GigaPepsiMan's Gaming Blog

New blog

2011-03-01T04:02:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to my brand new blog.
http://gigapepsiman-everything.blogspot.com/

I may still suppose my current one with the odd new post but this is my main.

Daytona USA SEGA Saturn

2011-03-01T04:00:00.001-08:00

Daytona USA was a launch title for the SEGA Saturn and conversion of the 1993 arcade hit of the same name, with the new Saturn hardware came promises of arcade perfection and exciting gameplay, sadly that wasn't the case. SEGA in their infinite wisdom decided that it would be a good idea to claim that this was an arcade perfect conversion and I quote:
“Brought to you by the top game coders AM2, this pixel-perfect conversion of the smash-hit coin-op contains all the bumper-to-bumper action found in the stunning arcade original.”

The game does resemble the coin-op very well but in no way is it an arcade perfect conversion, no chance. From that shot alone we can tell that the graphics have been down-graded due to the fact that the Saturn was not made for 3D.
The SEGA Saturn was a 2D power house it wasn't made to be used for full 3D graphics like the Playstation and N64 were. I could understand if SEGA had done this with say Afterburner II on the Mega drive because at first glance the conversion would seem quite accurate but with the Saturn it is just too obvious that the conversion is not arcade perfect.

To add to the Saturn's 3D woes the game suffers from a lowered frame rate, the game is still fast but a lowered frame rate isn't going to do the game any favours especially when there is a lot going on. What is worse though is the games awful, awful pop-up, playing this I can understand why most developers felt the need to use fog for distancing, it is so bad that you can look in front of you and see nothing, while pop-up isn't normally a problem it can lead to you driving into corners with the expert course is the most noticeable offender.

To the games credit it does really try to keep the feel of the original game and does so with some success, the gameplay has held up fairly well in the conversion the vehicles have a similar handling to the ones in the arcade game and they still get horribly smashed when you crash.
The gameplay aspect was where the most effort was put in with this port and it shows. Sometimes though the Saturn controllers just don't cut it, you really need something with tighter steering, this is why getting a steering wheel is important if you want to get full enjoyment out of this game, the wheel gives you much, much better control over your car and makes it easier to drift and turn without crashing.

At its core Daytona USA is an arcade racer that continues to the tradition of Outrun and Virtua Racing that sees you racing to check points within a strict time limit, if the timer runs out it is game over. The Saturn adds the new Saturn mode to the game to try and add more variety but all it does is give you the choice on an extra car, tweaked gameplay and no time limit so unless you are doing a practise run on the circuits you'll probably just stick to the arcade mode.

I think the biggest crime made by the developers was the decision to completely drop any multiplayer which is a very baffling decision considering that the multiplayer was one of the big pulls for the arcade version. You see back in 1993 Ridge Racer and Daytona USA were the two big racers in the arcade and each changed the racing genre in their own ways, Daytona went for full arcade style gameplay with fast cars and mutliplayer for up to 8 people, Ridge Racer on the other hand went for slightly more realistic gameplay, vehicle selection and a bigger emphasis on solo play offering no multiplayer at all. The result was that Ridge racer ended up feeling very alive with it's big city while Daytona felt somewhat soulless with it's faceless racing circuits.
With that in mind multiplayer was the big thing that Daytona had going for it, take that away and the experience ends up feeling a bit empty.

The original soundtrack has been re-recorded for the conversion, people have debated over which version has the better tunes, I prefer the arcade soundtrack but the two are pretty much identical.

In all despite a big list of set backs Daytona is still a very enjoyable and faithful conversion of the arcade game as long as you don't mind playing it alone, it doesn't hold a candle to the arcade version but considering what the Saturn was capable of it was a good effort, especially for a launch title.

Farewell GigaPepsiMan's Gaming Blog 2009-2011

2011-03-01T03:26:00.000-08:00

After over a year of hardly any activity I am saying farewell to this blog, I'm not shutting it down so anyone who wants to read it can but I am starting a new blog with a new direction.
I'll link the blog later.

Mini Review: The Battles of 3-D World Runner

2011-03-01T03:25:00.002-08:00

At first glance The 3-D Battles of World Runner is a rip off of SEGA's Space Harrier that is because it is.
This wouldn't be the first time that Square made a game that bared a close resemblance to one of SEGA's arcade titles, they also made Rad Racer which bared a resemblance to Out Run.
3-D World Runner does contain some original ideas, most of the game is spent running past and dodging obstacles that get in your way, these can range from blob monsters to fires to bottomless pits.
After several minutes of running and jumping you get to the boss battle and at that point the game turns into a complete rip off of Space Harrier for starters the bosses look like the Dragons from Space Harrier and when fighting the boss 3-D Runner hovers in the air shooting fireballs at the boss until it is dead.
The game follows this cycle so it can feel repetitive after a while. 3-D World Runner looks easy but don't be fooled it is harder than it looks the game relies on reaction and timing.
Like Rad Racer the game features a 3-D mode that can be turned on and off by pressing the select button sadly it is the old type of 3-D that doesn't really work, with or without the glasses it is a bit of a mess.
The game is very pretty with colourful worlds and a cheery soundtrack. It has imagery similar to that of SEGA's Fantasy Zone with use of lots of light colours such as pink, green and sky blue.
In all The 3-D Battles of World Runner has enough originality to make it worth while, the game is fast paced and is not for the slow of hand.

Sonic Colurs Nintendo Wii Review

2011-03-01T03:25:00.001-08:00

Sonic Colours Nintendo Wii Version

We are less than a year away from Sonic the Hedgehog's 20th anniversary and to honour this milestone Sonic Team need to pull out all the stocks so that we don't get another disaster like Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Sonic has been on a very bumpy road for the last ten years and has become one of the laughing stocks of gaming. If there was ever a good time to make a comeback it would be now.

Sonic Colours is everything that Sonic Unleashed should have been, those horrible beat'em up stages, gone. What we are left with is fast paced gameplay and some brilliant set pieces. Sonic himself controls much like he did in Unleashed only this time he is better rounded meaning that he is easier to control in both the high speed areas and careful platforming areas.
The game is taking ideas from the classic Sonic formula with the most important being that you must slow down every now and then, by doing this the high speed that fans crave feels much more rewarding. Once again the game sees Sonic constantly switching between a 2D and 3D plane to keep the game play fresh and please both newer players and Sonic purists.
In the last ten years Sonic has been let down by multiple gameplay gimmicks that have more bad than good, once again Sonic Team have tried a new gameplay gimmick in an attempt to keep things fresh and to their credit they finally got it right. The unique gameplay element to Sonic Colours are the multicoloured aliens called Wisps who are just basically optional power ups. Yes for once we are not having a gimmick forced on us as if to say “ooh look at what Sonic can do now”, if I must be honest the wisps make the game feel very “Super Mario”.
It seems sonic is taking a few ideas of Mario with the newest being the ability to swim, yes this is never explained but Sonic has all of a sudden learned how to swim, it must because of the Olympic games. This change has both a positive and negative effect. On the upside water doesn't instantly kill Sonic more, on the downside being underwater isn't tense or scary any more and you hardly worry about drowning.
If there was one thing that could single handedly ruin any Sonic game it was instant death pits that came out of nowhere, it used to be that you could tell the quality of a stages design by the number of death pits that would kill you without warning. The frustration caused by those pits is similar to the frustration you feel when you slip on ice only to stand up and slip again. Thankfully the stage design is much better this time around with death pits only appearing in a few stages rather than all of them, the pits are better placed too meaning that you can see them before they can kill you. These changes only help the game to feel more fair which is good because past titles could be frustrating to the point where the player would quit.
While the game does improve on a lot of short comings it does still suffer from shoddy combat and the odd frustrating moments in later stages. The boss battles are well thought out but they lose impact when you realise that you have to fight them twice.
The game is reasonably paced for a Sonic game and while 5 hours may seem short the game does offer several hours of replay value with challenge modes and unlockable stages.

8/10

Prince of Persia Sands of Tme Nintendo GameCube Review

2011-03-01T03:23:00.000-08:00

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

With the Prince of Persia franchise you are always sure of two things, “realistic” platforming and instant Death Traps.

The realistic platforming really needed working on because before The Sands of Time the best realistic platforming going was in the Tomb Raider games and look how they turned out. That old style of platforming was outdated and it nearly killed the Tomb Raider franchise so Ubisoft had to start from scratch. What we got in the end was gameplay that would look right at home in a Wachoski Brothers Matrix flick, the Prince has gone from being slow, clunky to fast, fluid and slick. Oddly enough this style of platforming was so effective that Tomb Raider went and copied it. Since this change the series has followed the formula of run, jump and climb. In all the Prince controls like a dream, the gameplay in this area has been balanced to the point where it feels almost completely fair.
The death traps were always going to be the cause of frustration, players needed an alternative to restarting the level constantly, because of this “The Sands” were introduced to the gameplay giving you the ability to rewind time and fix mistakes such as taking a nasty fall and dying. This mechanic is brilliant because it lets the game keep the risk and reward gameplay while getting rid of the frustration. It also adds some humour to the game allowing you to drop 60 feet and then watch in amusement as you jump straight back up. If you don't like the Prince then you can just drop him in a spike pit over and over again.
The thing I dislike about the likes of Mirrors Edge is how you get a game over whenever you die. This breaks the flow of the game, get rid of that flow and the enjoyment factor just plummets. When you consider that the game is about fast paced, well thought out platforming the last thing you want is for it to be a chore.
The only aspect of the gameplay that can be criticised is the combat which in comparison to the rest of the game feels slow and cumbersome, it is another case of hit the enemy when they are not attacking and block when they are, you can jump over enemies and use a variety of attacks but most of the foes are unaffected by these special moves so you are left having to use the hit and run method which is just dull.

Not to give the game too much credit it does have a few annoying moments with the best examples being a door puzzle that is really nothing more than a guessing game and the fact that the bosses are total pushovers.

9/10

Fahrenheit Xbox Review

2010-05-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

In the last two decades there has been a noticeable trend in video games, one that most people would have noticed. Video games are starting to grow up, and I don't mean like Manhunts gore or Call of Duty's realism, I am talking about something that is trying to find its place in the world and become its own thing. I have a belief that video games are currently going through a trend that other forms of mediums have gone through before.
I will start at the beginning, when plays were invented the idea was to just act out a piece of writing and in all fairness it is still just that. Then film came along which tried to be the same thing, but soon people started to realise that film wasn't going to catch on if it tried to be something else but thanks to many innovative minds film has become one of the world biggest mediums and it still entertains millions of people to this day.
But what about gaming? Well in the last 20 years video games have started to become inspired by the idea of interactive media, games are not games anymore they are interactive entertainment where you can live out things that you could not in real life which is why it has become the fastest growing medium on the planet today. But even with that in mind it is only like this because games have set to become the next film, I suppose an interactive movie would be the idea in many modern cases, but that is not to say that all games are like that. There are different types of games, most noticeably those that try to be like movies by using a mixture of action and story but those are often let down by the fact that the story is very flawed and when you tear it down to the bear bones it's just a game.
Then you have games that are interactive movies, most noticeably in the adventure genre. Back in the early days there were what we would call a text adventure, a game that was entirely text and nothing else, no images, scenery or anything like that, I would go as far as to call them the first true interactive book. Modern adventures are like that but in movie form, most noticeably games like Fahrenheit.
Created by Quantic Dream, Fahrenheit is a paranormal thriller that grips you in the same way as a film with its well written plot, characters and story.
The game is set in New York, January 2009 and begins with a scene showing Lucas Kane (the games protagonist), in a possessed trance stabbing a man to death in the restroom of a diner. After the murder Lucas wakes from his trance to find the horrible thing he has done and flees from the scene. He did not know the man he killed and he had no idea why he killed him, all he does know is that it wasn't his fault. Now a wanted man Lucas must clear his name or face a life of imprisonment.
Lucas isn't the only character you control, throughout the game you get to control all of the games main characters most noticeably the games other two heroes detectives Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles who have been assigned to find and arrest Kane.
Because of the multiple characters the game has a story that can branch depending on what you do, the actions of one character directly effects another character. An example of this is if you instantly flee from the diner at the start of the game after you commit the murder you will make it easy for the police who will find all clues with ease, but if you try and cover up your actions and hide the evidence then you could end up with the police missing a few clues. Either way your actions will change the games story in some way. That is not to say the game game will not lose the plot, not matter what your actions are the game will stay within the plot.
The story is not the only thing that is affected by your actions, the game also has a physiological theme to it. The main characters all have a mental health meter that ranges from full ("Neutral") to empty ("Wrecked") and is there to show you the condition of the characters mental health. Many of the games events (such as Lucas seeing the body of his victim) subtract points from the mental health meter (until it goes down from neutral to stressed, tense and so on) but everyday actions such as sleep, food, drink and using the toilet will add points to it, same is said for events where the character makes a discovery or action that helps them in some way (the best example of this is a moral choice early in the game where Lucas can either rescue a drowning child and risk being caught by the police or he can simply walk away from it all and pretend that nothing had happened). An empty sanity meter will end the game depending on the character, Carla and Tyler will hand in their badges and quit the force while Lucas will either turn himself in or commit suicide.
The characters themselves are all very well developed and three dimensional, they all have a personality, back story and morals. The characters are not perfect and they all have problems, before the murder Lucas was dealing with a split between him and his girlfriend, Tyler is nagged about which is more important to him his job or his lover Sam, and Carla is claustrophobic.
The gameplay mechanics are not very solid, the games controls can be confusing because of the camera, it is one of those games where your direction might change with the camera angle, not that it is a problem it doesn't ruin what is a story driven experience.
At the start of the game you are told by the games director David Cage that Fahrenheit is a "interactive film" which is what the developer Quantic Dream had intended for it to be. To demonstrate this point the game contains action scenes where you do not directly control the characters of the game, instead you are made to preform quick time events (or QTEs), when this happens the game becomes reminiscent of the old electronic toy Simon where four lights would flash and you had to press them in that order, get it right and you will continue, get it wrong and you could get a game over. Many people hate QTEs because they break up the gameplay but I don't mind them because they let you do things that would normally be impossible in the game. Another type of QTE featured in the game is where the player had to rapidly hit the shoulder buttons, this is suppose to tire the player and is normally featured in scenes that involve actions like running. The idea is that the player is immense in the game.
Graphically the game isn't bad but it could be better for a game that was released in 2005. The games sound track is really impressive and it comes in two types, you have the background music, this normally happens during events to help to create a sense of suspense or urgency, the other type of music is the music you can play in the game, for example when at home the character you are playing as can turn their stereo and listen to some music this music is good too because it gives you an insight into the characters tastes in music, their likes and dislikes.
In all it may not be perfect but Fahrenheit is one of the best examples of an interactive movie out there, the only thing that is more movie than it are interactive Full Motion Video games like Wing Commander (a sci-fi game that sees you take control of a character who is played by Mark Hammil), besides that there isn't much out there like it.
If you are a fan of adventure games or thrillers buy this game, if you want more buy its sequel Heavy Rain.

Space Channel 5 Dreamcast Review

2010-05-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

In the last few years music games have seen a big rise in popularity thanks to the likes of Dancing Stage, Singstar, Guitar hero and Rock Band. While the genre has reached its peak in terms of popularity it would be wrong to forget the games that built up one of the biggest money makers in gaming today.
Released for SEGA's Dreamcast in 2000, Space channel 5 can best be described as the video game equivalent of 1970's memory game Simon were you had to remember a sequence and repeat it after it finished, it is a "listen and repeat" game that has you listen to actions and copy them with the correct timing.
The game is set at the end of the 25th century, a race of alines known as Morolians have suddenly invaded earth, taken its people hostage and are forcing them to daaaaance. Space Channel 5 reporter Ulala is sent in to shoot aliens, rescue hostages and find out why they invaded in the first place.
Space channel 5 is unique to say the least, the game has a futuristic theme but it also has this dated feel to it, the game is a bit Austin Powers to say the least. Not to say that is a bad thing I love the idea of getting into the grove with Ulala in what may be one of the most charming games I have ever played.
The music is the games most important aspect and I have to say it is that it is phenomenal, the music is just really strong and it gets you in the perfect mood for the game with its Jazz and Bass.
For what the gameplay is it's pretty flawless. It is like Simon, the sounds play in a order and you repeat them, only here you have 6 buttons instead of 4. The sync between the gameplay and music is spot on. The game itself is memorable thanks to that charm alone it has this campness to it that you just can't help but like, at the same time it is also what keeps you going. Space Channel 5 is a game that requires your full attention, mistakes are very costly in this game, if you mess up the routine you will lose a life and will have no way to recover from that mistake until the next commands are made. The games goal is to try and get to the end of the stage with a high view rating, Ulala's report show will be taken of air if it does not meet expected view ratings. Your rating is affected by how well you are doing, do well and people become interested in your TV show, do badly and you will be taken off air (you will also be taken off air if you lose all of your lives in a boss fight). The music is like this to, do well and the music stays upbeat and in tune, do badly and the music goes completely out of tune and Ulala just limps off to the next section.
Each stage has an order of events, most of the stage will see you fighting off aliens and saving earthlings, near the end of the stage you will be faced with a sub-boss where you have a dance off, at the end of each stage you fight the boss by dancing and shooting. Throughout the game you will also save hostages, depending on who you save they will either just follow and mimic Ulala or preform a special action, a good example of this is late in the game when you save Space Michael Jackson (yeah, I forgot to mention Michael Jackson worked on this game with sega) and everyone starts copying his actions. Some of the rescued hostages change the music, for example if you rescue a guitarist the music then has an electric guitar to go with its mix or jazz and bass, even though these things are temporary you sure do appreciate it.
Between each stage you see some full motion video cutscenes but these are uninteresting and break up the gameplay so you are just best off skipping them and going straight to the next stage. While the game seems all well and good there are some areas that ruin the experience slightly, along with the cutscenes there is also the length, Space channel 5 has only four stages and takes an hour to complete the first time, thankfully after you complete the game you unlock the extra mode which see's you doing all 4 stages again only this time the stages have new areas, again this takes roughtly an hour and it isn't much harder than the regular game, so in all Space Channel 5 takes less than 3 hours to complete so I can't recommend paying a lot of money for it, the game offers replay value in the form of saving all earthlings but besides that once the novelty has worn off there isn't anything else to make you continue playing.
Graphically the the game is good for Dreamcast standards but there is one thing that bothers me, all the character models are 3D but everything else like the backgrounds are pre-rendered or full motion video which does create some problems at times, I dislike how there are sometimes enemies or things that are placed in really awkward looking postitions because the back grounds are all pre-rendered, I know games like Resident Evil were all pre-rendered backgrounds but with them there was still some sense of interaction, Ulala could be dancing on a white background for all I care and the game would still play exactly the same, that may not be much of a bad thing but it does make the backgrounds feel "fake".
Space Channel 5 is a really enjoyable game, SEGA was put up with a hard task when having to make a game that appealed to both male games and women who didn't really play games. With bags of charm, great gameplay and a groovy soundtrack Space Channel 5 is a game that should be in most Dreamcast collections.

