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At 5/13/09 01:44 AM, Maximus wrote: I Made this exact same thread in C&C and BBM locked it.

I Made it way before this one.

(

I think I can see why he blocked it, I mean I don't see much harm. Besides the lack of people writing reviews, or decent ones at that. but with the VG forum being like an old lady with a broken hip, I see no real harm.

Grubby, High-Five! Too bad Jawdyn did it on the first page, but more reviews are helpful.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is a post-apolyptic RPG with FPS elements... Or is it a post apocolyptic FPS with RPG elements? I don't know, and I don't care, Fallout 3 manages to take these two types of gameplay and combined them into something so pure and beautiful that I almost instantly fell in love with this game.

Is was developed by Bethesda, who are most well known for developing The Elder Scrolls, another set of fantastic RPG/FPS, however those were set in the medevil ages with magic and knights, Fallout 1 and 2 were developed by Black Isle Studios (Known then as simply Black Isle) which have disbanded since such time, it has been 10 years since Fallout 2 was released.

Fallout was set in the year 2161, some years after the Chinese and Americans went to war, which only lasted a very short amount of time due to the extreme amount of radiation from the nuclear bombs, Fallout 2 is set 80 years after Fallout in the same post-apocolyptic Washington D.C.

Fallout 3 is set 30 years after Fallout and 200 years after the devastating event which sent the world into a nuclear spiral...

You start out with the basic RPG character creation thing, you choose a name, a sex, race, you design your characters build and hair, and then you choose your SPECIAL abilities (SPECIAL = Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck.) each one affects you in varying ways, for example, intellegence will decide how many ability points you'll receive after each level up, while strength will determine how much weight you can carry before becoming overencumbered.

Story

The story goes that on your 19th birthday your father breaks out of Vault 101, which has been sealed since the nuclear war, the chairman has one of your friends killed, and then tries to have you killed, however, you manage to also escape from vault 101 and go out into the wasteland to find your father.

Graphics

The graphics are simply outstanding, and the colours vary from all those that can be found in the dirt spectrum, yes, everything follows the cliche "omg realistic = brown/grey!", yes whereever you look, you're sure to find gray and brown, trees, brown, buildings, brown, armor, brown, guns, grey, floor brown or grey, sky, grey and so on and so forth, however this does add to the post-apocolyptic feel of the game. But that doesn't hold back on the amazing graphics that the game offers.

8/10

Gameplay

Gameplay is varied, you can go around and shoot towns so there are no survivors, where you will be free to loot them all and sell the goods on, or you can go into the wastes, find new locations and treasures, you can follow the amazing plotline, join The Brotherhood of Steel, slay super mutants. Yes, the game is very open-ended, however, the fact that you can't continue after the ending is very upsetting, but luckily, in the new DLC "Broken Steel" this is removed and you can continue to play afterwards. Combat is divided up also, you can choose to shoot people from a far off distance, or you can sneak up behind them and shoot them in the back, a clever new system has been added, called VATS (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System), which shall pause the game where you can target an enemy and a specific body part to attack automatically, don't always go for the head, however that seems the most effective, it can be just as good shooting people in the hands to make their accuracy decrease dramatically.

9/10

Sounds

no music is used, unless you play it from your ingame radio, where the hosts talks about your various adventures, well, when an enemy is in the near vacinity music may play, to alert you of their presense (the amount of rad-scorpions that have come up behind me is unbelievable). Voices are also heavily improved from The Elder Scrolls, before there were pretty much a total of 4 voices for the citizens, so you can find people seeming to have a one-way conversation, however, in Fallout 3, the voices are very varied, which really adds to the games immersion.

Overall, this game is an alltime vfavourite of mine, and I highly reccomend everyone to try it.

10/10

Bump mutha fucker.

Old review of WarioWare: Smooth Moves I wrote about a year ago, then submitted it to gamespot.

WarioWare---------Video Game Review

WarioWare is a large collection of mini-games into one. Most of them are fairly fun and pretty wacky. when you first start up the story mode you view Wario eating a large bowl of donuts and watching T.V A little Creature steals one of these donuts, Wario being greedy, dumb, and fat, chased after the creature. As he was chasing the creature he stumbled into a tomb and on to a rare ancient artifact... THE FORM BATON!!! err...Wii remote. A boulder drop and Wario is running from it. Now, the fun beings.

As you progress throughout the story you unlock more and more many games. They each posses some fun times, but eventually they become a bit repetitive & shallow. When i first started say on the 3rd level I found myself repeating the same mini-game over and over, losing, repeating.. not too fun after that. as for the multi-player, its pretty great. whats better than playing a collection of fun wacky mini-games by yourself, is play a bunch of fun wacky mini-games with your friends!

Multi-player offers 7 modes, 2 of them being co-op only. The most mentionable of these is Survival. this pits you against up to 12 friends in one room, only needing 1 remote. As this game goes on it gets faster and faster.. It gets very fun, and very intense, and amps up the fun. Overall, this game is a great and fun experience with little flaws. I highly recommend this game to anyone. At any age.. You should have a great amount of fun. With the mini-games, Story, Multi-player, and the little goodies you unlock throughout the campaign the game should last you a while and create good memories.

PROS:
+ Variety
+ Great multi-player
+ Fun
+ Easy to pick-up and play
+ Can be a very intense and amped up.
+ Great Multi-player replay value

CONS:
- Story is often shallow if repeated too much.
- Can be repetitive
- Single-Player Replay value is pretty bad.
- Can be frustrating on Single-player

SCORE:

Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Control: 7.5/10
Fun: 10/10
Sound: 9/10
Replay value: 9/10
Cost: 8/10
Variety: 10/10
Innovation: 10/10
Length: 8/10

OVERALL SCORE. 85.5/100

I did a bit of editing to it, hardley any, just like 3 grammar fixes. I loads of game reviews in my journal, I just don't wanna type the all on the comp.

At 5/16/09 07:32 AM, H-A-X-O-R-Z wrote: Fallout 3

Good review. I haven't put much time into Fallout, But with even a few hours on the game under my belt it seems likes its something worth my time. I've just been up to my bloody neck in work and such. So, Now I'm even more keen to push work aside.

Evil :O

Street Fighter IV Review

We all know and love the formula of the long-running Street Fighter series. Spam special moves until opponent is defeated. Repeat. Occasionally pull a super move. Occasionally taunt. Repeat. Although you may not use this formula, it's what I use. Both in SFA3 and SF4. And haha, look what I just did, I misworded a whole sentence entirely. Seriously though, the formula itself can be interpreted in different ways. And that's a good game, a game with some actual depth in there, not some sort of painted on illusion hole that looks like depth but isn't.

Mmhmm, just as I stated, SF4 is a game with some depth. Although this depth does not exactly extend outside of fighting, it's depth indeed. As I said, the depth barely reaches the part outside the game itself. Sure, there are some nifty character customization unlocks and buys, not to mention the ability to set the voice acting during matches to Japanese or English. Yes, that's all great, but outside beating someone silly, what else can I do? Well, you can look at the shallow character movies, or the concept art, or the credits. Sure, you may tell yourself "MAN THIS GAME SOUNDS SHITTEH. YOU BEAT PEPLE UP? DAS IT? LOOOOL." Well, bad news for you casual gamer fag who wanks off to anything with guns and swear words, this game is actually decent.

Yes, it's decent. In fact, it's great. But only on a decent TV that is. Mmmhmm, you read that right. Well, mainly because it was BUILT for widescreen format, and anything bigger than say 20 inches. Damn, it looks so crap on my TV, it's like trying to cram so much into a tiny screen. Well, at least the character animations are fluid as ever on any screen, so it'd still look as good as say a PS2.5 game on a regular crappy TV.

The music and the sound of bone crunching and colliding are also deeply satisfying. I mean, when you're being fucking curb stomped by a fat ass, the first thing you want to hear when you get back up and beat him are his bones crackling and breaking. Sure, they're generic sounding, but they're satisfying. And the music when you clear one of those seriously hard Trial thingies make you feel like you're part of some giant JRPG war and you won. Yeah.

Also, going back to the gameplay; man, you have so much to do. You have the achievements, you have the challenges, you have the medals, you have so much stuff to unlock. Fuck, I've been playing this game for a month and I'm not even close to "finishing it". But once you do, man I could picture how serene and beautiful that moment will be.

And now, for the final verdict.

This game is total sex, you should seriously get it instead of a generic FPS that you've played a gazillion times before, with a slightly different experience involved.

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--- TURNING POINT: FALL OF LIBERTY ---
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I knew this game was going to be kind of clunky when I rented it (it has a user score of a 4 out of 10) but I just couldn't help myself.... I'm big on experiancing the story of a game and this one seemed unique.

The idea is that Winston Churchill dies before WWII starts altering the history of the events that got America into the war... so America stays out of the fight, until Nazi Germany invades New York.

The game starts off with you as a New York construction working building a skyscraper when the german planes start flying overhead. You have to climb down the steel beams, get yourself a gun, and start fighting back... it's WWII, but on American soil.

It's a FPS... but a pretty mediocre one. The game is clunky and slow, the enemy AI is terrible, hit detection is questionable, and the game is riddled with bugs. None of these are show-stoppingly bad, but it makes for a sub-par game overall. The fact that the game is only about 4 or 5 hours long, doesn't help either (or does it?)

