Reviews

Review – Devil May Cry

by

Now that I look back, a lot of action games from the N64/Playstation era were trash. Most involved rudimentary combos, bad controls, and unnecessary platforming elements. They weren’t good at taking advantage of 3d, and looked ugly as sin to boot. You were better off finding a copy of Final Fight or Contra if you wanted a polished action experience.

Even today, it isn’t hard to see why those classic 2d action games were, and still are, so damn good. They realized the importance of simple, precise control that gave the player all the tools they needed to succeed against the onslaught of enemies. Victory required the player to keep a cool head among the chaos, and to find enemies’ weaknesses by recognizing patterns. Easy to learn, difficult to master, the satisfaction of completing a good action game was often unrivaled.

Dante judges those who violate his fashion code.

Action games have improved greatly this generation, and much of this is thanks to Devil May Cry. →  Rayman Reading Rabbids

Review – Kingdom Hearts

by

I’m not sure why Jay asked me to review Kingdom Hearts. The game is fairly old by now, and just about everyone who wanted to play it already has. Then there’s the fact that the sequel has been out for months. Looks like I’m a little late to the party, but I still intend to crash it.

Kingdom Hearts is a perfectly mediocre game. At its best it was a lighthearted diversion, one that I could play while enjoying my then-girlfriend’s company while not having to think too hard about it. At its worst it was a mess of poorly implemented design choices based on typical Square drudgery and messy, stolen scraps from the Book of Miyamoto. If I had any care for in game stories, I probably wouldn’t have finished, as the game takes Disney characters and plots and compresses them into dull, mediocre shells of their former selves that are more offensive than enjoyable. The whole thing is just a cold, sterile little action RPG that aspires to be something huge, but will have to be content with being merely playable. →  Hot Shots Post 3

Pages: 1 2

Review – Street Fighter Alpha Anthology

by

Yeah, the menus are that simple.

The last few years have been tough for Street Fighter fans. As 2d gaming continues to wane, Capcom is far too wary to release anything new, for fear that even something as big as Street Fighter 4 would not sell enough to warrant the cost of development. Instead, they’ve decided to take the conservative route with their 2d offerings, either by cobbling together something quick and dirty like Capcom Fighting Jam, or by releasing compilations of their older stuff. Many people frown at the concept, since Capcom rarely give fans what they want (even though they’re the target audience) and because the games exist solely for the company to milk its prize franchises as much as possible

Of course this is all true, but I don’t really mind the idea of compilations. After all, it gives guys like me a chance to collect and experience these classic games without dishing out a hefty sum for an older console and/or rare copy. →  Go ahead, read my day.

Pages: 1 2

Review – Killer 7

by

There was once a silly, fluffy intro here, until I realized it wasn’t necessary for Killer 7. No matter what pages of forum analyses may claim, this is a simple game, both gameplay wise and story wise. Yes it is weird as hell and artsy in structure. And no, I don’t claim to “get” everything about it, but if you ask me there are a lot of people out there that don’t understand what this game is all about. Here’s a hint; all you need to do is stop thinking so damn much.

First things first; Killer 7 is not an action game. It is not a rail shooter. And most importantly, it is not survival horror. I’ve heard all of these names applied, and none of them make sense. Why is it action? Because you shoot things? That can describe a lot of games. Why is it a rail shooter? Because the game makes you move on a railed path through each level? →  Welcome to read zone!

Pages: 1 2

Review – La Pucelle: Tactics

by

When hippos attack.

There was a period around two years ago when it was impossible to not read about Disgaea. Every forum, most sites, and many magazines were praising it as the strategy RPG you’d never heard of that you need to own. For reasons unknown, I never took the worlds advice. I have La Pucelle in my collection but not the reportedly amazing Disgaea. The company behind Disgaea, Nippon Ichi, made La Pucelle first but it was only brought to the West after Disgaea’s success.

And how. Mastiff has done a wonderful job translating the game and most of the voice acting is excellent. Although there is an awful lot of meowing in the game I could’ve done without. These guys should localize more RPGs, but tone down their animal impressions.

The battle system in La Pucelle is pretty vanilla. You control half a dozen or so units, move them around on a grid and thwart evil. In an obvious though interesting twist, your characters can support each other. →  In all ages, hypocrites, called producers, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called publishers.

Pages: 1 2

Was the DS Lite worth the wait?

by

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. Would you like to pre-order it?”
“No, that’s ok.”
“Do you have any used games to trade in?”

So I had no luck before the official launch date, but this past Sunday I walked into Target at 10, assuming that’s when they opened (I was wrong, it was 9), and bought a DS Lite. →  Read it your way.

Review – Capcom Fighting Evolution

by

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. This is why the rosters are sometimes filled with non fighting game characters (ie Marvel vs Capcom 2’s Megaman fighters), or why the Street Fighter characters always seem to be based on their Alpha 3 versions. →  You had me at read more.

Pages: 1 2

Review – Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

by

“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. Like in Symphony of the Night and the games that followed, you collect weapons and equipment through your travels, and an inordinate number of mushrooms. →  It’s time to read and chew bubblegum… and I’m all outta gum.

Flash game review bonanza 3

by

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. And now, on with the show.

Insaniquarium:

An alien invades a once peaceful aquarium… or is that my ex-girlfriend?

 →  All happy games are alike; each unhappy game is unhappy in its own way.
Pages: 1 2

Review – BloodRayne 2

by

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. The first game in the series wasn’t stellar by any means, but a game about a Nazi-killing vampiress is hard to screw up. Unless of course you remove the Nazis and move the story to present day, replacing them with cyberpunks that would make the Wachowski’s jealous. →  Virtua Poster 4: Evolution

Pages: 1 2