMEPLAY

Okay, since there are so darn many aspects to this game, I'll review each section individually.

10/10 - So much variety I had to have six gameplay scores.

GAMEPLAY - STORY MODE/SKATING

Skating is essentially you flying through the air and busting out lots of tricks without stopping to coast. THUG adds in the ability to hop off your board and climb onto ledges, or Caveman back on to your board (hop on it), or even start a Caveman Grind (which gets more points). Also new to THUG is the Spine Transfer - if there are two quarter-pipes back to back, you can press L+R to switch from one QP to the next one. (Excuse the skater lingo - it's easier to type.)

You can still pull all the other tricks from past Tony Hawk games - flip tricks (can be doubled and triped), grab tricks, spins, No Comply, Boneless, manual/flatland tricks, lip tricks, and grinds. So many tricks availible to you, in addition to variety in the environments you can use (over 8 default stages, and they're huge), make this a great game that caters to many playing styles. For example, one player will favor flatland tricks, while another will excel at grinds and run-outs, while another still will prefer lips and verts.

There are plenty of unique goals to achieve in Story Mode, and they aren't handled like in previous THPS games. Instead of having only 2 minutes to complete all of the goals, you can freely skate around the areas seeking gaps and secret things, then talk to somebody standing around to recieve a goal. The time limit is different for each goal, and goals aren't limited to just "jump this gap and do a 360 double kickflip". Occasionally, you won't have your skateboard and have to run everywhere, or you'll get a car and have to chase somebody, or destroy a bunch of peanut stans by crashing a car into them, or pick up chicks for a party in a garden cart...there are over 100 goals to do in this game.

The plot in Story Mode follows you (yes, YOU) and your quest to become a pro skater - hindered by your (former) best friend, Eric Sparrow, who cuts your throat every chance he gets. Along the way you'll have to impress Chad Muska, get sponsored by Stacy Peralta, beat Tony Hawk in a vert contest, learn some tricks from the likes of Mike V and Bucky Lasek, and scrounge up some cash to get back home. The plot isn't terribly original, but there are several twists and memorable characters - near the end, you're going to really start hating Eric's guts, and thinking that (aside from all the hippieness) Mr. Peralta is really cool.

10/10 - Lots of variety on base stuff.

GAMEPLAY - CREATE A SKATER

Ever since Tony Hawk 2, players have had the ability to make their own skater from selections of hairdo, skin, face, shirt, pants, and shoes. THUG's Create A Skater mode is highly in-depth - not only do you have hundreds of thousands of outfit and style combinations already, you also have the ability to change the HSV color value of nearly anything, as well as rescale your character (big head, long legs, skinny arms, huge chest, it's all possible). You can unlock new costumes as well, by playing through the game. Nearly any NPC you come across can be perfectly replicated in CAS mode, barring some of the mode "unique" characters like Todd, the fat team manager (who happens to be on every team). My only complaint is that there aren't enough hair styles - while there are at least 20 for male and female, some things just aren't possible. Ah well, probably for realism's sake that you can't get hair like Kyo Kusanagi.

9.5/10 - Needs more details on parts of the face, like nose and chin shape.

GAMEPLAY - CREATE A TRICK

Brand NEW to THUG, the Trick editor allows you to cut and paste parts of existing animations and arrange them on a timeline to create your own trick to use anywhere. You can change all sorts of details - disable the ability to manually spin, allow holds on grab tricks, change the duration/speed of animations and where they start and stop at, and add all kinds of rotations (on all 6 degrees of freedom). You can do some really cool things with this trick editor - for example, combining a 1440 degree spin, a front-side flip, and a Mute grab, I was able to make a move I call the "Kusanagi Fire Flip" which is more akin to a helicopter going down in flames than anything a human could do. Also availible are several "canned" movements that aren't really part of tricks, like cheers and taunts. You can make just about anything here, though I didn't see any way to create manuals.

8/10 - No manual tricks?

GAMEPLAY - CREATE A PARK

Park creation is a lot easier than before. Tiles are easier to access, and you won't need to cookie-cutter with riser blocks and rails any more. Parks can now go taller than before, and you can still assign gaps to specific areas - and you can also now set them so you can only hit them on foot, on skating, or in a car. Freeform rail editing is also nice, so you can make your very own sick rails in any shape or size. You still have some rail tiles, and these can be mixed in with the freeform rails. If being a construction technician doesn't quite work for you, you can load any of the built-in levels and take them apart piece by piece and put them together in your own way to save again. Also new to the park editor is the ability to make your own goals - either for your own park, or for any of the built-in levels if you just can't get that architect's instinct working for you.

10/10

GAMEPLAY - MULTIPLAYER MODES

Two players only, with plenty of modes you can play. I'll run through some of them.
FREE SKATE - Just run around, see who can do whatever - challenge each other to races, see who jumps the highest on halfpipes, who can hold the Gymnast Plant the longest on a powerline...whatever.
TRICK ATTACK - You have a set amount of time to get as many points as possible. Make sure it's more than your opponent.
SCORE CHALLENGE - Play to a set limit of points. Whoever hits it first wins.
HORSE - Player 1 starts in a set place and must get as many points as he can in one combo. Player 2 spawns in the same place after P1 is done, and must beat the score set by P1. If he succeeds, P1 must beat that. If he fails, he has to set a score of his own elsewhere.
SLAP! - Tony Hawk's Pro Death Derby. Skaters must crash into each other to score points - the faster player (ie. the player with more special) will get the "kill". If you're off your board, you always get the kill, but it's harder to hit because the other guy can dodge.
GRAFFITI - A set timelimit is placed here, and skaters compete to control the most territory. This is done by pulling a high score on set pieces of land - manuals don't count. If you can beat the other guy's score on a set piece, then that territory is yours. Unfortunately, you aren't shown the score you have to beat - so it's very tough to beat it unless you give it your all. Tricks before and after hitting set pieces count - so you can McTwist off the roof after grinding it.
FIREFIGHT - Brand new. You can shoot fireballs from your board by hitting Up+B, or backwards with Down+B. The bigger the combo leading up to the fireball, the bigger the fireball is. Last man standing wins.

My major complaint with multiplayer is the split screen - it's nigh impossible to see over long distances, which is nessecary for games like Slap! and Firefight. You can change the screen orientation, but this barely helps - while you can see farther with Vertical, you don't get as wide a field of view as with Horizontal.

8/10 - Slap! and Firefight are made difficult with screen limitations.

GAMEPLAY OVERALL: 9.25/10

GRAPHICS - FINALLY, A CATERGORY THAT ISN'T GAMEPLAY

Graphics are well done. Nature looks as it should, streets look good, buildings have plenty of details, and skaters all have their own nifty things added to them. Weather effects abound, like rain or snow. They don't go overboard, but they certainly don't go underboard.

8.5/10 - Not the best looking game ever, but it's good enough.

SOUNDS

Soundtrack is filled with rock, punk, and hip-hop tracks. Plenty of variety in music, but I found myself turning it off early on because I didn't like any of their selections. But ah well. I won't let it affect the score - my brother likes the music at least. Sound effects are good, with the skateboards making a variety of sounds on different surfaces, nice ambient sounds, and some good voice acting. Apparently none of the pro skaters provided their own voices, according to the credits. The voice for the male hero isn't very fitting for much other than your average skate-punk - if you make him black, Asian, Mexican, it doesn't matter.

9/10 - Supposedly good music (I couldn't stand it), nice ambience and good variety and voice acting.

CONTROLS
As fluid as ever. Everything's pretty easy once you get the hang of the button placement. Soon after you play through the first chapter, you'll be busting upwards of 5000 points a trick - maybe up to 100000 when you're near the end. (I actually got 250000 by swtiching to a Handstand and repeatedly hitting B+B for the Handflip, until I got an x30 multiplier.)

BUGS
On some costume combinations, I noticed a few graphical clipping problems. For example, in a scene where Todd pats the main character on the shoulder, his hand went a few inches through the shoulder.

OVERALL

If you have never played a Tony Hawk game, get this one. If you have, but you don't have THUG, BUY THIS RIGHT THIS INSTANT! You will NOT regret it!

10/10 - A Gamespy Game of the Year nomination can't be wrong.

EDIT: Holy crap, four-page review?! I have to become a game magazine reporter!

[weasel]

TrackMania

Developer: NADEO
Publisher: Digital Jesters
Price: $45 from www.trackmania.com (free shipping, from UK)
Genre: Racing/Puzzle (that's a new one.)
Rating: 3+ (PEGI)
Requires: Windows 98 or above, Pentium II 450 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, 32 MB 3D graphics card, DirectX 9.0

Think Gran Turismo meets The Incredible Machine, and you'll get a decent idea of what TrackMania is all about.

GAMEPLAY

Pre-Game
Before you begin playing TrackMania, you'll enter your name for your racing profile. This profile keeps your scores and is used to put your name on whatever tracks you build. It also saves the skins you select for your cars, and whatever avatar you have selected. You can create your own skins and avatars (I'm using my T-Shirt Ninja avatar in the game).

Racing
The physics of racing are very realistic, and vary between cars - in Alpine tracks, you get a 4x4 truck, which can turn tightly but doesn't have very good acceleration; in Rally tracks, you get a rally car which has the best speed and acceleration but very poor handling and braking; and in Speed tracks, you get a muscle car that has a good balance of speed and handling.

When you're in the game and racing, you'll pretty much keep your gas pedal all the way down, all the time. Very rarely will you ever have to brake in your turns, let alone let off the gas. There are some good tricks to maintaining and building speed, such as braking at the tops of hills and then letting the downhill speed you up. Most tricks are track-specific, meaning that to fully master the game you'll have to learn every track by heart - and there's thousands of tracks out of the box, hundreds more in the freely downloadable Power Up! expansion set, and hundreds of thousands already online at www.trackmaniagame.com .

Race Series
In the Race series, you are just thrown into straightaway tracks - no laps to worry about here. You must get from start to finish within the target time. The faster you are, the better medal you'll get. The better medals and faster times you pick up, the more Coppers you earn to build your own tracks - I'll get to that later.

Puzzle Series
In Puzzle, you're presented with (typically) a barebones track and several blocks to place. You put those blocks wherever is nessecary to complete the race - and then you have to race the track. Sometimes you have to be clever. In one puzzle, you're presented with a long straight road, a sudden hairpin, and another straight road. This run would usually take 15 seconds, while your Gold medal time is 4. So you take the two pieces of road you're given, and skirt the long road altogether (because there are no checkpoints to hit) to make the exit. Some of the puzzles in this are just ingenious and would require a real expert to conquer, let alone score Gold on.

Survival Mode
New to the Power Up! expansion, this gives you an infinite number of tracks to race against 3 other computer opponents (and you can't bump into them, you just go right through them). You earn an increasingly large amount of Coppers the more consecutive races you win. If you score Second place, you get to skip one track (and it counts to your score). For First place, you get to skip 2 tracks. Game over if you place fourth. It's a great way to earn Coppers.