My biggest complaints come from the games lack of overall polish. For a game that's all about fighting WWII in America, they don't do a very good job of reminding you that you're in America. Most of the game takes place in ally ways or empty streets that look like the could be anywhere... there's a distinct lack of American culture in the game. There's a few minor scenes featuring the Sears Tower and the White house, but that's about it... I'm 3 stages away from finishing the game and I think I've come across one American flag the entire time. With most of the buildings being generic shells and almost zero reffrence to American pop culture (music, movies, scenery, etc..) I often forget that I'm in America at all when playing.

The stages can also be annoying to navigate. They're pretty striaght forward for the most part, but it's often times confusing to figure out just where the map is trying to lead you. Sometimes you'll come across a hole in the floor that the game expects you to jump into... but other times, a real similar looking hole will be an instant death trap. It's the same with rubble... sometimes rubble will turn into ramps or will be a crossable byproduct of a newly created hole in the wall... other times it's use as an unpassable stage boundry, but it can get confusing to figure out which is which. Many times, in the first few levels, I've almost gotten my character stuck by trying to jump over rubble that's suppose to be an invisable wall. To make matters worse, the developers tried to add in a bit of platforming so on occassion you'll come across a stack of boxes or a wall you can climb, or edges/ropes you can hang from to reach new areas... but there's never any really clear indication of when this is possible. Once you do it, it seems so obvious, but durring your inital playthrough it's hard to figure out what wall is there as a boundy, and which one is there to be climbed.

None of this would be that bad if it wasn't for the terrible checkpoint system. Checkpoints are far and few between and dying means going back to the start of the last checkpoint. It's annoying to have to kill the same 4 rooms of enemies multiple times just because you mistakenly jumped in the wrong hole. There was a particular fight I kept losing not because I wasn't good enough to win, but because I didn't know what to do. It turns out, in this scenario, that my enemy is immune to bullets and must be punched to death. I sure wish the game would have told me that before my 10th try... it doesn't help that there is no punch button either. Instead, when you approach an enemy a fist icon appears on the screen allowing you to trigger a close combat fight. This would be ok, but like all interactive objects in the game, the icon is hard to trigger and often times doesn't display when you think it should. Often times I can't trigger the fight simply because I'm too close.

Too close for close combat?

The stages are littered with your typical trash... abandoned suitcases or building rubble. But unlike modern games where these are free floating objects that get kicked out of the way when you walk... these peices of trash are actually parts of the map. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten backed up into what feels like a corner durring a gunfight just to find after the carnage is over, that I'm being blocked by a suitcase on the floor... backing into objects is an unavoidable aspect of FPS games, but I find it happens far to often in Turning Point. Constantly I'm struggling to back out of doorways and I somehow always manage to get stuck on the stupidest of things. Annoying... especially when you have to reaload at a checkpoint after getting unfairly killed by a doorknob.

Durring the game, you're given objecives that tell you where you need to go and what you need to do next. Unfortunitly, the game does this poorly. Durring the game, all you get is a message that says "Objective added", and it's up to you to pause the game and read what that objective is. These objectives are small and vauge making me wonder why they don't just appear on the screen... there's plenty of room for the words "Destroy the tank" on screen... why do I have to pause the action?

There's a small variety of guns but nothing to brag about and story wise, the game is hit or miss. There's not a whole lot of 'story' going on outside a few one or two minute cut scenes between stages. Most of these are generic bullshit though... you meet some guys in the army, ride in a truck, watch a new story about the Nazi attack on TV. It's enough to keep you interested, but not enough to make up for the shortfalls of the actual gameplay. There's a few scenes that you can tell are suppose to be 'epic' but fall short due to the general bland gameplay... blowing stuff up is only satifsying if it was satisfying to reach the point where you set off the bomb. Sadly, this game lacks that thrill.

Loading times are bad and you'll experiance a fair amount of lag durring the single player experiance while the game tries to load new parts of the stage or the next scripted event. Planes crashes just aren't that great when you miss most of the crash due to single player lag. It does little but make an already clunky game come off as that much more clunky and unresponsive.

That's not to say that it's all bad though. There are some cool experiances to be had and although the story in generally bland and uneventful, it is interesting to hear the story of WWII through a diffrent path in history. Regardless of how average the gameplay is, fighting in a Nazi controlled white house does have its fair amount of joy... the graphics are decent and the music, although nothing that reminds you of being in america, is solid and fits well with the game. There's a few scenes where you run into American refugees that are cool, and it is cool to walk onto a scene of Nazis searching apartment buildings or fighting with random citizens trying to protect their families.

If you got nothing else to do and you like FPS games, rent it. It's not terrible, it's just not great... it has a ton of flaws that drag it down but none of these make the game difficult to play or too overly frustrating. They'll be the occasional "I'm lost" moments and you'll probably have to replay a few sections of a stage... but I've played games that where better made and far more aggrivating to play. I'd consider it a casual shooter... it's a bit short (4 hours) and the enemy AI is stupid and slow, so I wouldn't suggest buying it. I'd say it's worth a rent if you're really really bored but just don't go into it with high hopes.

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** INFINITE UNDISCOVERY **
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This game is about as badly sterotypical as you can get for a JRPG... you're a lame, socially outcasted teenager with no self esteem who mistakenly joins up with a small party of wondering warriors on a mission to save the world. The party itself, is just as equally bad. Your cast of characters includeds all the basic sterotypes... the generic strong man, the sensative leader, the untrusting overbearing jerk, cute children for comic relief, a robot, an animal, and of course, the super attractive female that runs around in a short skirt all day giving you the sex eyes. You, of course, are far to under-confident in yourself to notice.

Story wise, the game is no diffrent. Like a lot of failed JRPGs it's long, and needlesly drawn out with little or unsuprising plot twists. The idea is that, in this land, everybody born under the light of the moon is given a magical power as a gift from the widly worshiped moon-God. These powers vary and can give the person containing them anything from the ability to control fire, to the ability to heal the wounded... basic RPG stuff. There's a catch though... the moon isn't always shining and sometimes people are born when no moonlight is present. These people are outcasts... being unblessed by the moon-God they are considered unworth to live amongst the blessed and are thus, forced to live outside the walls of the big cities without the protection of the government and armies within. One day, a really power madman creates the 'Order of chains' and begins traveling the world using all of his power to chain the Earth to the Moon... nobody really knows why, but doing so has caused many of the wild animals in the area to become mutated or overly agressive. Only a small band of warriors lead by "The Liberator" have the power and the nerve to fight the Order, sever the chains, and free the people once again.

It probably sounds kind of interesting, but it's not. Instead of a thrilling story of adventurers fighting an evil army of villians with the power to create and control magical chains, you spend your time wandering flatlands killing snakes and sitting through tons of badly rendered CGI films that contain little action. This is probably the biggest issue the game suffers from...

There are TONS of CGI movies in this game. I get that it's an RPG so there's going to be a lot of story, but this game over does it. Every time you enter a new map, you get a cutscene. Every time you go to a new town, you get a cut scene. Everytime you meeta new character you get a cutscene. When you walk back outside from meeting said character... you get a cutscene. Everytime you run into a boss you get a cutscene... seriously, you can't take 15 steps in this game without being forced to watch a cutscene. It's just too much. You open a door... cutscene. You go upstairs... cutscene. You leave the building... cutscene. Anytime you do anything that just slightly progresses the story, it's fronted with a cutscene. If you need to leave town to continue the story, leaving town will bring on a cutscene. Sometimes they even appear when you find save points on the map. It gets old fast, and becomes very annoying because none of these cutscenes are skipable.

That last part is pretty important... NONE OF THE CUTSCENES ARE SKIPABLE. It's not a problem at first because you want to watch them. But it becomes a huge problem later when you realize that often times, long boring cutscenes come between a save point and a boss fight... meaning every time you die, you have to re-watch the same movies over and over and over again just to try to win one fight. It happens a lot and there is no way around it. Worse yet, the last save point in the game comes before 15 minutes worth of movies... meaning if you die durring the last boss fight and have to try again, you have to watch the same 15 minute long movies again. It literally took me hours just to try the last fight a small handful of times. Very agrivating.

What's worse, is that none of these cutscenes are exciting... they don't feature explosions or swordfights. No, almost every cutscene in the game is a CGI film of the characters standing in a circle talking to each other. Considering the game was originally japanese and there's no way to turn the japanese text on, you're forced to watch tons of badly voiced acted scenes of people standing around talking... and often times, their mouths don't even match up with what they say. Which is even more annoying when the dialog is moronic and often revolves around people repeating what others have said. Example...

He's not sick.
He's not?
No, He's getting stronger.
Stronger?
Yes, stronger?
GASP! How can that be
Let me explain
Yes, please explain
It's the magic spell
the magic spell?
Yes, the magic spell.

Picture hours of that... badly voiced, hours of that. What's worse, is that not all the scenes contain audio. Although most of them do, other, more improtant scenes, don't have any sound to them at all... and these are usually the scenes that inform you of where you need to go. Why didn't they finish the american audio? Not enough money to pay the actors? Lazyness? We'll never know...

Gameplay wise, the game doesn't improve. The combat is in real time so no more waiting for your turn to choose "Attack". Instead, you have your basic array of combos and the ability to use special moves from current party members. But this is widly flawed. For instance, you have to hit one button to bring up a list of characters, then another to select the character... then another to choose which move to cast. Sometimes here, you're forced to then aim the move, and yet another button to execute it... the action doesn't stop while this happens so it has to all be done in real time. It's largly impossible and just not worth it.

