Reviews

Review – Godfather: Blackhand Edition

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There seems to be a belief among some third party developers that in order to make a Wii game, it is essential to attach meaningless gestures to everything you do. The best example is Red Steel, which forces the player to drag and drop icons on the main menu or shake the remote several times to open a door (because the first time it didn’t respond properly). This leads to cranky reviewers dropping two, maybe even three points from their final score because they simply can’t be bothered with such annoyances.

Then you have a game like The Godfather: Blackhand Edition. None of its menus require Wii gestures. When you swing the remote to open a door, it actually works. Or you can just hit the A button and be done with it. →  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Read

Best Game Ever / Review – Dragon’s Trap / Curse

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It’s somewhat bizarre that my normally useless extensive knowledge of the Sega Master System would come in handy because a Turbo Grafix 16 game is released on the Wii. But despite the comical circuitousness, I happen to know a thing or two about Dragon’s Curse. You see, as far as Master System games go, this game is anything but obscure. It’s actually so beloved that a great Master System emulator is named after the game.

In an attempt to completely confuse America as revenge for dropping atomic bombs on them, Japan has seen it fit to rename the game called Dragon’s Trap (Master System) for release on the TG16, where it would be called Dragon’s Curse. That wouldn’t be very good retaliation, though, considering the cancer rates are still abnormally high in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. →  Ikari Warriors 2: Postery Read

Review – God of War

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I hate making film to videogame comparisons, but in this case it seems appropriate. Back in the day, whenever a movie ended explicitly detailing that a sequel would be made, it always bugged me. Who the hell did those guys think they are? Were they really that confident in their production, or were they just cocky? It always seemed to be in bad taste to just assume people were going to buy in to your product.

Nowadays, the sequel hint is a common practice. Not only do we generally accept it, but sometimes we downright expect it (as in the case with something like Spiderman). After all, if it is good, then why not create even more of that good for us to enjoy? →  Ring of Read

Review – Second Sight

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I’ve come to believe strongly in a particular rule taught to me by wiser gamers. The rule states that “if a game wants to entice me, to keep me playing, then it cannot assume I have nothing better to do than to play video games.” It’s hard phrase to describe exactly what the phrase means, but it pertains to certain bad things modern games like to do. Sometimes they’re done to artificially lengthen playtime, sometimes they’re done to help introduce new players. Sometimes it is to enhance the cinematic nature of the game, or to keep things “realistic.” Whether they are done because of a current trend, or to try to overcome a particular design hurdle, these additions hurt more than they help. →  Words are the towns and cities of letters.

Review – Wario Ware Smooth Moves

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Wario Ware Smooth Moves for the Wii — In playing this game I discovered a maxim that holds true. In observing my personal failures and some of my friend’s successes in playing the Wario Ware mini games, I discovered this: The extent to which you are good at Wario Ware is the extent to which you are a bastard. This is because Wario Ware has been created to reward the wicked and punish those of us with dignity and gameplay standards like functional controls or knowing game objectives before you lose. Wario Ware apologists would have you believe that the minigames are varied, fun, and fair — but they would be lying. 80% of the games can be won only by shaking the remote, or occasionally waving it around or throwing it at your friend. →  Read Danger!

Review – Rogue Galaxy

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It’s not often you come across two games released in quick succession that sound as similar as Final Fantasy XII and Rogue Galaxy. FFXII has Sky Pirates; RG has Space Pirates. Both start off in a desert town. FFXII takes several plot points from Star Wars, RG takes several characters from Star Wars. The main characters even sound rather similar for a while.

But I digress. They are actually very different games, and although comparison would be fun, it wouldn’t do as an unbiased review.

In Rogue Galaxy, you follow the story of Jaster, a young native of the desert planet Rosa who wants to explore space. Through a few coincidences, he is mistaken for a famous mercenary and hired to work for a group of space pirates, led by the notorious Dorgengoa. →  Finger lickin’ read.

Review – Sonic and the Secret Rings

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Here is perhaps my most controversial review ever. Not because of what I have to say about Sonic and the Secret Rings, but because of the context in which I say it. I was unable to finish Sonic, not because of time constraints (it was a rental), but because I gave up on an increasingly frustrating game and control scheme. I have much to talk about, but the question is whether it means anything at all.

Secret Rings attempts to redo Sonic in 3d by limiting your movement capabilities in order to emulate, ironically, the 2d Sonics of yore. Sonic always moves forward (he can move backwards, but its only meant for backing up a few paces to retry something). All you have to do is jump and steer left and right. →  It might come in handy if you, the master of reading, take it with you.

Review – Hotel Dusk

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Before I jump into this review, I would like to offer some insights into my reviewing habits. When I play games to review them, I try to see if the development team was successful in whatever they were trying to do with the game. For example: have they made an exciting action/adventure game or a plausible horror game? I basically become a high school English teacher and grade a student’s essay. Did they prove their point with supporting examples? It does not matter if I disagree with what they are saying. Unless they screw up with their grammar or examples, can I blatantly say they are wrong?

Why am I telling you this, you ask? I’m just trying to give you a little background info on how I’m going to review Hotel Dusk: Room 215, for the DS. →  Ys: The Article of Napishtim

Review – Contact

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A game is like a meal. An excellent one both pleases your palette and assuages your hunger. Resident Evil 4 was a full plate of filet mignon. Extremely filling, but not excessive, and delectable (this is getting creepy). A Nippon Ichi game is more like three plates of macaroni and cheese. Decent, but if you eat it all you’ll feel sick. And then there are games that are so bad you look forward to them ending. Eating less vomit or dog shit is preferable.

Enough of something decent can make an average game more satisfying than it should be. Dragon Quest Rocket Slime is by no means gourmet, but there is enough of it to really fill the player. The play mechanics aren’t spectacular, but the game is long enough to both build and expand on them. →  We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we play.

Review – Sam & Max Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die

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Something tells me I will be in the minority with this one, but Sam and Max Episode 4 is perhaps the weakest entry yet (or close behind the first one). This seems odd at first, because this time Telltale worked on many of the issues that fans (and reviewers like myself) brought up with the last few episodes, namely length and difficulty. I appreciate and respect this, however their solutions to the problems do more harm than good, while the formerly sound humor of past episodes gets less attention and falls flat. I started playing these episodes with excitement and praise. Now I’m starting to get genuinely worried.

The previous three episodes were indeed easy to complete and on the short side time wise. →  This better not be as bad as everything else here.