Track Editor
Build a whole track from scratch using the Coppers you've earned. You don't just SPEND the cash - the amount of money you have will allow you to build more into your tracks, and you still get ot keep the money. For example, if you have 10,000C, and you use all of it on an awesome Rally track (like my Triple Jump that I put together), you can keep it and earn another 5,000 to build one worth 15,000...and so on.

Depending on which of the three tilesets you choose, you get to pick from different tiles to place on the track - from regular old roads, to hills, terraforming, decorations, warning signs, jumps, obstacles, even underground segments (in the Rally set anyway). Tiles aren't that limiting, and while you have a moderately-sized grid to work with, you can cram several blocks in before you are not allowed to use any more. Each individual block you place costs a certain amount of money. Typically it's 30C for a simple road, 20C for a tree, 100C for ramps, up to 1,000C for a stunt-loop or any of the larger blocks. You'll have to play around 15-some tracks in the regular game before you can earn enough to make the really good stuff, but that's an easy feat. Being that tracks are only around 10-40 KB each, they can be downloaded in real-time over internet and LAN games.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer comes in Time Attack and Round varieties, and can be played in the Internet (simultaneous) or on same PC (sequential). Either way, you battle with several other players using Golf rules. The first person runs the track, and sets a time. The next person must beat the previously set time. In Time Attack, this is nessecary because you'll have to race the track again to beat the opponent's time, and you'll use up precious time from your own stocks. If your stocks run empty, you're eliminated. Last man standing wins. Round-based games just run the players in order. If the last time is beaten, then the player scores points depending on how much faster he was. If the player fails, they don't get any points. First to hit the point limit wins.

10/10 - Plenty of gameplay variety, plus you can challenge your friends (or just have fun with the physics).

SOUNDS
When the game first begins, you're presented with an old-school Commodore 64-esque chiptune for the main menu, which slowly lapses into modern music. Each tileset contains its own unique sounds and music, and the track editor music is also pretty catchy. It's all loose in MP3 format, so you can listen to it outside of the game. Car sounds never get annoying, are smooth as heck, and involve plenty of crashing sounds (which more than likely you'll be hearing a lot).

8/10 - Music for the Alpine tracks gets really annoying, not enough variety in music. But hey, you don't like it, you can replace it.

GRAPHICS

Given the system requirements, the game looks pretty good. It still looks good if you turn the details down. Alpine tracks bear a Japanese motif, complete with katakana characters on some of the trucks, and even a whole truck skin with Japanese imagery (but no manga girls). Speed tracks take place in the Arizona deserts, with partly cloudy skies (very nice) and authentic-looking street signs. Rally tracks are the prettiest of them all, seeming to take place somewhere in Scotland, and with all the tiles bearing castle-style influences (the elevated roads look just like castle walls). You get some really nice effects - shiny cars, reflective windows, complex shadows, particle grass, reflective water (very pretty if there's enough scenery with it), and genuine high-poly models. Strangely, the cars don't seem to have anybody in them - which is good, considering the amount of crashing you're inevitably going to do.

9/10 - Nice effects and high-res textures.

CONTROLS

All you'll really need are the arrow keys. There are other keys for the sole purpose of chatting, and the numpad keys to change camera angles. Editor controls become second-nature after you've learned how to use the keyboard shortcuts (which doesn't take long).

BUGS

Some graphical glitches on some graphics boards. Also, on a Rally track, I accidentally fell in a lake and surfaced quickly, but found my car stuck in the ground. (Good thing you're not supposed to drive in lakes, because that gives me a better reason to avoid them.) Another bug I found was actually in the packaging - due to an error in the packing department, several games have been shipped without their CD keys (NOT the same as Internet keys, needed to play online). You have to contact Digital Jesters at www.trackmaniagame.com and send them your internet key, so they can generate a CD key for you.

OVERALL

Worth the $45 all the way. It's great stuff, and hey, the shipping is free.

9.5/10

[duvel]

I'm gonna review two classic 64 games now.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
System: Nintendo 64
Cost: Should be pretty cheap nowadays, unless you get the gold cartridge in all it's buggy glory.
ESRB Rating: E

Yeah, this is the classic of the classics for the 64. If you haven't played it yet, shame on you.

Plot: The plot follows Link on his quest to save Hyrule. Along the way, he has to learn ocarina songs, get special weapons, and even go through time. It's not terribly original, but it is pretty neat. Also, one of the minor enemies in the series, the Zoras, get a totally different role that fits the game perfectly. 8/10.

Gameplay: YAY. This is what made the Zelda series famous in the first place. You have your standard slashing and blocking, but you also have the neat Z-targeting system which can center the focus on an enemy close to you(which, by the way, is the only camera control you have). You also have some pretty standard Zelda-fare weapons like the bow or the Master Sword, but also some new ones like deku nuts(which are generally useless), the fairy slingshot, and the Biggoron's sword, which is a very large two-handed sword. Equipment has also taken a new approach. Instead of getting less damage with your new tunics, they instead have effects like preventing damage from being taken in the Death Mountain crater or being able to breathe underwater. They also have boots that make you sink underwater or hover in the air for a bit. You can also get a horse a little more than halfway in and be able to travel much faster. Another new feature is the ocarina. Using an ocarina, you can play songs which have various effects, like warping you somewhere or causing rain. Then you have the day and night engine, which is executed perfectly. All in all, this is a very well done game. 10/10

Controls: The controls aren't bad, but it is kind of irritating to not have camera control(you get used to it after a while). The most irritating part is during the water temple where you have to constantly change boots, which could easily have been sped up a bunch by using the directional pad. Still, very comfortable controls. 9/10

Graphics: Amazing for a 64 title. Link and others are quite well rounded for 64-bit. Too bad this game came out before the expansion pak, so it could take advantage of the extra memory. 10/10

Sound: Sound quality is really good for a 64 game. All of the songs sound great and are used appropriatly. 10/10

Overall: If you haven't played this game, go bring the 64 down from the attic and go to eBay. 9/10

Banjo-Tooie
System: Nintendo 64
Cost: Also quite cheap.
ESRB Rating: E

This game, as kiddie as it may be, is a very nice game.

Plot: Grunty is revived from the beating she took from the last game and starts a campaign to get life force to fully revive her. She also kills Bottles the mole, so Banjo and Kazooie are really mad, and go after the witch once again. This is kind of bland, but it has some nice kid-friendly humor for your little brother or something. Note that the game assumes you've played Banjo-Kazooie, so you'd better grab that one as well(which is just as good as this game). 7/10

Gameplay: The gameplay goes once again into the realms of Mario 64-esque collect-the-whatevers type of gameplay that was executed so well in the first one. Some of the more irritating things like not being able to hold onto edges have been added, as well as lots of mini-games that are a load of fun, and even another game mode. This time around, you can control not only the bear and bird pair, but also Mumbo Jumbo. There is a new boss system in this game, where there is a boss for each level. You will also be learning a lot of new moves to acompany the ones you learned last game, like a split up move and a drill move, and even one that lets you play the games second genre, first-person shooter(which is unfortunately not implemented nearly enough, but hey, you can't have everything). There are also new egg types to use in addition to the standard blue egg, like the powerful grenade egg, or the odd clockwork egg. There is even a much improved transformation system. If any of you were savvy enough to catch the neat easter eggs in the last one like the washing machine transformation or Mumbo Jumbo talking about turning you into a T-Rex in the next game, well, the washing machine is back but different from the oringinal version, and the T-Rex is here. Every transformation has an attack this time around, even if it's a somewhat weird attack, like the washing machine's underwear shot or the TNT ignitor's self destruct attack. And for those of you who got ALL of the jiggies in the last game, there are the two secret eggs available for finding, and the Ice Key(which opens the ice safe, which has a giant glowbo which if you take to the transformation place on the world area, you can transform Kazooie into a dragon). Level design is vastly improved from the first(which is quite a feat because the first had some great level designs), with much more imaginative places like a Mayan area where the god Targitzan, Mayan god of target shooting, is worshipped, or the great Hailfire Peaks, which are two mountains, one a volcano and one covered from base to peak with snow. Amazingly well designed. 10/10

Controls: The controls are as smooth as ever. 10/10

Graphics: This is a step up a tiny bit from the first. It has great character models and some well detailed textures. 10/10

Sound: Very well put together as well. All the sounds have some nice quality, and the music is well thought out. 10/10.

Overall: While this game is not innovative or what have you, the game itself is well executed. 10/10

[Torte]

Fallout - A post nuclear role playing game
System: PC
Cost: Should be cheap, and you should be able to find it in a bundle with Fallout II and maybe even Fallout Tactics
ESRB Rating: M

Comments: An excellent Role playing game with a very good story and gameplay.
Also quite humorous.

Plot: The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. During the third world war, people started fleeing into shelters around the earth. Your family escaped to a vault named "Vault 13". The vault had been a safe place until very much recently, when the vaults Water purifying chip started malfunctioning. You're the one chosen to go out, and find a water chip. While you're out there, things start happening and you end up being the one to save humanity (won't go into detail, spoilers). There are also a lot of sub stories in this game.
PLOT SCORE:
17/20 - Just some minor flaws, and does not seem that epic in the beginning.


Gameplay: The gameplay in this game is very good. You move by using the cursor, which you can change into diffrent types (Walking, using and attacking) by right clicking. It's as simple as pointing where you want to go / what you want to use / what you want to shoot, changing into the appropriate mode and then left clicking. When you want to start a combat, you just press the "A" key and it changes into combat mode... unless you're detected by the enemy first. They would start in that case.

When in combat, you have a certain amount of Action points (AP), maximum of 10 (based on your agility) naturally, but can be boosted with drugs and chems. With these action points, you can attack, walk, run, access your inventory and some other stuff aswell. Walking and running both take 1 AP each, being that you get as far when you walk as when you run. Attacking takes between 3-7 AP naturally, and can be reduced with special traits. Reloading takes 2 AP. Accessing your inventory takes 4 AP, and while you're in the inventory you can change armor, weapons, heal yourself and reload. When you've wasted all your APs, you press end turn and then your companions and enemies take their turns.

When creating a charecter, you get to choose 2 perks, which will both affect you Good (In the case of gifted, increasing all your natural skills, like strength and intelligence) and Bad (In the case of gifted, a big reduce in all your skills). Only exception is Bloody mess, unless you're afraid of blood.

Each 3rd level, you receive one trait, which is closely connected to perks but without any real disadvantages.


GAMEPLAY SCORE: 37/40 - Some minor flaws.

Graphics: Considering Fallout's age, the graphics are non short of beautiful. Pretty detailed considering it's age. The humans do look all the way to alike, and the same goes for the creatures you encounter. However, the creatures are very well done. Your charecters appearence does change with whatever he is wearing, say you're wearing a Leather jacket, you look like some sort of rock star. When wearing the Power armor, you look like a walking fortress.

Just a warning to sensitive people: There are some VERY violent scenes in this game, with half of the bodies being torn into pieces and creatures melting into a piece of fluid skin and blood on the ground. You can shut this off, however.