Super Strike Gunner SNES Review

2010-03-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Oh my lord what a bore, back in the 80's and 90's shump's were like FPS, they were everywhere the only difference was that the popular ones were good well the less popular ones weren't. Super Strike Gunner is such a game.
To start off the game is just so dull and bland the backgrounds are lifeless and plain, the levels are repetitive and the enemy patterns are easier than a game of Simon.
At the lest I can say the developers got the gameplay right the ship moves smoothly and the controls are sound. Before each stage you get to pick a special weapon what I like about the weapons is how they react to the control's, for example with the turret the bullets go faster if you push the button down hard and then you have weapons like the spread missiles where the amount you fire depends on how long you hold the button down for. This is the nicest thing I can say about the game, if it wasn't for the games dullness I would recommend it but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
The game isn't very difficult if you were to stay focused you would easily get through the stages without dying. The enemies ranged from stuff like plans, jets choppers, thanks ,boats, turrets and all the other boring stuff, why is everything grey or brown? Why can't the enemies be a little more varied or colourful?
The bosses suck, they are over sized and fill multiple screens, it's not always a bad thing but it isn't needed the bosses week points and weapons are all spread out so it is easy to take the boss down while avoiding gun fire. Like all shump's there are power up's, but these are crappy ones they come in two flavours ammo refill and weapon upgrade (or what is in some cases a downgrade considering how bad some upgrades are) and as always you die and you lose all the time and effort you worked on.
What really annoy's me is the level design, there are times when you can go as long as 15 seconds without there being any enemies on the screen.
One more thing, if you hold down the fire button and fly the the to of the screen your rate of fire increases, this is because the game only allows so many shoots on the screen at once, it also works when you are shooting things from up close, try it yourself the bosses will go down much faster.
The graphics while not bad just scream generic dullness, the kind that visually bores you and causes you to loose interest like I did. The backgrounds vary you have your classic jungle, desert, beach, sea and sky themes along with a few others, the creativity is lacking.
The music sucks, like the rest of the game it is boring and uninspired, just pointless samples that loop over and over.
In all Super Strike gunner may not be the worst shump ever but it is one hell of a boring one, avoid.

Donkey kong Classics NES Review

2010-03-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

29 years, that's how long it has been since Donkey Kong was released in arcades, to think it has been nearly 30 years since Nintendo changed gaming and helped shaped the gaming present.
Back in the eighties Donkey Kong was huge, its impact is comparable to that of Pac-Man, Space Invaders or Pong, it was that game that everyone wanted on their console. Atari, Coleco and several other companies fought each other for the rights to do a conversion, there were many Donkey Kong conversions, some were good and some were god awful. But at the end of the day it was Nintendo who wins the title for best conversion, but lets be honest no one knows a game better than the people who made it.
Donkey Kong Jr was another case, all those companies duked it out to see who could make the most successful donkey Kong conversion, again Nintendo won.
Both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr were ported to NES, it seems that those games were the reason why the NES was made. While game games were both given separate releases they were eventually re-released as one game, Donkey Kong Classics.
Donkey Kong Classics is a compilation containing the NES versions of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, like the original releases both games have a game A and game B, game A is like the normal game and game B is like a hard mode. The games also had a two player option where players took turns to see who would get the best high score.
Donkey Kong on NES is a fairly faithful conversion, the graphics replicate the original well, there isn't much to say about it, you have the legendary first stage where you jump over the barrel's that Donkey Kong throws at you, the theme of the original game was to get to the top of the screen.
After the first stage you have the second stage which consists of classic platforming, you have several platforms scattered all over the stage and you have to jump to them so that you can complete the stage, this time Donkey Kong isn't throwing barrels at you instead he is sending giant springs off you kill you, the springs move by jumping so there is always a blind spot where they jump, they can't kill you if they stand there.
One thing that is disappointing about the NES version of Donkey Kong is the decision to drop the 3rd stage, meaning that the NES version of Donkey Kong has only 3 stages. Missing stages and all Donkey Kong is a timeless classic that you can play over and over again, the games fun rests in its challenge, each time you beat the final stage the game starts over with a higher difficulty meaning that you will play until your lives run out.
Donkey Kong Jr is the opposite of Donkey Kong, you're not the small man trying to save the fair maiden from the big ape this time you are the small ape trying to save the big ape from the small man.
Donkey Kong Jr added to the foundations that had been set by Donkey Kong, I would go as far to say that this is the better game, the stages are bigger, the game is more colourful, there is a bigger emphasis on platforming and this conversion contains all 4 original stages. The biggest change to the gameplay was the vines, you get around Jr had to climb vines, this opened up the game play to new ideas.
Graphically Donkey Kong Jr is better than Donkey Kong, but both are still good considering that this is a conversion of an arcade game.
The two games are timeless classics. Both are available on Nintendo Virtual Console.

Mach Rider NES Review

2010-03-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

It's the year 2112, the earth has been invaded and taken over by the evil forces known as the Quadrunners. You are Mach Rider, it is your job to travel from sector to sector on your motorcycle searching for survivors and destroying all that stands in your way.
Released as a launch title in America Mach Rider is one of Nintendo's forgotten hits. The game see's you playing as Mach Rider in one of three game modes, the Fighting course, the Endurance course and the Solo course.
Each game mode is different. The Fighting course is the main game, the goal is just to get from A to B, it doesn't matter how you do it just don't run out of lives. The Fighting course is the story mode, there are ten stages in total and each stage tells you part of the story. The Endurance mode is just that, under a time limit you have to travel is certain distance before the clock runs out, fail to do the distance in the time limit and it is game over. The solo course if that game as the Endurance course only with out enemies.
The game was different to other driving games at the time, it was a fairly complex thanks to the inclusion of gears and that fact that Mach Riders bike has a machine gun attached to it. Mach Rider is seen by some as a spiritual predecessor to F-Zero due to its futuristic setting, incredibly fast vehicles and violent driving. The only thing Mach Rider doesn't share with F-Zero is weapons.
Mach Rider is a fairly addictive game, the Fighting Course is good in both short busts and long plays (it really depends on how good you are). The endurance and solo course are strictly for long plays, these modes can go on for as long as you want all you need to do is beat the stages time limit.
Mach rider isn't the hardest game in the world but it still requires some skill to play, if you are good at it you can good for ages without ever crashing, if you suck you will die, and die, and die.
One nice little feature in Mach Rider is the option to create your own stages and ride them in the game modes, sadly though like Excite Bike this feature is let down by a problem, you can not save the stages that you have made, thankfully if you own the Virtual Console version then you can.
The graphics in Mach Rider are very colourful which may not please fans of dark post apocalyptic worlds, there are some cool graphical effects in the game, the road turns smoothly and it looks rather nice. The music consists of one track that goes on forever as you race, is this a bad thing? No, the music is great it gets you in the right mood for this type of game.
Mach Rider is a fun action game in all and if I was to compare it to something I would have to say that it is like Outrun but with guns.

Super Off-Road NES Review

2010-03-13T12:41:00.000-08:00

Developed in 1989 by The Leland Corporation Super Off-Road (full title Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road) was an arcade racer that had you race around tracks against three Ivan Stewart's, the game had some success in the arcades and was later ported to every home console available at the time.
The NES conversion was handled by Rare possibly because a lot of their NES games were in isometric 3D (Like Snake Rattle and Roll).
Rare did a brilliant job with this conversion, nothing is missing from the original. The game has you race against Ivan Stewart over 8 tracks in 99 races. The amount of races in this game stunned me, I was wondering when it would end, in all it took me over 3 hours to do all 99 races and this was without any breaks, saves, passwords or continues. Depending on the type of person you are you will either find this game really addictive or really repetitive, I couldn't put the controller down so the game really absorbs you.
The original arcade game allowed up to three people to play at the same time, the NES version allows up to 4 players at the same time (depending on if you have the NES 4-score or the NES satellite), the game is already competitive in the single player so imagine how much fun you would have in multiplayer.
Super Off-Road featured something that was quite new at the time, the ability to upgrade your vehicle, at the start of the game your truck is a piece of crap, it is slow and feels chunky,upgrade it and the car becomes faster and has smoother handling. Another useful feature the game included was the use of Nitro, the Nitro can give you a speed boost when you need it but don't abuse it, Nitro works best when used in the right place, if you use the Nitro on a straight then you will cover a good distance in a short amount of time, use it in an area that is fully of bumps and rocks and you have pretty much wasted your Nitro.
The game is split into two circuits, the beginners circuit and the championship circuit. In the beginners circuit you only race on half the tracks, the opponents are easy to beat and you are allowed continues if you run out of lives. The Championship circuit features all 8 tracks and tougher opponent AI, if you lose a ace badly the game gets easier, but if you lap everyone and win a race then be prepared to feel the wrath of Ivan. It is true what they say humiliation is tomorrow's fuel.
Control wise it is ok as long as you are not to picky, at first the controls seem blocky but after some practice you get past those turns with ease.
Graphically the game looks no where near as good as the arcade versions (it wouldn't) but it still replicates the game well enough to do the NES justice.
The music is alight too, each track has different music, some tracks get on my nerves while others I enjoy listen to, even if they are just lopped.
In all Super-Off Road is one of the best racers on the NES. If you want the game you can pick it up cheap on ebay.

Fatal Fury Sega Mega Drive Review

2010-03-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

SNK's The King Of Fighters series is entering it's 16th year, with the recent announcement of The King Of Fighters XIII I decided it would be fitting to look at the game that got the ball rolling. Fatal Fury: The King Of Fighters.
Known in Japan as Garou Densetsu - Shukumei no Tatakai (Which in English translates as Legend of Hungry Wolf - Battle of Destiny) Fatal Fury is the first game in SNK's Garou series (Which included games such as Fatal Fury, Real Bout and the brilliant Garou: Mark of the Wolves), the game see's you play as one of 3 characters Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard (Terry's younger brother) and Joe Higashi (a kick boxer who enters the King of Fighters with Terry and Andy).
The game is set in South Town, the host of the King Of Fighters. Terry enters the tournament so that he can fight Geese Howard, the who murdered Terry's adoptive father Jeff Bogard.
Fatal Fury was originally released on SNK's Neo-Geo system. The Neo-Geo was an arcade board that was later made into a home console (an expensive one two).
The Neo Geo version of Fatal Fury was on a 55 Megabyte cartridge, there was no way that was ever going to fit on the Mega Drive. Takara were put in charge of the Mega Drive conversion, to cut down the game so that it would fit on a mega drive cart several changes were made, for starters the music and graphics were toned down (which was the norm). Other changes included the removal of bonus stages and the removal of two of the games opponents, so instead if fighting Bill Kane and Hwa Jai you fight the other playable characters, also there seems to be some missing moves (you'll have to take my word for that), one last thing that is missing in the Mega Drive version is the option to fight your opponents two-on-one, that may of sounded unfair but the original Neo Geo version was a very hard game.
Changes aside this conversion stays true to the arcade game, the game play is what sets the game aside, it is a traditional 2D fighter but it spices things up a bit by adding the ability to switch between the back ground and foreground meaning you could escape the enemy if cornered. It may sound like a gimmick but the idea works and it add's extra depth to the game.The gameplay not changed much over time, it still plays like a modern fighting in terms of button commands and such.
The game features a 2 player mode where you can play as either the original 3 characters (Terry, Andy and Joe) or that opponents that were not playable in the single player mode (and Geese Howard if you know the cheat code).
For Mega Drive the sound is surprisingly good, I'll admit the title music nearly made my ears bleed but the actual in game soundtrack is fairly good, not a patch on the Neo Geo versions but still good.
The graphics despite being toned down still look the standard on Mega Drive, I'll admit it looks nowhere as nice as Street Fighter II Champion Edition but it is still very colourful.
So in conclusion Fatal Fury on Mega Drive is a good conversion that stays faithful to the original arcade game, if you are looking for some 16-bit fighters then I would recommend this.

Article Five games that should get the NPC treatment.

2010-03-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

NOTE: I'll let you in on a secret. I hate NPC and I promised myself that I would never buy one. I made this because it is good article material.

These days it seems that Nintendo can advertise anything Wii game and make it sell.
These include "hardcore" (A term I use loosely) games like Metroid Prime 3, Super Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Kart.
The same goes for "casual" (another loose term) titles like Wii Fit, Big Brain Academy and Animal Crossing.
But that's not all that they have been advertising, recently they have been trying to promote their new play control range.
For those who don't know new play control is a range of past game cube titles like Pikmin that have been ported to Wii. So far the range has given us the likes of Pikmin, Pikmin 2, Mario Power Tennis and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, all with new Wii controls.
We are also getting the Metroid Prime Trilogy this September.
So with the near endless potential of the Wiimote what other games could be added to the new play control range?

Number Five

Wave Race Blue Storm.

All those who use Virtual Console will have probably seen wave race in the Wii shopping channel.
For those who are not familiar with wave race it is a Jet Ski Racing game.
There have been many Jet Ski games over the years but Wave Wace was the only one that was ever good.
If the game was ever put on NPC it would most likely play like the Jet ski game from Wii Sports Resort as that and Wave Race were made by the same development team.
As good a game it is it is unlikely that is game would ever see a re-release due to licensing and advertisement (Such as McDonalds).
Saying that through they could just do what they did with wave race 64 and change everything into Nintendo Wii and DS advertisements.

Number Four

1080 Avalanche

Hey remember that Shaun White Snowboarding that came out last year, well this would play just like that and it would be balance board compatible.
1080 is a Downhill racing game, the whole idea is to race down a mountain on a snowboard, and the game also featured a trick mode.
Sadly though I can see this being like Wave Race with the licensing issues. The game featured licensed songs and some advertising.

Number 3

Doshin the Giant

Released on the Gamecube in 2002 Doshin the Giant was strange game where you played as a giant known as Doshin, In the game you control Doshin, the idea is to make your self grow by helping the local natives, the natives will ask you to perform tasks such as reforming the land or bringing then an item. While the game may come off as boring at times there is one thing that really does the game great justice. I like Doshin the Giant because it has that Sim City Feel to it.
Just like in Sim city you have the power to do what you want, you can have things built, you can make the people happy and you can also defend from natural disasters and such, and just like in Sim City you also have the power to destroy everything when you get bored.
In the game you can transform into the hate giant Jashin who has the power to shoot fire balls from his hands, he has the power to crush villages and mountains it's awesome.
While it may not sound like much the game could work with the Wiimote.
For example, Doshin has higher and lower the ground level by waving his hands, he can also pull the ground with his hands and lets not forget Jashin's fireball throw either.
Though the game would work well with the Wii the chances of it selling are slim due to the games obscurity. So chances are that this will never get a re-release or sequel.

Number 2

Battalion Wars

The sequel is one of the Wii's better titles; it is also one of the hardest.
Sadly Battalion Wars was one of the later Gamecube titles so very few got a chance to play it. For that reason alone it deserves a release.
Being honest it isn't very different from the sequel so the control scheme would be the same.

Number 1

Mario Golf Toadstool Tour

LetÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s face it how could this not be number one.
Golf is one of the most popular sports on the Wii, there is a ton of golf games available on the system, you have the family favourite Wii Sports Golf, you have the realistic Tiger Woods games and you also have the Mario Golf Rivals Such as We Love Golf.
So for the sake of good competition Nintendo should release this game on new play control. Why they haven't added it to the range yet is above me, the game is made by Camelot, the same developers of Mario Power Tennis, Golden Sun and Everybody's Golf, so you wouldn't have to worry about weather this is good or not.

So now all we can do is hope that these games get a re-release or sequel in the future.

Article Through the years: mario Spinoffs (all 3 parts).

2010-03-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

Note: This was my first article for the site and it was split into 3 parts. Some things I wanted to go over, it is wrong of me to call Hotle mario terrible because I have never sat down and played it. I blame the internet.

Welcome to a series I am starting called through the years, in through the reads I will write about gaming and its history.
This week we are talking about the Mario spinoff's there have been a huge amount of these in the last 25 years due to Marios popularity, Mario has now featured in over 100 games.

Game and Watch Mario
Like I said Mario is very popular even in his early days, Nintendo decided that it would be a good idea to release game and watch games based off him so they did.
They were no different from the normal game and watch games, a total rip-off. The Mario game and watch games are now worth loads on internet auction sites like eBay.

Wrecking Crew
This was the first popular Mario spinoff.
Wrecking Crew was released on the NES in 1987 (1985 if you live in Japan or America) and featured Mario straight out of his hugely successful NES debut in Super Mario Bros.
This game saw the plumber as a construction worker demolishing buildings.
Being fair the game wasn't quite as good as Mario's first NES outing.
The game did have a sequel on SNES called Wrecking Crew 97 but it was only released in Japan.

Super Mario Bros 2
Ok I have cheated here, most people know this as the second game in the Mario Bros series but did you know that it was never a Mario game to begin with.
This one is a pretty big controversy in the gaming world, it starts like this: In 1986 Nintendo released a sequel to Super Mario Bros in Japan, the game was called Super Mario Bros 2 and it ran off the same engine as the first Super Mario Bros, after the release Nintendo came to this conclusion, this game was hard and I mean Mega man hard. Nintendo decided that the game would be too hard for western gamers to cope with. So instead they took an already existing game and put Mario in it and called it super Mario bros 2, the game was Doki Doki Panic it was a game for the Famicom disk system.
The US version of Super Mario Bros 2 was released in Japan under the name Super Mario USA but to the Japanese all it was to them was a game that they already had minus the ability to save.
A true injustice, Nintendo really got the better of everyone that time.

Dr.Mario
This Next one is a spinoff series. In 1990 Nintendo released Dr Mario a puzzle game for the NES and game boy.
The game sees you playing as Mario killing viruses using a new medicine that he has made. The game was pretty good and has had 2 sequels since it was released. The game also got a rerelease in on the Game Boy Advance 2005 as part of the Nintendo NES classics collection.
The newest game in the series is Dr Mario & Germ Buster on WiiWare.

Educational Mario
In the 1990's Nintendo released several educational Mario games,
These games spanned across several platforms including NES, SNES and PC.
These games were:
Mario Teaches Typing (PC)
Mario Teaches Typing 2 (PC)
Mario's Early Years! Fun with Letters (SNES)
Mario's Early Years! Fun with Numbers (SNES)
Mario's Early Years! Preschool Fun (SNES)
Mario's Game Gallery/Mario's FUNdamentals (PC)
Mario's Time Machine (NES/SNES/PC)
Super Mario Bros. & Friends: When I Grow Up (PC)
Mario is Missing! (NES/SNES/PC)

I won't lie these games were terrible, people tend not to speak of them.

Mario & Yoshi
Also known as Yoshi's egg and Yoshi. Mario & Yoshi is another Mario Puzzle game, it was released on NES and game boy in 1991.
The game was a fairly decent puzzle game which saw you making lines by swapping the piles around.

Mario Kart
Now here is the one we have all been waiting for arguably the best Mario Spinoff ever made this game has gone to become one of NintendoÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s biggest series, there isn't much to be said about Mario Kart that hasn't already been said.
Mario Kart is always expanding and getting bigger.
Today there are 6 Mario Kart games, chances are that there will be more in the future.

Yoshi's cookie
This game was released on the NES,SNES and Game boy and is about making Yoshi's favourite food. Yoshi Cookies. The game see's you play as Mario who has to align Yoshi cookies in The game was another decent Mario puzzler, there was a game mode based off Yoshi's cookie in Tetris DS.

Mario Paint
Mario Paint on SNES was just like MS paint so it was a bit primitive, you used a SNES mouse to play the game.
This game has become famous thanks to one of the features to be found in the game. Mario Paint has a feature known as Mario Paint Composer, this game mode lets you create music, if you wanted to you could create the Super Mario Bros theme using it, and it was a very good music program. It is still used by many people today, just go on YouTube and type in Mario Paint you will be amazed.