Teamate AI is alright... but they strangly refuse to refil their own MP when it runs out. Which wouldn't be so bad, but accessing the menu to use items, doesn't pause the game. This means, you can get attacked and killed while trying to find a potion to use on yourself or a teamate. If a teamate runs out of magic durring a bossfight... that's usually the end of their magic, you won't have time to refil them.

The game world looks amazing and maps are huge... but largly empty, confusing to navigate, and have almost nothing to find. They're pretty to look at, but you quickly learn that there is no need to explore them. Ocassionaly you'll find a chest containing a potion, but that's about it. And the time required to reach the chest, wasn't worth the reward. Cities are no diffrent and most of the castle rooms buildings are completly empty, or contain little more then random NPCs withzero information to offer.

I don't get a lot of time to play video games so often times I play 2 hours tonight, and not again for 3 days. Because of this, I ran into another problem... It's easy to forget what's going on, what you're suppose to be doing, and where you're suppose to be going.

Unfortunitly there are no ingame hints or directions to be found... if you forget, you're fucked. The start menu offers a little, one sentance, summary of the current events; but it's rarely helpful. One example, "The team needs to return to Edward and give him the medicine". This may sound helpful but it's not. It's only helpful information if you already know where Edward is. If you don't know where he's at... there's no ingame way to find out. Why the game doesn't tell you to "Return to [town] and give Edward his medicine"... I'll never know.

Overall, the game is long, predictable, and boring. The monsters are lame, the controls are bad, and there's zero content outside of watching the story (no minigames, no collectables). If you're a lonly 12 year old with very few friends and no chance of getting a girlfriend in the next 10 years, check it out... this game is aimed at you. But if you're an adult or a socially accepted person, you'll find the generic characters annoying and the story downright laughable

0.5/10

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** VIKING: BATTLE FOR ASGARD **
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This is a simple, 3rd person hack and slash adventure. There's no multiplayer and no online play, but I'd still give it a good 7 out of 10 simply due to it's enjoyable, mindless fun. It's got just enough variety to keep you interested but nothing too over to the top. You learn a few combos, find a few beer kegs, and kill everyone that gets in your way. Sweet graphics, cool moves, decent violence, and a fairly sweet soundtrack... for those of you into Heavy Metal, I suggest turning off the game music and listening to a Dimmu Borgir album the entire time you play this game. If you do... 8 out of 10.

You're a viking named Skarin that dies on the battlefield only to be revived by the goddess Freya in order to lead the mortal 'army of man' against the evil goddess Hel and her force of undead 'champions'. It's up to you to rally what's left of the viking warriors into battle in order to fight your way across the land to Hel's mighty tower and defeat her once and for all... thus releasing her evil grip from the mortal lands.

Gameplay is pretty straight forward. You'll start on the shores of an island with a few viking warriors who are trying to set up a base camp. Your numbers will be low and you'll be tasked with exploring the island looking for other vikings to join the fight. The island is completly open ended allowing you to go wherever you please but regardless of where you go or what order you do the tasks in, the gameplay is all largly the same.... kill stuff.

Each island will have a castle... and that castle needs to be seiged. To do so, you'll have to meet a small list of requirements. This list is short, and sounds like it has a lot of variety to it but in the end, each task is the exact same: Go to a place, kill some enemies. It sounds boring, but if your a fan of hack-n-slash, it's really a lot of fun. The maps are all well made, and there's a good variety in where you can find viking warriors. Sometimes you come across a few tied up to a pole in the middle of nowhere, other times you'll be tasked with liberating a conqured lumber mill... and sometimes, you'll be required to sneak your way through a heavily gaurded outpost looking for runestones that will help you summon dragons when you finally choose to seige the local castle.

And, impressioned vikings are in areas controled by Hel... you can always tell prisioners are nearby due to the lack of color and overall dreyness of the surrounding area. Once a section of map has been liberated, light returns to the area and the flowers and grass grow healthy again. It's a nice touch and a good way to guide you in the right direction... when in doubt, head towards the darkness.

You got your basic combos to start with and you'll instantly realize that Vikings don't take the act of killing lightly... within the first 5 minutes, you'll be hacking off heads and severing limbs in no time. Each kill garners you a little bit of experiance and money, and with enough experiance and money comes the oportunity to buy a few new weapons and a good variety of new limb-severing moves. By the end of the game you'll have a huge arsenal of ways to cut a man in half and best yet, killing blows happen in slow motion... which somehow rarely seems to gets old.

When basic swordplay isn't enough, you'll be able to buy a few magic spells... these aren't anything fancy, but it is enough to change up the fighting a little bit. Activating the spells gives your sword a magic power that, depending on the spell, stops the enemy dead in his tracks. You have the usual three.. fire, lighting, and my personal favorite, ice. You'll find that these come in quiet handy towards the end of the game, but none are ever required to do anything.

The game takes place on 3 diffrent islands. Each island is representational of a 'level' so although each island is completly open-ended and can be explored freely, it is not possible to travel between islands at will. In otherwords, you can't get to island 2 until you finish all the tasks on island 1. But once you reach island 2, there's no going back to island 1 ever again. Then again, outside of the achivement based collectables, they'll be no need to go back so you won't mind.

Building your army is pretty straight forward. Find some guys in a cage, kill some guards, open the cage and release them. After releasing the prisoners, they'll help you fight and kill any nearby enemies you may have left behind... so it's up to you to decide if you want to try to kill everyone yourself, or just the few you have to kill to reach the cage in order to recruit help. A nice, little touch.

Ocassonally you'll have to enter an area where there are too many enemies to kill by yourself. That's not to say that you can't try... but it's pretty damn hard, if not downright impossible. In areas like these, you'll be able to sneak around undetected and use your wide array of stealth-killing moves to dispatch only those enimes that you have to. Stealth kills are easy to execute and often times result in cutting a person in half from behind. Simple, but enjoyable.

There are a few mini bosses you'll come across, Giants and Champions, but they largly play out exactly the same. They're just like every other enemy, but much larger and require far more hits to drag down. Once injured the final blow can be dealt through a series of button timing events.

Once you've completed all the sub tasks you'll be given the option to seige the local castle... which is where the real fun comes in. When you seige a castle, you'll be placed in a huge army vs army meele fight where you'll be tasked with finding, and killing, local summoners who are constantly summoning undead to the fight. It's a lot like Dynasty Warriors but way more compact and chaotic. Best part, dying has no effect here as each side has a summoner that's willing to bring anyone who falls in battle back to life.

This is where the one flaw in the game starts to show though. The combat, although good, is lacking a key feature... a targeting system. As you fight, your character will just randomly jump from enemy to enemy mid-combo with no real user control. Most of the time, this works well... but durring big fights like this it's largly undesirable as there are just far too many targets nearby to worry about killing them all. Instead, you only need to focus on the summoners. Summoners, however, protect themself with a series of Totem Polls located in a small area around them. You have to destroy each totem poll before being able to attack the summoner directly. The problem occures when you try to attack a totem poll, but find your character ignoring the poll for a nearby enemy often times resulting in many undesirable deaths. These large scale fights would be so much easier if there was a way to tell the character to ignore the mass of enemies nearby, and focus only on the improtant ones. The final boss features the same general mechanic and becomes far more dificult to defeat because of it. It doesn't ruin the game, but it can get a bit frustrating.

Once a castle is seiged, you'll move on to a new island where the tasks of rebuilding an army start again.

That's pretty much it... explore, kill, upgrade... rinse, repeat. I personally loved it. The graphics where sweet, the water effects where the best I've ever seen, and reardless of how complex other games get, it's always fun to just button mash your way to victory from time to time.

Also, it comes loaded with lots of easy achivements. One solid play through on 'hard' is all you'll need for all 1000 points.

Personally, I'd like to see a sequal...

Old game review from my blog, thought I'd want to share it with you all.

True Crime: NYC

Supported Consoles: Microsoft Xbox, Playstation 2, PC, Nintendo Gamecube

Makers: Activision, Luxoflux, Microsoft, Exakt Entertainment

For anyone who has played the excellent but explicit sandbox, Grand Theft Auto, you can arguably say anything after that is a ripoff. Not was the case of the True Crime series, that only has two games mind you; True Crime: Streets of LA, and the latter True Crime: NYC. First off, LA (I'm going to refer either or as LA or NY) was as good of a sandbox game as you could get on an Xbox, without ripping off GTA. Its leeched sequel, on the other hand, was a rather disappointment to some, including myself. Some say it was probably the worst sandbox game of 2005. Now three years later, I once again open the case, and take a big whiff of the foul memories that were. Here we go.

First of all, and I want to get this out right now, if you have this game, look at the title of it. It says "True Crime: New York City". And some of us are thinking, all of it? That includes Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and everywhere else in the entire metropolis of New York. Instead, it was a big fuck you to those who were dumb enough to think that an Xbox disc can possibly take the entire New York area compiled into one. What we REALLY got was just the biggest chunk of New York, and I quote: "twenty-five square miles of crowds, concrete, crime so cold, they wither the soul". Oh okay, so let's NOT call it "True Crime: Manhattan Island". Let's name it into something more familiar, so unsuspecting kids get their money taken away by sellers and their grubby big hands. It's not like I was ripped off; I bought this game and another for a combined total of ten dollars at a pawn shop, hoping to get one of the biggest games EVER. Boy was I wrong.