GRAPHICS SCORE: 15/20 - Everyone looks like clones, but apart from that it's good.

Controls: The controls are very easy to learn. You can do most things with the mouse, and there are also some keyboard shortcuts.


CONTROLS SCORE: 5/5 - Very easy and accesible.

Music: The music is too quiet, but the music that is there is good, and fitting to the situation... apart from in battles, where the music doesn't change. However, you rarely notice it, and you can always play music in the background with, say Winamp.


MUSIC SCORE: 3/5 - A bit too quiet and not very dramatic.

Sound: The sounds of this game is very fitting and sound fairly realistic, apart from the plasma and laser weapons (being that they can not sound realistic, as of yet). The sounds that are best made (IMO) are the sounds the creatures make when they are killed in a violent way, with screams of pain and pieces of flesh being ripped from their bodies.


SOUND SCORE: 5/5 - Very good sounds.

Replay value: There is a LOT of possibilites in this game, and thus you can play this over and over again. Only thing is that the game is slightly too easy, unless you play as a pacifist.


REPLAY VALUE SCORE: 5/5 - Highly replay able.

Final score: 86/100 (81- 89 points- Excellent game, should be tested by all!)
This is a great game for all of you who like turn based RPGs, and even if you don't it's worth checking out. It's not that expensive.

That'd be all... enjoy Fallout!

[Goshi]

Evil counter review of C:HoD

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Rating: E(I think, I've got the rom)

Firet of, what on EARTH where you on you gave its ERSB rating, its obviously a T, look at the gore and profanity!

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Plot: You are Juste Belmont. Your friend Maxim went out on an expedition with your friend Lydie and comes back saying she got kidnapped and he can't remember anything about the kidnapping. Using the fragments of his memory from the kidnapping, they come across Dracula's Castle. They split up to find Lydie. A bit simplistic, but gets super weird later on. 9/10

The plot isn't too bad, but you could've at least shown a little bit more of the plot involving Death and how Lydie's role was important to what Death is planning. Oh well.
So yeah, 9/10

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Gamplay: The same ol' Action RPG gameplay we all know and love from the new Castlevanias. The magic in this one comes from spellbooks you find around the castle plus the sub-weapons. Basically, lets say you have the Cross, and you equip the Fire Book. You'll get a different attack than if you had used no book. Also returning is the Belmont Whip. You can attach different stones and such to the whip to get different effects, like a charged whip attack ala Megaman. 10/10

The jumping is horrible you only mentioned the new features rather than its flaws, the jumping is annoying and horrible, they made the traditional Super Jump annoying to use. It is incredibly annoying constantly changing equipment to access new areas... ick. 6/10

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Graphics and Sound: Perfect, for the most part, although Juste sounds deeper than he should. 10/10

The graphics are fine except those weird blue outlines and such on the enemies and player can be very annoying but either way the graphics are very good. But more importantly the sound. The music makes mae want to scream, I don't how you can survive its awfulness! The sound effects are fine, I don't see any problems with Juste's voice. 8/10

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Bugs: None.

What on earth are you talking about!? There are bugs in this game like the door glitch which involves you using the Mystic Fist and the Ice Spellbook, I think you should relook into this one.

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The second Castlevania game for the GBA, a very large improvement from the first one.

I forgot about this one, but the only improvments I've seen are graphics and gameplay everything else might've just gotten worse.

So yeah, HoD isn't too bad but it is plentiful in flaws, either way Ler, your review needs some redoing.

TOTAL:
7/10

[Razerboy]

Game: Shadowrun
System: SNES
Developer: Data East
Language: English
Genre: RPG/Adventure/Action

This is my favourite SNES game. An excellent RPG with awesome graphics, gameplay, music, storyline, and well... just excellent all around! Anyway, here are the details:

SFX/Music:
Rich atmospheric music that is perfectly suited to the game. The music suits the situations well, and also fits the theme/locations.

Gameplay:
The control system is excellent, a little annoying sometimes with the cursor, but other than a few hiccups it could be no better.

Storyline/Plot:
Excellent storyline and plot, making this game a must play. Read every line of text; the story will pull you in. The events that take place flow into one another; the story is complex yet easy to understand.

Graphics:
Awesome stylish characters, nice buildings and items, and the faces that appear when talking to people are excellently done. The graphics are also atmospheric, and maintain a certain darkness to them while being vibrant.

Presentation:
Nice menu systems, the engines are flawless, and the whole game is a nice little package!

End Score: 9 out of 10 - An instant classic!

[duvel]

Hexen: Beyond Heretic
Creator: Raven Software
Price: Go find your own price.
Platform: PC
Genre: FPS

Basically, when Doom came out, Raven Software liked the Doom engine and asked id if they could make a game using it. id obliged, and Heretic, a game which improved a tad bit from the original Doom engine with things like power-ups that could be used whenever you liked, was born. After Heretic, Raven came out with another game that totally redefined what could be done in a FPS with things like polyobjects, multiple characters, and acs scripting, while still using the Doom rendering engine. It was such a good improvement from the original Doom engine game that many of ZDoom's features are actually just Hexen features.

Plot: Well, I never actually found a plot txt because I never got an official registered version. So I'll just assume that you are a guy that is going to save the world in a Gothic style setting.

Gameplay: The gameplay is interesting because many of your weapons will not actually be projectiles, but instead melee weapons(what do you expect, it's in a gothic style setting). The new additions to the engine include polyobjects, which are basically moving walls, often made to look like doors, acs scripting, which makes for puzzles not able to be pursuited in Doom, multiple characters(the warrior, the cleric, and the mage), and an inventory system for things like keys or other puzzle items. Sadly, all these nice new features don't come with out some losses. The AI of the enemies seems rather weak compared to Doom, as the enemies just charge at you. They don't hunt you down, they don't get angry when another monster hits them, they just charge at you. Still, even with the loss of monster AI, this game shapes up to be good. 8/10

Graphics and Sound: I can't remark on how the graphics look in 320x200, the game's native resolution, but I can say that using ZDoom with a resolution of 1280x1024, the game looks great. The textures are fine tuned, and the sprites are well drawn. As for sound, the enemies seem strangely quiet for the msot part, but all the other sounds are good like a good satisfying *bersh*(yes that sound description sucked) when you hit something. The music is phenomanal. It fits it so well, and can make the game scarier. 8/10

Replayability: Not much I'd imagine, since it doesn't seem to have the neat secrets feature that had you looking around the map in Doom. It'd be higher if you could find any Hexen pwads, as there probably are like 10. 5/10

Bugs: If there were any, they were probably blacked out later on. I definately didn't find any.

Overall: This game is a great Doom-engine game. I recomend you get ZDoom for playing this if you run on XP, though, as the hexen.exe doesn't work too well with it. an 7/10

[weasel]

Super Castlevania IV
Genre: What do you think?
Publisher: Konami
Content Advisories: The most you have to worry about is a few nude statues in the castle (in the Japanese version at least).

The umpteenth retelling of Simon Belmont's original journey to the Demon Castle Dracula, this is probably his best yet.

GAMEPLAY
SC4 has vastly improved gameplay mechanics over the NES revisions. The biggest of these is the new whip controls - you can whip in all 8 directions, Metroid-style. If you hold the whip button down and twiddle the control pad around, Simon flings the whip around. This is useful for taking out those stupid bats and Medusa heads, as well as blocking projectiles and searching for breakable bricks. It does half the damage though.

Another enhancement (this is here mainly because of the multi-directional whipping) is the fact that you can use items by simply tapping the R button (unlike the last 3 games, and nearly all of them afterwards, in which you hold Up and press Whip).

Lastly, and this is perhaps the most helpful, is the ability to jump on and off stairs. This was incredibly annoying in the last 3 - now you can jump over the freakin' Medusa heads, and anything else that happens to attack while you're on the stairs.

This is all in addition to the classic Castlevania gameplay. Simon ventures through 11 full stages, fighting monsters and bosses, whipping candles, and making daring jumps. All the classic enemies are here - from bone pillars and skeletons, to Medusa, Akmodan the mummy, and of course, Death. Making their first appearances here (and later to team up in Symphony of the Night) are Slogra and Gaibon.

Some stages pull some nasty tricks on you - no later than the first stage, you are faced with two planes to fight along. You have to switch planes by going through doors and switching the side of the fence that you're on (Mario World style). Also look out for rooms that rotate, swinging chandeliers that you have to jump across, and the usual Castlevania Brand Evil Flipper Platform™. You can also swing with your whip over chasms, make your way down a river that alternates between flowing upstream and downstream, and finally make your way into the castle itself.

9.5/10 - My only complaint is that jumping is still a tough endeavor - you can change direction in midair, but you can't control the height of your jumps, and it's hard to make some jumps because of their demands for pixel-perfect accuracy.

GRAPHICS
These are actually quite good, considering this is a first-generation SNES game (one of the launch titles, I believe). The graphics are dark, gothic, and generally quite well-done for an attempt at a horror atmosphere. Simon still wears that iron miniskirt (the only thing preventing me from enjoying his character). The animations are slow and somewhat choppy, and the skeletons seem kind of stiff in their movements.

9/10 - It's good-looking for an SNES game.

SOUNDS
Here's where the jump from NES to SNES really shows itself. The soundtrack was composed by Sotaru Tojima (listed in the credits as Souji Taro), and he has done an excellent job providing atmosphere for the levels. It's as if you're actually in the castle, hearing some evil being pounding away on his pipe organ. My personal favorites to come from this soundtrack are Simon's Theme (first stage) and Clockwork Mansion (stage 4). Sound effects are also well-designed, using tiny bits of digital samples and stringing them along to make whip swings, bricks smashing, and item pickups (sounds that were ripped for Duke Nukem 2, strangely).

8/10 - Music seems a bit intrusive at times due to sample choices.

BUGS
None to speak of, really.

OVERALL
This ranks highly on my list of Best Castlevania Games.

8.7/10

[Val]

Name: Megaman Zero
Publisher: well the publisher on the intro screen is in japanese so i don't know
Platform: GBA

Plot:
100 years after the Megaman X series took place, X has died, and Zero went into hybernation. The Reploid race has been dying out because of a force of mavericks called "Neo Arcadia." One night, a reploid named Ciel was running from Mavericks trying to kill her, when she stumbled upon the legendary reploid's remains, it was Zero. He was still in hibernation, and Ciel activated him. Ciel explaned her situation, and Zero killed the invading mavericks. [[Spoiler wipe!]]

Problems:
One thing i noticed is that Zero looks too much like a female. His paint is pinkish-red, he has long hair, and it looks like (omg) he's wearing a bikini almost, and yet the game clearly states that he is male.

Music:
Some of the best, most thought-out music you'll find from a video game.

Graphics:
Nice, 24-bit graphics, looking almost realistic.

Difficulty:
... this is the game's downfall. it's too difficult. I almost beat the game, and accidently fell into a spike pit and had to restart the entire final level(s).

Overall Rating:
Nice 9.5/10

[Goshi]

Evil Counter review of MMZ, GUY U ARES NOT WORTHY ENOUGH.

