Reviews

Was the DS Lite worth the wait?

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First, I would like to thank GameStop employees for repeatedly threatening that if I don’t reserve a DS Lite there’d be no chance of me getting one. A few weeks ago when there was news that Targets and Walmarts began selling the system early, I drove from Target to Target looking. The attendant in the GameStop in the same mall as one of the Targets was less than helpful when I asked about the DSL.

“Do you have any used games to trade in?”
“Umm, no. So I hear Target jumped the DS Lite ship date.”
“The DS Lite comes out on the 11th.”
“Ok, but you guys aren’t selling them early by any chance to compete, are you?”
“If you want one you’ll have to pre-order it now. They’ll all sell out the first day. →  Read the rest

Review – Capcom Fighting Evolution

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It looks as if Capcom Fighting Evolution may be the last 2D fighter from Capcom that isn’t some sort of compilation. This is frustrating for two reasons. Firstly, something tells me they could revive the genre at least a little bit if they actually released a beautiful and balanced Street Fighter 4. Second, Fighting Evolution is not exactly the best way to end a legacy. The potential for this game is staggering, but the final product feels rushed and cheap.

The premise of CFE is simple; take a bunch of characters from different Capcom games and have them square off. The acute reader will no doubt point out that this sounds a lot like the premise behind Capcom’s plethora of “Versus” titles, though in fact they are somewhat different. The “Versus” games are mostly focused on representing the “best of the best” from the company, and then putting them into a streamlined combat engine. →  Read the rest

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Review – Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

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“Don’t you find exercise to be a little more painful without skin?”
“Oh, yeah. But I still get out and jog. You have to keep busy.”

I consider myself an old school gamer. I have every Sega and Nintendo system set up and ready to play in my living room (besides the N64 DD, I said old school, not rich). I am a huge 2D enthusiast, I lament its demise and rue the day 3D took center stage (which was an excellent movie, by the way). I also loved Symphony of the Night. I really wanted to like Dawn of Sorrow more than I do.

Gameplay is the same as it has been for nearly a decade; your character navigates Dracula’s absurdly designed castle corridors and fights progressively more deadly monsters who sit around discussing the pros and cons of no longer having flesh while waiting for intruders. →  Read the rest

Flash game review bonanza 3

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Well I’m in that post-school, pre-summer job phase of life right now, by which I mean my cash flow is almost zero (there is, of course, always the five bucks I garner here and there for offering sexual favors to passing sailors). That being said, I haven’t purchased any new games recently, and it thus seemed time for another foray into the fantastic field of Flash-game fun (By the way, that just cost me two skill points in alliteration creation… and one in rhyming). Again trying to establish some continuity to my reviews, I decided to head over and try some of Popcap’s esteemed games. Thus, my reviews are limited to the one hour trial demo popcap.com offers, and I will offer along with the review my opinion on whether or not the games are worth shelling out the 20 bucks needed for the full version. →  Read the rest

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Review – BloodRayne 2

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A lot of reviewers would start this off by saying BloodRayne 2 “sucked” and then make some lame joke about this being a vampire game and there being a lot of “sucking” going on anyway. Well I think that sucks … and this game blows. If you’re not familiar with titular character you need only watch Uwe Boll’s opus “BloodRayne” to gain absolutely no insight whatsoever into this franchise and probably confuse the hell out of yourself in the process. Now that movie sucked!

Putting aside the cinematic abortion that will forever mar the face of this spotless product line, BloodRayne 2 is one of the most boring games I’ve played in a long, long time. Poor voice acting, horrible dialogue, tedious battles made even worse by a frustrating combat system… this puppy runs the gamut. →  Read the rest

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Review – Indigo Prophecy

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Bonjour. I made this game and am better than you, non?

About halfway through Indigo Prophecy I began outlining this review. Had I finished the review but not the game you’d be reading something very different. This is a game with massive potential that completely implodes. But still, for trying something innovative and nearly succeeding, Quantic Dream deserves much respect and anyone interested in innovation and experimentation should try it out.

Indigo Prophecy was made by the French developer Quantic Dream, who were behind the poorly received Dreamcast title Omnikron (I hate it just because David Bowie is in it). This is not a modest company; or rather this company is not run by a modest man. My first experience with Indigo Prophecy was on a demo disc from a magazine. →  Read the rest

Review – Neopets Petpet Adventure: The Wand of Wishing

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It’s like Animal Crossing, only for even younger players.

Cute, cuddly, and lovable are just a few words I would use to describe the ever-popular amongst kids Neopets, but the PSP game, Petpet Adventure: The Wand of Wishing, is anything but. Don’t let the title fool you into thinking that this is simply for spoiled eight year-old little girls lucky enough to own PSPs.