Mario & Wario
Mario & Wario was released on the Super Famicom in 1993, just like Mario Paint you play with the mouse. The game was developed by Gamefreak (Famous for Pokemon, Pluseman and the SNES mouse). In Mario and Wario you have to guide Mario to the end of each stage while avoiding Wario's traps.
Sadly the game was never released outsize of Japan despite the fact that the game itself was in English text.

Yoshi's Safari
This Mario game is one of a kind; it is an on-rail shooter.
Released on the SNES in 1993, Yoshi's Safari saw you playing as Mario shooting foes with the Super Scope while on Yoshi's back.

Donkey Kong 94
This is the sequel to the game that started it all.
Donkey Kong 94 is just like the original Donkey Kong but with a bit of Super Mario Bros 2 thrown into the mix. Ever played Mario Vs Donkey Kong on the GBA? While this is just like that minus the mini MarioÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s.

Hotel Mario
By now I'm sure many of you would have heard of this game (Thanks to YTP, AVGN ect), hotel Mario was a game that was not made by Nintendo.
It is a long story and it goes like this.
In the 16-bit era Nintendo were trying to come up with a CD drive add-on for the SNES Nintendo hired two companyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Sony and Phillips.
Sadly talks with Sony broke down so Nintendo made a deal with Phillips.
Because of this Phillips were allowed to take well known Nintendo franchises and do whatever the hell they wanted with them, the result was 3 rubbish Zelda games and one bad Mario game.
The plot o Hotel Mario is this, Bowser has once again kidnapped the princess and it is up too Mario and Luigi to rescue her, to do this Mario and Luigi must make it through Bowsers 7 hotels.
Now the aim of the game is this. To get to the next stage you have to close doors, this is easily one of the worst Mario games ever made.

Mario's Tennis
This would you believe was the first game in the Mario tennis series, it was released on Nintendo's Virtua boy. The Virtua boy was a "handheld" Nintendo console that you had to look into. The idea of the console was that it was virtual reality.
Mario's tennis wasn't that good a tennis game; it was just tennis, nothing more.

Mario Clash
This was the other Mario title to be released on Nintendo's Virtua boy.
The idea of this game is too throw shells at enemies. That's it. The game does make good use of the Virtua Boy's 3D effects but that's just about it.

Mario's Picross series
For all those who don't know Picross is a nonogram logic puzzle involving a grid with numbers.
In Mario's Picross you have to chip have squares to solve puzzles, it isn't really that much of a Mario game but it is still pretty good for picross.
There were sequels released on the Gameboy and SNES but they were Japan only.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the seven stars
Developed by Squaresoft and released on the SNES in 1995 Super Mario RPG was the first Mario game to be an RPG.
The game saw you as Mario on a quest to save the Mushroom kingdom from an evil being called Smithy.For the time the games graphics were amazing and it was easily hailed as one of the best RPG's on the SNES.
Sadly the game was never released in Europe, but don't worry it is now available on Wii Virtual console.

Game & Watch Gallery Series
Remember what I said about the game and watch in part one well they weren't the only game & watch that Mario featured in.
The game and watch gallery is series of compilation games, the games let you play the original game and watch games as well as new versions featuring Mario characters.
In all there are 4 Gallery's.

Mario Excitebike
This game was released on Nintendo's Satellaview in 1997. For all those who don't know Satellaview was a service that Nintendo did in the late 1990's. You how these days everyone goes on about DLC and downloadable game on PSN/XBOX Live/WiiWare, well Satellaview was just that.
Mario Excitbike is just Excitebike with Mario in.

Mario no Photopi
Now this one is really obscure, Mario no Photopi is a creativity game that used a smart media cartridge that let you import photos to your N64. The game was only released in Japan and over there it is pretty rare so don't fancy your chances of ever getting this game.

Mario Party series
When ever there is an argument about Nintendo milking its franchises and characters this game is always used as evidence.
Mario party was released for the N64 in 1999 (1998 if your Japanese), it was a like playing a board game. The whole idea of Mario party is to see who can get the most starts; Mario Party also features mini games. These are the best thing about the games.
Mario Party isn't bad but you have to consider the fact that there has been 10 Mario party games in the last ten years. The fact that games are always the same from the last doesn't help much either.

Super Smash Brothers
Ahh Super Smash Bros a game that takes our all time favourite Nintendo characters and has them beat the crap out of each other.
The first Super Smash Bros was released on the N64 in 1999 and has since become one of Nintendo's biggest games.
Super Smash Bros was the game that started it all.
Melee was the best selling game on Gamecube.
And Brawl is one of the best games on wii.
Just like with Mario Kart there isn't anything that I can say that hasn't already been said.

Mario Sports Series
These are a series of Sports games that feature Mario characters, games in this series include Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Strikers, Mario Baseball, Mario Basketball and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
The Mario sports games are all pretty good and they have all had good feedback.
The next game in the Mario sports series is set to be Mario and Sonic at the Olympic winter games.

Paper Mario Series
These three games are all Mario RPG's; these games are famous for their art style, in the game Mario is everything around him is made of Paper.
Paper Mario is often regarded as the best RPG on the N64, same for its sequel Paper Mario and the thousand year door and Gamecube.
The Latest game in the series is Super Paper Mario on Wii.
Unlike the first 2 Super Paper Mario is a platformer and not a turn based RPG.
All three games are worth owning, the first two are now fairly rare.
Paper Mario is available on Wii Virtual Console.

Mario Artist
Here is one more obscure Mario game that you have most likely never heard of Mario Artist.
This was a game that was played on an expansion for the Nintendo 64; the expansion was called the DD64.
There were 3 versions of this game Paint Studio which is just Mario Paint on steroids; Polygon studio which let you make 3D images and Talent Studio which was an animation program.

Luigi's Mansion
A Gamecube launch title Luigi's Mansion was the first Mario game on the console, but the game wasn't about Mario, it was about Luigi.
This game was Luigi's first solo adventure, the thing that makes this game standout is it's gameplay, its one of a kind I don't think that Luigi's mansion fits into a genre.
The plot to Luigi's mansion is this Luigi has won a mansion in a competition that he never entered, he tells Mario about his new mansion and they agree to meet there, but all is not well when Luigi gets there he cannot find Mario anywhere and to make matters worse the mansion is invested with ghosts.
To get Mario back Luigi has to capture Ghosts using a vacuum cleaner.
Some people consider this to be a gaming gem but there is one big fault with the game as a whole, it's very short.

Mario & Luigi Series
This is the 3rd Mario RPG series and is exclusive to Nintendo Handhelds.
Mario & Luigi superstar saga is the first game in the series and it see's Mario and Luigi on a quest to receive Princess Peach's stolen voice.
The second game in the series is partners in time, in this game Mario and Luigi have to travel in time to defeat a race of aliens who invaded the mushroom kingdom when they were children.
Last year a new Mario and Luigi game was announced.
The Mario and Luigi games play just like Paper Mario.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong Series
Released ten years after Donkey Kong 94 Mario and Donkey Kong see's you doing the same thing you did ten years ago. Only this time Mario and Donkey Kong are fighting over Toys.
There are currently two games in the series with a 3rd one announced three weeks ago at E3.

Super Mario Ball
By now Mario has done just about everything when it comes to games, so what was next for him? Pinball, sadly to say this game was rubbish.
You'd think that Mario would have learnt from Sonics Mistakes when it came to pinball games.

Dancing Stage Mario Mix
Known in the US as DDR Mario Mix this game was just like every other Dancing stage game the only difference here was that this one had Mario in.

Super Princess Peach
Just like Luigi's Mansion this was a Mario game that didn't have you playing as Mario. Super Princess Peach is a platformer for the DS that see's you play the role of the Princess. In this game the roles are reversed Mario has been captured and it is up to the Princess to save him.
Easy to say this was a decent platformer and is worth owning.

EA Sports Big
I'll be honest when I first saw this I laughed; EA sports games that featured Mario, Luigi and Peach as playable characters.
As you would expect with it being EA sports BIG these games were good.

Itadaki Street DS
Itadaki Street is a party game made by Square-Enix, Itadaki Street is a Dragon Quest crossover game for example the Itadaki Street games on PSP featured characters from Final Fantasy including Cloud Strife.
Itadaki Street DS is just like the others but this one has Mario characters.

Well that's it all of the Mario Spinoffs (Excluding Yoshi's island but that's a separate franchise).

Article Do Video games cost too much?

2010-03-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This is an article I wrote for a website back in 2009, my opinion on some matters may have changed in the last year.

This past year I have noticed something that has begun to bother me constantly when on the look out for new games to play.
My problem with modern games is the pricing both long term and short term.
To start off lets see how the money has changed over time.
Back in the early days new titles could end up costing as little as £2 for games on your home computers (but they were normally rubbish games), bigger and more serious titles normally cost around a tenner, which was a lot of money for the time.

Then came game consoles like the SEGA master system and NES, here is when game prices started to go up, through he 1980's and early 90's video game prices had risen to about £30-£40 on a new game, which is closer to the standard we have today, by that time money had changed as well people could afford to pay that much money for a new game.
The prices in the 16-bit era were no different, games were costing the same type of money to make and buy.
The came the Playstation and N64 era, at this time developers were starting to give up on cartridges and moved to CD because it was cheaper for them to makes games on, thanks to this the playstation ended up having one of the biggest and best game library's ever in gaming, and as before these games were on average £30-£40.
The there was the Nintendo 64 a games console with twice the number of bits that the playstation had (the playstation was 32-bit).
Because of its immense power the N64 games had to be on cartridges, this angered a lot of developers because by this time making games for something like the N64 had become expensive so most of them dropped support, Square being the best example, Nintendo had lost Final Fantasy because of cartridges, with the N64 you could tell that the games cost a lot to make because of the retail price.
Nintendo 64 games retailed at £50-£60 on average, sometimes there were one off's like F-Zero X that retailed for £30 and other times there were expansion pack games like Perfect dark and Donkey Kong 64 that retailed for a staggering £70.
The fact that the N64 did so well still has be myth today, I mean sure the technology was great and it had some amazing exclusives like Super Mario 64 and Zelda but what king of person had that money, not kids that's for sure, they would have had to wait for their birthdays and Christmas for that and even then they would only be able to afford one game.
Now by the new millennium everyone was using disks, the X-Box used DVD's as did the playstation and GameCube so the price would have been the same for each console around £30-£40.
Looking at this generation I have to say that when it game to stuff like value for money and bundling I'd have to say that Nintendo had it best.
Lets just do a comparison. When it came to extras PS2 games ended up costing more, games like Time Crisis 2 & 3 ended up costing quite a lot because of the lightgun that game bundled with the games.
As for the x-box all I can say is STEEL BATTALION, it's humongous, money wise the entire thing was like £100.
Now with Nintendo it was a case of all add-on's are free, no kidding they did not affect the retail price at all, for example lets look at Donkey Konga and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, both games came bundled with a set of bongos that you could play them with now you would think that it would add to the price but it doesn't, nothing on GameCube a price increase because of an add-on.
Zelda: Four Swords Adventures came with a GBA link cable but the price was still £40 RRP.
Pokemon Colosseum came with a free memory card but the RRP was still £40.
Mario Party 6 came with a microphone but the price was still (you guessed it) £40.
So for value I'd have to say Nintendo were best that gen (it may have finished behind the Xbox and PS2 but owning a cube was a lot cheap then owning a PS2 or Xbox).
Now we move on to the current gen of gaming and this is where I really start to get annoyed.
This generation has been dubbed "the next gen" of video games, the technology has gotten better and games look a lot more life like and realistic.
Now gaming has been hit by two big problems this gen
1) Production and development price has increased, games cost more top make.
2) We have been hit by a recession, the worlds banking system took a fall a while back and is still recovering, I'm not quite in the know when it comes to politics but I do know that things have become more expensive because of it.
as a result of the above two video games can now cost on average as much as £50, that's insane, I can understand a game being £50 when the console its on has just launched but why is it that nearly four years into the next gen that we have games been sold for £50 RRP ?
Thinking about it I suppose this is a short term effect caused by the problems involved with production and money so i shouldn't last long should it?

Well it turns out I'm wrong because video games have come to the point where the price never goes down take for example the ever so popular Call of Duty 4, it was voted game of the year back in 2007 and even came number 1 in Game's top 100 video games of all time list.
You'd think that all this popularity would make the price go down, what with things like Playstation Platinum and X-box classics now but wait, what's thins, the games is still being retailed for above £40 two years after its release despite its success and high sales why?
For nearly two years had the game been priced at £50 RRP, they even release a game of the year edition with extra content to help justify the pricing, but again that was nearly two years ago, it makes me wonder how people can happily afford to pay as much as £40 for a game that came out two years ago.
The only reason that the game price has gone down to £40 is because the sequel is out soon.
Anyway my point is this, the value of games has gone up but the value of money hasn't, £30 ten years ago is worth the same amount as £30 today so why isn't it the same for games.
Maybe the technology is moving too fast, that will be it.

House of the Dead Overkill Nintendo Wii Review

2010-03-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

Introduction
The House of the Dead first appeared in arcades in the 1990's and has since become a must for any arcade, with its fast paced action, hordes of monsters and over the top violence. How can you not enjoy it.
The last House of the Dead game (House of the dead 4) was never released outside of arcades so how did SEGA come back from this disappointment? They decided to make this one exclusive to home systems (RIP arcades). This is the 5th game in the House of the Dead series (excluding all spin offs like typing the dead) and a prequel to the first game.

Single Player and Multiplayer

These are the same; it's an arcade style shooter so there are no modes made exclusively for multiplayer it plays the same on single player and multiplayer.

Gameplay

I'll start off with the menus, you have 3 gameplay modes Story mode which is the main game, the directors cut mode (AKA hard mode) which has to be unlocked and the mini game mode. vThe game is your normal arcade shooter you aim at the mutant (because the Z word is forbidden) with the wiimote, pull the trigger with the B button and fire.
The game has multiple weapons to choose from, they range from Magnums to shotguns all the way to machine guns, the guns have to be brought from the gun shop before you can use them through, all guns can be upgraded in the gun shop, the guns have five areas where you can upgrade them, these attributes are:

Recoil: Upgrading this reduces the kick-back from firing, this helps you increase the steadiness of your aim.
Fire rate: This increases the rate in which you can fire bullets.
Clip size: This increases the capacity of your gun so you don't need to reload as often.
Damage: Self explanatory.
Reload: This reduces the time it takes to reload your weapon.

Of course this isn't all free you need money for these upgrades, you get money at the end of each mission depending on how well you did.
If you own a second weapon then you can equip it before a mission starts you can switch the weapons by using the Z button.

The game also what is called dual wielding, this is when you use two guns at once, to do this you will need two wiimote's, this is a good idea at first but it is ruined by the fact that you will be unable to aim correctly with your weaker hand so you best stick to the regular method.

The game has 5 different types of mutants, these are:
Normal: These will try and beat you to death, some times they will use weapons, they are not that hard to kill.
Big: Same as the normal ones but they can take more damage.
Armoured: These ones can only be shot in certain places so find the weak spot.
Super: These aren't like the normal mutants, they will run at you and try to grab you, if they do grab you shake the wiimote to get them off of you.
Puke: These are just like the Super Mutants the only difference is that they will explode if they get too close to you.

Each stage of the games stages are filled with bonus items, these are:
Slow Mo-Fo mode: shooting this will make time move in slow motion, perfect for getting high scores.
Golden Brain: There are 10 of these in every stage (15 in directors cut), make sure that you shoot them for big bonuses.
Health pack: Shoot these to regain health.
Grenades: Grenades are good for when there is a horde of mutants attacking you this will wipe out a large group of mutants with an explosion.

As you go through the stage you will also find survivors who are trying to escape the mutants if you save them from the mutants you get bonus points, if the mutants kill them you get no points and if you shoot them you lose points.

Like all arcade games you gain points for doing things, in this game you get points for shooting mutants, you gain more points depending on where you shoot them, head shots give you maximum points.
When you kill a mutant you start off a combo, the combo meter on the top of the screen fills up every time you kill a mutant the combo meter comes in 4 stages, Extreme violence, Hardcore violence, Ultra violence, Psychotic and GOREGASAM!

The better the combo the higher the points you will earn.
But remember if you miss a shot or take damage then the combo meter will go back down to zero.

Each stage has a boss at the end, these bosses aren't too hard and they all have a week spot.

One more thing I should mention, in this game is a weapon known as the hand cannon and it is the most powerful gun in the game, SEGA decided to release a hand cannon that you insert you wiimote in, so if you are willing to spend an extra £10-£15 then you can have an even more realistic experience.

Graphics and sound

The graphics in this game are pretty good it's like Resident Evil the Umbrella Chronicles only better and with added gore. Also one thing I adore about this game is the way it is presented, the screen has is black dot effect, you know kind of like when you go to the cinema to watch a movie, I can see why they made it like that because the game is made to be a bit like a B-Movie.

The music in this game is mostly country western and funk, so if you donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t like it then turn the music off through the option menu, put on some slayer and your all set.

Summary
Best House of the Dead game to date nothing more can be said, its funny, it's over the top, it is like that on purpose and I love it.

+ Aim is perfect
+ Great humour
+ It's like watching a B-Movie
+ Classic shooter gameplay.

- Too short for some
- Dual-Wielding doesn't really work.

9/10

Sonic and the Black Knight Nintendo Wii review

2010-03-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Sonic's back and as always he refuses to settle for that traditional Sonic gameplay that the fans scream for.
Sonic and the Black Knight are the 3rd Sonic adventure game on Wii and the 2nd game in what is called the storybook series (The last storybook game was the Secret Rings).
This game see's Sonic using a weapon for the first time in his career, a sword.

Single Player
The game takes place in the medieval world of Camelot, a world made famous by the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
But all is not well in Camelot as it has been taken over by the Black Knight and his Underworld Army. The only thing that can save Camelot is a brave hero who is as fast as the wind.
Enter Sonic.
After been brought to Camelot by a sorceress named Merlina Sonic discovers that the Black Knight is actually King Arthur and that he has to defeat him in order to save Camelot.
Wielding the scared Caliburn it's up to Sonic to defeat the Knights of the Round Table and save Camelot.

MultiPlayer
The multiplayer mode lets you and your friend's battle for the title of best knight.
This mode is alright but it does have its flaws, like not playing anything like the single player mode and at times being a complete mess.

GamePlay
Sonic and the Black Knights game play is like a mix between Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Unleashed, what I mean by this is that you are still using that back view of Sonic but with improvements like 2-D sections and a lack of On-Rails.
Game has the same jump controls as Sonic Unleashed and the same Wiimote Nunchuk set up, and that's about it for old features.
The game is focused on the idea of cutting through foes with your sword while at the same time maintaining a high speed and I will admit the games does this quite well, the wiimote responds quite well to when you attack, some would call these waggle controls and I will admit that is true but if you do just waggle and not put any effort into your swings then you might as well not bother playing this game as you will just find it to be a bore.