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Name: Megaman Zero
Publisher: well the publisher on the intro screen is in japanese so i don't know
Platform: GBA

First off where's the ERSB/PEGI rating Guy, you should put that incase some 8 year old was viewing these or something anyway its ERSB is E.

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Plot:
100 years after the Megaman X series took place, X has died, and Zero went into hybernation. The Reploid race has been dying out because of a force of mavericks called "Neo Arcadia." One night, a reploid named Ciel was running from Mavericks trying to kill her, when she stumbled upon the legendary reploid's remains, it was Zero. He was still in hibernation, and Ciel activated him. Ciel explaned her situation, and Zero killed the invading mavericks. [[Retroactive spoiler wipe!]]

Eh? Neo Arcadia are not Mavericks they believe the resistance force are the mavericks, there are no mavericks appearent in the game whatsoever.

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Problems:
One thing i noticed is that Zero looks too much like a female. His paint is pinkish-red, he has long hair, and it looks like (omg) he's wearing a bikini almost, and yet the game clearly states that he is male.

How is this a problem, and he doesn't look that female sure he looks like he wearing a bikini of somesort but in the scenes he looks much more male. And how does this effect the gameplay?

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Music:
Some of the best, most thought-out music you'll find from a video game.

What a complete lie, the music is nowhere as good as the Castlevania GBA games (Not including C:HoD) and the Metroid games, the music is fine but the tunes are often reused a little too much plus they won't be remembered as well as many other game's tunes.

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Graphics:
Nice, 24-bit graphics, looking almost realistic.

I hope you were talking about the scenes becuase the graphics are NOWHERE near realistic. Get your eyes checked kiddo.

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Difficulty:
... this is the game's downfall. it's too difficult. I almost beat the game, and accidently fell into a spike pit and had to restart the entire final level(s).

How is this a downfall sure it makes the game frustrating but hey, hardly any games these days have difficulty, also the game is not THAT hard it is insanely easy once you go through New Game+ and such.

Also you never mentioned what gameplay was like, how good are the controls you musy put much bigger detail into your review to help express your point, you put hardly anything to make this game sound good either way...

Goshi's rating for the review
3/10

Goshi's review for the game
7/10

EDIT: Smilies; you are my arch nemesis

[weasel]

I'll write up one last review before I pack up this old reliable box o' mine.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
"Heeeyyy..."

Developer: Konami
System: PS2, XBox, PC/Windows (available only on DVD-ROM). PS2 version reviewed.
ESRB: M - Animated violence, blood, gore, suggestive themes

Take the award-winning formula of Metal Gear Solid, the hit stealth-action game from 1998, and add some new features, moves, and several hundred more VR missions, and you've got yourself a winner.

GAMEPLAY

For those not familiar with the Metal Gear series, it's among the very first games that required stealth to prevail. The first Metal Gear, released on the MSX2 home computer in Japan and Europe in 1987, was very innovative with its stealthy approach. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released in 1990 (also on the MSX2) in Japan only, with a fan translated ROM floating around since 2001. It was a whole 8 years before Metal Gear made a comeback, in the form of "Metal Gear Solid" on the Playstation. This took the series into 3D, featuring new stealthy moves like flattening against walls, snapping necks, dragging guards away from their post, and sniping things. Let's cut forward to 2002.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. This introduced several new things such as hanging from ledges, the ability to aim and shoot in first person view, jumping from behind corners to shoot off a few rounds, and several other things. The game starts you off as Solid Snake, just like every Metal Gear before it. Two years after the events of MGS1, Snake and his partner Hal Emmerich (Otacon) are members of an anti-Metal Gear group called "Philanthropy". Snake sneaks his way onto a Marine ship to expose the creation of a new model of Metal Gear, entitled RAY, which was designed to eliminate all the Metal Gear REX's created after MGS1 (all thanks to Ocelot, the stupid idiot).

After the mission on the tanker, the point of view shifts two years farther, to a fresh FOXHOUND recruit taking orders from Roy Campbell. He is also called Snake, but Campbell changes the codename to Raiden "to avoid confusion". Raiden isn't exactly a very "manly" main character. He's a rather skinny fellow, and the sneaking suit that they have him wearing certainly doesn't help much either. He's definitely more fun to play as than the protagonist in Kojima's last game (Leo from Zone of the Enders).

Anyhow, on to the gameplay itself. Sneaking around to do things is a lot more fun than in MGS1. Peeking around corners is much easier now, allowing you to control the camera while peeking with the right stick. First-person aiming is now possible, and makes killing (or tranquilizing) guards rather fun. Shooting guards in the crotch equals an instant kill (much to my happiness). You can now do a rolling move by pressing Crouch while running. There are lockers scattered about the areas, so you can hide in them to escape guards, or stuff bodies in them to hide them. While against a wall, you can whip around with your gun out and fire off some shots. When you're done, your character whips back behind the wall to take cover.

Several new weapons appear, such as the RGB6 grenade launcher, the M9 dartgun (for tranqulizing enemies), the PSG1-T tranq rifle, a High-Freqency Blade for Raiden (block shots like the Ninja, and then rush in to stab enemies to death), and an AKS-74U with optional silencer. There are also new tools like girlie books, empty clips (throw them to make noise and distract guards), an AP Sensor (useful for when you have no radar), and the reappearance of the Digital Camera.

Often times I had more fun experimenting with different tricks in the game than actually following the plot. While the plot certainly had some silly moments like the strange Codec calls you get late in the game ("I need scissors! 61!! Sneak into the enemy fortress Outer Heaven and destroy the final weapon METAL GEAR!"), I had much more fun shooting guards in the crotch and doing mean things to Snake.

Plot is incredibly overdone - while the end of MGS1 seemed boring and stretched to some people, the plot here just got so absurd that I just skipped most of the Codec calls and only watched the cinemas. I even skipped much of the ending. To be more specific of what this plot is like, think "Shadow Government Puppet Show" without the silliness - like a Tom Clancy novel that goes much too far. Here, they feed you gigaliters of stuff that's just so stupid you'll wonder why no country in existance has tried to do something like it. Stuff like "The Patriots", the censorship of the entire Internet, artificial intelligence gone terribly wrong, and several other things.

The "Substance" edition comes with new "Snake Tales" missions - five individual plotlines that have nothing to do with the actual game, and are much more believable in that respect. The gameplay in them is rather difficult. You also have access to VR Missions, which generally repeat themselves several times over at different difficulty levels. The VR missions can be played as several different characters (three versions of Raiden, and four of Snake). Yes, Tuxedo Snake makes an appearance.

Finally, there is an included demo of Konami's Tony Hawk ripoff called "Evolution Skateboarding". The demo takes you across the roof of the Big Shell cleanup facility, playing as either Snake or Raiden. The game is remarkably similar to Tony Hawk, except the controls aren't as fluid and there just isn't any fun to be had with the limited tricks (no combos). The remix of the MGS theme is pretty decent, though.

Lots of secret stuff is also hidden. Casting Theater gives you 8 scenes from the game, allowing you to change the major characters. For example, in the first scene with Fortune, you could change the Navy SEAL team into Revolver Ocelot, Raiden into Otacon, Fortune into a generic soldier, and Vamp into the original MGS1 model of Ocelot (who, I believe, had several polygons removed to make him look worse). Collecting dog tags from soldiers gives you secret stuff, from infinite ammo, to a stealth camo suit. You can also use the Digital Camera to save silly pictures to your memory card (I don't know yet if there are still "ghost" pictures like MGS1).

10/10. Best stealth game ever.

GRAPHICS

This is one of the better-looking PS2 games I've seen. Textures are well-defined, levels are designed quite well, models have great animations, cinemas are good, plus lots of special effects and the best-looking explosions to date. Not to mention it's very noticable if you shoot a guard in the crotch.

9.5/10 - Because nobody's perfect. Some select individuals may complain over lack of anti-aliasing (jaggies).

SOUNDS

The music is composed by Harry Gregson-Williams (The Rock, Armageddon), and is placed into several dynamic tracks. The music moves seamlessly from stealth, to alert, and slowly back to stealth. Weapons sound great, and guards make very satisfying screams when you kill them. Voices are directed quite well (plus the Game Over scenes aren't as painful to listen to). Just about everything sounds quite nice, not to mention it's incredible how it sounds on a good stereo system.

10/10

CONTROLS

This game takes advantage of analog buttons. If you hold Square to draw your pistol, and decide you don't want to shoot, releasing the button slowly will cancel the shot. If you are in a locker and want to take a look around, the harder you press R1 will bring you closer to your viewport. With binoculars, lightly tapping the Circle button to zoom in will zoom slowly, but jabbing it and pinning it down hard will zoom almost instantaneously.

This being said, analog buttons are difficult to manipulate. This is largely Sony's fault for not making it noticable that you're pressing harder on the button. You'll get used to it eventually (just like with the analog sticks and clicking them), but it'll be tough right off.

Using objects is made kind of difficult, because you must be facing them to use them. Moving too close will make you lean up against the object, and your character doesn't turn on a dime. Face one direction, then moving in the opposite direction will make you start running, then turn around and start going the way you intended to go.

BUGS

Some minor model clipping bugs (especially with the MGS1 models in Casting Theater).

OVERALL

Great game that should be in everybody's PS2 library.

10/10

[duvel]

Ratchet & Clank
Console: PS2
Cost: $20
ESRB Rating: T (Mild Violence)

Oh yes. Ratchet and Clank. The platformer that came out in 2002 that seemed generic but rocked instead.

Plot: You control Ratchet, a young, uh, whatever he is, who has hopes of someday leaving his planet to embark upon a grand adventure, and Clank, a robot created from a glitch in a plant. They are out to stop Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek, the ruthless leader of the Blargs who is trying to find a new home for his people, and plans on screwing everyone else over in the process. It has a twist that is pretty neat, and has some great dialouge. I'd give this an 10/10 because it's perfect for these kinds of games.

Gameplay: HO. Would you look at this. This has the ingrediants for a perfect platformer. Ratchet happens to be very skilled with a number of Gadegtron brand(and a few non-brand) weapons, such as the Omniwrench 8000, or the powerful Devastator. Along with those abilities, he also has Clank to help him out by turning into things like jetpacks. The controls are very fluid and responsive, and I had no trouble causing havoc on the nearest enemy. There were many different challenges in the game that made it worth while, such as infiltrating a factory by tricking the guard robots, or making it to the entrance of a city that's under attack. Another thing that was great was how the you eventually ended up doing most of the missions that look like side quests in the long run, and the actual side quest were very rewarding. The Hoverboarding minigame that was in the game was pretty cool, but it's aggravating at times. And for all you completionests out there, there are gold bolts to aquire to buy gold weapons, and skill points to earn to gain a few extras. The AI wasn't entirely impressive, but that's fine, seeing as how you will be destroying the enemies pretty quickly anyway. The boss fights are pretty hard and go for long periods of time(especially the last boss). The weapons usually never felt gimmicky but instead destructive, which is good because that's exactly what they are. The regular omniwrench is good enough to take out many enemies quickly, but you can do it faster with weapons like the Tesla Claw(especially the gold one), the Glove of Doom, and the amazing R.Y.N.O. However, you will need bolts- and lots of them- to get the more powerful weapons. Luckily, bolts are taken from crates and enemies by the gross, so you shouldn't be short of bolts much. Overall, 10/10

Graphics: The graphics in this game, while not incredible, are still good and do their job well. 9/10

Sound: Well designed sound. The explosions are paticularly satisfying. 10/10

Replayability: With 30 skill points to earn and 40 gold points to find, there will be much to do when the game ends. 10/10

Overall: A must buy if you own a PS2. 9/10

[weasel]

Castlevania Chronicles (Akumajou Dracula X68000)

A modern port of an eight-year-old Japan-only remake - and it fails to disappoint in many ways.