Sure, NY has probably a great storyline and all, but the plot is simple: you're a gangster turned street cop named Marcus (fuck me) who goes around and solves crimes at free will. Nothing different from the last game, except instead of beating chapters to move on, you have the choice to go around and do whatever the hell you want. That's good and all, but I'm just not liking it. The mood of NY really bears you down, as you're greeted to darkness, tons of taxi cabs and metro buses, and tons and tons of rain, whereas in LA, it's sunny, beautiful, and NEVER rains. Sort of sounds like... reality New York. But it's sort of like the programmers put too much into the graphics (albeit sometimes it's too dark to see a damn thing anyway) than they did with the game play. Then again, the eye candy is that it takes place in New York! Holy shit, a paradox! Better sit down.

As about the graphics, they're pretty decent. But like I said, in most parts of NY, the area seems darker, and if your TV is not as bright, you won't be able to see much. And my TV is fine; it plays any other game nicely in brightness without having to edit. It's almost as though the programmers were trying to hide something. As for detail, it's almost spot-on. One knack I have is the size differential in man vs. vehicle. If you go up to something let's say, a metro bus. It looks vastly different than in LA. It probably has to do with the crummy camera angle, but whatever. For me, I've always said that graphics don't make a good game, but in this game, it's hard to tell. Why? Because the game play also flaws; really, there's nothing you can say about this game that stands out besides new weapons...

It's the little things in NY that stand out in comparison to the LA version. Call me a bitch, but I feel a lot of things have changed or have been horribly manipulated. Firstly, the camera angles in this game are a complete cluster fuck. It's ridiculous. Try getting into your vehicle, and you'll see. They go all over the place. Second, if you've played LA, you'd know that you could change the control scheme to fit your needs. But in NY, you can't. Also, you cannot look behind you while driving (aka the Y button), which means you'll have to use common sense to tell if a car is right behind you, if you're trying to back up (but 9 times out of 10 there is). Opening up the map screen with the "back" button was also scrapped, but then again, you could just open up the menu with "start" and there it is. What really bums me out is the fact you can't put your own soundtracks into the game, something the LA predecessor had. And the music isn't as great as it was in the first one. Could be that I have bad taste, but I liked the older ones better than the newer one, but I guess if they fit in with New York City....

Now, there's one controversial thing that has kept this game low in ratings, and I'm not one to say otherwise; the glitches in this game are everywhere. You almost want to say that NY was rushed out to meet some sort of time line, and the programmers never bothered to proof-read this game. The biggest glitch in this game happens in the latter missions against the triads. You know, the one where you have to push off the Chinese guy off of the pillar? It's not like you can't beat it, you just have to be patient. And if you're not, I don't blame you. It took me about ten minutes smashing buttons trying to beat this bastard, who apparently either has the strongest leg muscles, or defies gravity. Or it could be "Marcus" is just too weak to do shit. Anyway, it's glitches like these that really bring a game down.

In short, NY can go both ways. Now I could of said a lot more about this game, like the commentating (voice acting), traveling across the city, and various missions like street racing and fight clubs, but I'll let you be the judge of that. In conclusion, True Crime: NYC is hard to comment on. It's neither good, nor bad, but you WANT to say it's bad, but it has some good things that keep you from saying that. I'm not sure if I'd recommend this game, but I will say one thing: I liked True Crime: Streets of LA better.

TOEZ' Rating of True Crime: NYC:
Graphics: 7.5/10
Story: 8.5/10
Sound: 6/10
Game Play: 4.5/10
Audience appeal: Homie gangsters that imitate real crimes without ever leaving the premises of your own home...
Overall Rating: 6/10

Pros:
- Nice storyline
- The detail
- Weapons, freelance missions

Cons:
- The camera angles
- Brightness/Clarity
- Glitches Galore

Any unbiased review for Bioshock would be appreciated.

Need some good points on it so I can play it =/

BIONIC COMMANDO REVIEW

Graphics 8/10
The graphics in Bionic Commando are pretty decent the ruined city and caves are very decent not the best graphics out there but better than most large scope games that involve swinging around.....like spiderman and there is some low res textures, like rubble inside buildings, and Spencer's arm is detailed and the fingers change when you fight and when you swing is is a nice touch.

Gameplay 8/10
BC's gameplay is very enjoyable whether you are swinging at high speeds across a cave or picking up a soldier and smacking him into 3 of his buddies i really enjoyed it. Spencers arm plays the biggest role in the combat and you will use it way more than you will use guns(more on that later) theres so many things you can do with his arm for example in one scenario i swung right dab on top of a group of 10 grunts so i ziplined into one and shot him down with my pistol than i used his dead body to kill 2 of his buddies than smacked a car into the air and smacked it into the rest BRILLIANT!

Swinging takes a while to master unlike in the spiderman games its very high speed and takes some VERY fast reflexes to get collectables later in the game but once you get the hang of it its pretty damn awesome.

The gunplay in this game isnt the main focus but its passable you have your standard Pistol, Grenades, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher(that locks on and fires 3-4 rockets),Machine Gun, and Grenade launcher. Ammo on the levels above Normal is very very scarce besides ammo for the pistol which can be a problem at times for getting trophies/acheivements through challenges like killing 4 guys with one grenade say you used all of your grenades and have a good scenario for it well...you cant skip those guys find some ammo and come back its either you do it then or start up a new game which means starting over everything. You cant go back to previous levels during gameplay you have to go to the menu and pick the level again which bothered me a lot.

Story 5/10
The story in this game is meh some of the cut scenes are good but most are like a very bad B movie i cant say to much without spoiling anything but dont buy this game for the story.

Sound 6/10
The Music in this game is ok its all rock/techno affair your all probably used to. The voice acting is pretty bad Super Joe sounds like tom from Toonami and spencer sounds like a douche overall and when you kill the last person of the group he says something stupid.....Guns sound generic overall and explosions sound good :)

Overall 7/10
This game is pretty fun buy it for the game multiplayer and trophies :) rent it for one time play through

I never came back for my Vesperia review.
Well, here it is, Today we have a double feature review of a completely random taste.

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Tales of Vesperia--Xbox 360
Super Metroid--Super Nintendo Entertainment System
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Tales of Vesperia

Tales of Vesperia is the Tenth mothership titles in the "Tales of" Series, released on the Xbox 360 August of 08 and is planned for an enhanced PS3 port in Japan Autumn 09, this game, alone with Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World was a part of their 10th anniversary.
The game will be broken down into the following groups.

Story
Graphics
Music/Sound/Voice Acting
Controls
Gameplay
Difficulty
Replay Value
Overall

Story-7: Not the best I've seen in a Tales game, but enough to keep you interested, with it's fair share of twists and character development, but it seems there was always something to come to the rescue in time of need, which happens a lot. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it happens way too often, other than that, the story is down to Earth, but it does get nice character development, and that's where most of the points come from. The best thing about the game is that the protagonist is only cliched in his choice of weapon, his characteristics and development throughout the story are really original. It's genius in it's simplicity, you have a young, upstarting young man, looking to gain the trust of the people and work his way to the top of the hierarchy through good deeds.
They took his complete opposite and made him the protagonist.

Graphics-9: You'd have to be told that it's cell-shaded, that's how good the graphics are, the environments are full and detailed and you get a great view of it several times. The characters are in a decent anime format with smooth edges, which is something that can't commonly be said for cell-shaded games, the objects and whatnot are in nice detail, graphics aren't a very important part of rpgs, but this one satisfies and the visual effects in battle are great as well.

Sound-8.5: The music isn't exactly bad, but most of it isn't very memorable, in and outside of battle, average really, the sounds are nice, especially in battle, it's an array of action, no doubt with surround sound, you'll have a hell of a time listening to the sounds, outside of battle, there isn't really a lot. The Voice overs are above average, they aren't groundbreaking, but they fit their characters and are acted out very well.

Controls-9: Outside of battle, nothing really to complain about, but in battle is where it's at. The best thing about the controls in this game, is that you can customize just about every action in the game, from basic attacks to changing your target. The default controls weren't exactly to my liking, so I changed them so and it's really a luxury to have fully customizable controls to optimize your playstyle.

Gameplay-9: Outside of battle, it's fine, everything is nice and responsive, but some enemies will force an encounter when they aren't normally close enough to. In battle, it's beautiful, and it does not hold your hand outside of the character setting of "semi-auto" in contrast to "manual" (full player control and "auto" full cpu/AI control, it's 4 players and even for the cpu, you can adjust cpu strategies to your liking and you can even command them to perfom certain moves and get them to use items on what/who ever. Responsive, so you don't have to worry about anything lagging, but the biggest issue is the jumping, which is done by pressing up or in a upwards direction, but it's so stiff where you have to put the control stick, jumping becomes almost useless to do in battle, but it's not entirely bad, jumping is in no way mandatory at any point in any battle. Other from that, the gameplay is more than enough to give you an exhilarating experience.