As you would have guessed sword attacks are done by swinging the wiimote, not anything amazing but effective none the less.
The developers have decided to keep the speed break feature from the Secret Rings and improve on it turning it into the soul surge a move that allows you to do fatal blows against the enemies. To use the soul surge you have to hold down the B button and swing the wiimote, if there are no enemies nearby then you will do a speed break but if there are enemies near by then Sonic will use the soul surge attack, what you need to do is slash while using the soul surge, this will do massive damage to any foe.
Another new ability is the block; this one speaks for its self. To do the block you have to hold down the Z button, be warned the block only lasts a few seconds.
The game also has boss fights against the knights of the Round Table, these fights are hard at first but they get easier once you get used to the sword combat in the game.
The games other boss battles vary, some are fun while others are slightly dodgy and badly put together.

The game gives you the ability to change your sword style if you not happy with your current style. You have 3 sword styles to choose from, Knight which is balanced, Paladin which is offensive and Cavalier which is focused on speed.
The game also has a few other features such as item collecting, unlock able characters.
If you have Nintendo wi-fi you can take part in the online ranking, this mode is great because it gives the game replay value after you have compleated the story.

Graphics
The graphics haven't really gotten any better or worse since Unleashed.
The music loses out when compared to Unleashed and Secret Rings, it's not as catchy or as memorable as the music in those games, it's good but not as memorable. The game does gain points though for having something that Unleashed lacked language settings. I'll be honest the voice acting has been a bit poor in the last 7 years so its great that the game lets you have the voices set to Japanese.

Summary
It's not the best idea for a Sonic game but does what it set out to do.

+ Combat and speed are equally balanced
+ Sword combat does work
+ Art style is awesome
+ Online ranking gives the game new life

- Multiplayer is bit rubbish
- Few bad boss battles
- Bad voice acting
- Bit on the short side.

8/10

Madworld Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

Introduction
MadWorld is the first game from new developer Platinum games, made up of former members of Capcom's now shut down Clover Studio (responsible for the classic 'Okami').

Single Player
MadWorlds Story revolves around a terrorist plot and a sport known as the Death Watch games. You play as the games main protagonist Jack Cayman a contestant in the Death Watch games who has a prosthetic chainsaw arm. The game is what I call a revival for the beat em up genre, in fact the game reminds of No More Heroes because of the plot, you are fighting people know as KillSeekers so that you will be crowned as the number one killer. The game only has two modes, single player and multiplayer.

Multiplayer
The multiplayer mode works like this, you and your opponent are up against each other to see who can get the most points in a BloodBath challenge, that's it, no battle mode just BloodBath challenges.

Gameplay
At first the games button layout is confusing for example you press Z to jump, but after a while you will adapt to the set up.
The game is a beat em up, you only have one aim and that is to kill anything that moves.
Here's how you attack, by pressing the A button you punch, if you continue to press A then you will perform a punch combo, you can beat the enemy to death if you want but it won't earn you many points, if you hold the control stick up then you will do a more powerful punch, this is good if you want to stun foes. When you are near a KillSeeker you can press and hold A to grab them, once you have done that feel free to do what you want with them, be warned the enemy can fight back but there is a way around that, when holding a enemy you can head butt them by shaking the nunchuk, head butting an enemy can stun them. To throw them shake the wiimote.
On to the chainsaw, if you hold down the B button Jack will release his chainsaw, the chainsaw is powered by fuel, the fuel meter is located below the health bar and the gauge will go down if you are using the chainsaw, to the refill the gauge just stop using the chainsaw.
To attack with the chainsaw swing the wiimote, Jack will swing vertically or horizontally depending on which way you swing the wiimote.

In MadWorld you are scored on your kill's, if you want to can just beat up and cut through all of the KillSeekers but you won't each many points doing so, the idea is to be creative with your kill's.
For example throwing a KillSeeker into a spike will earn you a fairly high amount of points but if you want even more points you need to make sure that the person you kill suffers as much as possible, so to get a high score you should throw an object over the KillSeeker (tires, barrels, anything that will trap them), then impale them with something (Stick a lamppost through their head) and then carry them to the hazard instead of throwing them into it because you will gain more points shoving a guy into a spike than you would if you were to throw them.
Try and use the environment to your advantage and be creative with your kills because it will give you more points. When you have beaten your foe to a pulp you can do special finisher moves, you have two different types of finishers, the A button finisher where you throw the enemy around and the B button finishers which are just plain awesome, these finishers have you do things such as back breaking, beheading and heart removal. In the game there are certain levels where you are on a bike, these levels remind me of that bike mini game in Final Fantasy 7 except this actually works.

In each stage you will unlock bonuses such as happy pills (Pills that give you health), weapons (bats, knifes ect) and balloons (1up's). Another big bonus is the BloodBath challenge, these are bonus games that you find in the stages and they are made so that you can gain more points. These bonus games are really fun and addictive and most of them are based off sports like darts and golf. These games are both silly and fun and you gain a hell of a lot of points doing them. When you have gained enough points you unlock the boss battle, this is self explanatory, you go up against the boss you fight the boss, you kill the boss next stage. The boss fights like the bloodbath challenges are very creative and amusing.
The best thing about the boss fights are the action sequences, here you have to do several wiimote movements, get them right and you will damage the boss greatly, you also get these sequences when you defeat the boss, the boss deaths are some of the funniest deaths I have ever seen in a video game. There are two faults with MadWorld, the first is the length, the game is fairly short and you will have it done in around 5 hours. The second problem is that some may find the game to be repetitive.

Graphics and Sound
Ever seen or read Sin City, well MadWorld looks just like that. MadWorld is black, white and red all over.
The games music is mostly rap so it won't win metal heads over.

Conclusion
Even if you are not a fan of gore MadWorld is still great fun, if you are a fan of Beat em ups or Viewtiful Joe don't be afraid to pick this up.

+ Great Humour
+ Best Beat em up in years
+ BloodBath Challenges are genius
+ Boss battles are well thought out.

- Very short
- Can get repetitive

8/10

Klona Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

Introduction
It has been years since the last game in the Klonoa series was released, so how does this remake of the first Klonoa game (Klonoa: Door to Phantomile on PS1) fair?
Here is a brief on the games plot: The games two heroes Klonoa and Hewpoe one day witness a crash near their home, the crash is on top of a mountain called Bell Hill, they decided to climb the mountain and investigate unaware of the evils that lurk ahead.

Gameplay
Klonoa plays just like all of the previous games it's a 2.5D platformer.
The Klonoa games are best known for the method used to kill enemies, to kill enemies you have to inflate them into a ball and throw them, inflated enemies can also be used to perform a double jump. To inflate an enemy you press the attack button (Buttons vary on which control method you are using) the enemy is now an inflated ball which is held by Klonoa until you decide to get rid of it, there are two ways of getting rid of the inflated foes you can either throw them by pressing the attack button or you can use them to perform a double jump (Press jump button twice).
Thrown enemies can be used to break objects or kill other foes, most of the games puzzles revolve around inflating enemies so make sure there are enemies to inflate when you are blocked by an obstacle such as a pitfall.

The enemies in this game vary you have enemies known as moo's theses are the games main enemy so I will focus on them, moo's vary in size, shape and ability, you have the normal weak moo's, you have the flying moo's, you have moo's that use weapons, there are also giant and armoured moo's as well.
Klonoa also has the ability to create a gust of wind that blows the enemies the other way, you don't really need this ability but it is good if you are trapped.
Another thing that Klonoa can do is a small hover move that keeps you in the air for a few extra seconds, to do this to press the jump button after jumping, it's a very useful move.

In Klonoa you have a health bar goes down as you take damage, to regain health you need to find these heart shaped metal objects, they come in two colours sliver (One heart) and Gold (Three hearts).
Like most platformers there are collectables to be found in the stages, in Klonoa you have dream crystals these can be found scattered all over the stages, these are like the coins in Mario get 100 of them and you gain an extra life. The games 1up's are in the form of Sliver and Gold coins, sliver coins give you one life and gold coins give you three. Other things to be found in Klonoa include Keys, in certain levels keys are needed to unlock doors. Mirror fairy's, these things are found in bubbles they double the amount of crystals gained making it easier to gain a one up. There is also the Memory clock this is the games checkpoint, find these and attack them so you can start off from that point when you die. The last thing to be found are captured villagers, these are the people who live in Phantomile there are six of them in each stage.

In the game you get to visit different areas each area is dived into two stages or visions as the game calls them, these to are presented in a Mario style, for example the first stage is called Vision 1-1.
You choose what vision you want to do by selecting it on the map.
Each vision is in two parts, vision 2 always has a boss at the end.
There are only two problems with Klonoa that I would like to point out, the first one is the length it isn't a very long game but you do unlock new modes after you complete the game so I suppose there is some replay value.
The other problem is the difficulty, the game is fairly easy.
These problems aside though, Klonoa is a charming yet short adventure.

Graphics and Sound
The graphi's colourful and it looks really clear, Namco have always been a pretty good company when it comes to colourful graphics.
The games music is good and it fits the stages perfectly, the game has two languages for the voice acting there is the Phantomile language (The language that has been used in the past Klonoa titles) and there is the new English voice acting. Given the choice I'd recommend the Phantomile language. The English isn't terrible but it is a bit on and off, some characters are alright while others just sound terrible.

Conclusion
This is a great platforming title for the wii, full of charm though if you want an even bigger, better adventure, get Klonoa 2 on PS2.

+ Same Klonoa gameplay
+ Great graphics
+ Makes good use of all four controller options
+ Full of charm
+ Class example of how a remake should be done.

- Bit short
- Too easy
- English voice acting is bit rubbish.

9/10

NOTE: People have told me that this is one of my better reviews, but it still has it flaws.

Disaster Day of Crisis Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Disaster: Day of Crisis was announced for the Wii back in 2006 and was set to be released in 2007, but for some reason this game vanished off the radar, because of this gamers started asking weather or not this game would every get a release, then in September 2008 out of nowhere came the news that Disaster was to be released in October 2008.
So after two years in development was this worth the wait or was it a complete disaster?

Gameplay
Chances are you have never played a game like this, it is a mix of genres. I think that this game was made with the sole purpose of showing people what the wiimote could do, just like most early developed wii games like Wii Sports, Wii play and WarioWare Smooth Moves.
On to the game now, you play as Raymond Bryce a former Marine, he is the games main character.
The whole idea of Disaster is to save the lives of people and survive the biggest natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami, tornado's, flood's and volcanic eruption's. The disasters are not the only thing in your way though, you also have to deal with a terrorist group known as SURGE as they plan to set off nuclear devices all over America.
The game is a third person action adventure you spend most of your time running around exploring and looking for survivors. The control method is simple, you use the control stick to move, A to jump and B to run. The game lets you control the camera by using the D-Pad on the wiimote. The Z button can be used to call out to people.
In this game you have a health bar that goes down when you take damage, the health bar can be restored by using first aid kits and plasters. If you rescue enough people the health bar will increase.
The other bar is the stamina bar, stamina keeps you going, run out of it and you will die, the stamina bar goes down over time, to regain stamina you need food.

During the game Ray has the ability to break objects to see if there is anything inside them, for example food and first aid. To break the objects you shake the wiimote.
Every now and then you will come to the point where you have save someone or escape an disaster, when this happens an action sequence will start, in action sequences you have to do actions depending on the situation, for example if you are lifting a heavy object you have to press A rapidly and then do a wiimote action that represents lifting, an other example is when running away from something you have to shake the wiimote and nunchuk up and down rapidly to escape. This game is full of these sequences some may think that this is a bad thing but it does give the game a cinematic feel.
The game also has driving sections, in these sections are in first person and normally consist of you being chased by something or you chasing something, these sections aren't bad the control is alright it isn't like Need For Speed where the car has really bad turning.

The last thing I want to go over is the shooting sections, yes this game has violence in it. The shooting sections are done in a Time Crisis style of play, you shoot with the B button and take cover using the Z button. To reload your weapons you shake the nunchuk. If you want to kill your enemies quicker you can focus your vision and zoom in by pressing the C button. As the game goes on you receive different weapons, to switch weapons while in combat press the D-Pad the in the direction which you have set the weapon on (Just like Zelda). These sections show up quite a lot in Disaster so get used to them.
In disaster there are items made to help you survive, to view these items you press the - button on the wiimote. These items are:
Plasters: Used for minor injury, heals 25% of your health.
First aid kit: Used for more serious injuries, heals 50% of your health.
Crackers: These are good for you and they will restore your stamina.
Stanima30: This new product stops all loss of stamina for a short period of time. Good for when there is no food nearby.

Disaster also has a level up system, this can help improve certain abilities such as strength and focus, to level up you will need SP points, you can gain SP points either by finding them or doing actions such as saving people who need help. There is also a point system for guns, this is used so you can buy new weapons for later stages.
Disaster is full of content, the amount of extras and features in this game amazed me and they defiantly add to the games lifespan.
Disaster should takes about 7 hours to complete on the first play through, the game does have replay value thanks to the hard mode and hidden extras.
The games only big problem is the enemy A.I its bit rubbish.
Also the story is a bit cliche.

Graphics and Sound
The graphics are not that special, they're not bad but they're not that good either.
The sound is great though it helps build the game up and it gives it that cinematic feel I mentioned before. The games voice acing is pretty good too.

Conclusion
It's a year late but that doesn't make it any worse. It is anything but a disaster.

+ Good soundtrack
+ Good voice acting
+ Full of content
+ Some nice ideas...

- ...but some are poorly done
- Doesn't look that great
- Cliche story.

8/10

Sonic and the Secret Rings Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

Introduction
If you had three wishes what would they be?
My first two would be the obvious fame and fortune.
My third and final wish though would have to be me feeling the same about the wii now as I did back when it first came out, and no I don't mean that I want to get rid of feelings of disappointment and wasted potential, no I'm talking about the feeling gamers had back in the early days of the wii.
The feeling of control that the wii gave you was like nothing else you had ever played before, the games were simple, addictive and fun.
Saying that lets look back at one of those early games, Sonic and the Secret Rings.

Single Player
The games story revolves around the famous story book world of the Arabian Nights, a place which brought us tales such as Aladdin and Sinbad. The plot and story are very straight forward, Sonic the Hedgehog is sent to the Arabian Nights by a genie called Shahra to stop an evil genie called Erazor Djinn from destroying it.

Multiplayer
The multiplayer is its own game altogether so here is a quick summary.
The party mode in Sonic and the Secret Rings is nothing more than a clone of Mario Party, you have four characters running around the board looking for items, the character with the most items wins.
The game is split into rounds, at the end of each round you are made to play a mini game (just like mario party).
To sum it up it was alright at the time but now the party mode isn't really worth playing, the board game is boring and the minigames are not that good by todays standard.

Gameplay
This time around SEGA decided to get rid of the traditional 3D platforming that was in the earlier 3D Sonic titles, this time they have gone for a completely different approach to it.
This time around you view sonic from the back, to add to that Sonic is now on rails he can move forward, back and side ways on the path that you are on. Sonic's movement is controlled by tilting the wiimote in different directions,tilting forwards will make him run, tilting backwards will make him backstep, and tilting to the sides will make him shift from side to side.
The movement controls are good but they are ruined by one thing, the backstep. In this game you can not jump backwards or turn around, because of this sonic is left valunable to enemy attack and other hazards, it's something that will annoy you.
On to jumping, straight to the point the jumping is broken, to jump you press 2, but if you want to do a bigger jump or clear a gap then you have to hold the jump button down, this can spoil things because you will find yourself stopping every few moments to charge a jump just so you can go on, to make things worse the jumping charges sometimes messes up so you end up falling of a cliff and dying, that's about it with jumping, on the upside sonic can still do the homing attack when he jumps.
Thankfully the game doesn't punish you for dying as you have unlimited lives.

Sonic also has a new ability known as time break and speed break.
Time break is the ability to slow down time, this is useful for getting through areas that require careful timing or a high amount of focus.
The Speed Break is the ability to break the speed barrier, think of it as a down graded version of the Chaos control power from Shadow the Hedgehog.
These ability's are not to be taken for granted though you will need spirt orbs to power them.
The game lets you play on several levels that are mostly based off the Arabian Nights stories, the levels are a mixed bag, they do have their moments but they also have their problems, some suffer from badly placed pits, obstacles,and platforms, some of the levels have a gimmick that can ruin it, one level has a wind that blows you back so that it is really hard to move forward, at times the wind even threw me back to the start of the stage due to a piece of debris hitting me.
Another thing that annoys me are the enemies, they just get in the way, I know that's the whole idea but these guys really get in the way, it can ruin the games fast pace.
Another problem I have with the enemies is the design, it's really uncreative, most of them are reused over and over just with different colours, after a while the sight of them really starts to annoy you.
What about the big enemies then? Well the boss battles range from mostly bad to a somewhat good, the earlier boss battles are really lame you just run in circles until you or the boss dies, the later ones are an improvement though.
One last thing that annoys me are the extra missions, the main levels are alright but some of the missions are tedious and lengthy, no one wants to do them, but you have to do these missions if you want to get further in the game.
One last thing I want to talk about is the level up system, as the game progresses you gain exp and level up, as you level up you are given the choice to upgrade sonic's ability's, doing this can really help you later on in the game.
As always the game is full of unlockable content including artwork, sound track, movies and more.
There is fun to be had in SatSR but there are also a lot of problems that can ruin it for you as well, but if you look past those problems here is a lot of fun to be had, the faluts won't bother you loads and they will at times be balanced out by the games good factors.
The game should take around eight to ten hours to complete.

Graphics and Sound
For an early wii title SanSR does look quite nice, Soinc looks much better than he did in the last few games and the levels do look like they have some life in them, the jungle level being a good example. What I also like is the way the cutscenes are done.
The music is different to the other sonic games, this time around the sound track has lyrics to go with it. In all the soundtrack is good.

Conclusion
The game did try something different which we do like to see, back then it was worth having but by todays standard its just another game, does have its faults but still fun.

+ Alright graphics.
+ Decent Soundtrack
+ nice unlockable content
+ Well presented cut scenes.

- Controls have some problems
- Broken jump
- Enemies are pretty crap
- Mostly bad missions
- Party mode is weak

7/10

Warioware Smooth Moves Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:41:00.001-08:00

Introduction
Once again I am looking at early 2007, the Nintendo wii has not long been out and gamers are anticipating the release of the PS3 (or at least they were until they found out the price).
Looking to make a good first impression Nintendo continued to rapidly release titles for the wii. 2007 was set to be release year for big titles such as Excite Truck, Mario Strikers (the first wii game to have online play), Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Which only just got the December 2007 release in Japan), Metroid Prime 3, Super Paper Mario and Super Mario Galaxy.
In comes Warioware Smooth Moves, a game that was made to show people what they could do with the wiimote (in all fairness we already had that with wii play but this is way better).

Single Player
The single player mode is the same as every other warioware game, your goal to to complete all the stages by playing micro games.
As always Wario's trademark humour is present.
The game follows this plot. One day Wario was minding his own business sitting on his ass at home eating sweets when this little what ever the hell it is comes and runs off with it, after that everything is just random.

Multiplayer
The games multiplayer is a disappointment to say the least, it is fun and a good laugh when you have friends around but it is ruined by one big problem, you have to play with one wiimote, now I'll give them credit they knew this and based some of the multiplayer games around it but being honest when I think of multiplayer the first thing I think of is the option to play with more than one controller, having to take off the strap and changed the controller between mini games is insane and you never get enough time to prepare for the next game because of it.