Any true Castlevania nut has already played the original game on the NES. There are many nuts out there who wish there was a modern remake. This is really as modern as it gets, without making it full 3D like Lament of Innocence.

Before we begin with the review, a quick little history lesson. In Japan, there was a wildly popular home computer system called the Sharp X68000. It was released in 1990, and lasted a good 4 years. It boasted the best arcade game ports in the world (barring the Neogeo, but that doesn't count because it's really not "ported"). Final Fight, Ghosts and Goblins, Street Fighter 2...it had them all.

Konami saw this power, and instead of porting an arcade game, they remade the original Castlevania, with modern (for the time) graphics and sounds, and released it on the X68000. But, being that the X68000 was never even considered for a US release, we never saw it.

In 2000, Castlevania Chronicles was unveiled. Not only did it contain a Playstation port of the X68000 game, it also boasted an "Arrange" mode, remixed music, and some new character designs by none other than Symphony of the Night artists Ayami Kojima.

GAMEPLAY

This is your typical Castlevania fare - run around, whip stuff, beat the occasional boss. Simple on paper, and it's still as fun as ever.

New here is an herb as one of the subweapons - this will heal you at the cost of a few hearts. It's incredibly rare, however. The bosses are changed a bit, and there are a few brand new stages as compared to the NES original. These stages take cues from later CV titles - Stage 2 gives a nod to the cave level in SCV4, while the ever-present clock tower stage feels a lot like the one in CV3.

I certainly miss a few of the later additions to the series - for example, the ability to jump on and off stairs has been removed entirely. And you can't go by your memory alone, in terms of secrets - while some are the same, others are moved, and others still are changed to traps (one in the first stage that used to contain pot roast now unleashes a mass of Fleamen).

The Konami code makes an appearance here. When used on the title screen, it will give you access to two options previously only availible on the X68K computer (set the date and time, and change the translucency of the status bar). The date and time setup will affect subtle things in the game, like the clock towers. It's just fun to play with, really.

Finally, there are actually 3 "sound chips" to use on the game's Original mode. Hold L1 and R1 while pressing Start to begin Original mode, and you can pick from the X68K's built-in FM synth chip, the Roland MT-32, and the Roland GS. I prefer the MT-32 personally.

8/10 - Classic CV gameplay, filled with secrets and neat crap. I still miss jumping from stairs.

GRAPHICS

Levels are updated with all sorts of new things - a huge painting in Level 1, trees that are destroyed by lightning, transparent water, parallax scrolling in the caves, lots of rotational effects. The Arranged mode adds new sprites based on artwork by Ayami Kojima. While Simon appears odd at first with red hair, the design is much improved from the original sprite (which appears much too brown). It still appears kinda dated by 2000's standards - even 1997's standards (those set by SotN).

7/10 - Dated, but still nice.

SOUNDS

Four different soundtracks, and some decent old-school sound effects. You can turn off the sound effects and just listen to the music, which is an admirable design decision on Konami's part - you can just listen to the music, and enjoy it without hearing the whip cracking.

8/10 - Arrange music is nice.

OVERALL

It's still a good game even after so many years.

9/10

[weasel]

DEMO IMPRESSIONS: Medal of Honor Pacific Assault
Genre: First-Person Tactical Shooter
Developer: Electronic Arts
ESRB: Teen (Language, Violence, Blood)

SYSTEM REQS: 1.5 GHz Pentium 3, GeForce 3 or higher (MX 440 not supported), 384 MB of RAM, Windows 98SE (readme claims it requires 2000/XP but runs in 98 with no problems)
RECOMMENDED: 3 GHz Pentium 4 with Hyper-Threading, GeForce FX 5900 or higher, 1 GB RAM, Windows XP, A Powerful Set of Speakers

I must admit I wasn't originally psyched up about this new MOH game. The screenshots looked impressive, and the movies showed a bit of promise, but I got the feeling it would just be Call of Duty in the Pacific campaign. What resulted from this is pretty much what I thought it would be, but in all the good ways possible.

Make no mistake - this does feel an awful lot like Call of Duty. From the iron-sight aiming, to the weapon-swapping, the stance keys, leaning, and the like, these elements were all lifted from CoD. But that's where the similarities end.

Instead of taking orders from a higher ranking officer, you can deliver them yourself with a Rogue Leader-esque arrow key system. Depending on the context, you can use the four arrow keys to call for cover, order a retreat, full-on offensive, or call for a regroup. The "Cover" key is perhaps the most important. Aside from these keys, soldiers will usually fend for themselves, moving up when you do, warning you of danger if they see it, all that.

The soldiers in this are truly life-like. They are all pretty realistic, with their own unique faces and attitudes. They will react to your actions as a real person would - for example, if you were to rush blindly into the face of the enemy, make a particularly nice shot, save a soldier, or even run in front of a plane as it is about to take off.

Graphics look pretty good here, with great environments. It really feels like a war. Planes flying everywhere, lots of people (the corpses don't disappear, to my knowledge), debris, explosions, and everything that would show your system what-for.

Sounds add a lot to the experience - gunfire, shouting, explosions, holy cow these sounds are just perfect. No problems. These sounds are better than Call of Duty.

Overall, this demo is more than worth the 550 meg download (unlike Far Cry), and, dare I say, may possibly be worth buying this game when it comes out.

[Superfunk]

Game: The Sims (PC, Not PS2)
Author: EA Games

Gameplay: 8/10

You get to decide what the people do and how they live. You get to decide if they get married or have pets. Pretty awesome! You can do some nonsense and funny stuff with these people.

Graphics: 10/10

The people look pretty realistic, and so do all of the other things.

Plot: 7/10

You get to decide the plot of your family's stories.

Sound: 8/10

The music is catchy, the sound is realistic, and it's pretty well overall.

Unbelievability: 9/10

I've never seen such a sim!

Overall: 8/10

I'm just disappointed about the unrealistic stuff, like the grim reaper for example. But I can't wait to play the Sims 2!

[weasel]

Time Crisis 2
Developer: Namco
Platform: Arcade/PS2
ESRB: T (Violence)

IN 1996, there was a gun-game called Time Crisis. The gun-game genre was made more realistic with the release of this game - instead of "shooting down" the incoming bullets, like in older games like Terminator 2, Revolution X, or Virtua Cop, you must take cover by pressing down on a special foot-pedal. The scoring was also innovative, in that this was the first game to award extra points for head shots.

Its sequel, Time Crisis 2, was released in 1997 on Namco's "Super System 23" hardware (which was roughly 50% more powerful than the PS1). TC2 introduced a new Combo system (which gives bonus points for consecutive hits without missing), and link play (two TC2 cabinets can be hooked together, so two players can play and go on their own paths). The gameplay was very intense, and there were even special scenes where you can use the environment to your adventage (blow up a fuel truck, thus taking out all the enemies on screen).

It had been three years in the making, but TC2 finally got a home port. And it's three times as good as the arcade version ever was.

GAMEPLAY

Note: While this game supports the usage of a controller as a gun, it is NOT recommended, as it will slow you down immensely. The game was reviewed with the pack-in Guncon 2 controller, and I actually played with the two-gun setup at an in-store display.

As described above, this is a gun game. Your character moves automatically after clearing the area of enemies. Dodging shots is a crucial skill in this - you can tell which shots will hit you by watching for a red flash when the shot is fired, and this way you can tell if you really need to take cover, or if the shot will miss and you can keep shooting. While there is no foot-pedal like the arcade version, reloading can be taken care of by hitting any of the buttons on the Guncon 2 controller (the game is compatible with the older Guncon 1, but you must have two of the same controller to play two-player). Reloading is a customizable aspect of the game - you can opt for the more "traditional" off-screen shooting for reloads (holding the trigger to stay behind cover), push-button reloads (hold a button to stay behind cover), or release-button reloads (you have to hold the button to emerge from cover and fire your weapon). Since the GUncon 2 has a button right where the clip would be on a real gun, you can make this the most realistic gun-game ever by setting up a release-button reload on the Clip button. Unfortunately, the one flaw on the controller is that it doesn't have force-feedback like some other gun-games I've played (Point Blank arcade version). I suppose they had to draw the line somewhere.

The game includes the original arcade version, with three stages of three areas each. The stages take you through a Mediterranean town, a railroad station (and the train), and a military complex. There are some truly intense scenes in the game, from a boat chase, to a jungle shoot-out (complete with baddies with machetes that hack you up, and machine-gunners in camo), to a hostage situation.

There's actually four ways you can play the Story mode - there's the regular 1 player mode, 2 player split-screen (which is impractical unless you have a big-screen TV), Link mode (which two PS2's connect by Firewire and play just like the arcade mode), and 1 player Double Gun mode (which you get to play with two guncons on the same screen, in true John Woo style - really fun). The only thing missing: Linked Double Gun mode. Firewire, 4 guncons, that would have been incredible!

Also availible off the bat are three minigames (and one unlockable minigame, after beating Story mode), two of which are based on older Namco electro-mechanical games. There is the Agent Trainer, where you shoot at targets and aim for the bulls-eye for the most points possible (really only good for testing your aim the first few times); Shoot Away 2 (which is a skeet-shooting game a la Duck Hunt), Quick & Crash (a quick-draw game), and the unlockable Crisis Missions.

Quick & Crash was originally an arcade game that tested your reflexes and aiming. Before any of the game's four phases would begin, you are ordered to place the gun into its holster. When the phase begins, you draw your gun and fire at the targets. Since there is no holster included with the Guncon 2, this is simulated by checking if the gun is pointed away from the screen.

Some of the unlockable stuff includes more credits to play with in Arcade more (all the way up to Free Play), more health, an Assault Rifle (twenty rounds and automatic fire), infinite ammo (semi-automatic with no reloads), a modern version of Shoot Away 2, and the Crisis Missions.

Crisis Missions put you in the environment of the Story Mode, challenging you to complete tasks - kill 26 enemies without getting hit, kill enemies without shooting civilians, score only head-shots...they get really hard.

9.5/10 - This game starts to hurt your hands after a while. Lack of linked Double Gun mode is depressing.

