Reviews

Review – Black Sigil

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Black Sigil screamed promise. After being impressed and occasionally a bit burned with indie games, a DS game by a small but dedicated team of RPG fans sounded really good. Graphically inspired by Chrono Trigger, its visuals are both nostalgic and fresh on a system that needs more sprite-based games. Even after the release date was pushed back… and back… and back, I still was somewhat excited upon its release.

I maintained this excitement through the first area. The first section is mostly story, but your initial quest is to walk to an area on the world map. “You walk a little slowly”, I thought, “but that’s okay – surely they’ll eventually give me a boat, hovercraft, flying castle, etc.” And then the random encounters started. And continued. I had at least ten encounters on the way, and each one played out exactly the same way. →  Read the rest

Review – Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament

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The Steambot Chronicles series can’t catch a break. The PS2 original, while rough around the edges, garnered a solid cult following. Eventually, developer Irem teased its fans with footage of a PS3 sequel, and then…nothing. It still looks to be in development, but it is anyone’s guess as to when, or if, we will actually get it. In the meantime, Majesco brought over a Steambot themed puzzle game, only to give it box art that would scare anyone away.

Now comes the Atlus localization of Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament, a side story sequel on the PSP. Battle Tournament was largely ignored in Atlus’ email newsletter, one of the best sources of hype and information on their products, and the information that was given was fairly basic. Even worse, the name itself has caused confusion among potential buyers. →  Read the rest

Review – Gears of War 2

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Gears of War 2 takes place in a grim future where humanity is at war against an unstoppable force of monsters called the Locust. The endless fighting has torn down cities, painted the Earth’s surface a consistent shade of gray and brown, nearly killed off the human race, and made the survivors intolerable douchebags. If the people in Gears of War 2 are the ones who are going to save Earth and restore society, then it honestly might be better if the Locust just win. The game’s writers were apparently content with cookie-cutter characters who are easier to laugh at than sympathize with, at least until a few hours in when their simple personalities simply become annoying. And like too many games of this type, the bad guys are way cooler than than the good guys anyway. →  Read the rest

Review – Rune Factory Frontier

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Farmer’s Diary, Day 1
I have no knowledge of my past. I found myself in a town I had never heard of with only a half-dozen denizens. They told me I could have the farm. How kind of them to take me in for a while.

Now I just need to get some seeds, plow some spaces of earth, and water ’em. No sweat!

Farmer’s Diary, Day 2
Some giant stone whale-shaped island in the sky is blocking the sun. My crops demanded retribution, so I shouldered my hoe and readied my hammer. Climbing a convenient beanstalk, I reached the whale and it spoke to me! It told me to explore it and find out why it’s slowly dying. What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t know the first thing about whales. →  Read the rest

Review – Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

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Poor Klonoa. The plucky little dog/cat thing has appeared in two well regarded platformers and five spinoffs (two of them well regarded GBA platformers). Yet he has always dwelled in relative obscurity. With the release of the Wii remake of the original Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, nothing much has changed. Klonoa is still unable to light up the charts (and with a cover that looks like a budget release, I can understand why), and he is still able to make a damn fine platformer. Short, sweet, thoroughly gorgeous, they don’t make them like this anymore.

I say that because this is a very strict remake, helmed by many of the original team members. They decided to keep the core game intact, including the levels, story, and even the jibberish Phantomilian language. →  Read the rest

Review – Dark Souls

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Indie games aren’t always incredible. I’ve had great experiences with Mount & Blade, The Spirit Engine 2, and World of Goo. After these outstanding games, my expectations were high coming into Warfare Studios’ Dark Souls, which is a classic-style RPG with a darker-than-usual plot… perhaps a bit too high.

The first thing that should have lowered the bar was the fact that it was clearly made in some flavor of RPGMaker. RPGMaker games have been around for years – every time I have tried one, I stopped playing in less than an hour due to difficulty and/or incredibly bad production/script quality. Everyone wants to make the next Final Fantasy VI, but nobody has the passion and ability to create good artwork, compose fitting music, and write a polished script. Teams larger than two or three tend to dissolve due to a lack of sustained interest or go nowhere, and the end result is that the games that are released just don’t seem that great. →  Read the rest

Review – The Sims 3

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The Sims 3 was released to the masses today (note: it is no longer today) and being the good little Sims whore that I am, I went to my local pixel merchant and picked up my copy. I am slightly surprised with myself because I have played through both sequels and every lame Stuff and Expansion pack they have crammed down my eager gullet, yet here I am, all hot and bothered to play the third iteration of this game. Having not played the game a great deal since I picked it up a few hours ago, I can’t say this article is a complete review of The Sims 3, more so a summary of my initial impressions of the game.