Difficulty-10: One hard motherfucking game. It spins you into a fight vs two people on your first fight, this is a Tales game designed for people familiar with the series, so for newbies, there is an "Easy" mode, which, believe it or not, is a new thing in Tales games. There are 3 other difficulties, "Hard", "Very Hard" and "Unknown", which not only improves enemy AI, but increased their HP, TP (Technical Points, used for special attacks), Attack and Defense, they also have more special attacks, most of which aren't shown on easier difficulties, fortunately, the exp output is greater as well, but not by a whole lot. Not for casuals, unless you're doing easy mode.

Replay Value-7: Basic, there are somethings that you'll only be able to obtain on by doing another playthrough, there are also some things that are exclusively acquired by playing the game a second time. However, at the end of each fight, you are awarded Grade, which at the end of the game, you can use to buy some pretty neat stuff. Some carry over some data from your previous file (Like Items, food, skills and special attack, etc), some give you more (or less) exp output and other neat things to keep you into it.

Overall-8: one of the more well executed Tales games I've played, it has quite a great base and overall the game clearly had alot of love put into it. Although it does fail in some minor fields, the game overall is great, it could have had a few more playable characters, which will be in the PS3 port, lets hope it gets localization.

Super Metroid

Super Metroid is the third game in the series and chronologically the 9th before Metroid Fusion, but after Metroid 2. A widely loved game to say the least.
The game will be broken down into the following groups.

Story
Graphics
Music/Sound/Voice Acting
Controls
Gameplay
Difficulty
Replay Value
Overall

Story-6: Just what you'd expect from a Metroid game, nothing really engaging or compelling, it has no twists or character development, unless you count the baby Metroid that sees Samus as some sort of parental figure, it's average, but again, not very engaging.

Graphics-8: Not bad for an SNES game, great detail, nice color, some of the most complex design work I've seen on a 16 bit console, even with the new realistic stuff of today, Super Metroid is still easy on the eyes.

Sound-7: Nothing too special, the music is absolutely great, it fits the environments well and has that classic Metroid noir to it, I recently found out that a song from Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 were covers to songs in this game, the sound effects are, to elaborate on my first comment is what isn't special, neither is the voice acting, which there is, but isn't a lot of.

Controls-6: I suppose it's the best they could do, but it takes a long time to get used to them. You toggle through difference usage of your beam and misc equipment with the Select button, but sometime there's so much to toggle through, it's painful when in combat, you can't change in the pause screen from what I've seen so it make it all the worse, however you can cancel any toggle and go back to the power beam with the Y button, other than that, everything is pretty average.

Gameplay-7, not bad, but not the best it could be, aiming aside, which is iffy, the platforming is dreadful, you have three different kind of jumps, each with their ups and downs. You have a basic jump, a spin jump and a wall jump. The Basic jump is my favorite, it's straight forward and gets slightly more altitude than the spin jump. However you can't cover much distance with it than you can the spin jump. The spin jump is used to cover decent distances, but you can't cease motions, once you start spin jumping, you can't stay in one place, which makes for frustrating platforming. Then you have the wall jump, which is what you'll be using a lot before you obtain the space jump, which--mind you--is really late in the game. It's so awkward it'll take like a half hour just to grasp the concept, it starts with a spin jump, you then hit a wall, then you press the D-pad in the opposite direction and immediately after that, you press the jump button. You can't do both at the same time, if you do, you'll just fall. The timing is so strict and you cannot press up or down, you'll enter basic jump mode and doing so is rendered unable to wall jump, because you need to be in spin jump. And them once you get the space jump, the timing there is even more strict as you can do continuous jumps if you time it right, but it's so busted, I hate it. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much platforming, but wouldn't you know.....

Difficulty-5: Nothing really hard, I played and beat the game once and I only recall dying once. The bosses aren't a fuss but the navigation is just as dreadful at the first Metroid game, but this time there's a map and you find powerups faster. The enemies are pretty simple until half way through the game where they take more hits and do more damage, late in the game, they're brutal and some only die with a certain attack or with certain timing. But health is common to find when it's not full, you'll be alright.

Replay Value-3: Nothing really motivates you to play the game again, your clear data isn't saved and you can easily go back and find other stuff for the 100% completion thing, there isn't much to get you to play the game again, unless you're that much of a fan, but that's player relation, not what the game has to offer to get you into it again.

Overall-6: Average, still fun to play today, but there are some minor and major issues with it, that even for their time of release, could have been handled better. But it's 2D Metroid at it's finest, it won't disappoint even your casual Metroid fan, which I am.

mind if i make a review of an MMORPG?

Pokemon Diamond Version

NOTE: THIS DOES NOT COVER PEARL BECAUSE I DO NOT OWN IT

The fourth generation of Pokemon had seemed slightly underappreciated. After the third not being so great (in the eyes of most) and the remakes of the first not delivering full awesomeness, people decided to be "cool" and stick with their nostalgic games on the Gameboy.

What they didn't bother to see is Pokemon still IS as great as it was back then. Now with online features and more miscellaneous goodies throughout.

I hijacked Knuxrouge's reveiwing basis. You should feel flattered.

Story: Now we are in the land of Sinnoh, where it is said that a great being called Dialga had crafted this land long ago, and is watched by three protectors. Sorry kids...err-young men. No Team Rocket again. This time we have Team Galactic, another group of crazies bent on distroying our universe and creating another, which can somehow be toppled by a traveling child hoping to become a Pokemon Master. The leader goes on about how this universe is subject to what they beleive are "lesser qualities" of humanity, such as feelings for other people, and that everything would be perfect without them. He refuses to give us more detail on several occasions, saying that we're too young to understand.

It's a Pokemon story, no better, nor worse than the others. Except maybe for a story involving Shadow Pokemon, because those games were fucking awesome.

Gameplay: The gameplay is the same as it always was. Nothing entirely changed, just added convenience. We can check the power and effects of our moves in battle. Choosing to switch to a different Pokemon or using an item during battle is decided (but not limited to) with the stylus. Now our BAG can hold unlimited items and has every type of item categorized for quicker access.

Certain changes like these are actually a step in the casual direction, but is it really a bad thing?

In this game, we have around 100 more types of Pokemon to discover, some actually unique. BUT, we don't have to catch all 496 Pokemon, we only need to get 150 in this game. Others from the past become available after beating the Elite Four. The big change is that to fill our Pokedex, all we have to do is see all the Pokemon, not have to catch them.

Graphics:Ever since the third generation, the developers have been working to make the graphics closer to 3D. Now, the Pokemon world isn't a scrolling, colored piece of paper, it's a colored piece of paper with jutting pieces of paper that scroll with the camera with correct angles. In English, the graphics are allowing things to be shown in 3D, utilizing the DS's better graphic capability. It's still top-down view, just more realistic at the angle we see everything.

Control: The DS now has the Y and X buttons. X took the place of Start, and Y took the place of Select. You can change the control settings, but otherwise, Start and Select don't do anything. They should've had both sets of buttons do the same thing, because without my old GBA, I play those games on my DS, and I have to get used to different control for each game.

Music: The music isn't bad at all. Some themes are actually fairly catchy. Some may make you turn the volume off, but otherwise no problems.

Replay Value: I got it on the day it released in North America and currently on my fourth file. Now that the diversified Pokemon and 100 TMs add for a lot of possibilty, you will likely want to go through again. You'll want a new team, you'll want to see what the other starters are like, and it's an RPG game for christ's sake. It's addictive qualities will rope you back in.

Overall: 9/10

The only Pokemon game to top this score in my view are Gold and Silver with a 9.5. Any guy who beleives Pokemon had gone down the hill should piss off. Or at least attempt to name something wrong besides "THE NEW POKEMANS R SO GEY LOOKIN!!!". As much as I hate to say it, the Johto pokemon get their ass kicked by Sinnoh.

At 5/20/09 06:11 PM, scetch00 wrote: Any unbiased review for Bioshock would be appreciated.

Bioshock Breakdown:

It's a FPS game that revolves more around in-game, real time storytelling then it does First-Person based action and challenge. That probably sounds strange... so I'll try to explain.

The idea of the game is that you're a travler on an airplane that crashes somewhere over an ocean. You survive the wreck and swim to a lighthouse in the distance. The lighthouse ends up being a 'dock' that takes you from the surface world, to an underwater city known as 'Rapture'. When you arrive in Rapture you find that the city is basically in ruins, and the people left are blood-thirsty maniacs. You have no idea how Rapture got there, or what happened to lead it to it's current state. The first thing you find in the city, is a radio... where a mysterious stranger asks you for help... you help him rescue his family, and him and his family will help you escape the city.

So as you play the game, details about the city and it's history are given to you through conversations with the man on the radio, as well as a series of others characters found through the stages (bosses, supporting cast, etc...)... some of these people being less sane then others. Also, there are tape recorders found throughout the map made by past citizens who kept audio diaries of their daily life in the underwater town... the more you collect and find, the more backstory you get on the people, the city, and the events that drove it to it's demise.

These are actually pretty indepth... you get to learn about inner-city gossip... who was dating who, who hangs out where, and the diffrent views the diffrent people have in both politics and on each other. Often times these tapes are about the jobs the people held... and why they where invited to live in the city to begin with.