GRAPHICS

The game has recieved a complete face-lift from the arcade version. This is one of the rare cases in which the home version of a game looks better than the arcade. The textures are high-res, the models are high-poly, the environments look beautiful. Animations are fluid and believable, and there are all kinds of neat little details that make it look great. The explosions look really nice.

9.5/10

SOUNDS

Well well, we have a shooter with good voice-acting. Not only that, but the music is good and fits with the action, and the gunshots are very nice. No complaints here.

10/10

CONTROLS

The Guncon looks good, feels good, and is just the right weight to keep the thing balanced. The design of it looks suspiciously like the Doom 3 pistol (hmm, I smell a paint-job idea in the works). It's highly accurate and just plain feels right.

BUGS

None to speak of.

OVERALL

Looking for a good shooter? Buy this one!!

9/10

And keep an eye out for the soon-to-be released port of Crisis Zone, and even Time Crisis 3 - all of which have their own pack-in guns!

[Castlevania]

Here's one I'll never forget!

Harrier Attack
1984

Platform: Amstrad CPC 464
Developer: Durell
Publisher: Amsoft
Genre: Shoot-em-up

Summary

Harrier attack was just one of a bundle of Amsoft cassettes that came free with the Amstrad. I'm basing this review on the earlier model of amstrad I had when I was five, this meant the games were dislayed on a green and black screen and loading times were long (some games topped 5 minutes!). I have memories of playing this game over and over again, I was a very addicted and disturbed child. By the time bedtime had arrived I would fall to my knees begging my parents to let me stay up just that little bit longer; "mom! I've nearly done it!", bare in mind that the word "memory card" wasn't even imaginable at the time. I never did clock this game, damn you mother!


Gameplay

VERY addictive. Get off the carrier safely and blast your way across the desert, it can't get better than that can it?! Yes it can. Dodge the enemy gunfire, fire missiles and you can even eject from your plane! (my personal favourite part of the game.) Once you did the shootin and the dodging it was back to the carrier to land and finish the mission. If you died you would just press a key and start again instantly, how convenient! Another advantage to the gameplay is the short loading time which was about 30 seconds if my memory serves me correct.


Plot

Who needs a plot with this gameplay?! The truth is that most games out at this time never had one. I'm dismissing this category either out of good judgement or just sheer naivety.


Graphics

Only looking at new screenshots I'm able to see what the colour version of this game looked like and it isn't that bad. The look of the game is quite simple and neatly done. I played this game in 2 colours and although the graphics were quite simple everything that had to be there, was. Back in the day you had to use a lot of your imagination to play these games.


Sound

WIKKID! Don't forget this is an Amstrad! They managed to get the engine sound quite realistic and even the gunfire sent shivers down my spine. There was no music on this game probably because they wanted to preserve the realism, though truthfully I would say its my naivety kicking in again.


It was fast, addictive and FREE!

Overall: 8/10

[duvel]

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage
System: SNES
Publisher and other info: hell if I knew

This is one of my favorite SNES games. I remember I rented it at first because of the attractive red cartridge, but the game itself is awesome as well.

Plot: Spiderman and Venom must take on a group of villians who are plotting havoc within New York. Along the way they will encounter the likes of Doppelganger, Shrieker, the Hobgoblin, and others as they fight against their main enemy, the psychotic Carnage. A bit linear but perfect for this sort of game. 7/10

Gameplay: Good ol' beat 'em up style gameplay here. There is a tiny bit of variation here and there, but for the most part it's beat 'em up gameplay. Not that I mind that style, however. I happen to enjoyed beating the crap out of random thugs and people as Spiderman and Venom. However, if you don't like beat 'em ups, the gameplay is not for you. 7/10

Graphics: Very nicely done on the developers' part. The heroes and villians look fittingly buff and muscley, while the weak thugs are rather flabby. There's a nice comic book style throughout the entire thing. The cutscenes are even set up like comic book pages. When you hit an enemy, a thok or bam appears at the hit point. Overall, you feel like you're made of ink and are in a comic book. 9/10

Music: Oh man, this has some really cool music in it. I don't know who made the music, but if they released albums I want some of them. 9/10

Sounds: Thoks and whatnot are all well done and sound just like they should. 8/10

Replayability: Eh, you beat it, you've seen it all. There isn't enough difference between Spiderman and Venom to warrent going through the game twice, once as each character. Oh well. 2/10

Control: Rather solid, although the whole grab and block being the same button is weird, but I didn't use either of those enough to get unnerved by it. 7/10

Overall: I like this game a lot. I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a great beat 'em up or Spiderman game. 8/10

[duvel]

Neverwinter Nights (And all expansions)
Developer: Bioware
Year: 2001?
ESRB Rating: Not sure, but I'd give it a T if I were them.

If you've been on IRC you might have heard me gloating about this game.

Plot: Depends on which of the modules you play. In the original, you play as yourself, and had finished your training at the Neverwinter Academy so that you could help Neverwinter find a cure for a plague that was striking it. In the first expansion (Shadows of Undretide) you play as a different person (still yourself) who has to find some artifacts that were stolen by a bunch of kobolds. In the second expansion (Hordes of the Underdark) you must stop the drow elves of the Underdark, who are currently assailing Waterdeep. They are all very good stories, and each of the characters has a great backstory to them. 9/10

Gameplay: The game uses 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules for everything. I'm very glad they did so, as the 3rd Edition rules (known as 3e to D&D enthusiasts) have some great advantages over AD&D, which is what Bioware's previous games used. The game consists of you wandering around a town or countryside trying to fulfill your objective. Most of the game is a balance of role-playing and ransacking a dungeon. The game is of variable difficulty, with the original module being pretty easy and Hordes of the Underdark being rather difficult. Menus were easy to navigate, and actions were easy to initiate. The classes weren't really well balanced, as a fighter is completely useless compared to any other class, and a rogue was the obvious choice for overall usefulness. Gold was rather plentiful when I played a monk, seeing as how I sold stuff I wasn't using, and monks don't need much to be destructive. 8/10

Graphics: Decent. It's very slow when in populated areas, however. 7/10

Sound and Music: Good sound, and the music was nice and ambient. The voice acting is superb. 8/10

Replayability: There's a module creator packaged with the game, so naturally there are many user-made modules out there. A lot of them are very well designed. Not only that, there's multiplayer(which my warez copy cannot do). This will stick around for a while. 9/10

Overall: This a great game. Even if you aren't a D&D fan, you should definately pick it up.

[Crusader]

Neverwinter Nights

POINT-COUNTERPOINT EDITION!


Plot: Trite! There are few of what could be called 'plot twists', and those few plot twists could be predicted by a baby. The plot is advanced by thirty-second conversations you miraculously overhear between the game's 'chapters'. These 'chapters' are several hours of murder interspersed with periodic trips back to the shop to sell your generic loot. Let's take the first chapter as an example of some of the amazing plot and game development. Your character just graduated the academy. Suddenly the academy is attacked by two-foot tall malformed midgets with leukemia. These deadly warriors succeed in murdering everybody inside, except of course, you. You slaughter them all with the greatest of ease. Turns out the academy was holding four magical critters which needed to be pulped to make the Special Magic Potion to cure the plague. BUT THEY ALL ESCAPED IN THE ATTACK OH NOS! There are four critters to find, and four sections of the city. What do you think the odds are that you'll find one in each section? Pretty darn good! The second chapter is the same. You need to find Three magical runes, and there are three areas to search. This game is Diablo without the randomization.

Gameplay: Absolute poop. Apparently they use 'third edition rules' but they only managed it by cutting out 95% of all D&D stuff at all. No flying, swimming, or climbing, all the social skills have been mashed into one big rarely-used 'persuasion' skill, which of course cannot be used for any main quests because that would involve programming something like a branching storyline. In a vague attempt to rebalance their game, they included level requirements on the more powerful items, but this only causes the item-reliant classes like the fighter and ranger to have to waste time leveling before being able to take on the harder areas, while the inherently magical spellcasters can charge ahead with impunity.

It is in fact the arcane spellcasting characters that are the overbalanced classes in Neverwinter, as opposed to authentic D&D, they don't need to wait a day before replenishing their spells, they can sit down on the floor for five seconds - in front of an open door filled with enemies no less - and stand up with full health and full spells. Their familiars can handle the mundane find-and-disarm rogue tasks, and there isn't even a penalty for having your familiar killed! Just take another five-second sit-down, and it'll be right as rain. If you lack for melee capacity, you're one second away from having it. I played through chapters two and three by summoning a skeleton, putting stoneskin on it, and watching it charge into battle against fifteen-foot tall fire giants and come out without a scratch. The advertised 'expansive areas' you can explore are nothing of the sort. Their 'forests' are essentially 100x100 ft. squares with impassable cliffs on all sides and about six trees dotted about the middle somewhere. The gaping caverns are 100x100 ft. squares with solid stone walls on all sides and about six stalagmites dotted about the middle somewhere. The huge cities are 100x100 ft. squares with brick walls on all sides and about six buildings dotted about the middle somewhere. Sounding familiar? Every area is like every other area, with nothing to break the monotony.

Enemy AI is atrocious. All enemies charge straight at you and attack, or stand there and shoot. No teamwork at all. Even an enemy who is literally a giant brain, something you would think would embody intelligence, follows the same tactics as the diabetic goblins in the prologue.

Sound and Music: Like most of the game - repetitive. Also some sounds are inexplicably ten times louder than all the others. The music was typical fluty-fantasy stuff.

The module creator would be the only saving grace of this game, were it not packed with random restrictions. You can't make your own spells at all, and items you make have the level restriction automatically assigned to them, so you can't give a weak NPC an edge with a powerful weapon - he won't be high level enough to use it.