Gameplay
Just like in previous games you find your self playing five second long micro games, that's it there isn't much more that can be said the games are choose at random but often follow a theme, for example on Wario's levels all of the games are Wario related, in 9-volts level all of the micro games are Nintendo related.
As the game goes on you are shown different ways to play the mini games, these techniques (known as forms) vary on the micro games, the forms range from simple stuff like the controller (a form where you have to point the wiimote at the screen), to sillier stuff like the elephant (a form where you have to but the wiimote over your nose as if it were a trunk).
As always Warioware is a fun game that will always make you smile and laugh.
Now onto one fault that did bother me when playing the game. Some times when playing the micro games the control doesn't work, this is normally due to the limitations of the wiimote, it doesn't always detect the movement correctly with is a pain because you often end up being forced to play one of the mini games that doesn't work as well as it should.
At the end of the day warioware is one of those games that you really need imagination to play, if you look at it as pointing/waving/waggling the wiimote then you are not going to enjoy it as much so you really need to be in the right mode to play it, act as if you are running, act as you would if you did the ingame tasks, that's the key to the games success.
In all Warioware Smooth Moves is worth playing, buying it on the other hand is an entirely different question, the game only takes two hours to complete so you really need to be the type of person who can always go back to a game.

This one speaks for its self.
Graphics and Sound
I'm not quite sure what to think of warioware games, they do look nice but the games are so varied that you are never quite sure what to think of the visual's, most people who be bewildered by the strangeness. But looking past that Warioware is a genially pretty game.
Just like all of the other warioware games smooth moves has an incredibly catchy soundtrack that will stick in your head.

Conclusion
It always has been a good show case for the wiimote's potential. I'm still waiting for something like the starwing mini game, that would be ace.

+ Pretty Visuals
+ Same great gameplay
+ Catchy tunes
+ Great sence of humour
+ Shows off the wiimotes potential.

- Multiplayer is lacking
- wiimote doesn't always work
- Very, very short.

8/10

Metal Slug Anthology Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Ah Metal Slug possibly the greatest shoot'em up series ever, every time you play a Metal Slug game you know its gonna be good.
Since its debut in 1996 Metal Slug has gained a huge following and its own franchise.

Single Player/Multiplayer
Metal Slug is an arcade game at heart so the game never changes no matter how you play it, one play, two play its all the same.
Metal Slug Anthology was released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Metal Slug franchise, the game contains six classic metal Slug titles plus an all new one.
Let me tell you about each game:

Metal Slug (1996).
This is the game that started it all. Your mission is to shoot your way through wave after wave of enemy solider's and defeat General Morden.

Metal Slug 2 (1998)
The sequel to the hit Metal Slug added two new playable characters as well as new enemies including Alien's.

Metal Slug X (1999)
This game is just Metal Slug two but with a bunch of changes and improvements.

Metal Slug 3 (2000)
Metal Slug 3 took the last two games and went absolutely crazy, this is considered by many to be the best Metal Slug game, it has new enemies, new weapons, and levels with split paths, it has a huge amount of replay value.
Just to demonstrate how awesome Metal Slug 3 is let me tell you what the first enemy you kill is, go on guess, a GIANT ENEMY CRAB.

Metal Slug 4 (2002)
As always the Metal Slug games are still adding new stuff, this game has new weapons and new characters to play as.

Metal Slug 5 (2003)
You'd think by now that the Metal Slug formula would start to get stale well it doesn't. Metal Slug 5 gives you new ability's, new attacks and new background graphics to boot. This one does lack some of the older features but it does add new stuff like cut scenes to replace it.

Metal Slug 6 (2006)
This is the newest game available in the Metal Slug Anthology. This game features the most changes, now you can choose the games difficulty at the start, you can carry two weapons, and you can also build up a score by killing enemies, the more enemies you kill the more your score gets multiplied by.

The games are all alike but that is no bad thing really considering that this is the type of game that never gets old no matter how many times you complete it.

Gameplay
All the games play the same, which is good because that saves me going over all 7 games again.
Metal Slug is a side scrolling run and gun shooter, the aim is to kill your way to victory by shooting, stabbing, and blowing up anything that stands in your way.
I'll start with the controls, in the arcade the metal slug games tend to have a joy stick and three buttons, sadly the wiimote doesn't have the ideal layout for a three button arcade game, thankfully they found a way around it.
To play the game you hold the wiimote on its side as if it was a NES controller or something. You use the D-Pad to move, + to start and - to pause.
The 1 and 2 buttons act as the shoot and jump, the A and B buttons do nothing. What is this no grenade button, well good news they found a way around it, to throw and grenade you just shake the wiimote making the game fully playable.
The Metal Slug games have always been known for their trademark action and humour. The Metal Slug games have some of the best weapons and power-up's in video game history, for example one power up is that you can get fat from eating too much food, when this happens you fire power increases and you weapons are more wide spread. Another example are some of the weapons, you have the normal stuff like machine guns, laser beams and rocket launchers but you also have more bizarre stuff like thunder clouds and nappie wearing chimps that shoot enemies for you. Awesome.
Another thing that metal slug is famous for are the vehicles, the vehicles in these games are awesome, in fact did you know that Metal Slug is the name of the tank you use in the game ? Anyway these vehicles are great, they have large fire power and health bars (something you don't have), out of all the things you can ride on Metal Slug I'd have to say that my favourite is the Elephant.
Metal Slug is one of those classic hard core one hit kill games, you get hit by anything even once and you are dead, die three times and it is game over, fortunately unlike the arcade version you get unlimited continues so you don't have to spend all of your money trying to complete it.
All of the Metal Slug stages follow the same format, you fight some bad guys, rescue some prisoners of war who give you weapons that are in their underpants, fight some more enemies, save some more P.O.W.'s, fight a boss.
It's funny you'd think that games with a constant format would get dull and repetitive but for some reason they never do, people still play the old 2D Mario games, people still play the old 2D Sonic games and people are still playing the Metal Slug games, they have this never ending appeal that gives you near to endless replay value. The humour helps too ,if Metal Slug was more serious and didn't have that sence of humour I wouldn't see myself playing it so much.
I think I have said enough, Metal Slug, always has been fun, always will be fun.

Graphics and Sound
Metal Slug's soundtrack is time less everyone who has played the games knows it and it is used in all of the games.
The graphics are some of the best 2D sprites ever, Neo-Geo were great at 2D graphics, they have been using the same sprites for years and they still look nice despite their old age.

Conclusion
It's one of the best completion games ever made, each game is a classic and it is jammed fully of content.

+ 6 Classics
+ and a new one
+ good emulation
+ Great sound track
+ Cool unlockable content

- Some of the bosses just won't die
- some areas will pee you off.

9/10

NOTE: This is one of my worst reviews, I wasn't even taking a serious approach to it.

No More Heroes Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Back in 2008 gaming had once again come under controversy, news papers and politicians alike were going crazy thanks to Manhunt 2.
In the end action was taken Manhunt 2 was banned and it looked like violent games were about to come under fire like they did in Germany and Australia, fearing the worse developers did what they could to make sure that their games would not under underfire.
Enter no more heroes a game that was so gory and so over the top that the developers decided to censer it in Europe and Asia.
Who would have ever thought that to be a good thing.

Single Player
The game has you take the role of big time loser Travis Touchdown who is on a quest to become the worlds greatest assassin after killing a drifter.
The drifter turned out to be a highly trained assassin, one of the best in the world, he was so good that he was ranked 11th.
Now taking the rank of 11th Travis has to kill his way to number 1, but it won't be easy he will need, skill, wits and a hell of a lot of money.

Gameplay
No more heroes is a sandbox hack 'n' slash action adventure game.
The sandbox section involves roaming around the fictional town of Santa Destroy, like all modern sandbox games you can walk or drive around the area going from place to place doing tasks. Just like other sandbox games Santa Destroy is full of huge landmarks such as Destroy Stratum.
The sandbox makes up only a small part of the games and being honest there really isn't much freedom or a lot to do, Santa Destroy can feel a bit empty at times, there are people in Santa destroy but not that many. You can also enter buildings, there are shops like AREA 51 and Beefhead Video, services like the job centre and gym, and some random ares where you do challenges like time attacks.
On to adventure, sandbox games are also regarded as adventure games in some respect but to me the adventure aspect are the stages them selves. The stages in no more heroes are fairly big, for example the first stage has you running around a mansion killing people so that you can find the exit. There is a lot to see in the levels.
Now on to the action and hack and slash this is the games main focus, you just go around killing everyone that stands in your way, as classic as it gets.
You play the game using the wiimote and nunchuck, the controls are spread out across them.
When roaming around freely you can use the A button to dig and the B button to run faster, but be warned you need batteries to do so.
When driving you hold the A button to accelerate and the B to break, if you break and swing the wiimote you can do drifts which is good because you can turn without slowing down. If you hold down the Z button you can use turbo but like running it drains your batteries power.
On last thing, if you shake the wiimote while driving you can do a jump.
The bike jump seems like a waste of time really because while it is really cool you can't jump over this with it, trust me I've tried, even if you are mile over something you will still hit a wall and crash, there are only two parts in the entire game where the bike jump comes in handy.
On to the normal gameplay controls, just like any hack and slash game you can get past a hoard of enemies just by mashing the attack button over and over again, while this may seem redundant and repetitive (like most modern hack and slash games) this is quite fun , the combat has some complexity to it.
The B button will let you punch and kick your enemies, doing a fully charged punch or kick will daze your enemies, when dazed you can either cut them to ribbons or grab the and preform a wrestling move on them, the wrestling moves are the most powerful attacks in the game, no joke, learn to make use of them, you preform the moves buy going a series of timed wiimote actions.
Seeing how you are fighting huge groups of foes at once you will need a way to defend your self, you do this by locking on to an enemy. Once locked-on you will automatically block any attacks the enemy uses on you and I mean attacks from all enemies not just the one you are locked-on to.
As the game goes on you can gain new ability's and power ups that help you though out the game, make sure you get as many as possible because chances are you won't be able to get through the entire game without beefing up first.
While I did say that the stages are great for exploring they can also end up being linear, a lot of the time you have to take a set path, there are times where you get to got to extra areas and get items but that's about it.
Now on to the boss battles, these are what the game is all about, there are 10 bosses in the game who you have to defeat, each boss battle is different so they never feel the same or dull.
The bosses themselves are all very memorable, fighting a big muscled guy in a super hero costume who shouts "Destroy Busta!" while firing laser beams at you is just awesome.
The bosses are no push overs either to beat them you will have to do it the old fashioned way, find the pattern and expose their weakness.
In all no more heroes is an enjoyable experience with some fun mini games and very memorable moments. A huge part of the games appeal is the humour everything is so well written and funny, it will have to in stitches.
No more heroes is a classic hack 'n' slash game it should take around half a day to complete the first time but if you want more there is also the higher difficulty you unlock when you have completed it.

Graphics and Sound
Graphically No More heroes is good but it isn't much of an improvement over Killer 7 (A game made by the same people). Visually though No More Heroes is great, the game just oozes with style, remember what I said about the censering of no more heroes while here is what what happened, in the American Version the enemies bleed when you kill them, actually bleed would be an understatement they explode into a fountain of blood, in the other versions of no more heroes the enemies explode into piles of ash and coins which is cool because the ash makes it look more artistic and the coins make it like older games such as street gangs where the enemies would drop coins when you killed them.
As for the sound the game does have a good sound track even though most of the levels share the same music, the music is catchy and it does suit the game well, the driving music for example is just perfect.

Conclusion
In all No more Heroes is a very enjoyable and humours game that can be played over and over.

+ Good, deep, complex fighting
+ Lots of style
+ Great Humour
+ Awesome cast of characters
+ Lots of extra content.

- Santa destroy is empty
- Some of the mini games are weak

9/10

Sonic Unleashed Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Since his 3-D debut Sonic has had many ups and downs in gaming.
So can this new sonic game bring back the glory days?
The answer is yes.

Singleplayer

The game starts with Sonic facing off against Eggman (Again), Eggman believes that he has sonic beat until it becomes apparent that sonic has all 7 chaos emeralds and is overwelmed by super sonic, unable to fight that power Eggman flees the battle with sonic chasing him.
Sonic traps Eggman and forces him to surrender unaware that it is a trap. Eggman traps sonic and shoots him with a beam that not just sucks the power out of the emeralds but also split the Earth below into 7 pieces.
To make things worse the beam has turned sonic into a monster. After falling out of space and back to earth Sonic befriends a creature which he fell on, Sonic names the small creature chip. Sonic must stop the new evil that Eggman has awakened.

Gameplay

The game is spilt into 2 types of gameplay, Day time which is your normal sonic levels which involve running from A to B, and night time where you are the werehog who has to get from A to B by fighting hordes of enemies and solving puzzles.

Playing the day time levels I suspected that Sega had taken example from sonic and the secret rings and had the developers improve on it drastically. For starters you are not on-rails you have 100% control on the 3D sections. You control sonic using the control stick and use A to jump; in the day stages sonic has some new abilities to help him get through the stage quicker. First there is the drift, sonic can use drifting to get around sharp and long turns with out losing speed, if you are going straight sonic will slide, use sliding to get under obstacles. The other new add-on is the boost gauge which lets you do boosts; you fill the gauge by collecting rings and getting bonus chains, collect enough rings and the gauge gets bigger. You can not boost if the gauge is empty, the down side to using the boosts is that you have less control over movement and that when you hit a wall you hit it hard, it will take a few seconds to recover.

The daytime levels also have 2D sections where like in old sonic games you have to get from one end to the other. The problem with the 2-D section's is that you don't seem to have 100% control over sonic more like 90%, but when you consider how the game is that's probably for the best. I'll be fair the stages must have taken a long time to make they as they are so big and well planned out. You are ranked on how quick you finish the stage in the Wii version. It's just a shame there aren't many day stages in the game.

Since the sonic adventure it seems that Sega can not make a 3-D sonic game without there being some new gameplay mechanic. Sonic Unleashed has the WereHog. The WereHog is the thing sonic turns into at night time. The WereHog stages differ to the sonic stages I will go as far as to say it is like you are playing a different game. For starters the WereHog stages are part platformer, part beat'¢em up.
The stages are split into different parts you have the parts where you are fighting through hoards of enemies, the parts where you are doing traditional platforming and the parts where you are puzzle solving.
I'll start on the fighting, as you go through the level every now and then you will be stopped by a force field and forced to fight through a hoard of enemies, once you have cleared through the foes you can progress through the stage. I will admit that after a while this may begin to get slightly dull, the special moves that you learn as you gain Dark Gaia points will add more to the gameplay, when playing as the werehog you have 2 bars ones the health bar and the other is the unleashed bar, using the unleashed bar powers up Sonic until the bar is empty, it makes Sonics attacks more powerful and changes some of his special moves.

The platforming sections are quite straight forward, it normally consists of you either getting to the other end of the stage by jumping over holes and gaps, climbing up poles and across ledges while avoiding obstacles. The other half of the platforming is finding 3 keys every time you run into a force field with 3 dots on it.
One of the annoying things about the WereHog stages is the invisible walls and there are a lot of them.
The puzzle solving is more or less no brainers such as putting boxes on buttons, putting out fires and using the environment to get around without dying. It doesn't sound like much but the puzzles really show their true colours in the extra rooms in the temples, the puzzles in the temples have you use both Sonics to get past the obstacles and to the bonus items in the rooms, take note that you need medals to get into these rooms, I'd say the rooms in the temples are the most enjoyable part of the WereHogs game.

The game may only have a few day stages but the extra missions make up for it. The game should last you about a week.

Graphics & Sound

Considering that the game is exactly the same on the PS2 I will admit that it does look quite nice for a wii game, Sonic looks detailed and the stages look well polished especially when you consider how fast you are running through them.
The music in this game is joy to listen to, easily the best sonic music I have heard in years. Each song matches the stages perfectly.

Control
The game uses all 3 controllers, the wiimote, the classic controller and the GameCube controller. So which is best?

Wiimote: I do like the ideas put into this game with the wiimote but sadly it doesn't work as well as I had hoped it would, in the day stages the wiimote doesn't always detect the homing attack and boost properly.
In the night stages the wiimote doesn't cut it, the fighting is just to shoddy and tiring and the climbing isn't much better, nearly everything requires you to use the motion controls in the night stages.

Classic controller: This controller works really well with both stages but is out done by the GameCube controller in the day stages. It does work well the only problem is that at time the position of the control stick can feel a little awkward and uncomfortable. It can't be beat on night stages though as the buttons are played perfectly, the Y & X are used to attack and it works well you can attack quickly without messing up when trying to use the special attacks you learn. It's also better for climbing as you use the R button the grab things.

GameCube: Godly on day stages you have better grip of the controller and better control over Sonics movement the buttons also feel better placed on the GameCube controller so you don't have to worry about pressing Y instead of X as the buttons are all different shapes and sizes.
Night time would have to be a no as using the shoulder buttons to punch left and right just felt odd for me, I couldn't punch as fast as I could before.

Summary

It may not be what the fans want but it still doesn't stop Sonic Unleashed from doing what it set of to do. Now make a game with sonic stages only and you are on to a winner Sega.

+ Closest to classic sonic we have had in a while
+ Boss Battles Are fun
+ The game can be rewarding

- Lack of balance between Sonic and Werehog stages
- Wearhog levels are to simular
- Missing levels in wii version

8/10

Naruto Clash Of Ninja Revolution Nintendo Wii Review

2010-02-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution is a 3-D fighting game featuring characters from the Naruto Anime/Manga.
The game modes include Single player which features normal mode, time attack mode and survival, multiplayer mode, mission mode which acts as the games story mode and mini games.

Single Player

On to the single player. As I said before, single player has 3 modes to play. You have the normal mode, which is just a dozen stages you have to complete. Sadly, it's made pointless by the fact that you lose all of your points if you lose, meaning that you would be better of just playing survival.

Time attack is the same as normal but you are marked on how quick you get through the 12 stages instead of being ranked by how many points you earn.

The mission mode acts as the games story mode.
The story starts the chuin exam saga when everyone is training for the 4th round; the 1st mission is just a tutorial where you are taught how to fight.
The mission mode has chapters, and in each chapter you fight a different character, as well as given a task.
If you do what you are told to do you succeed and get to go on to the next chapter, but if you beat the opponent without doing the task or if you lose to the opponent, you fail and have to try again.
The tasks range from simple stuff like beating an enemy while low on health to slightly harder stuff like beating an enemy with a certain move.

The cut scenes in the mission mode are quite simple. The character sprites appear on screen and start talking. The characters are voiced by the cast of the Naruto dub.

Gameplay

The mission mode should take about an hour to do. When you finish the mission mode you will probably be disappointed by how easy it was, but luckily you unlock the choice to play it on a higher difficulty by completing it.

On to the fighting itself. The game play is simple at first, but it can become quite advanced if you are using different combos or are playing the game on a high difficulty.

The game has many different types of attacks.

Taijutsu (Physical attacks) - This is the main type of attack, and it is done by shaking the Wii Remote. If you keep shaking you can do a combo attack. Take note those attacks can only be done if you hit the enemy. Like most 3-D fighting games, the control stick affects what attacks are used.

Ninjitsu (Special attacks)/weapons- These types of attacks are done with the "A" button. Ninjitsu are the special attacks that can be done by the games characters. Each character has their own attacks that can be done using the "A" button and the analogue stick. The special attacks can only be done if you have enough chakra in the chakra gauge at the bottom corner of the screen.
The other use of the "A" button is throwing weapons. Throwing weapons are weak and are only good for slowing your opponent down or hitting them when they are in the air.