It has a cute story line, but it’s in no way original – Neopia, the land of Neopets, is in grave danger when the Wand of Wishing disappears into a hidden portal. Now the Neopets are racing against time to retrieve the Wand of Wishing before the powerful villains do so that they can undo the evils the villains have visited upon the world.

The graphics are nothing to write home about, and the game takes unnecessarily long to load between different scenes and if there is one thing I hate, waiting would be it, so that aspect is a thumb’s down for me. →  Read the rest

Review – Eternal Darkness

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These guys are pretty athletic considering they have no skin.

Eternal Darkness can join Psychonauts and a few others on the list of the Best Games from this generation that no one played. While it is difficult to understand how titles of such high quality continue to be shunned by the public, it is not difficult to see why the few die hards who played Eternal Darkness enjoyed it so immensely.

You start the game as a Roman officer named Pious and at the end of the first level you choose your fate. There are three paths, and the choice you make influences both the storyline and the gameplay. In Eternal Darkness you have three gauges to monitor (health, magick, and sanity — more on this later) rather than the standard two. →  Read the rest

Review – Psychonauts

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I know this scene is somehow sexual, I’m just not sure exactly how.

Psychonauts came out to little fanfare in the broader sense, but there are dedicated Tim Schaefer fans who had been looking forward to the title for quite some time. Growing up I played a few of his PC adventure games and while I enjoyed them, I was probably a little too young to appreciate them as much as they deserved. Everything about Psychonauts appealed to me though and when I eventually found a copy, the experience did not disappoint.

In an interesting twist, the main character runs away from the circus in order to join an elite force of psychic detectives. The Psychonauts operate by entering people’s minds and ridding them of their demons. Raz, in a shocking turn of events, shows real promise as a psychonaut, but has to fight his father for the right to do what he wants. →  Read the rest

Review – Ninja Gaiden

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I wanted to like Ninja Gaiden. I really did. Despite my disinterest in Namco’s Team Ninja and their “style over substance” approach to game design, I always hoped that this new Ninja Gaiden would live up to the high standards set by the 2d originals. It turns out that the final product is much like I expected. Team Ninja has a history of being able to do one thing incredibly well, be it the graphics of Dead or Alive or the … models in Extreme Beach Volleyball. Meanwhile pretty much everything else in the game ends up being mediocre at best.

The good news is that Ninja Gaiden’s combat happens to be the one thing that is done right. The bad news is that once again everything else is rather crummy.

 →  Read the rest

Review – Kingdom Hearts 2

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Sora picks up a new, more badass outfit in KHII. Donald still uses his sailor outfit left over from his porn star days.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away (let’s call it Japan), a man from SquareEnix and a man from Disney were getting drunk in a karaoke bar when, somewhere between sake and bad renditions of Michael Jackson songs, one of them stumbled upon a most wonderful idea: why not take all the best aspects of the Disney universe, throw them together with all the best parts of the Final Fantasy series, and from this soup of uberness draw the most amazing game ever conceived by man? The two set off to do just this, and on September 16th 2002, if Jesus himself had come down from heaven to bring rapture to the world, no one would have noticed because they’d have been too busy picking up their reserved copies of Kingdom Hearts from Gamestop. →  Read the rest

Review – Star Trek: Shattered Universe

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Developed by Stasphere Interactive
Published by TDK Mediactive
Released 1.13.04

No … this game was not made in 1990. Why would you say that?

This Trek game was developed by Starsphere Interactive whos last game seems to have been You Don’t Know Jack for the PS1. They should have stopped there. Just take a look at their impressive list of games and I believe you will already know where this review is going.

Being an enormous fan of the Trek universe, I really want the franchise to do well. Movies, books, new shows, video games; I just want them to make enough money to keep the universe alive. That’s why games like Shattered Universe bother me so much. I think this game was made in two months … by monkeys … monkeys who were somewhat slow. →  Read the rest

Review – Morning’s Wrath

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Hey, where’s the doll I put my equipment on? What kind of second rate Diablo clone is this?

Morning’s Wrath is an RGP put out by Ethereal Darkness Interactive, a tiny independent game studio, which I am willing to bet is less of a company and more of a dedicated group of friends who collectively thought, “What the hell, lets do it” and made a videogame. Let me make it clear off the bat; making a video game is HARD. Anyone who has managed to do it deserves a tremendous amount of respect, especially when they don’t have the resources like other mega-gaming studios have. Even if they have the resources, making a good video is still hard, as EA demonstrates every single day.