Overall: This is a terrible game. Don't pick it up, especially if you are a D&D enthusiast. (2/10)

[scorch3000]

Psi-Opps - the Mindgate conspiracy
Year: 2004
System: PS2/Xbox/???
Genre: Action
Psi-Opps is a very underrated game, and ciminally ignored. At the start of the game, a soldier suffering from Amnesia wakes up to an unknown voice, as is freed from the cell he's in and given a pistol. He is then told by the unseen woman to get to the supply room. You proceed, through the first part, very basic, shoot about 7 guards, steal their guns (you can only hold a pistol and a 2nd weapon, only 2 guns at one time), so choose wisely, the shotgun can take off a guys head close up, but long range is pathetic, the machine gun is fast and powerfull, but inacurate, the assault riffle is more acurate then the machine gun but less powerfull. The sniper can take off a guys head at long range but only hold 15 bullets max. When you get to the suply room, the contact Sara gives you an injection to remember things, then your powers begin to slowly awaken, you get TK first followed by an optional training level. With this power TK, you can float objects and enemies at will (or until you Psi runs out). Instaid of shooting a bad guy, you can bash him to bits of the walls, making red stains on the walls, then for even more fun, throw the corpse into a trash compacter. Gap looks to large to jump? Hop on a crate or a metal plate, and TK-Surf your way over. Other powers wake up later, such as Remote Viewing or RV, what enables you to project your view out of your body, explore areas beind locked doors (essential for one part of the game), scout enemy movements, ect. You then unlock Mind Drain, what you use to drain enemy psi energy. If you drain a dead body, you get a small amount of Psi back. If you sneak up and get a guard from behind and drain him, he's hoisted into the air, screams and gibbers as you drain him, then just as you fully drain his psi, his head pops, splattering grey matter and blood over the floor. The next power unlocked is mind control, what enables you to possess a guard, and get him to do the dirty work. For an added bonus, when controling a enemy with a gun (enemys are known as Meat Puppets, come in 3 types MP1 [weak and useless], MP2 [better armed and smarter them Mp1's] and MP3's, the elite of the Meat Puppets, what are immune to most Psi attacks, unless caught offguard), press both control sticks for 3 secconds (both Xbox/PS2 versions the same) and the controled soldier kneels, aims the gun at his own head, and blows it off (takes over 1/2 of your Psi power to do so, and you can't minddrain a headless soldier). You unlock pirokinisis afterwards, and you shoot fireballs. The last ability is Aura View, and you can see hiden things with it. The game is very fun, perfect for the sick minded. Here's some thing you could try
Switch on the power when two techs are working on the wires and fry their brains out.
Mind Control a soldier and get him to shoot his friends then stand near an explosive crate and shoot them.
TK an enemy into another, then lob a explosive barrel at them.
Throw some enemies onto the electric floor on level 2 instaid of shooting them.
Sneak up and MD a MP1 until his head pops then throw the body into a pool of acid.
Sneak up behind a MP ready to MD, get spotted then blow his head off with a 12 guage shotgun round.
TK a soldier onto a converyer belt, watch as he's set alight at the first part, then crushed, burnt agin, crushed, burnt, crushed, then packed as food. Ew.

I give it 9/10

[Goshi]

This week and 2 days I'll be reviewing all the classic Mega Man games. Don't ask why.

Mega Man
System: NES
ERSB: E
Genre: Action

The first game starring the Blue Bomber we all came to know! Is this game actually worth it? Read and find out!

Plot:
Dr. Wily and Dr. Light made 8 robots however Dr. Wily was really evil so he made 6 six of them go evil (What idiot he should've made all 8 of them and yes it would be 9 but Capcom hadn't thought of Proto Man yet.) and tried to take over the world with them. Wow, as far as I know this plot is rather lame. 2/10 (Only 2 becuase I like Dr. Wily for some reason.)

Gameplay:
Baiscally jump over stuff, shoot enemies fight boss at end and get there weapon. The ability to get bosses abilities is pretty orginal (Kirby Adventure wasn't released yet if I'm correct.) and ability to select which stage you want to do first was pretty nice however the levels are too difficult to conquer at times. Take Guts Man's level with those infamous moving platforms, and you'll see what I mean. And bosses themselves whilst they have simple attack patterns they can be sometimes a pain to defeat. Cut Man is easy but the two blocks that you pick up in his room make it pain
to fight him without the Super Arm. Also Elec Man is overpowered, being able to kill
you in three hits when you have full health. 6/10

Graphics:
The graphics are very good is this game and even live up against it's many sequels and considering this is one of the first NES games it displays quite well. 10/10

Music and Sound:
The music in this game is quite catchy and its made pretty well and the sound effects are fine although I find it annoying listening to the Mega Buster noise over and over. 9/10

Multiplayer: -
There's none. Get used to it. -/-

Difficulty: Hard
The levels are too difficult and Elec Man and some other bosses are rather overpowered. Guts Man's Level is murder to play becuase of those platforms. On another note you can't save nor is there any passwords. Evil indeed.

Replay Value:
Once you beat the game what else is there to do? Nothing! Once you beat there's no other extras or anything. And the game is nowhere near fun after playing it a billion times, forget replaying it. 0/10

Overall:
27/50

Goshi says: "Don't even think about getting it."

[Goshi]

Mega Man 2
System: NES as well.
ERSB: E, of course
Genre: Action, obviously.

The 2nd Mega Man game ever! Is this way better than the first? Lets find out!

Plot:
Dr. Wily has returned and created 8 new robot masters to destroy Mega Man!
It became cliche in the later games. 1/10

Gameplay:
Heavily improved from the fisrt, you now get three extra items which can help you get through levels easier sometimes they're actually required to continue on as well. The bosses aren't overpowered anymore except for one boss in the Wily Fortress whom I won't mention however the gameplay is way better than the first, the levels are more fun and won't have you ripping out your hair... much. 7/10

Graphics:
Better than the first although at times some levels do look rather bland, like Metal Man's level for example. One great example of the graphics in Crash Man's Level how it gets darker and darker until you're at the top which is a nice effect. 9/10

Music and Sound:
Much better from the first however the sound effects are exactly the same from the first which is indeed bad. 8/10

Multiplayer: -/-
None, too bad.

Replay Value:
Ugh, none at all. 0/10

Difficulty: Medium
It depends on what difficulty you choose at the start but otherwise its mostly medium difficulty although hard mode is quite hard in some cases. Try beating Crash Man with the Mega Buster and you'll see what I mean.

Overall:
25/50

Goshi says: "It average, no arguing now."

[Goshi]

Mega Man 3
System: NES too.
ERSB: E, obviously
Genre: Looks its exactly like the last game, need I say more?

Plot:
Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were working on a new robot however they need the power crystals so Dr. Light sends Mega Man off to get them however 8 Robot Masters gaurd them and its up to Mega Man to beat them, the robots appeared to ruled by a robot named Proto Man. Oh well at least it isn't the cliched, Dr. Wily creates 8 robots thing. 3/10

Gameplay:
Exactly the same as the 2nd, however after defeating the 8 robot masters you have to go through 4 levels and fight all the MM2 Robot Masters... in Doc Robot form! After defeating them you then fight Break Man and then you finally get to the Fortress stages, obviously this is one of the longest Mega Man games yet and this time the fortress bosses aren;t like that one stupid fortress boss in MM2, thank goodness so this game improves on it. 8/10

Graphics:
As usual the graphics are excellent for its time I have no complaints this time except for the fact Mega Man's sprite is the same >.<, 10/10

Music and Sound:
The music is getting better I personally like Spark Man's and the first Fortress stage themes, the sound effects are exactly the same however and you might already be annoyed about them. 9/10

Replay Value:
The only reply value in this game is play over and over again really. 1/10

Difficulty: Medium
We can all safely agree this game is much easier then the first 2 but thats because the first two had cheating bosses.

Overall:
32/50

Goshi says: "Oooh, a decent one at last."

[Goshi]

Mega Man 4
System: I wonder...
ERSB: Its blidningly obvious
Genre: Look, its exactly the same as tyhe last games. Forget it.

A huge turning point for the series? Lets see then.

Plot:
Dr. Cossack creates 8 new robot masters to defeat Mega Man. [[Spoiler wipe!]] Wow, how original. 2/10

Gameplay:
Now you can charge your buster in this one, this is a nice feature so now you don't have to waste and hour or so trying to beat a single enemy. Also the game features two fortresses rather than one. But otherwise its exactly the same as MM2. 7/10

Graphics:
Even better than before, the intro scene and ending look excellent for its time the graphics are still as great as ever. However Mega Man STILL looks the same >.<. 9/10

Music and Sound:
The music is poor almost every tune sounds like another one, the sound effects are the same too. Capcom is getting a bit slack in this department. 5/10

Replay Value:
Exactly the same! The only replay value there is by beating the game over and over.
1/10

Multiplayer: -/-
Obviously.

Difficulty: Medium
The difficulty is simular to MM3 nothing at all that tough really although some parts are annoying with the respawning enemies

Overall:
24/50

Goshi says: "Even worse than the first game, this game is one you want to avoid."

[weasel]

The Sims 2 WARNING! LONG REVIEW!
Platform: PC/Windows
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: EA Games (EEEEVILLL!)
ESRB: T

This game is depressing.

The above statement is not only true, but it also indicates that it?s a masterpiece of gaming as an art form. Any game that prompts you to think of things outside of the game without throwing them into your face (ahem, I?m talking to you, Mr. Kojima) immediately scores some points in my book ? after I?m done crying and wishing I had a girlfriend as a result of seeing things happen in the game.

Honestly, though, The Sims 2 may just seem like a sell-out game to the average gamer. For a crowd that considers Counter-Strike to be among the only games worth playing anymore, they may think that The Sims 2 is a bit childish and casual for their hardcore playing habits. Sure, there?s no twitch moments, there?s no explosions (even the crashing sound when you bulldoze a lot has been removed), but there?s an incredible amount of depth and a dynamic plot.

There?s lots of ways that one could potentially get the most enjoyment from The Sims 2. The first thing that happens is a new neighborhood is constructed. For owners of SimCity 4, they can go into the terrain editor and make a neighborhood out of that. Otherwise, there are many ?template? neighborhoods available out of the box.

The second thing that happens is building the houses that make up the neighborhood. Some lack the patience to design a house ? there are many unique ideas for design, especially with the expanded multi-story system, porches, and diagonal walls, which I imagine would be intimidating to some ? and for this reason, there are at least 20 pre-built houses that you can slap anywhere in the neighborhood. If you select one of the three pre-built neighborhoods, there?s also the houses that come with the one you picked (according to the theme ? Veronaville, the Romeo and Juliet knockoff, contains mostly Renaissance-era houses).

Then you can create families and move them into their houses. I had a lot of fun just building characters, with the freedom available. There are plenty of pre-assembled parts to mix together, but you can also adjust individual parts to your liking. There are probably 40 sliders for the face alone, and probably none at all for the other parts (while there is a button to toggle the ?fatness? of your character, you can?t adjust any other traits ? so you perverts out there can?t adjust the breast size of your ideal woman). Hair options are also quite varied, from the typical (ponytails) to the atypical (corn rows and mullets) to the downright scary (liberty spikes and Mohawks). You have a lot of freedom with the makeup aspect, which can be applied to both men and women, and includes several types of blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, and probably 50 colors of lipstick. Needless to say, there?s little for men there. There?s the ?costume makeup? section, however, so you can deck your guy out like a tiger or a football player or something. The only limitations imposed in the Makeup section are that you can?t apply facial hair (real or fake) to women.

With all the freedom about the head, it?s surprising to discover that the out-of-the-box clothing options are somewhat limited. There are many designs available to the user, but the main problem is that you can?t change the colors of them beyond the pre-made selections. So if you like the suit, but you can?t find one in emerald green, you?re out of luck. There are tools available to make your own clothes for the game, but it would have been better had Maxis allowed an RGB slider of some sort (even Tony Hawk games have a color slider).

The actual meat and bones of the game, however, is the living aspect. Watch your family from afar and see what they do, or dive in and control them. The game doesn?t actually have an active story unless you make one, so I recommend actually interacting with your sims. Anything can happen. As an example, I created a character that looks exactly like Agent 47 from Hitman, and moved him into his own hacienda by himself. He enjoyed himself ? until he came to the bitter realization that there were no other people in the neighborhood. He went crazy, downright delirious. Then he came up with an imaginary friend, the Social Bunny (a guy in a fuzzy pink bunny suit that fell from the sky). The first thing he did? Take out his rage on it, of course. Dust clouds were kicked up everywhere, cartoon style. Then he calmed down and hugged the thing before he bounced back up into space.