The important thing to notice, is that the game does a really good job of making sure that the story is the main feature of the game, and the action is second. That's not to say that it's not full of action... but that story sequences and action sequences are kept seperate allowing you plenty of time to focus on what people are saying... I've played a few games that try to tell you the story durring a gunfight. It's annoying because you're too focused on staying alive to pay attention to what the other characters are saying. Worse yet, after the gunfight some of these games won't let you replay the dialog. That DOES NOT happen in this game... in Bioshock you can always replay everything everybody has said to you. So in the rare chance it's not convinent to listen to them, you can listen to them later.

Another aspect, is that there is almost zero punishment for dying. As you go through the stages you'll past 'Vital Chambers' which are esentially checkpoints. If you die, you respawn at a vital chamber instantly. But, unlike a checkpoint, the map doesn't reload when you die, it just respawns you. Meaning, if you hit an enemy twice and then die... when you respawn, that enemy will still be missing the two hits of life... so the only punishment for death is having to walk back to the palce that you died. And the only way to not beat the game, is to just simply, not play it.

Some people say that this removes the challenge from the game... but I say it opens up the ability to explore and take advantage of everything Rapture has to offer. Since dying isn't a punishment, you're never afraide to go off the main path and explore empty apartments or open up a closed door. And since Rapture is an underwater city built in the 40s, it's a really cool place to explore.

Throughout the game you get a series of standard weapons... handguns, shotguns, etc... and over time you can find upgrade centers where you can upgrade diffrent aspects of the weapons. But guns aren't your only weapons... you can also gain special powers (called 'Plasmids') which will allow you to do crazy things with your 'off' hand. There's a reason for all of this, but I don't want to tell you what it is... trying to keep this spoiler free... but these powers vary from being able to shoot fire, electricity, and ice out of your hand, to eventually gaining telekanetic powers or shooting a swarm a bees from your firsts. It's all pretty crazy, and these too can be bought and upgraded... allowing you to customize your character to how you see fit.

You've probably seen the guy in the scuba suit... that's a 'Big Daddy', he's often times associated with a creepy looking little girl... those are 'Little Sisters'. Little sisters go around stabing the dead... and the big daddies are there to protect them. This also has an explination that I'm leaving out for spoiler reasons. When you kill a big daddy, you have the ability to take control of the little sister and either kill her, or free her from her 'slavery' (for lack of a better word). You're given a diffrent reward based on what you choose...

So in a nutshell, you arrive in an underwater city built in the 40s... it's abandond and the people that are still alive are insane maniacs, some of which have the ability to shoot fire or bees from their hands. Walking around are a handfull of huge guys in scuba suits protecting little girls that go around stabbing dead bodies... you want to leave, but you don't know how to get out and the only help you have is a man on a handheld radio begging you to help him rescue his wife and children.

That's pretty much it. The real catch of the game is the story and the environment. Rapture is a really cool place to explore... and a lot of pretty cool things happen in an abondoned city built underwater. There's a pretty good variety of insane characters and boss fights are all pretty unique in their own way. It's a FPS that's more about the experiance, then it is head shots and challenge.

At 5/31/09 10:44 PM, The777Demon wrote:

At 5/26/09 05:01 AM, knuxrouge wrote: Super Metroid review

Can't say i completely agree with this review.

Well, I'm stating my opinions based on the impression that the game provided me.
If you disagree, then that's fine.

You are obviously a casual fan which is ok.

But omg herdcur fanz r pros.
Casual fans are better suited for reviews in my opinion, big time die hard fans are subject to bias.

Songs from super metroid had been used or covered even in the original

The more you know.

and used in prime as well.

I pointed that out, I'm sure.

the true thing i disagree with is the score you gave the controls. For the snes they were good and if you were using a snes controller than they should have posed no issues at all.

Pressing Select to toggle through weapons are a huge hassle when you're under pressure, need to keep moving and under attack. If the Y button switched functions with Select, then It'd be perfect.
Plus being able to toggle during pause screens would have solved alot of issues. The controls could have been better.

I believe you don't have much platforming game experience for the snes since super metroid had very good controls.

I figured the Megaman X games and Super Mario World were the best platforming games that the SNES had to offer. And the platforming was great in those games. Opinions on controls aside, the platforming (which counts towards gameplay, not controls) was dreadful.

the one part about the controls i agree on is the wall jumps. Wall jumping does require timing and some experience to get down. I can imagine you trying any of the advanced techniques or playing some of the popular fan games made. There are more difficult but unnecessary techniques in super metroid besides wall climbing.

None are as important as wall jumping.

The true replay value in this game comes from finishing it faster. For fans or perfectionist i could imagine this game having quite a bit of replay value. I have replayed this game a countless number of times like many other people who enjoyed it.

For perfectionist and fans, I mentioned that that is player relation, the game offers nothing to motivate you to play the game again.

Punchout!! : THE REVIEW!!

PROS:
GAMEPLAY : just like the old games, its good. it proves that no matter how old that the punchout franchise gets, the Game play does not age ONE BIT!

GRAPHICS : Nice and polished, for the wii of course. it looks nice, and i have no complaints.

CONTROLS : The Game lets you play it like how it was played on the NES, with the wiimote sideways. with the wiimote and nunchuck, and WiiMote+Nunchuck and the balance board (BALANCE BOARD NOT RECCOMENDED, ITS UNRESPONSIVE AS HELL)

DIFFICULTY : there isnt much of a difficulty, as it tests how fast you can recognize the enemies visual ques and react to them to dodge/block them. so the difficulty depends on memory, and reflex.

ENEMIES/OPPONENTS : while not too many, (only 13) its still VERY,VERY,VERY FUN to fight them,learn their patterns, and beat the freakin' shit out of 'em.

EXHIBITION : After you beat an opponent in Career mode, you unlock them in exhibition, where you can face them again, but with 3 CHALLENGES to complete, like beat "X" in under 1 minute. or find 6 ways to get stars on "X"

SOUND/MUSIC : this factor is GODLIKE, the music is remixed GREATLY! it sounds Freakin' Great, Better then EVER!! i just love it! the voices, err.. well its all native tongue. if the fighter is from japan (Piston Hondo) then he will be talking japanese, obviously.

CONS :

REPLAYABILITY : once you beat the game and memorize the patterns, you cant really do much but play the challenges in exhibition, after that. NOTHING. there is a crappy multiplayer, but i would never recomend it

LACK OF CHARACTERS : like i said before, it isnt horrible, but a little depressing for the lack of characters, especially since there is no Dragon chan, or many characters from Super punch out.

LACK OF TRUE CAREER MODE : well, career is the campaign, but all it really is, is just, beat character,beat next character, etc... i would have really liked a real campaign with $,costumes Revenge matches that happen at random, etc.. but hey, thats just My opinion.

MULTIPLAYER : well, its offline, which i dont really care about. but its COMPLETELY different from the regular fighting. if one player dodges youre stunned, and if the player hits you, he earns energy to his "SUPER BAR" and if it fills up, he turns into "GIGA MAC" basically donkey-kong, but in a human form. its cheap as hell. and this mode is just over-all boring.

Now for the Countdown.
Graphics 8.5/10
Sound/Music 10/10
Replayabilty 1/10
Gameplay 9/10
Story/Campaign 7/10
Difficulty N/A
Controls 10/10

OVERALL 8.2
its a good game, some flaws here and there, and lacking some stuff and what-not.
but overall, i reccomend buying it! if not, AT LEAST give it a rent!

At 5/31/09 11:43 PM, The777Demon wrote:

At 5/31/09 11:03 PM, knuxrouge wrote: I figured the Megaman X games and Super Mario World were the best platforming games that the SNES had to offer. And the platforming was great in those games. Opinions on controls aside, the platforming (which counts towards gameplay, not controls) was dreadful.

still convincing me you don't have much platforming experience.

I'm a proud retro gamer 19 years of age, do you really think I can't discern good/average platforming to not-so-good platfroming?

If you did you would know that this game has excellent platforming.

That's all opinion, like mine that says it's dreadful. it seems like you have just gotten used to it over the time of playing it, however trying to catch a small platform under water with a spin jump is anything but excellent.
I know good platforming, I've played all the Megaman original series games, those have great platforming and at the same time, reasonably challenging--and sometimes unreasonably challenging.
If you've played and beat one of the first four Megaman games, you have all the platforming experience you need to make a sound choice on good or bad platforming.
Again, it's just my opinion, don't go assuming stuff about me.

Not in the same style as super mario world or megaman which involved going to the end of a level when metroid includes backtracking. So the elements were different.

The stage layout in terms of linear doesn't matter with platforming, proper scripting/programming is all the matter, and I'm saying it could have been tighter in Super Metroid. Stage layout doesn't always define the difference between game, and those differences aren't that big when discussing or analyzing one single aspect that those games share, I've played games with excellent platforming, Super Metroid is not one of them. "Elements were different"? Yeah, but it's because of those elements is why the platforming is dreadful. I'm not talking simple stuff like going on one platform to another, I'm talking about catching small platforms with a single jump, freezing an enemy, jumping on it, then wall jumping up to an area with an even smaller platform that you need to grapple on to, while fighting enemies.
There's a lot of that in Super Metroid.
Metroid Fusion had the same, but the programming was better in that game, Metroid Fusion had great platforming, I figure that if I use another game of the same franchise, you'd see my point here.
The elements are the same, but the latter had much better programming.