After that all too easy dig against EA, I have to say this: Morning’s Wrath is just another mediocre videogame that should have come out a couple of years ago. →  Read the rest

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. →  Read the rest

Review – Wipeout Pure

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Wipeout Pure
Developed by SCEE
Published by SCEE
Released 3.16.05

Wipeout Pure is one of my first PSP games. I must say, not being totally into racing games (I’m more of a RPG person), I found this game to be pretty exciting and entertaining for my daily commute to work. From the get-go, you have a choice of ten or so “spacecrafts” to choose from. I put spacecrafts in quotation because they look more like pen caps and paper clips then anything that resembles what people typically think a futurist spaceship will look like.

It’s like someone updated F Zero and didn’t call it F Zero GX.

The graphics for this game are excellent, but I use that term loosely because, honestly, I have no idea what is considered “good” graphics or “bad” graphics. →  Read the rest

Review – Megaman Powered Up

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Megaman Powered Up
Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
Released 3.14.06
Here, Megaman faces off against Cutman, who would later go on to challenge a variety of social norms by becoming the first gay hairdresser robot.

I often wonder whether games have gotten easier over time, or if I’ve just gotten better. This weekend I picked up Megaman: Powered Up, Capcom’s PSP remake of the original Megaman, and I can now definitively answer this question: old-school games were, and still are, hard as fuck. Still, a potent combination of 1337 gaming skills, perseverance, and far too much free time on my hands allowed me to conquer (at least a significant portion of) the game and bring you this delectable review!

For those who didn’t catch the Blue Bomber’s debut back on the NES, the game takes place sometime in the year 20XX, which I guess is a really long time from now because we still just use numbers for our years. →  Read the rest

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Review – Super Princess Peach

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Super Princess Peach
Developed by Nintendo
Published by Nintendo
Released 2.27.06

Waaa

“Why can’t I have more than one line of dialogue in my own game? Hey look a vine… neato!”

I have to admit I wasn’t too excited when I first heard about this game. I mean, of all the characters in the Mario universe I’d want to have there own game, Princess Peach wasn’t at the top of my list. My girlfriend, on the other hand, bought it the day the game came out and I haven’t given it back to her since. This game is seriously addictive.

The story starts with Mario, Luigi and Toad being taken prisoner by Bowser’s hench-turtles using their newfound Vibe Wand. The wand’s vaguely-explained powers are related to emotions, and allows the normally bumbling koopas to take down an entire castle of Toads and subdue our usual heroes. →  Read the rest

Flash game review bonanza 2

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Continued from yesterday’s Part 1

Gogo Happy & Smile

Author: HAPPYandSMILE
Genre: Beatemup

Yo yo yo wazzup?!
Justice has taken on many forms throughout history, but never one so fierce, or furry, as in Happy & Smile.

Synopsis: This game is an unabashed rip-off of Alien Hominid, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can play as either Happy or Smile, a cat and rabbit who fight a group of evil bears that drop lots of cash money. For those unfamiliar with Alien Hominid, Happy & Smile plays as a side scroller/beat-em up, pitting you against an unending onslaught of foes as you move across the city.

Style (9/10): The game is wonderfully themed, the art and orchestral music coming together to make the game seem like an old school gangster movie (albeit one about cats, rabbits and bears).

 →  Read the rest
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Flash game review bonanza 1

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There are a lot of flash games on the internet, and most of them suck harder than a hooker on Christmas. So, in order to avoid having to write six angst-riddled reviews of six horrible games, as well as give the set of games I review some feeling of cohesiveness, I’ve decided to provide reviews for the top six rated games at the infamous flash portal at www.newgrounds.com. Enjoy!

Raiden X

Creator: Go0gley
Genre: top-down shooter

Water attack
Laser of Doom- $5000. Futuristic air force jet- $20000000. Getting your neighbor’s kid to draw your backgrounds – Priceless.

Synopsis: Raiden X was developed as a tribute to the Raiden games. It is a garden variety vertical shooter. Certain enemies will drop power ups that allow you to upgrade one of three types of weapons: a blue laser beam, red machine gun fire, or a purple lightning type energy.

 →  Read the rest
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Review – Galactic Civilizations II

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Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
Developed by Stardock
Published by Stardock
Released 2.27.06
Ships duke it out in deep space.

4x Space Strategy fans, your prayers have been answered. Although Gal Civ 2 isn’t quite what Master of Orion 3 should’ve been, it has a wonderful balance of the detail fun fans of the genre crave without the tedium that can be overwhelming. After that teaser trailer, how couldn’t you want to read on?

First off, let me say I never played Galactic Civ 1. So from that standpoint, I was a neophyte to the series, which greatly contributed to my learning curve issues. One of my biggest frustrations is it took me a solid five or so hours to figure out what the hell was going on in the game, but eventually it all gelled together. →  Read the rest

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