The time came for me to create a second character, an Eve, so to speak. I made a caring (but lazy) female, bearing long brown hair and glasses. Once she was settled in to her relatively small establishment, I gave her no electronic devices whatsoever. She owned a bookshelf and a chess table in addition to the standard kitchen (which burnt down on the very first day) and bathroom (which she spent more time in than I can remember). The Hitman came over and (what else?) hit on her a bit, and after cheating her at chess, they were living happily and wishing they had phones to call each other. (I did eventually get a phone for each of them so they could chat all day.)

I thought that the two unlikely lovebirds would need a bit of influence, so I took control. The first move? I made Hitman make out with the girl. It went smoothly enough, so I figured they?d enjoy some time together.

I switched back to Tera?s (the girl?s) point of view to discover that she was madly in love with Hitman. She dreamed about the guy. She thought about making out with him while she ate her cereal. It was the makings of a crappy romance novel, right there on my screen. But instead of shoving the game and firing up a copy of MS Word, I continued to play the game. Tera, being the lazy girl that she is, didn?t have a job at the time, nor did she take much effort in changing her clothes after waking up (so she would instead wander about the house in her underwear ? I didn?t make her like this, I swear). So Hitman came over on a random whim (I guess he really wanted to be with her), and she proposed to move in with him (in her underwear). But instead, HE moved in with HER, in the lesser of the two houses (come on, Hitman is a millionaire with a hacienda, and he instead sells everything including his toilets and moves into Tera?s one-story shack?). I did my job and evicted both of them and moved back into the hacienda to find that it was stark naked. I wasn?t kidding that Hitman had sold all his toilets (I suppose I should clarify that I didn?t actually name him Hitman ? I used the codename ?John Green?). He also decided to adopt Tera?s name (le Vont), becoming the only male in history to possess a maiden name.

I must have spent half an hour refurnishing the house ? and I had about three rooms left empty because I couldn?t think of what to use them for.

Things went fine and dandy. They weren?t officially engaged at that point, so I took the initiative and made John ?47? Green-le Vont (he gets compliments on the hyphen) propose formally to Tera, complete with shiny ring. John was dressed in his traditional suit (with red tie), but Tera was in a swimsuit fresh out of the pool. I think that may have contributed to her rejection to him ? that, and the fact that John proposed in the kitchen while she was making dinner. The noodles got burnt somehow, and John spent the next THREE DAYS crying loudly when he so much as caught sight of her. She just acted indifferent as if nothing had happened.

?How could you?!? I shouted at the screen, prompting deeply confused expressions on passersby. ?You have all this going for you and you just put him down like that?! Argh!?

But all that they did beforehand depressed me. And this brings me back to the introduction of this review.

It depresses me because, while it may seem so easy here to get a girl and ensure that they are bound in holy matrimony, it makes me think of how pathetic my own life is by comparison. I have to remember that this is only a game, and that finding my true love is never as easy as going door to door with my neighbors and asking around.

My life is a joke.

That?s why I play games.

And in the case of The Sims 2, this is one worth playing. For you romantically challenged folks out there, I?d like to point you in the direction of another game, unless you?d rather torture your Sims (put a married couple on the top floor of a mansion and delete the stairs). Whatever makes you happy.

I just hope you'll pardon my angst that somehow made it into the review.

SUMMARY
Graphics: 9/10 ? there are some glitches around, especially with the post-processing effects, but it manages to look good without needing incredible amounts of technology.
Sound: 8/10 ? Everything sounds as it should, but the music selections aren?t as neat and catchy as they were before. There also isn?t enough music in the game. You can insert your own music to be played on the radio stations in game, but this doesn?t affect the other modes.
Gameplay: 8.5/10 ? It?s an acquired taste. Some may not get into this, but it has a high amount of freedom. It?s very hard to work creatively, however, when the default stuff doesn?t work too well (especially clothing).
Bugs: Very Minor ? glitches will inevitably happen, especially with the camera controls, but nothing that upsets the flow of the game. A patch was released that corrects some very minor issues (relating to Wants/Needs and downloaded content), but the game plays well enough without it.
Overall: 9.5/10

[weasel]

Dead Man's Hand
Finally, gambling has a purpose - to aid in the killing of millions of evil cowboys.

Year: 2003
Genre: FPS
Developer: Human Head Studios
Publisher: Atari/TryMedia/Fileplanet Direct2Drive
Platform: PC/XBox

If you look at the majority of first-person shooting games on the market today, a vast majority of them will fall into either the Modern Combat (Raven Shield, Battlefield 2), World War 2 (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor) or Sci-Fi (Doom) categories. Thus far, there have been very, VERY few shooters that take place in the Old West. You know, Cowboys vs. Indians, that whole Civil War thing goin' down, women and whiskey. Well, Kemosabe, this is the game for you.

GAMEPLAY

Dead Man's Hand casts you as El Tejon, a former member of The Nine - a group of gunslingin', bank-robbin' varmints that just want to kill stuff. You don't quite agree with their moral decisions (they shoot women and children), so you try to leave. Tennessee Vic, the leader, thinks ill of your attempts, and imprisons you. You escape, and vow revenge on The Nine.

So once you escape from your cell, with the aid of Iago (a Mexican revolutionary), he gives you your first weapons - a crappy knife, a Colt .45 Peacemaker, a Westerner carbine, and a Martin pump-action shotgun. He tells you to find some targets and practice for a bit, and here you discover the first thing that sets this apart from other shooters (well, aside from the fact that it takes place in the West) - the scoring system.

See, DMH rewards you points, arcade style, for not only capping outlaws, but also for destroying parts of the environment. Shooting pots and pans, bottles of whiskey, barrels of gunpowder, and pretty much anything that will break will give you points. The more targets you successfully hit it rapid succession, the higher your Combo Meter gets, and the more points you'll get for hitting those targets. So if you go on a wild rampage and just shoot everything, you'll be vastly rewarded for it.

In addition to the Combo Gauge, hitting targets will give you Legend to a second bar on the screen. Legend Points allow you to use Trick Shots (essentially, just a fancy term for alternate fire). The Trick Shots differ for each weapon, and some weapons don't have trick shots (Dynamite has an alt-fire, but doesn't require Legend Points). You can "fan" the hammer on your Peacemaker, make more accurate shots with your Westerner, blow all four barrels on the Kansas Pepperbox, or stun your enemies with the Martin shotgun.

But why should you care about shooting the environment, if you can get Legend with just shooting enemies? Does the environment hurt enemies? Yes, it does. You can blow up wagons, crush enemies with big rocks, or destroy them with barrels of gunpowder (which has larger splash damage than you'd think). Use of the environment nets you more points than merely shooting enemies, so you'd best be on the lookout for creative ways to dispatch your foes (like dropping wooden awnings on them). (Fun thing #1: Shooting the hats off your enemies, crushing them, blowing them up, or shooting them while they're in mid air will net you extra points.)

Some points in the game will have you riding your faithful steed. These are usually the most fun - you no longer have to concentrate on moving, so you can aim your shots carefully. (Fun thing #2: if you shoot a fellow rider instead of his horse, the horse drags him across the ground for a while.)

When you reach one of The Nine (or other bounties), you fight him/her in a boss battle. They usually have lots of health, but this is usually great for your score (pull out something with fast fire like the Lewis Revolving Rifle and just let loose on 'em - high combo points). They're rarely much of a threat, unless you're playing on Hard.

The real innovation in this game, however, is what makes the game live up to its title. You play a round of Poker before (almost) every mission. If you get a winning hand, you gain bonuses to your initial loadout (more ammo, more Legend points - yes, you too can be a Maverick and be legendary just because of your gambling skills) and get the option to play again for more benefits. But if you lose, ALL of your bonuses are gone and you don't get to play again. (Not to worry - restarting the mission will let you play more Poker.) Scoring the Dead Man's Hand (both black Aces and Eights) gives you maximum Legend and full ammo for all your weapons - in just one draw.

You'd think that multiplayer would be awesome, taking all the same things that made singleplayer so great and applying them to deathmatch. But no. There are no physics in multiplayer, aside from those that control ragdolls and dynamite. There are no mounted machine guns and cannons to use. There are no barrels of gunpowder. It's just straight deathmatch with the DMH weapons. Your player moves just as slowly as he does in singleplayer, unless you turn on the Fast movement mutator, in which case you move fast enough for deathmatch (but your footsteps now sound incredibly fast and your player models spaz out when they run). You only start with a Peacemaker and must find all your weapons. There are also team-based matches like CTF, but nothing that would be very fun with DMH's slow weapons (which in SP mode are made up for with the physics).

Score Tally:
Direct2Drive/Retail/Xbox version: 8/10 - Fun in SP, but after that, multiplayer really sucks - leaving the only replay value to be beating the game on a higher difficulty and getting high scores.
TryMedia version: 7/10 - Still fun, but movies are entirely cut out, which makes plot harder to understand.

GRAPHICS

The game looks good using its technology (Unreal Tech 2.0). It doesn't have that much in the way of technology frills, compared to other games released close to it (like FarCry), but it does look nice. The models and textures are well done and quite nicely used, the level design is pretty darn good, and the characters are realistic and believable. The only problem is the occasional texture glitch (where textures will appear to change when you move the mouse or shoot). I must also add that the developers "cheated" with their reloading animations - the gun usually just goes off screen when you reload (exceptions being the sawed-off shotgun and the alt-fire on the Kansas Pepperbox).

9/10 - Could have used a heat haze or something, but looks cool already. TryMedia's version didn't change the graphics.

SOUNDS

The game sounds pretty good (aside from the voice acting, which usually sounds like the programmers just distorted their voices to sound "tough"). Guns have the appropriate boom to them, and it's incredibly satisfying to destroy wagons and such with gunpowder (especially using the SBS Coach Gun). The music, whenever it plays, is also quite good and fitting for the period.

One thing I noted was missing: the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly when you beat a level. I wish that were in here.

Score Tally:
Direct2Drive/Retail/XBox version: 9/10 - Voice acting could be better
TryMedia version: 7/10 - Music entirely cut out.

CONTROLS

Weapon numbering is initially screwed up (3 for pistol, 7 for knife, nothing on 1 or 2 for some reason), but can be easily changed. Mouse sensitivity is hard to adjust properly. Otherwise, though, nice and responsive, with easily changed controls. I have not played the XBox version, but I have reason to believe that their controls would be about as good as Halo's.

BUGS

Retail: Texture glitches, movies sometimes play video too fast (while catching up with sound after resolution switches).
TryMedia version: Fatal crashes on some occasions, cannot be patched to the latest version (1.1).

Verdict: Buy the game. Don't even BOTHER with TryMedia's version. I had to get a refund on that one.

OVERALL

This is a fun shooter that finally lets you relive your favorite moments from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (or whatever Western you like).

8.5/10