Slow install times for computer games are the bane of my existence. →  Read the rest

Review: UFC 2009 Undisputed

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For the past few days at my house there has been a severe outbreak of Black-on-Black crime. I am not proud of this. I worry about my future, about everyone’s future. It is already getting worse. The violence once contained to just certain groups is already spreading. Asian-on-Black. White-on-Hispanic. Brazilian-on-Canadian. It is a rainbow of sadistic beatings spanning all ages and continents. The fights do not stop. The battles grow with each passing day.

I am more than a little ashamed to admit that my descent into an anarchic world of ultraviolence has brought me so much joy. All of these things, you see, are not happening in my head this time. Instead, they are happening on my television screen. They are happening inside of a game. A game clumsily titled UFC 2009 Undisputed. →  Read the rest

Review – Earth Defense Force 2017

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Japanese firm Sandalot’s third person shooter, published in the West by D3 in 2007, Earth Defense Force 2017 is a 50s style sci-fi, seen through an 80s lens, set in 2017.

When they came to Earth in 2017 with their flying saucers and their spherical mother ship, we were not sure what to expect. We hoped they would be peaceful and friendly. We named them the Ravagers and then… hold on, hold on – we named them Ravagers before they attacked? Yes, yes we did. It’s almost like we were spoiling for a fight.

So the saucers dropped giant ants and spiders on our cities and the battle began in earnest. The Earth Defense Force is tasked with taking on the most ridiculous and inexplicable hordes of invaders imaginable. Along with the giant insects and the saucers and the mothership, there are small aerial fighters, a giant mechanical dinosaur and large robotic walkers. →  Read the rest

Review – Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – The Director’s Cut

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The Knights Templar were an order of Christian soldiers from western Europe who gathered substantial influence and wealth during the Crusades. Many were tortured and/or executed in France in the early 14th century, primarily because King Philip of France owed them money and felt it was more expedient to kill them and disband the order than it was to pay. Of course, he did this under the pretense that they were not in fact true Catholics but rather practitioners of any number of bizarre rituals. As a result of these probably false accusations, their previous military prowess and influence, and the massive fortune they acquired through donations and the early bank-like system they developed, the story of the Knights took on mythic proportions.
Just like in real life.

Unfortunately, they are also an overused trope in movies and pop literature, either as grand puppeteers that actually rule the world from behind the scenes, or as the source of some treasure beyond all of our wildest dreams. →  Read the rest

Review – Patapon

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I bought Patapon at launch, played for a week straight, and got to the third boss, a giant sandworm. After countless failed attempts, I put the game away for over a year, until Patapon 2 was released in 2009. Naturally, I could have just skipped to the sequel, especially considering the attractiveness of its new difficulty settings, until I learned that you can import some materials from the original. I finally learned just how to “play” Patapon, and suffice to say that the game is not only original, but highly deceptive.

If you are to succeed at this game, and by succeed I mean “win at all costs” rather than “handily”, you will need the following:

– A sense of rhythm that doesn’t falter under pressure. This is necessary not only to execute any commands, but also to keep your troops in Fever mode, in which their effectiveness increases dramatically. →  Read the rest

Review – Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland

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Tingle is a range of stylized sexual enhancements from Durex, defined by creating a tingling sensation during coitus. The tingling sensation is derived from mint extract. It comes in two distinct forms: condoms and an water-based lube. The sexual enhancer lube has received some criticism as the tingling sensation has received negative reviews when used internally.

You see what I did there? I made a joke. You see, I am reviewing a DS game called “Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland” which of course features the unwelcome addition to the Zelda series, Tingle. But, and this is the crux of the joke, Durex (www.durex.com) also have a brand called “Tingle”. Oh, the hilarity.

Right, so, this “game” starts with Tingle’s journey to becoming Tingle, and his quest to get into “Rupeeland” where, and get this, women will touch him. →  Read the rest

Review – Rise of the Argonauts

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I’m not really sure what I think of Rise of the Argonauts. On one hand, the game suffers from some poor design choices that can really slow the pace to an insufferable crawl and frustrate the player immensely … so I wouldn’t recommend it. On the other hand, the exciting combat sequences, engrossing story, fine voice acting and art direction made the game quite enjoyable … so I’d totally recommend it.