Whoa there cowboy.
1. I'm basing my impression on good platforming on more than one series, I was simply using Megaman and Mario as examples, because your argument was that I had little platforming experience on the SNES, so if I mentioned other games that at the least weren't on a Nintendo console, there wouldn't be a lot of credibility in it.
I have platforming experience in Megaman (most series in the franchise, including original, X, Zero and ZX), Mario, Sonic, Kirby, Metroid, Ristar, Flicky, Contra, and even more obscure titles like James Pond (not Bond), Ranger X and The Terminator. I know bad platforming when I see it, and on that note.
2. I never said Super Metroid had "bad" platforming, I said it was dreadful, which by rightful definition, is a strain to work with at times. Overall the platforming is on average, however there are times when it's just tiring to work with, combine that with the space jump, wall jump and grapple moves, the platforming is in fact dreadful--in my opinion.
However, I never stated that it was bad. If you check my review you'll see that I gave Gameplay an average score--in fact an above average score. Again it's my opinion, not cold hard facts, and your opinions are just as credible as mine.
3. Metroid Fusion was a great game, especially for casual fans such as myself. The design of the game or even the navigation was completely irrelevant to this debate, what did matter was the programming, the platforming in Metroid Fusion was great and followed similar formats to Super Metroid, I used just the programming to compare the two games, same franchise, similar format, but Metroid Fusion was programmed better, and my whole argument was that Super Metroid could have been programmed better.
Are you disagreeing with on this?
If so, this debate is done.
It's not a case of wanting something to be a certain way, not that there is anything wrong with that, it's a case of just acknowledging a realm of general improvement.

It could have been better, it wasn't impossible to take a few more months to make the platforming a little more tight.

The Sims 3 Review:

Why live life when you can live as a Sim? Developed by EA Black Box and Visceral Games, The Sims 3 is, you guessed it, the third iteration of the series. With the original Sims and Sims 2 released in 2000 and 2004, EA had a big act to follow, as those 2 games were show stoppers for the simulation genre. The aim of the game is to take control of a Sim, or Sims, and lead them through their life.
Through bad and good, fire and water and to hell and back again... well... not quite that bad; but there's a lot do in a lifetime right? Can the Sims 3 take its place beside its brothers? Or is it just more of the same? Hit the jump to find out!

Out there in the gaming world there really is nothing quite like The Sims. It's a real life simulator. Sure you've got stuff like Animal Crossing and Giftpia, but it's just not *human* enough. This game truly allows you to live a life exactly how you want it, whether you want to have 200 kids, or be filthy stinkin' rich. You can do it all. Your main "quest" in the game, would be to get a job, find a lady/young fellow to mate with, have a bunch of children and then... die. A game where you die of old age sounds exciting doesn't it? But wait, there's more. If you have kids when you die, you continue controlling them, so really, the game never ends! Unless you're infertile.

The Sims as a series has defining strengths and weaknesses, some of which have changed in this latest iteration. Such as the ability to drive and an open world map. Others such as the occasional AI problem rarely occur due to greater advances and game development; but once in a while it might happen. Another complaint I have is with the sound, you'll see what I'm talking about.
While visually it's not a huge step up from The Sims 2, the graphics are still pretty damn impressive. The whole town is rendered as one, so that excuses the minor lackluster in looks; as too much would slow the game down terribly. The most noticeable differences are in the textures of the objects and Sims. The Sims now look more realistic, they still hold that "simmy" EA look, but they are a lot more professional looking; especially the hair, which now looks a lot more real.
Depending on your computer speed the animation will flux. Now my PC is only just good enough to run it, so I get a bit of slowdown when I zoom out too much, but if I concentrate on my house the game moves smooth as hell; with the Sim animation flawless. Earlier I mentioned sound problems. It's not that the sound is bad, or of poor quality; but it feels like it's just been copy/pasted from the Sims 2.
So come on EA, break out the fiddle and write some new tunes will ya! Even though the music is catchy and gives a bit of a nostalgic flash back, it would have been nice to hear something new. Voice acting must be fun to record in the Sims, because the jibber jabber nonsense is back and it sounds better than ever. You can even choose between 3 voices for your Sim, and the game allows you to modify pitch too; so your Sim sounds unique!
The most important part of the Sims games is the interface; how easy is it to play the game? Through all previous games and expansions the simplicity of the game made it a smash hit, it was easy to do as you like; though things are a bit more complicated with The Sims 3, it's still a cake walk. The "create a Sim" function has been greatly modified; you can now change the fat and muscle mass, along with hair colour customization.
You can even create your own clothing with a texture customizer. Your Sim can now be you, from the shoes to the hair to the colour of your shirt. Personality configuration has also been upgraded. You now have to choose traits for your Sim (More than 60 to choose from); these range from Daredevil to Kleptomaniac. Toddlers have 2 traits, and as you age you gain more, finally reaching 5 as a young adult. The traits you choose alter which life ambitions you have access to, and you can now edit a Sims favourite music genre, food and colour.

The buy and build functions have also received quite a makeover. You can now place objects in your house diagonally, and the square grid is now smaller for greater precision. Furniture is able to be customized, like you can with your clothes, so go nuts making your house a pink leopard skin paradise. Shortcut features include an auto-roof function, a sledgehammer for mass demolishing, as well as now being able to place objects on tables and counters with more freedom; even going so far as to leave a vase teetering precariously on the edge of a table.
In the first two Sims games your Sim had 8 general needs; but The Sims 3 cuts it down to six, (hunger, bladder, energy, social, hygiene and fun), removing comfort and environment. These have been replaced by "mood-lets". You could call these the highs and lows of life, giving you little boosts and dips in the day depending on how it's going. You'll get a lower mood from working hard at your job because you'll be stressed out, but a high mood lift if you get to Woo-Hoo with that sexy lady from next door. This is a great feature because it really shows how your Sim feels about his life, rather than arbitrarily complaining about what's in the room.
Some of the best parts of the game involve your Sim learning new skills. I spent days teaching my Sim to paint and play guitar; and it's very entertaining seeing how they progress through their skill. I was half disappointed when I found out that you can't actually DRIVE the car yourself but it's not a racing game so whatever; it's still fun to go out and explore the whole town, from city hall to the graveyard. The commercial lots now allow you to get part-time jobs, buy shares in the company and take classes to improve skills.
The first time I played the game I played for 6 hours, without even noticing. The game sucks you in completely and you don't notice the obvious repetition of it all. Sim wakes up, Sim has breakfast, Sim goes to work, Sim comes home, and Sim goes to sleep; REPEAT. It's all the little things in-between like going out to dinner or chatting up the maid that keep you going through it all. Seeing as once your Sim dies you keep control of the kids, technically you could keep playing it forever starting from just one man. Your Sim a year from now could be the great great grandson of your original Sim; which when you think about it, is a very cool concept.
I have one and only one problem with The Sims franchise, it comes in the form of one word; Expansion. You know for a fact that The Sims 3 is going to have a metric-tonne of expansion packs with new content, and while new stuff is a good thing, you know EA have left it out deliberately. Why? Because they know people will buy it, and so they make more money. I know that once the 4th expansion comes out I'll be wishing I had waited to buy a bundle with them all in.
Gamers of all ages have been waiting for this game since the Sims 2 was announced, hoping that it would take leaps and bounds in the genre, and to be honest it hasn't quite lived up to my expectation. I've played the The Sims 2 a lot, and most of this stuff could have been introduced in a big patch. A new game wasn't needed but it's nice to have and it's still a great game.
But if you are expecting a whole new experience you're going to be let down, it's as great as the previous games but not much better. The Sims 3 could have been turned into something like Sony's HOME, with massive online capabilities with thousands of player Sims roaming a world at one time; or like Animal Crossing where you can invite your friends Sims to your town. Maybe we'll get an experience like that with the next game.
The Sims 3 is going to be a smash hit. It's got all the ingredients for success and it'll sell purely on reputation alone. I can say that I enjoyed it a lot, and am still playing it with a smile on my face; though that could be because of character who's life ambition is to be the Emperor of All Evil (That ambition ACTUALLY exists), but you'll just have fun messing with the damn game.

Sims 3 Review: Continued

While it's similar to the previous titles it's got enough new content to warrant a buy, but I can't shake the feeling that expansion packs are only around the corner. Good job EA, now I can live life in a virtual world in a way that lets me catch fire, kick flamingos, slap old women in the face and become an Emperor of Evil. What a game.

8.5 Presentation
Great visuals and layout, however it has the potential for massive amounts of realism; but just won't take that step.

9.0 Gameplay
Hardly any problems, and when they do occur they don't lower the experience.

8.5 Sound
Great tunes, but it's the same old stuff.

9.5 Longevity
Technically The Sims 3 only ends when The Sims 4 is released.

9.0 Overall
A great addition to an already fantastic series.

(Sorry about the massive wall of text above, it was refusing to post unless it was like that)

Plants Versus Zombies Review

Plants v.s Zombies is a defense game where you take controll of tons of differen't plants to kill the zombies, and stop them from getting to your delicious brains. You start out with 1 plant, the Peashooter, each level you defend fomr waves of zombies, earning more plants after each level to cope with the difficulty change. Theres alot of Stratedgy involved in this game, as well has many different tactics you can use in each level.