Finishing moves/transformations- The finishing moves/transformations are done by pressing the D-pad right. When the chakra gauge is full, your character will attempt to do a finisher on the enemy. When the control stick is held down when you press the D-pad, this can cause the character to change form or use a different finisher. When you use the finishing move, you're shown a few Wii Remote movements to do. If you do them correctly, the power of your moves will increase.

Recently I have started using the Nintendo Gamecube controller and Nintendo Classic controller and I must admit that the game really benifits from this feature.

When fighting you can take advantage of the hazards on the stage, if you hit your opponent hard enough you can knock them off the stage triggering a small cut scene, in the cut scene you can hit the enemy while in midair by shaking the wiimote dealing extra damage.

The game also has a mini game mode where you can play mini games you have unlocked such as shuriken throw, where you have to throw shrunken at wooden boards that have Naruto and other characters on them.

Graphics and Sound

The game uses standard cel-shaded graphics, which is nothing special. Characters and objects are all colour, but there are no shadow effects. The shadows are pixelated, sadly.
The games Music is pretty much remixes of the rubbish music in the anime, being honest this version is quite good.

+ Decent cell-shaded graphics.
+ Solid fighting game play.
+ The music is a nice touch.

- Far too short.
- Battles can get repetitive.
- Motion for finishers is bad.

Good game ruined by its lifespan. If more effort had gone into mission mode, this would have been longer and better.
7/10

NOTE: This was my first written review from 2 years ago, it's not very good.

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Directors Cut Nintendo DS review

2010-02-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

Introduction
This game is the best point and click adventure that I have ever come across, it's better than Ace Attorney, it's better than Sam & Max and it's better than Zack & Wiki.
Broken sword: Shadow of the Templar's Directors cut is a remake of the cult 1996 PC point and click classic. This game has everything (well almost everything) murder, terrorism, clowns and medieval cults all in one exciting point and click adventure.

Gameplay
So the game starts off in Paris and you take the role of Nicole Collard a French reporter who has been asked to meet up with an old friend of her father. Sadly all is not well as the person she is meant to meet is shot dead by a mime off all people!
This bit wasn't in the original version of Shadow of the Templars which came out in 1996, this is a new chapter that has been added for the DS version (You never played as Nicole in the original).
Now off to the main story. Meet George Stobbart an American man who is touring Europe, he is currently staying in Paris, unaware of what awaits him...
On to the actual gameplay now, what can I say it's a point and click (Or seeing how this is DS point and tap) you use the stylus to do everything in this game no control input needed, you tap where you want to walk to, you tap a person when you want to talk to them, you tap the objects that you want to look at, it is just like using a mouse.
Throughout the game you will need to do tasks such as combining items, playing with your surroundings, talking to people and solving puzzles ect.
These puzzles are both fun and creative, if the puzzles are too difficult or if you are stuck on a certain spot then you can tap on a question mark that appears on the top right side of the screen, doing this will show you several clues and hints on where to go next, what you need to do and how to solve a puzzle.
The game has you travel to different parts of Europe such as France, Spain and Ireland. In the game there are many different people to talk to, all of which are full of character. The game also has some good humour that has aged really well.

Graphics and sound
The graphics in Broken Sword are based on the style of classic animated films (Think early Disney) and these graphics just like the game they have aged really well, also the animated cut scenes are still enjoyable even without the lack of voice acting.
The sound is just as good now as it was all those years ago; my only criticism is that this version doesn't have the voice acting that was in the original game.
Oh and one more thing the games updated artwork was done by the guy who did the artwork for the Watchmen.

Summary
This is still a masterpiece today, it's funny, it's creative, it's exciting, it's everything you'd want from this type of game and it should appeal to both sides of the "gaming void" (AKA the casual/hardcore rubbish).

+Great story
+Great cutscenes
+Gameplay has aged really well.

-Feels a little short
-No voice acting

8/10

NOTE: My only DS review, I loved this game I really did, the review is short but I proof read it alot because at the time the site I wrote these reviews for wanted to make the editor. I have the sequel but I'm not having much luck getting it to run on my Windows 7 computer.

Tekken 6 Xbox 360 review.

2010-02-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

Introduction
15 years, that is how long it has been since the release of the first Tekken game, in those 15 years the Tekken series has evolved with each installment, Tekken started it all, Tekken 2 improved the gameplay, Tekken 3 helped revolutionize the 3D fighter, Tekken 4 added scenery and walls, Tekken 5 improved the game even further.
So can Tekken 6 keep up the pace or has the series reached it peak?

Single Player
Tekken 6 includes a new mode known as the scenario campaign, seeing how that covers the main story line I'll tell you about it first.
The scenario campaign is reminiscent of the Tekken force mini game that featured in Tekken 3 and 4 (which is why it is being referred to by fans as Tekken Force mode).
The scenario campaign is a simple beat'em up, your goal is to fight wave after wave of enemies until you reach the boss at the end of the stage.
The controls are split in this mode, both the L Stick and D-Pad are used to move around the map. When you encounter enemies the control changes it becomes more like the controls used in the regular game, the L stick still lets you move around as normal but the D-Pad is used in the same way as in the arcade game, with the D-Pad you can jump, duck, and run when fighting an enemy.
Besides the movement the scenario campaign has the excact same controls as the regular Tekken 6.
Being honest the scenario campaign mode is a bit dull at first but once you start to drive deeper into it you find that there is alot more to it than meets the eye, as beat'em up's good this one is pretty good, it's not Madworld good but it is still a lot of fun, it is also very rewarding, just playing it unlocks content like new items and extras.
The games story is also well put together as well.
Tekken 6 takes place where Tekken 5 left off, Jin Kazama is the new head of the Mishima Zaibatsu after winning the king of Iron Fist tournament 5, with the Tekken Force at his command he orders the complete take over of the world, months later small incidents turn into major conflicts with the Tekken Force dominating on all sides.
Unable to accept a world ruled by anyone but him self Kazuya Mishima (Now head of the opposing G corporation) puts a bounty on Jin.
In response the Mishima Zaibatsu announces the King of Iron Fist tournament 6.

The scenario campaign itself follows the story of Lars Alexandersson a Tekken Force commander who has gone against the company, only he can stop Jin's madness.
Also available is the arena mode which is a lot like the story mode from Tekken 5 only a lot weaker, it seems that the developers couldn't be bothered with it in this game, this time there are 4 stages as opposed to 8 and there are no cut scenes between fights, it is also very easy when compared to the regular arcade mode.

Multiplayer
The scenario campaign also has the option to play cooperatively either online or at home with friends, if anything this improves the experience because the scenario campaign was originally intended to be played cooperatively anyway.
As for the arcade game it is the same deal as always two fighters battle it out to see who is better, this can be played both online and offline.

Gameplay
Now lets talk about the real Tekken 6.
This home port of Tekken 6 isn't based off the 2007 arcade version, instead it is based off the updated version of Tekken 6 known as Bloodline Rebellion which came out in arcades a year ago.
The game features what is easily the biggest and best character roster for any Tekken game ever, the game brings back all of the characters from Tekken 5 and Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection, it also features six new playable characters, these include Alisa Boskonovitch, a robot who can make jets and chainsaws pop out of her body, Bob, a morbidly obese freestyle karate practitioner, and Lars who I have already mentioned.
In all the game has 41 fighters to choose from, all available from the get go, no unlocking required.
The game is split into 2 modes, the online mode (which lets you play the game online) and the offline mode, where you can play the arcade version of Tekken 6, play time attack and so on.
Out of all the modes available in offline my favorite has to be the ghost mode, ghost mode is the same as the arcade mode from Tekken 5, the idea is to endlessly fight computer controlled characters or 'ghosts' as the game calls them, I know it dopesn't sound that good but there is one thing that caught my interest, in ghost mode you can go online and download 'ghosts', the ghost data is the records of other Tekken players, I'm a bit skeptical about this because of the ideal of being able to play a persons data offline, wouldn't it be the same as playing a computer controlled character?

Anyway as for the gameplay itself, two words, near perfection.
There is not such thing as a perfectly balanced fighting game but Tekken 6 comes as close as you can get, all the characters have their strengths and weaknesses (except for maybe Jin who was labeled as over balanced in Tekken 4 and 5).
The gameplay is really fast paced and well thought out I don't think I have every played anything this well built, the game tweaks and builds on everthing that was in Tekken 5, the result, better gameplay and more balanced characters, its a good thing they decided to base this off Bloodline rebellion because the original Tekken 6 was said to lack some fair character blance, some off the new characters were "too good".
Another thing that has been improved from Tekken 5 is the ability to customize characters. In Tekken 5 it was good but no where near the standard of the arcade version. In Tekken 6 it is just as good, the customization possibility's are almost endless, like Tekken but wish Street Fighter characters were in it, well now they can be. Thought the character customization was good in Soul Calibur IV well check out Tekken 6.

Now on to the negatives, so far this year we have several new major fighting games and they all seem to share the same problem.
All of these games have an over powered, unfair, cheap final boss.
You thought Seth in Street Fighter IV was bad well check out Azazel.
Azazel has got to be the most unfair boss I have ever fought in any fighting game ever. The first problem is defense, near enough every attack you do is blocked by Azazel, on the flip side some of Azazel attacks hurt you even if you have the guard damage switched off, too add no that it has some attacks that you can't even block.
The other problem with this boss is power, Azazel can kill you with a few hits, but to kill Azazel you have to be a master at juggling, because of Azazel's hard to break defense and extra large health bar you need to get in as many hits as possible while it is in midair (you can't defend in mid-air).
Cheap boss aside Tekken 6 is easily one of the best Fighters to come out this gen (if not the best), like most good fighters Tekken is easy to learn hard to master, you will become addicted.

Graphics and Sound
Tekken 6 is a beautiful game both visually and graphically, the games conversion from arcade to home has been a huge success, it looks almost as good as the arcade version.
The games sound track is the best since Tekken 3 no question, the sound track fits perfectly with all the levels, they hit all the right notes with this game.

Conclusion
Best Tekken game? Yes. Best fighter out this year? Possibly.

+ Well balanced gameplay
+ Stunning graphics
+ Amazing soundtrack
+ Character customization is huge
+ Scenario Campaign is good...

- ... but not for everyone
- Cheap boss
- Arena mode is weak.

10/10

NOTE: First of all I got the game 2 days before release, the review was put up the day the game went on sale, looking back I over rated the game, it is great but not a ten out of ten, the hype got the better of me. This is my first and only xbox 360 review no idea if I will do anymore.

Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers NES review

2010-02-08T14:40:00.000-08:00

Introduction
With films like Alvin and the chipmunks 2 being released in cinemas is it any wonder that people hate chipmunks these day.
But what about 20 years ago, back then chipmunks were cool, we had the Alvin and the chipmunks cartoon (awesome) and Disney's Chip 'N Dale Rescue rangers (double awesome).

Single Player
This game like Duck Tales was developed by Capcom and shared many similarities with the cartoon it was based on and Capcom's MegaMan games.
The single player mode allows you too play as either Chip or Dale who are on a quest to rescue their friend gadget and defeat the evil Fat Cat once and for all.

Multiplayer
The best thing about the game is its brilliant co-op multiplayer, alone this game is good but with a friend it is brilliant.

Gameplay
The game itself is a mix of Megaman and Super Mario 2.
The game has similar gameplay and physics to MegaMan but it also takes ideas from mario two like how you kill enemies by throwing things at them.
Control wise they are the same as Super Mario 2 only difference is that pressing down and jumping lets you jump down platforms instead of doing a super jump.
In the game you have three types of items that you can pick up and use.
The first are the boxes, you can throw these at enemies and you can hide in them by pressing down, they do not affect your speed.
The second item is the Tomato's, likes the boxes you can pick them up and throw them at enemies, unlike the boxes the Tomato's are much bigger and slow you down when you carry them.
The last item are the bombs, these things can explode but they are more powerful than the other throwing weapons.
There are also items and power ups that you can find along the way.
There is the acorn that recovers your health, the P bottle that seems to do nothing at all, the stars, collect so many and a one up appears. There are also big boxes that contain special items, it can range from a bee that gives you invincibility and kills all enemies in sight or cheese that makes one of the rescue rangers appear and destroy fences and walls blocking your way.
The enemies themselves are easy to kill and they all go down with one hit, there are variations, like the mechanical dogs that are are the games box art and some bears that shoot snoot from a gun.
In the game you get a map screen so you get to choose what levels you do, thanks to this the game can be fairly long (for nes), or really short.
At the end of each stage you fight a boss, after you beat the boss you get a bonus stage. A quick tip for the bonus stage, ignore all other boxes and go for the top middle one as they always contain a 1 up.
The game itself isn't very hard, but it does provide some challenge.
In terms of lifespan the game isn't long but it has some replay value so you can go back to it any day.
Alone or with friends the game is great fun.

Graphics&Sound
With it being Capcom the graphic are good for NES and they look just like the MegaMan games.
The music is great too, another thing this shares with duck tales.

Conclusion
If you own an nes and are looking for some sweet co-op action get this.

+ Great 8-bit graphics
+ Nice 8 bit tunes
+ Good blend of balanced gameplay
+ It's like MegaMan

- Fairly easy
- fairly short

8/10

Bart Vs The Space Mutants NES Review.

2010-02-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Can you belive that is has now been 20 years since the first episode of The Simpsons aired?
The Simpsons is one of, if not the best know TV show on the planet.
In 1990 Acclaim released Bart Vs The Space Mutants on NES, Master System and Game Gear.
I've owned the game gear version and I can tell you now that it is the best of all three 8-bit versions.
But that isn't saying much!

Single Player
The game is based on the first season of the simpsons so don't expect any references to well know episodes. The story is about some aliens who are plotting to take over the world with a super weapon.
The super weapon can only be powered by certain things though. This weapon needs purple things to power it.
So you play as Bart Simpson going around getting rid of anything purple.
To quote the games box:
"Hello, fellow humans!
Bartholomew J.Simpson here, with a very important secret: SPACE MUTANTS ARE INVADING SPRINGFIELD!"
Now if you know this why are you keeping it a secret seriously.
In fact according to the box:
"Only Bart can see the space mutants with his X-ray glasses."
Then why do you give the glasses to someone else so that they will believe you, idiot.
One thing that does make me laugh is this last paragraph:
"So if you're a decent person a patriot, and somebody who cares about this sorry planet, you'll do the right thing. Save the Earth! BUY THIS GAME!
Thanks man."

Gameplay
It sucks, there isn't anything else I can say about it, it just sucks.
The game is a standard platformer you go from left to right getting past enemies, should be too hard but there are two problems.
One, the enemies are invincible, you can not kill them.
Two the controls are broken.
These two problems alone kill the game.
One thing that I hate about this game are the controls, get this you press the A button to jump and you hold down the A button to run, this makes jumping over things really awkward, its almost impossible to do, which is a problem when you are trying to jump over the invincible enemies.
The movement controls don't help either, the control is terrible.
I'll be honest I can't get past the first stage of the game,you get 3 lives with no check points or continues. For these reasons I cannot ever see myself completing this game.
If you do complete this game you should get a medal, you should then be sent to a mental asylum for putting yourself though it.
The game has near to no lifespan at all, if you are good enough to get past the first level chances are you won't be playing for much longer as the game is said to get harder as it goes on.
Each stage has you go after things that power the aliens machine so you cannot complete a stage unless you get rid of near to every item.
To add to that some of the methods for getting rid of the tiems are ridiculous, you wouldn't think to buy a wrench to turn on the fire hydrant so that you could wash away wet paint.
The B button is used to spray paint over the objects in the first stage but after that there won't be much use for it.

Graphics and Sound
For NES I wouldn't call the graphics bad, but they are not very good either, the best looking thin in the game i Bart and even then he is oddly drawn, his nose disappears whenever he faces the screen.
Everything else in the game, namely the aliens and the people look bland and uninspired. The best looking thin in the game is the back grounds.
The sound is terrible, the music is just the simpsons theme looped over and over throughout the entire game, even the sega version had different music for each stage.

Conclusion
This was the first of many simpsons games but I'd say that this was by far one of the worst.

+ It's the Simpsons
+ Good for nostalga

- It has a rubbish looping sound track.
- Crippled controls
- overall terrible gameplay
- no continues

4/10

NOTE: Not one of my favourite reviews but I couldn't stand this game and felt like giving a game a negative review because I'll be honest I haven't done that much.

Golden Sun Game Boy Advance Review

2010-02-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Camelot the company famous for golf and tennis games.
Their most popular games include Everybody's golf, Mario golf and Mario tennis.
So how do they cope when they swap golf clubs for swords?
In 2001 Camelot released Golden Sun for GBA, the first 32-bit handheld system. Until Golden Sun all other RPG's had been ports of SNES games.
The game was published by Nintendo, who in all fairness has a good record as far as RPG's go.

Single Player
The games story revolves around the elemental science known as Alchemy and the magical power known as Psynergy.
You take the role of Isaac a boy from a village called Vale.
One day Isaac's life is changed after Vale is nearly destroyed by a land slide, many are lost including Isaac's friend Felix.
3 years later Isaac is assigned with preventing the return of alchemy after the elemental stars are stolen from Mt.Aleph by two fire adapts known as Saturos and Menardi.
Can Isaac stop the return of alchemy?

Multiplayer
The game features a mode that lets you battle with other Golden Sun owners, which is quite different because most RPG's don't have that.
The game also lets you link up to Golden Sun: The lost age.

Gameplay
There are many turn based RPG's out there but Golden Sun does a good job of standing out.
Golden sun is at first your typical turn based RPG, you run around, get into random fights, kill stuff, gain exp all the usual stuff. But in golden sun it isn't all about grinding (in fact you end the game at about level 30).
Like i said the game play in general isn't anything special, it plays just like every other RPG you would have played, the reason golden sun stands out is because of its class system, the class system plays a huge role in the game, without it the game would be impossible to beat.
In the game you have several classes, you have a balanced classes, offensive classes, magic classes and so on.
The class system is controlled using magical creatures known as Djinn, there are four types of Djinn, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, each has their own advantages, try using different Djinn on your characters, there are certain spells and ability's that can only be gained using Djinn.
Djinn are more helpful than level ups will ever be, using them can double you stats, to add to that you can set you Djinn's on and off.
Setting them on increases your stats and lets you use different spells and ability's.
On the other hand setting them off lets you summon creatures to assist you in battle. At the end of the day your skill is determined by how well you use your Djinn.
And that is why Golden Sun stands out, it is one of the few RPG's were grinding isn't important, very few RPG's are like that in fact there is only one other RPG I can think that works like golden sun (Final Fantasy VIII).
There is also one other area where the game stands out, in golden sun you have a power known as Psynergy. Phynergy is the power to do things with your mind for example more objects, see hidden things and read peoples mind, in all fairness it does add some more variety to the game play and it does make for some interesting puzzles.

Graphics and Sound
Golden Sun has what were probably the best graphics on the GBA at the time, even later in the consoles life the graphics still stood out as some of the best.
As for the music, well it is a good enough sound track but not the best I have heard in an RPG.

Conclusion
In all golden sun is one of the GBA's best games, I strongly recommend this to any RPG fan.