On another hand, the developer calls this game an RPG, which it totally isn’t. Yeah, you can choose new abilities and change your outfits, but both aspects are so limited that you can’t really call it a full-blown RPG … so we’re back to not recommending it again (for RPG players). And on the final hand, that limiting of options actually works in the game’s favor, because coupling intricate inventory management with sometimes slow story progression would kill this thing outright … so is that a plus? →  Read the rest

Review – Killzone 2

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When I was first thinking about how to approach my review of Killzone 2’s campaign, I thought I could write up a sizable spreadsheet detailing all the cliches and tropes stolen from other games and films. Thankfully, I realized the errors of such an idea. The problem with the game wasn’t that it was using cliches and silly names. Plenty of other shooters do the same and are forgiven. No, the problem was that Killzone 2 was breaking one of my primary sins of game design – it made me feel like I was wasting my time. I began thinking not of the action at hand, but what else I could be doing during my time after work. I soldiered on simply for the purpose of review, which in turn led to my putting a magnifying glass on every little piece of creative laziness, even if it technically got the job done. →  Read the rest

Review – Avalon Code

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Video games have made me weep for a variety reasons. Terrible voiceovers, crappy graphics, mind numbing gameplay, irritating music – if it is horrible I’ve probably suffered through it. But I’ve never experienced anything like Avalon Code before. Not for any of the above reasons – to the contrary, Avalon Code has superb presentation, surprisingly good voice acting (on a DS game, no less!), and an intriguing plot with an excellent premise. What makes me weep is that Avalon Code is a game that is so close to being one of the greatest action RPGs I’ve ever played, but falls short for the dumbest of reasons that indicate – yet again – a developer did a piss poor job of seeing if their game was actually fun to play.

The game begins with your happy go lucky hero (or heroine, you pick, just remember Jesus hates gender benders) being informed that the world is going to end in a horrific cataclysm in the rather near future. →  Read the rest

Review – Baroque

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Baroque has been wronged. There is no other way to put it.

I held off on getting this game until fairly recently, when I saw it for sale at $20. I wasn’t willing to buy it at $50 because I had heard all about how terrible the game was; crippling difficulty, a complete lack of story, no carjackings or Nazis, and so on.

A few months ago, RPGamer ranked it as the best Wii RPG of 2008. Granted, I don’t always agree with RPGamer – but then, I like Opoona, so my tastes are already pretty weird. Plus, look at the competition. Tales of Symphonia 2, Opoona, maybe a couple others. None would rank best RPG of the whatever on any other system. But my interest was piqued enough to consider Baroque. →  Read the rest

The King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match

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By the end of 2008, the situation concerning Western localizations of SNK games was at its grimmest. No one could tell what was happening with the US Branch. Did they actually have any power? If they did, why did they choose not to use it? Why were their games being released over a year after their announcements? What financial/business decisions forced them to use different developers for each port, leading to localizations of incredibly mixed (and now universally poor) quality? Why hasn’t their website been updated since last summer, and why are their forums dead?

At this point I have only a guess, based on the nature of their current lineup – after the remnants of old announcements are wrapped up and shipped out, SNK US may only exist for branding and licensing purposes, while all development, localization, and PR for future products is handled by Ignition Entertainment. →  Read the rest

Review – Uncharted Waters: New Horizons

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Ahh, the Virtual Console. A wonderful vault of games long forgotten, chock full of titles from a simpler time. We didn’t have to manage inventory, talk to the right townspeople to progress, perform stupid fetch quests or deal with purposefully vague objectives. Back in those days, men were real men, women were real women, and games were all about jumping from platform to platform. Or so you might believe.

A few Mondays ago, the only Virtual Console release (a thought that saddens me; even three would be too few) was one Uncharted Waters: New Horizons. This led to mass disappointment, as everyone was hoping we’d get some stupid Zelda game (please don’t kill me) that everyone has already played before. On the other hand, I was ecstatic because I got a menu-filled, exploration-heavy Age of Exploration sim with multiple interweaving plot lines and tons of freedom. →  Read the rest

Review – Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

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As much as I like the Grand Theft Auto series, I’ve always been more of an “owner” than a “fan.” I own the three PS2 installments and played only Vice City to any extensive degree. In GTA 3, I used the cheat code to spawn tanks over and over again outside of my hideout, blew them up, and discovered that they remained there after having saved a game, and the only way I could get rid of them all would have been to painstakingly push them all into the river with another tank, or to start a new game and lose all of my (admittedly meager) progress. In San Andreas, I exercised over and over again, became extremely muscular, then encountered a difficult early mission and lost interest in the game. →  Read the rest

Review – Stormrise

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Imagine you are fighting in a war. You are within a small group of soldiers but you control all of the soldiers on the battlefield. It is time to issue commands.

“Corporal Dunnan, do you see the soldiers over there?” you ask.

“The Infiltrators, behind the-” Dunnan starts.

“No, no, no. Not those infiltrators, the ones over there,” you point. Pointing is actually the only way you can issue commands, because your army is not very sophisticated, which is surprising since you are operating within a fancy mechanical robot body-thing.

“Oh,” Dunnan says, “the ones by the refinery.”

“Not in front of the refinery-”

“Oh kinda to the side of it,” he says.

“Yes, yes,” you reply, “Tell them to go over there,” you say, pointing.

“Okay,” Dunnan starts, “Unit 392, proceed to the balcony of the second floor-”

“No, no, no!” →  Read the rest