posts by pat
pat

Review – Disaster Report

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Developed by Irem
Published by Agetec Inc.
Released 2.15.03

car falling off bridge

I hope he has collision insurance.

Disaster Report begins by introducing your setting: a completely manmade island with a newspaper that needed a reporter. While crossing a bridge from the airport to the city en route to filling that role, the main character, Keith, suffers a major setback in the form of an earthquake, the aftershocks of which continue throughout the game. A helicopter sees you, but is not able to rescue you and instead drops some provisions (this is a recurring theme). If Disaster Report were a movie, we would probably consider this premise clichéd, and dismiss it. It is a very fresh idea for a game however, and is therefore intriguing.

There are some very ambitious aspects to the game. The most obvious is that the tremors that occur during gameplay affect the environment of the game. Exits are closed off, new paths are opened, and detritus creates or destroys bridges. →  Post of Tsushima

Review – Super Mario Strikers

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Super Mario Strikers
Developed by Next Level games
Published by Nintendo
Released 12.5.05
Oh sweet Jesus.

Today’s review, along with (hopefully) a few more to follow, is the result of a complete immersion in the multiplayer games available on what has become the premier multiplayer system of this aging generation, the Nintendo Gamecube. No other system has the range or the number of quality multiplayer titles as the Gamecube, and no company has put as much emphasis on multiplayer gaming as Nintendo. It is possible this is as a result of the fact that Nintendo likely can not compete with the monoliths of Sony and Microsoft, relegating once powerful Nintendo to a niche market. Regardless of the reason, Nintendo has largely made multiplayer gaming its bread and butter, and the results have been very good. With that, we begin with the most recent entry in this genre, Mario Strikers.

Super Mario Strikers is another in a long list of Mario Sports games. →  It’s dangerous to read alone, take this.

Review – Kya: Dark Lineage

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Kya: Dark Lineage
Developed by Eden Studios
Published by Atari
Released 11.18.03

Fear my banana horn.

Kya: Dark Lineage is usually compared to Beyond Good and Evil, most likely because they are both action platformers with female leads. The similarities just about end there, since BGE is damn close to the epitome of the genre, while Kya is more a stock, run of the mill, average game. Of course I played to the end so there had to have been something there that made me play it.

The game starts off with you and your brother getting sucked into an alternate dimension via your father’s basement laboratory. You arrive among a few anthropomorphized dog like creatures who are all running away from some anthropomorphized wolf like creatures. This opening sequence introduces most aspects of the game, as it includes fighting, running, jumping, problem solving, and sneaking. Once you arrive back at the village, you meet with the elder who informs you that Brazul (cookie cutter bad guy) is turning all of the dogs (Nativs) into wolves (Wolfen). →  Xenosaga 2: Jenseits von Gut und Pöst

Review – ChoroQ

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ChoroQ
Developed by Atlus
Published by Takara
Released 11.14.04

 

Win this race to unlock secret driver Lindsey Lohan.

ChoroQ caught my attention because it claimed to be a racing RPG, a genre I didn’t know existed, much less one I had any experience with. I figured, even if all I got out of the ten bucks it cost was another obscure game for the collection and a few minutes of distraction, it would be a worthwhile purchase. Disclosure: my experience with pure racing games is limited to a ton of time spent with Gran Turismo 3 and a de minimus amount of time spent on a few other, minor titles (not counting the Mario Karts of course). Gran Turismo 3 was a great game, and this was apparent to a novice in the genre such as myself, because of the depth of the gameplay, and the level of customization. The realism probably figured in somewhere, but since I don’t know (or care) about car racing I’m not sure that was even apparent to me. →  Michigan: Article from Hell

Review – Shadow of the Colossus

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Shadow of the Colossus
Developed by SCEA
Published by SCEA
Released 10.15.05

Apparently all reviewers of Shadow of the Colossus must first reveal their Ico credentials. Ico was released in September of 2001, and I had my eye on it from early in its life cycle. For one reason or another I only ended up purchasing the game about a year and a half later. Since then, the more I’ve played the further it has climbed up my list of favorite games. I enjoyed the graphical style, puzzle elements, storyline, I even like the fact that the fighting was terrible, because it made the whole experience of being a young boy lost in a dangerous castle more believable. I felt the same way about the lack of menus and on-screen interface. I fully bought into the idea that the game was art, and the most heartfelt story ever told on the medium. Needless to say, I was excited by the prospect of Shadow of the Colossus. →  It was the best of games, it was the worst of games

The magic of Shenmue

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Perhaps no game or series has ever affected me the way the two Shenmue games have. Because Yu Suzuki was the lead designer, the first game received a good amount of hype leading up to its release, but I was initially unable to play it since I didn’t own a Dreamcast. A short while after the release Jason and I got together, and while we were trying to figure out what to play, he mentioned that he had started Shenmue, but had not gotten very far and was not yet sure if he liked it or not. Fortunately, we chose to restart the game, and barely looked back. Barely only because at first there was a brief period where we were a little unsure what we had gotten ourselves into. The game seemed engrossing, but was it fun? I’m still a little unsure about whether or not I can really answer that question, yet I regularly check the internet for news about a possible third installment, so there must have been something there. →  Four out of five dentists recommend reading more.