Graphics - This is no Gears of War, or Crysis, but it certainly has a great 2-D artstyle that looks fantastic. 9/10

Sound - The delectable sound of peas flying through the air, cabbage launching, and the zombie moans are great. Not to mention the great music in the game. 9.5/10

Controls - Are there any better controls for a tower defense then your mouse? I think not. 10/10

Gameplay - As simplistic as it sounds and starts out, it gets really intense and chaotic in the later levels, its just a blast to play! Easily the best tower defense game I have played. 10/10

Cost - Its $10, go buy it. 10/10

48.5/50

I'll write up a review on NFS: Prostreet later.

Infamous Review

I'm gunna try to keep it short and sweet cause lets face it, this is newgrounds and nobody likes a gay wall of text, so everythings in bullets, how nice still a wall, but more organized and easier to read. I also don't rate stuff with numbers because it honestly doesn't make any sense that way. I do pros and cons. I also rate based on Sound, Graphics, Immersion, gameplay and replayability. So...

Sound(get the boring shit out of the way):
+ great music, i could see myself listening to them for fun really
=sound fx's themselves blended well but nothing epic or degrading to effect the overall impression
- bad voice acting, if i had to listen to that country redneck accent one more time... why i-

Graphics:
+electricity and lighting blended well, 3 different lightning styles (i think, maybe 4 but i'd rather not do another playthrough just to test a theory at the end of the game)
= buildings were average, but were done well enough to make the world feel special
-lipsincing was terrible, lets just move the mouths up and down and pray they sinc up

Immersion:
= the story was decent but not really oscar worthy
-i dont feel the comic style of the cutscenes was a good idea. It looked pretty, but when shit went down during them, i really couldn't care less so character development went out the window for anyone other than Cole since he was narrating.
- no love for any of the characters, Trish was a needy bitch and i don't see what cole saw in her, and Zeke was an annoying faggot that i wished died. Yet Coles feeling towards these characers were complete opposites to mine, regardless how you played the game.
-moral choices barely changes anything in terms of story so don't be disappointed

Gameplay
+electricity is easy and smooth to control, unlimited ammo jolts are fun
+upgrades add to the fun
=limited upgrades but who gives a shit right?
-enemies can shoot you with pin point accuracy at any fucking distance if they see u. Don't bother running, you'll just give them the advantage (Since u can go out of range!)

Replayablity:
+ a game that merits a definitive second playthrough , you really have to, theres no question unless your stupid.
+20 to 30 hours of gameplay if u want platinum
= second play through isn't all that different then the first, and replaying missions doesn't bring back fond memories, but hey new powers right?
-after 2 playthroughs, there's no point to picking up the game ever again, unless u havent done the repetitive sidemissions that u've done already in some form or another in the main quests.

Overall? (Rent, buy, or don't bother?)
Rent for sure, rent twice if u want plat unless u had alot of time like me

At 6/9/09 04:02 AM, narf109 wrote: Infamous Review

-enemies can shoot you with pin point accuracy at any fucking distance if they see u. Don't bother running, you'll just give them the advantage (Since u can go out of range!)

you know if you run and role they cant hit you for shit unless they are in a machine gun so yeah

Terminator Salvation: The Game

Dispelling the retards who haven't played it.

Terminator Salvation isn't just overlooked, it's also the definition of underrated. People are comparing it to ET on the Atari. People are saying it's just another movie-based game. I'm afraid not.

This game actually isn't a movie-based game, believe it or not. Because it's not based on the movie. It takes place two years before with no connection to the movie. The game is a third person shooter that takes a hell of a lot more than gaming skill to complete. You need strategy, timing, quick thinking. You're not fighting soldiers with shite AIs, your really fighting those hardass terminators. T-600s as well as smaller and larger machines who want to stop the resistance. Like the movie however, it does take place in LA, or what's left of it. And they launched a nuke at the end which explains all the mess in the movie.

The PS3 version offers trophies. But no bronze trophies. They're all gold and of course the final Platinum. You get a trophy for completing each level, and one for completing them on Medium and Hard modes, and that's all of them. Easy trophies in this game, impress your online friends who care! ...Seriously though, they'll keep you playing.

Ahem, the game is decently lengthed and I actually felt good after completing it, not just because of the trophies. It's becuase the game really captured the seriousness of being John Connor during the war. Robots don't go down with a few shotgun blasts. If you miss with a grenade, rocket launcher, or grenade launcher, you'll curse out loud in anger at that tough robot moving at the last second. If you're out of such weapons, you have to use what little ammo you have for your little assualt rifle which feels more like a pee shooter against them. Speaking of which, it would likely take around 200 rounds from that gun to take down a T-600.

The only thing that really bothers me is that T-600 and Spiders can attack you and it would kill you instantly. You can be behind cover under some heavy minigun fire from a T-600, and he can just walk up to it and bitchslap you. Instant death. It doesn't happen often, but it's stupid. It's not like we were sent flying 20 feet. You just get knocked over and your dead, despite being able to stand after around 20 minigun rounds.

Other bothersome things is that the captions during cutscenes come out seconds after they were said during the first few levels. Not so great. And every action that was performed with the Triangle button was sometimes delayed, which can kill you if it happens at the wrong time.

The music was great. Hearing the Terminator theme give the correct feel to those "Come on, come on!" moments was awesome.

The graphics deserve some merit. Not the best you can find of course but shadowing and lighting effects were really done well. The cutscenes weren't bad at all.

The gameplay is worth mentioning. It has a unique cover system. You can take cover behind a number of destroyed objects, and you can tell Connor to run over to another piece of cover somewhere in another direction. This is a much safer way to get around during a battle. The game offers co-op where the other players plays as the woman who's with us in every level, Blair, which I believe is his wife in the movie two years later.

In conclusion, this game is worth playing. It's the only good Terminator game out there (two others were on the PS2, they're utter shite), and I want people to stop targeting this game because they think it's a generic movie-based game.

Overall Rating: 8/10

The House of the Dead: Overkill

I am very happy to be reviewing one of the best damn Wii games out there, and quite possibly the best Third Party game. Ahh, it is a Sega game, but they hired a British gaming company to make it, so don't worry.

The House of the Dead Overkill is the first console HoD game. And my god am I glad they took that risk. This game is awesome. If I remember, it's a prequel to the very first House of the Dead, taking place at the Curien Mansion. This one takes place in a variety of locations. A hospital, prison, carnival, swamp, you name it. It is the story of new character Detective Isaac Washington, and series icon Agent G. What started as a quest for revenge and stopping a mutant outbreak in the process, became an action-packed adventure that saved thousands of lives while stopping the outbreak from spreading across the globe (or so they thought they stopped it).

The game is rated M, and the only thing that stops it from obtaining an adult rating is that it has no nudity, except for zombie breasts which aren't all that hot. Let's get to our bad points of the game first while I'm thinking about them.

The game is full of itself, over the top with cussing, and corny use of the word f***. You'll notice this fairly quickly through the cutscenes and music. Being somebody who adores cutscenes, I've become quite angered at the choices with the cutscenes. The developers obviously didn't want a developed storyline (although I don't blame them for that to be honest), so instead of making the cutscenes progress the story on it's own. They begin with narration by a voice who also appears full of itself. Look up one of the cutscenes and you'll see what I mean. Luckily that voice appears less later on.

All the problems with this game are "personal problems". And they hardly hinder this game at all. It's fun, it's gory, it leaves you wanting more. Despite the laughable storyline of the arcade games, this one carried itself much better. The humor becomes very funny, you actually start liking the small, humble cast of characters, and you'll love that you can purchase and upgrade weapons in the store between levels. You get money from how well you did on a level. If you feel your weapons aren't getting the job done, you can replay previous levels and get money from them however many times you want.

You start with a magnum that can become a reliable weapon that can take you to the end of the game if you're pretty decent with it. There's also a shotgun, SMG, assault shotgun, and assault rifle. You can carry two guns with you in each level and switch between them with the Z button. Although, I never really switched weapons because the shotguns always got the job done despite being the slower weapon.

There are powerups in the game. First being the very nice "slow mo-fo mode". Shooting this green thing will make the game run half as fast, but your character moving three quarters as fast as far as firing and reloading. Your chance of making heads explode is increased, and watching meat chuncks splatter and fly in slow motion is just wonderful. And of course the parts are easier despite this affect only going on for about 15 seconds.

The co-op, the co-op. I love being able to play alongside my brother blowing the hell out of zombies. To be fair, they add more zombies in levels if there are two players, but less than twice as much. Partners have access to any weapons you own, but they also have their own health meter, so you really need to fight over who gets to pick up the health pack.

The graphics are very nice. And the game never lags even while it's loading the next part of the level as you're going through. But since this is a rail shooter that requires quick aim, you're really not obligated to care.

Upon completion of the story mode, you get a new Director's Cut mode. Which has the same levels but more to them, and generally harder. You do not start with your old weapons from the first campaign. It's pure replay value.

Again, as a fan of House of the Dead alongside Resident Evil, I have to say that this game is more than worth getting. If this is not part of your Wii Collection, than you better have a damn good excuse. I say it even ties with Umbrella Chronicles, which I should have reviewed a month ago after finishing it.

Overall Score: 9/10

It would have been 9.5 is grenades were more plentiful, and the personal problems weren't there, but I guess I shouldn't even take that into account. I only rate higher than 9 if the game managed to do more than blow out my mind. This one only blew it out into tiny meat chunks.

That's right, fellow people with gun fetishes, you watch the reloading now.

Thank you for saying somthing that needed to be said, COD4's multiplayer pretty much sucks