+ Good Graphics.
+ Has interesting characters.
+ Brilliant Class system.
+ Psynergy adds variety to the gameplay.

- Can leave you confused at times.

9/10

Beyond Good & Evil Game Cube Review

2010-02-08T14:26:00.000-08:00

Introduction
In gaming there seems to be a lot of good games that don't quite get the sales they deserve, Capcom's Okami, Sony's Ico and Platinum Games Madworld all being prime examples.
Beyond good and evil just so happens to be one of those games.
This is odd really considering that this game had something that the other three didn't, good advertising.
The game is designed by Michel Ancel, the creator of the Rayman games.

Single Player
The game is set on a planet known as Hillys a once peaceful place that is now plagued by war.
You take the role of Jade, a reporter who lives on Hillys with her uncle Pey'j (Who is some sort of man-pig).
As I said Hillys is at war with a race or aliens known as the DomZ.
Jade lives in an island lighthouse that acts as an orphanage for children who are affected by the war.
The people of Hillys are protected by a military group known as the Alpha sections, but the Alpha Sections seem incapable of doing just that. Because of this people across Hillys start to grow suspicious and uneasy, there is something that the Alpha Sections aren't telling us and it is up to Jade to solve the conspiracy using the greatest weapon known to man... the truth.

Gameplay
Beyond Good & Evil is a jack of all trades, it comes under different genres, it is mainly a 3rd person action adventure, but it also comes under the category of racing and stealth.
I'll start with the adventure aspect. Playing it this game reminded me of Jak 2 for some reason, it may have been because of the story and setting, think about it you are a member of a resistance that is trying to take down an oppressive government, you drive vehicles and always have a partner following you.
It also reminds me of Zelda, you fight enemies with a weapon, you explore the world, you go through multiple lairs/dungeons (what ever you want to call it), you take part in multiple side quests, you jump at the end of the ledge ect. The game does play like Zelda, which isn't really a surprise when you consider that Zelda is the base for most adventure games. That doesn't make it a copy of Zelda though, far from it.
The game has an emphasis on team work, in the game you have a partner who helps you fight and solve puzzles, you can give items to your partner if need be, your partner plays a big role in this game you can't really do anything without him.
Next is the travel the game lets you drive two vehicles, the hovercraft and the space ship.
The hovercraft is your standard vehicle you use it to travel around Hillys, it drives just like a car would, and you can upgrade your hover craft by buying vehicle parts from the black market. The hovercraft is also used in some of the side quests such as racing and chasing looters.
The hovercraft can also be used in combat thanks to its gun.
The other vehicle is the space ship you can used this to fly around Hillys you get it pretty late in the game so there isn't really that much to see and do once you've obtained it.
Now to move on to the games more interesting feature, the camera. Remember the camera in Zelda Wind Waker, well this is just like that.
The camera plays a huge part in the game, you use it in main story to gather evidence of the conspiracy, the camera can be also be used to take personal pictures that you want to keep. The great thing about the camera is its importance, a lot of focus went into it, you can use it to decipher codes and you can use it to take pictures of animals for research. The camera mode can also be used to do long range attacks.
On to one of the games more interesting elements now, stealth.
The games stealth is pretty good, every now and then you come to a section where you have to sneak past a group of alpha section guards, to be honest this is a bit like Metal Gear Solid you are meant to sneak past the guards but doesn't mean you have to, if you want you can kill them instead (Which isn't easy when they are in a group). The stealth isn't perfect but it does work well and it does build up a good amount of tension when playing the game.
The game also has several mini games, these are here for the side quests the games are a novelty more than anything.
The games combat is pretty good too, it is like a mix between Starfox Adventures and a Hack n Slash game. You can take on multiple enemies at once without having to focus on just the one, so yeah the combat is pretty good.
The game has quite a big focus on collecting stuff as well, in the game you have to collect pearls to be able to buy things from the black market, to get pearls you have to find them, most of the pearls are obtained in the main story but you can get even more doing the side quests. Other collectables in the game include stuff like health upgrades which are pretty much standard among adventure games these days.
One thing that does make this game stand out well is the way it is presented, the game feels like a movie at times, you have many scenes that stick with you (Like the roof top chase near the end of the game) it makes the game feel like an epic.
On to the negatives now I have two complaints.
There is a lot of try and die in the stealth sections, there are some parts of the game where being spotted means instant death.
The game isn't as long as it should be, in all it is about ten hours long which isn't much for a game that passes itself off as an epic.

Graphics and Sound
For what they are the graphics in this game are pretty damn good in fact they almost look as good as the games artwork (The box art being the best example).
The music is great too it all fits in with the situation that you are in. The most interesting part of the sound track is that some of the songs are in Spanish which makes it sound cooler because I don't understand a word of it.

Conclusion
It really should have sold better. Good news for those who never got to play this there is a sequel in the works, well there was a sequel in the works. Word on the net is that Ubisoft want to can it.

+ Nice Graphics
+ Interesting if humorous story
+ Some nice ideas
+ Jack of all trades...

- ...Master of none.
- Some annoying try and die
- Bit on the short side.

9/10

NEW Robocop Versus The Terminator Mega Drive Review

2010-01-31T10:19:00.000-08:00

Back in a time before I was born Robocop and Terminator where huge, Robocop was a big hit at the movies and so was the Terminator, both movies had mechanical men, both had action and both had a a huge amount of violence, put these two together and you have a great idea for a cross over.
Back in the mid 90's there were plans to put the two together on the big screen, sadly that didn't work out so what we got instead was a video game based off the comic book of the same name.
Released by Virgin games in 1993 the game featured everyone's favourite man dressed up as robot and everyone's favourite robot dressed as man.
The games plot (I presume) is the same as that of the comic. Cyberdyne Systems (the company that made Robocop I think) have won the rights to develop the Skynet defence system. Scientists decided that it would be best to develop the computer by modeling it after Robocop's neural networks. Robocop was the only successful link between man and machine so it was only natural that they would do this. Ironic that Robocop a machine made to protect man brings about its destruction.
Just like in the Terminator movies Skynet becomes self aware and starts a war between man and machine. Just like the Terminator the game has a time travel plot, the rebels travel back in time so that they can destroy robocop and prevent Skynet from being made. At the same time Skynet sends an army of Arnold's back in time to prevent Robocop's destruction.
However Robocop has his own agenda.

Lets talk about the game it's self, you turn the game on the SEGA logo appears and you hear a very ear-pleasing robocop saying "excellent", you then get one of those scrolling screens telling you the plot (because every game had that back them), the first thing you notice about the game is the sound people (and by people I mean Americans) often go on about the mega drive and it's "crap" sound card yet we can still get clear speech and ear-pleasing music from it. While the sound track is fairly small the game has some nice mixes to listen to such as the Robocop/Terminator mix that you hear at the start of the game, anyway enough of that on to the actual game.
Robocop Vs The Terminator is a side scrolling shoot'em up, if anything it reminded me of the Robocop coin-op from he 1980's. The game has one simple goal, get to the end of each stage and kill the boss, you do get given mission objectives but they are only there as a means of increasing your score.
The games graphics are good for the mega drive and they do make you think of the Robocop movies with its Detroit scenery and ultra violence.
Graphically everything is nicely detailed which is great because it gives you great satisfaction after you destroy something, you shoot a guy and he explodes into a bloody mess, you shoot a terminator and his skin peel's off, you kill a big guy and he collapses into a pile of inner gore, the violence is so extreme and tongue & check that its funny, but what really makes me laugh is that this came out before the age rating system, i find it funny that every talks about Night Trap and Mortal Kombat when this subject arises but this game seems to be ignored, maybe it was because the movies they were based off were both rated 18+ so parents knew what they were buying their kid. I just can't stop thinking about it though you couldn't anymore graphic, no matter what weapon you use the bad guys all die horribly, well except for the terminators they just blow up.
Anyway gameplay now, as expected of him Robocop is slow, he can't jump very high and he doesn't dodge bullets, he takes it full on like a man, the bullets should be a big problem though thanks to Robocop's health bar, not to mention he is pretty quick to the shot so most of the time he can kill them before they get the chance to shoot (presuming you have the more powerful weapons).
The enemies in this game are push overs they always stand in one place waiting to be blown up by a bullet, what's with those bullets do they explode?
The game features a fair destructible environment there are a lot of things to shoot and they tend to contain power up's (still don't understand how you can fit a flame thrower into a light bulb but there you go).
Now the game does have some fairly big flaws that ruin it, for starters the pistol is useless, it does next to no damage, if you get to the end boss and all you have is the pistol them you might as well turn the game off an start again, the pistol is unbelievably week, on the upside the extra weapons are all pretty decent and they do a lot more damage when you use them but you have to be careful, if you die while holding that weapon you will lose it, if that happens against the boss then you are in big trouble, thankfully there is a way around it, it Robocop is able to carry two weapons, if robocop dies he only loses the weapon he is using, keep this in mind because it is vital if you ever want to beat the game.
As the game goes on the levels become bigger and (slightly) confusing but to be fair if it wasn't like that the game would be too linear.
Robocop Versus The Terminator isn't long game and can be completed in about an hour provided that you are good at it.

In all Robocop Vs The Terminator isn't the best shooter ever but it will please fans of Robocop, Terminator and Shooters.

+ Awesome crossover
+ LOL gore
+ Nice soundtrack...

- ...though it is rather limited
- The pistol ruins everything

7/10

NOTE: It has *NEW* in the title because it is new, this isn't something I wrtoe ages back at Europe-Nintendo. Tring different writing style here.

Metroid Zero Mission Game Boy Advance Review

2010-01-30T12:19:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Who remembers Metroid on NES? It was one of the best games on the console and also one of the most confusing.
There is no denying it, Metroid was an 8-bit classic and it will always be remembered for having one of the biggest twists in gaming. Samus was a woman.
Putting all of that aside Metroid is still a pretty solid title today, and I mean that in both senses, it was one of the better adventure games on the NES but it was also one of the most confusing with endless tunnels and no map to guide you along the way.
So how have Nintendo improved on this classic?

Single Player
Like I said this is a remake so it has the same plot as the original Metroid.
The game sees you play as Samus Aran who is on her first mission as a bounty hunter. Her mission is to exterminate all Metroid's on planet Zebes and to defeat the space pirates, destroy their leader Mother Brain and put an end to their plans once and for all.
As you would expect this is a 2D Metroid game so it will be just like Metroid Fusion and Super Metroid.

Multiplayer
The game doesn't have a two player mode but it does connect to Metroid Fusion so that you can unlock bonus content such as a playable version of the 1986 NES Metroid.

Gameplay
What can I say? You've played this before. Its 2D Metroid; it follows the same formula as the other games.
You start with just your beam and suit searching for power ups so that you can become more powerful.
The more abilities you obtain the more you will be able to do and see as you delve deeper into Zebes.
The controls in this game are the same as in Fusion, you press A to jump, B to fire, L to aim and R to use rockets.
There have been quite a few noticeable changes from fusion in this game. For starters there isn't much narrative in the story, the game doesn't feature much dialog. The next difference is the way that the game is planned out. Metroid Fusion was a fairly linear game, you could only go to certain areas at the start of the game, in this game you have to figure most things out yourself with only a small amount of help.
The game does offer a lot of freedom, you can go anywhere on SR388 as long as you have the needed abilities. For example you might want to go somewhere but there is a hazard or wall blocking your way, if you have the needed power then you can carry on, if not then you have to turn back and find that power or find an alternate route, so there is a fair bit of freedom.
Later in the game you will find yourself doing a stealth section where you have to sneak past the space pirates without being caught, this section is done really well and is good fun but it can become frustrating.
Putting that aside Zero Mission does still play better than Fusion, it is quicker and more fluent.
Another thing about Metroid Zero Mission is that there are more power ups to find, in this game you start completely powered down so you have to find as many abilities as you can for example, you have a short ranged beam at the start go you need to find the long beam, another example is the power grip, in Metroid Fusion you could hang off ledges at the start of the game, in this you don't have that power you have to find it. One thing that is a nice change is that you don't have to fight bosses to gain powers, or use data rooms.
Another good feature that this game has is the option to change the games difficulty, you have 3 choices of difficulty, easy, normal and hard.
In easy you take less damage from attacks, there are also fewer enemies and they tend to go down a lot quicker.
In normal you take the regular amount for damage and enemies are at full health.
As for hard mode, well I will admit it is pretty hard. For starters you now take more damage and enemies take less damage, to make matters worse you now get few power ups, Missile tanks are only worth 2 Missiles instead of five, same for the energy tanks you now get an extra 50 energy points instead of 100.
I will admit the choice in difficulty is a great thing, the game can provide a challenge for both hardened gamers and newcomers alike.
Once again this game has plenty of replay value, the game is ideal for speed running as it can be beaten in one sitting, a great way to better yourself, also lets not forget the rewards for completing the game such as art and sound clips.

Graphics and Sound
In all the graphics here are much better than the graphics in Fusion, the colours standout more and you get a much clearer view, it really looks great, some of the backgrounds look like artwork, it is that clear.
Another thing I love about this game is the animated cut scenes they are so clean and fluid, it is like watching a cartoon.
The sound is great as well, Nintendo took all of the classic tunes from Metroid and revamped them.

Conclusion
In all Metroid Zero Mission is a really solid title that does a good job improving over the past games, expect plenty of twists, turns and surprises.

+ Gameplay perfected
+ Eye pleasing graphics
+ Nice Cut scenes
+ Plenty of content
+ Plenty of freedom

- Can be frustrating at times.

10/10

Metroid Prime Nintendo Game Cube Review

2010-01-30T12:16:00.000-08:00

Introduction
I'm sure by now you have heard of the Metroid Prime Trilogy that is set for release in September and I am sure that you are very excited to play classics such as Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3 Corruption.
Well, why wait for that to come to come out at retail price when you can play those games for less already?

Single Player
The game has you take the role of bounty hunter Samus Aran who is on a quest to destroy the evil that lurks in planet Tallon IV. But it won't be easy, to do this she has to once again stop the space pirates and their leader Ridley.
The game is set just after Super Metroid, for all those who don't know the Metroid Prime games fill the gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion.

Gameplay
Well what can I say, when the game was first shown a few years ago people didn't think much of it, they looked at it and thought "meh, doesn't look like anything special" little did they know of the impact that this game would have.
The game is a first person adventure, for those unfamiliar with the term I'll explain it like this. Imagine that Super Metroid was in 3D, now imagine that it was in first person, yeah, sums it up well.
Unlike most first person games Metroid Prime doesn't use the C-Stick to aim, which does seem quite odd to most hardcore FPS fans, same goes for the controls, instead of using the shoulder button to fire you use the A button.
To aim you press and hold the R button, this lets you look in all directions whilst standing in one place, if you do not use the R button then you can only aim 360 degrees.
The game also has a lock on feature to help with your targeting, to lock on to an enemy you press and hold the L button.
To jump you just press B.
Like I said this control method may sound strange for a first person game but trust me it works really well, in fact I'd go as far as to say that it betters all other FPS games on the GameCube in terms of control.
Like all other Metroid games you unlock new abilities and weapons as you go on through the game.
So you have classic Metroid abilities like the morph ball and grapple beam.
The morph ball plays a big role in the games mechanics and you will find yourself using it on several occasions such as solving puzzles and getting through small spaces.
The morph ball can also be upgraded further so that using it never gets repetitive. In all you will have a lot of fun playing with balls.
One of the games better features is one of the new mechanics, the visor.
The game is in first person so you will always see things through the eyes of Samus Aran, the way that this has been done is genius.
For starters we have the battle visor, this is your standard view. The screen is filled with bars and numbers that you may or may not understand. The Battle Visor lets you fight enemies as you normally would, it also tells you small details like how much health you have left, how many missiles are left and what weapon you are using.
The second visor is also the games most interesting feature, the scan visor. In this mode you cannot attack enemies. The scan visor is used to gather information and data, to switch visors you use the D pad.
When using the scan certain objects and creatures will have an orange/red symbol appear on them, this means that they can be scanned, to scan look at the object/creature and lock on using the L button. All scanned data is then added to your log book.
I like the log book feature because not just does it explain the creatures and the science of the Metroid universe but because it also gives you a good understanding of the games story. Most games try to tell the story through dialog and cut scenes, this game tells the story through journals and lore, I that counts as dialog but the best thing about it is that you don't have to read it if you don't want to, in other words the story isn't shoved in your face link with most games.
You also have two other visors in Metroid Prime, first is the thermal visor which lets you view things in heat vision, this visor is ideal for dark rooms, it is also useful when fighting certain enemies.
The last visor is the x-ray visor, this do what it says in the name, its an x-ray, you can use it to see invisible enemies, to see through dark rooms and to find hidden doors and rooms, the only problem with the x-ray visor is the range, you cannot see very far when using it.
Next up is the weapons, in previous Metroid games weapons were combined to created more powerful attacks, this time the developers have decided to try a different method this time, now instead of mixing the weapons you swap them, this brings quite a few new features to the gameplay, for example you need to use certain weapons to open doors.
The game has four main beam weapons in total, to changed beams use the C-Stick.
First is the power beam, this is your standard beam which you start the game off with, this beam is pretty week at first but it can be powered up through upgrades like the charge beam.
The second weapon is the wave beam, this beam has an electrical element to it. The beam has the ability to paralyse enemies, activate electrical outputs and open purple doors. There are certain enemies who can only be damaged with this weapon.
The next beam is the ice beam, just like in past Metroid games the ice beam has the power to freeze enemies, and the beam can also open white doors. The beam does have a fault though, it has a really slow firing rate so you are likely to miss most of you shots when using it.
The last weapon is the plasma beam and this is by far my favourite weapon, for starters it is heat based so it has the power to turn enemies into a pile of ashes, which is really really cool.
The other great thing about this beam is that it is the most powerful of the four. The beam can be used to open red doors.
Metroid Prime is a huge game, once you have played it you will feel as if you have been on Tallon IV yourself, there is a load to see and there is hardly a dull moment.
A lot of the game will stick with you forever, the power-ups, the scenery, the bosses ect.
Saying that though I only have one complaint to make with this game. Sometimes the game makes you do huge amounts of back tracking, this can at times be annoying.
In all Metroid Prime does have some length to it and it should last about half a day. But thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s not all the game also has some replay value.
You may not know this but once completed Metroid Prime is can be linked to Metroid Fusion on the GBA to unlock new content.
"What kind of new content?" you ask, well how about playable fusion suit and the full version of the original Metroid for the NES, that should add to the games length as well.
Oh yeah there is also Hard mode and art galleries to unlock as well.
So yeah you will be playing this for a while.
Let's not forget that classic Metroid replay value as well, once you have finished this you will want to play it again in an attempt to better yourself.

Graphics and Sound
The GameCube was quite well known for its graphics, some first party titles looked amazing at the time and Metroid Prime is no exception. The GameCube was never quite pushed to its limit so consider this (and Zelda Twilight Princess) to be the GameCube's Graphical peak.
As for the sound, well let's just say that the music is as good as the graphics. The games music is perfect, it fits perfectly with the areas in the game, not much more can be said.

Conclusion
This game is more or less perfect, easily one of the best games ever made and arguably the best game on the GameCube.

+ Did what it set out to do
+ Looks amazing
+ Sounds Amazing
+ Plays flawlessly
+ Cool features and extras

- Backtracking is annoying

10/10

Luigi's Mansion Nintendo Game Cube Review

2010-01-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Released as a launch title for the GameCube, Luigi's Mansion was the first "Mario" game to feature on Nintendo's Purple Box, and it was also the second game to have Luigi take on the leading role (The first being Mario is Missing).

Single Player
The game revolves around Mario's brother Luigi who has just been told that he has won a mansion in a contest that he never entered. Deciding that it didn't sound at all suspicious Luigi decides to meet up with Mario at his new three story home.
Sadly through Luigi's new home is not all that is seems to be, Mario has gone missing and to make matters worse the mansion is full of ghosts.
Fortunately Luigi has a run in with a scientist/ghost hunter called professor E.Gladd, Gladd decides that he is too old to catch ghosts so it is up to Luigi to take up his burden and save Mario.

Gameplay
Luigi's mansion is one of a kind; it doesn't fit into any genre at all.
The aim of the game is to capture ghosts but sucking them up with a vacuum cleaner.
The game has two control methods to choose from, you have the standard controls where Luigi faces which ever way you point the control stick and you have the sidestep controls where you move with the control stick while using the C-stick to aim, kind of like an FPS then.
The A button acts as the games action button, you can use it to open doors and move nearby objects, you can also shout Mario's name by pressing the A button.
Pressing Y will bring up the games map/stats screen and Pressing X will bring up the first person view.
These actions are done by using one of E.Gladds inventions, the Game Boy Horror; the Game Boy Horror is more or less the Game Boy Color which is a nice novelty.
Pressing the B button turns off Luigi's flashlight, this can be helpful at times.
On to the main gameplay now, to capture ghosts in this game you have to do 2 things, one make sure the ghost is near other wise it will just disappear when you flash your light at it. Two When you flash your light at a ghost its heart will appear when you do this press and hold down the R button its time to capture that ghost.
The ghosts have a health meter, get it to zero and you will suck them up, the best way to do this is to press the control stick in the direction that is opposite to that which the ghost is facing, you capture them quicker this way.
The game has a large Varity of ghosts each with their own abilities, there are even boss ghosts.
In Luigi's mansion there are 23 boss ghosts to capture, these ghosts were once trapped in paintings owned by Professor E.Gladd, make sure that you try to capture all of them, these ghosts aren't so easy to catch you have to find and expose they week spots to be able to catch them, if you are stuck you can scan them for clues using the first person view on the Game Boy Horror.
The last type of ghosts in the game are Boo's, Boo's are not like the other ghosts they don't get pulled towards the vacuum when you try to suck them up, they just lose health and become slower instead. Boo's are a pain because they can only be found in light rooms so it can mess things up if they escape into a dark room or a room that you don't have the key to yet, trust me Boo's can become really annoying especially when they constantly change rooms. Boo's like to hide so you have to find them using the Game Boy Horror's Boo radar.
In all there are 50 Boo's, make sure that you catch all of them.
In the game there are hidden emblems that you can find in certain rooms, obtain these emblems and you will be able to do elemental attacks. There are 3 elements, Fire, Ice and Water, you can suck up elemental ghosts to use as weapons, so if you suck up a fire ghost you will be able to burn ghosts, some ghosts can only be hurt by these elements, to use the elemental attacks press and hold down the L button while the Fire/Ice/Water gauge is full.
Scattered around the mansion arte several of princess peaches Toads, the Toads were sent to the mansion to find Mario, talking to the toads will let you save your game.
The games levels are divided up into areas; each area is opened by obtaining a special key.
To get these keys you have to defeat the boss ghosts at the end of each area.
Luigi's Mansion is quite good in terms of exploration, the mansion is full of secrets like hidden rooms and tricks.
The game also has a few interesting twists that stop the game from getting repetitive for example there are parts of the game where you have to fight invisible ghosts that grab you, to see them you normally have to look in a mirror or create shadows.
One you have completed the game you can replay it from the very beginning, but there isn't really that much point in doing so there only differences is that the game is at a higher difficulty. The only thing that makes the game worth playing the second time is the "Hidden Mansion" that you unlock after completing the game.
The Hidden Mansion is just basically Mirror Mode.
Luigi's Mansion isn't really a very long game and can be completed in a few hours, but it does gain points for trying to have replay value but being fair, it is one of those games that are no longer than they should be, like Portal.

Graphics and Sound
Out of all the game that came out on the GameCube's release this comes in second for best graphics (1st being Rogue Squadron 2), Luigi's Mansion has aged well it is graphically superior to most Wii games (That is a good and bad thing).
The games soundtrack is great it sets the haunted house tone really well and to make things better Luigi hums and whistles it, the game also features the Super Mario Bros 3 theme.

Conclusion
It's only been seven years but this game still feels relatively new, one of a kind! Shame about the length though...

+ Works really well
+ Amazing Graphics
+ Moody Soundtrack
+ Is creative

- Short
- Boo's can be frustrating

9/10

Metroid Fusion Game Boy Advance Review

2010-01-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

Introduction
In recent years everyone has been going on about the Metroid Prime series, sadly through this has taken attention away from the 3rd person Metroid games.
But with the recent announcement of Metroid: Other M at E3 it is only right that we take a look at one of the best games on the Gameboy Advance, Metroid Fusion.

Single Player
The game is set at the end of the Metroid timeline, and Samus finds herself once again on the surface of planet SR388 after being hired by the Galactic Federation to overlook research being done by the B.S.L (Biological Space Labs).
The biological research was going well until Samus came into contact with a creature she had never encountered before...
Samus soon found out that her attacker was a newly discovered parasitic life form known as "X".
After the incident she decided to return to base when disaster struck, her body suddenly seized up, to make matters worse her spaceship was drifting into an asteroid belt.
Thankfully an auto-escape pod ejected her from the craft before collision. Her pod was later found by the research station that orbited SR388. How ever in the time since the infection the "X" had multiplied inside her power suit.
Samus was transported to Galactic Federation HQ for emergency medical treatment.
All hope seemed lost for Samus, then a miracle happened.
Someone found a cure, by using the cells from a Metroid the "X" that infected Samus were instantly destroyed.
For Samus one life ended and another began as the Metroid vaccine cased her appearance to change dramatically.
When Samus awoke Galactic Federation HQ received a distress call from the research station.
Samus then immediately left HQ for the research centre to investigate...

Gameplay
Metroid Fusion plays just like Super Metroid, so anyone who had played it will feel right at home.
Metroid Fusion is a 2-D adventure game, the games goal is to explore the space station and regain abilities for the power suit.
You use A to jump and B to fire from your arm cannon.
The games hit detection is spot on, if you shot touches the enemy in anyway they take damage, the same goes for you.
When using the blaster you can aim up and down diagonally using the left shoulder button. You can also use missiles by holding down the right shoulder button.
Throughout the game you will gain new abilities such as the morph ball and speed boost.
These power up's are all needed at some point in the game, they can all be put to good use if mastered, for example with the morph ball you can use bombs to jump if you learn the correct technique then you can chain bomb jumps and get to hidden areas, another example is the boost technique, once you have the speed boost you can use it to more or less fly at super sonic speeds, to do this you have to crouch when boost running, you then jump straight up and go in which ever direction you choose,. Like I said if you want to obtain as many upgrades as possible then you better learn to put your abilities to good use.
In the other Metroid games you gain health and ammo by absorbing items, in Metroid fusion you recover by absorbing "X" parasites.
There are about 5 different types of "X" in the game, there are Yellow (Health), Green (Missiles), Red (Recover large amount of Energy and ammo), Blue (Damages you if you don't have the varia suit) and Core.
The core "X" is what gives you your abilities back, to absorb core "X" you have to face a boss, there are many bosses in the game, some are new and other you may remember from past titles.
The games boss fights are great, no boss is the same, they are all unique and they all have their own weaknesses.
In the game you are guided by your personal computer throughout the mission, you can contact him by using navigation rooms, it's important to use the navigation rooms as they update your mission and give you map data.
If you happen to get lost in the game you can always look at the map, to view the map pause the game..
Metroid Fusion isn't that long a game if you want me to be honest, you should be done with it in a few hours, but it does have a redeeming quality, Metroid Fusion is addictive, it is one of those games where you test yourself, when you complete the game you get given a time and item percentage, you are then rewarded with some artwork of Samus. The picture changes depending on how well you have done, for example if you are a master at this game you can see Samus without her suit doing a pose.
Like I said it is a game where you test yourself to see how quickly you can complete it. I have completed this game about 5 times now and I still haven't beat the time I got a few years back (1Hr 57Mins with %52 items), the game can consume you.
Another good factor for this game is the fact that it can link to Metroid Prime on the GameCube to unlock content such as the Fusion Suit in Metroid Prime and a playable version on the original Metroid.

Graphics and Sound
The games graphics are pretty good, the sprites are clear, but the thing that really makes this game look impressive is the cut scenes they look so well drawn when you consider the fact that this is a Gameboy Advance game.
The games sound track is great as well and it really sets the tone for the game and it can make the game really intense.

Conclusion
Seven years on this game is still incredibly enjoyable, a good game to get if you are looking for a good action game on the GBA or if you are a fan or if you are new to the series.

+ Stunning Gameplay
+ Great Graphics
+ Brilliant Story
+ Good Challenge

- Too linear for some.

9/10

Note: Some time after I wrote the review I was able to better my old time by a good 20 minutes or something like that.

Kirby's Dream Land Game Boy Review

2010-01-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Known in Japan as Kirby of the Stars, Kirby's Dream Land was the first game to feature everyone's favourite pink blob.
So the story is this, the greedy King DeDeDe has stolen all of the food in Dream Land and it is up to Kirby to get the food back.

Gameplay
On to the game play now anyone who has played a Kirby title before will be able to get straight into this, it is a very simple game.
Unlike all of the sequels Kirby doesn't have the power to steal abilities from other enemies but he is still able to suck them up, eat them and spit them out. Kirby also has the ability to fly, when flying Kirby and release a puff of air that damages foes.
In the game you will find several special food's that act as power-up's such as the curry that lets to spit out fire balls, the lolly pop that makes you invincible, and the tomato that recovers your health fully. There are other foods in the game that are used to gain power-ups and health.
The game has 5 stages in total; each stage features a sub boss and a boss battle at the end. Each stage starts with a little into movie, the intro are fairly cute and humorous.
I will admit this game is a bit too easy but there is a solution to that problem, when you complete the game you will be given a code that is used to unlock the extra game, be warned though the extra game is a lot harder than the normal game.

Graphics and sound
The graphics are fairly good for an early Game Boy game, they look nice and they don't cause any strain to the eyes.
The music in this game will stick with you it's pretty catchy, in fact it's the same music that is used in just about every other Kirby game.

Summary
A really easy game to get into thanks to its simplicity. It is very short but that's what the extra game is there for.

+Easy to get into
+Has some replay value
+Music is catchy

-Fairly short game
-Doesn't have the copy ability like the other games.

8/10

P.N.0.3 Game Cube Review

2010-01-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Set in a distant future where planetary colonisation has happened and is still being done, P.N.03 puts you in the role of freelance mercenary Vanessa Z. Schneider.
Because of the planetary colonisation the army has decided to put defensive weapons in charge of guarding the new planetary settlements, these robots are controlled by a Computerised Armament Management System (CAMS for short).
Soon things go bad when one of the settlements is turned into a killing field due to a CAMS malfunction.
It's up to Vanessa to destroy the CAMS and bring peace back to the planet.
P.N.03 was one of the Capcom 5, these were games that were suppose to be exclusive to the GameCube but were later ported to other consoles (Viewtiful Joe being one of them), P.N.03 was the only one that stayed exclusive to the GameCube.
The game also has a demo video of Viewtiful Joe on it.

Gameplay
P.N.03 is a very straight forward game and a very old fashioned one too, the reason I say this is because it follows the rules that most old games had, such as if it moves kill it.
The game is very easy to pick up and play and you will learn the controls easily, you press the A button to do a palm blast, this is the standard attack for the game and doesn't do much damage. B is the jump button you will jump in different ways depending on which direction you are going, for example if you are going forward you will do a cool Matrix style flip jump, same if you are retreating backwards. The jumping move is good for dodging enemy fire as well as getting you to higher platforms.
By pressing the shoulder buttons you will do a side step dodge, press it twice in the same direction and you will do a filp.
The Z button lets you do a 180 degree turn, the turning is like that of Resident Evil in a way but only quicker.
When there are enemies near by you will lock-on to them automatically to switch what target you are firing at press the X button, sometimes when there are multiple enemies around it can be a frustrating to lock-on to the one you want to fire at.
Sometimes you will run into holes and walls that are waist high the great thing about them is that you can use them for cover by holding the Y button, Y lets you duck, when you duck you can roll forwards and backwards, you can also do a side step duck by pressing both Y and either of the shoulder buttons.
Palm shot too weak for your liking ? Well this is where the energy drive gauge comes into play, by doing a certain input of buttons on the D-pad and then pressing A you can perform special moves that can help you destroy the enemies a lot easier and you don't have to worry about getting hit when you do these moves either because you are imperious to damage when you perform them, the moves are all different and they work in two ways, you have the energy drives that let you do powerful attacks that kill multiple enemies and you have the energy drives that power you up for a certain amount of time.
Try not to abuse the energy drives though as they come at a price, at the top left of the screen you gave two bars one is the Barrier gauge, this gauge is green and it acts as your life energy. The other gauge is the Energy Drive Gauge this goes down every time you use an energy drive move.
To refill you Barrier and Energy Drive bars you can pick up these atoms that come in two colours, green for barrier energy and orange for energy drive.
They also come in two sizes the small ones refill the gauge slightly while the bigger ones fill the gauges completely. There are also pink ones that give you extra continues in case you die.
P.N.03 isn't an easy game it takes skill to play and it takes skill to constantly dodge and kill enemies and there are all different types of them too.
When you kill enemies you get points and start a combo chain, the combos have a time limit that extends every time you destroy an enemy, the bigger combo you get the more points you earn. The points you earn in the stages can be used to buy new suits,upgrades and extra continues.
The game has about a 12 missions in total (it also has trial missions but they donÃ't have any importance besides being an easy way to get extra points) and they all involve you getting to the end of the stage by going through several corridors and rooms destroying robots and then getting to the stage boss.
After you complete a mission you get ranked on how well you did there are four ranks:
Amateur, Regular, Professional and Destroyer.
The game is fun but I have one really big problem with it, the games length, it takes 2-3 hours to complete, which is a problem if you are not one of those people who enjoys replaying a game. I suppose you could compare it to games like Resident Evil and Metroid which tell you how well you did when you complete the game so that you will go back and try to better yourself.

Graphics & Sound
The graphics aren't great but they're not bad either, but the game isn't eye pleasing in the sense that most of the rooms look the same.
As for the sound all can say is wow, the music in this game is awesome, so awesome that CAPCOM decided to put it in future titles such as Resident evil 4.

Summary
It's a decent game that seems to pay tribute to retro games with its simplicity. It' too short overall.

+Great sound track
+Stayed exclusive to the GameCube
+Easier to get into than most games.

-Horribly Short
-Palm shot will make your thumb hurt

7/10

Pokemon Colosseum Game Cube Review

2010-01-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

Introduction
The first true 3-D Pokemon game to have an adventure mode and the first Pokemon game on the GameCube.
The game takes place in the Orre region, a place where wild Pokemon is a rarity.
There is an evil organisation that is capturing Pokemon and using them as weapons, these Pokemon are known as shadow Pokemon.
Using the power of the "Snag Machine" it's up to you to steal and save all of the shadow Pokemon.

Single Player
The single player mode is a story that takes place in the Orre region, you once again take the role of a fashion challenged Pokemon trainer.
The game starts off with a cinematic cut scene I won't spoil it for those who haven't played it yet.
You start out with two Pokemon, Umbreon and Espeon, this is a good pair for double battles and you could complete the game using just these two mon, which takes away the idea of team building that made the other games work do well.
The story mode takes 15 to 30+ hours depending on how you go about completing it. If you want to play the game till you get to the ending then it will feel fairly short lived, if you try and do all side quests and capture all shadow Pokemon and purify them then it will be a very long game.

Multiplayer
This is where the game really shines, by using the GBA to GameCube link up you can battle other players party from Ruby/Sapphire using your team off the story mode, you have a choice of what battles you can do:
2 player battles:
GBA Vs GBA Single & Double
GameCube Vs GBA Single & Double

4 player battles:
GameCube Vs GBA Vs GBA Vs GBA Double battle only
GBA Vs GBA Vs GBA Vs GBA Double battle only.

Its not much better than playing on the Game boy Advance the only upside is that the Pokemon battles are in 3-D.

Gameplay
The game play is traditional Pokemon game play the only difference is that the battles seem to drag on due most likely because of the way that the attacks are done on this game, compared to the handheld games these battles feel really slow paced and dull.
Another thing that doesn't help this is the games gimmick, the shadow Pokemon, while the idea of stealing Pokemon is cool at first, it just gets really boring and frustrating after a while due to the attack they have shadow rush, the shadow Pokemon can kill them selves when you are trying to catch them which is a pain in most battles seeing how you sometimes only get one shot at this.
You will find your self going to the save point all of the time because you are worried that the shadow Pokemon will die when you fight them.
Another annoying thing about the shadow Pokemon is that they are limited to one move when you catch them and that move is shadow rush, to get the Pokemon's moves back you have to open their heart and purify them and it takes a long time to do, there are over 40 shadow Pokemon in the game and you will need to catch and purify most of them if you want to catch Ho-ho.
Because there are no wild Pokemon in the game you are limited to the Pokemon in the game but like I said before you can get through the game with just Umbreon and Espeon, but it kind of ruins the whole idea of building a team
Not to say that it ruins the game or anything like that there is some reward in catching the shadow Pokemon. Once you beat the games final boss and see the ending you are allowed to trade Pokemon from your GameCube to GBA and vice-versa, but the Pokemon have to be purified before you can trade them, most of the Pokemon in Colosseum cannot be obtained in Ruby/Sapphire so its worth it if you want the Jhoto starters, the 3 legendary dog's and Ho-oh ect.
To get Ho-oh you have to clear the Vs 100 challenge on MT.Battle, this takes a really long time as you could imagine, sometimes it can take over an hour to clear 10 battles. The good thing about it is that you can do the MT.Battle challenge using your Ruby/Sapphire Pokemon, sadly GBA Pokemon gain no exp doing this, every time you clear an area on MT.Battle you get poke coupons that you can exchange for items, not that they will be much use to you though the amount of coupons you get are very small when you consider how much the items that you trade them for cost. It's like being at an arcade it would be cheaper and easier just to buy the prizes.
The game comes with a 52 block GameCube mermory card but thats only because it take 48 blocks to store the game.

Graphics & Sound
The Graphics are split in this game, first you have the Pokemon who look amazing in battle and then you have the trainers who look kind of poor graphically. The opening cut scene is the only cinematic part of the entire game.
The music on the game isn't anything that will stay with you, it's not very good when compared to that of the GBA Pokemon games and other RPG's on GameCube.

Summary
Not the best Pokemon RPG ever made, it suffers because of its own gimmick (Kind of like most 3-D Sonic games), still fun to play through.

+Same pokemon gameplay
+Free Memory Card
+Finally a change...

-... but not a change for the best
-Kinda lame sound track
-Battles take forever.
-Where the hell are the wild pokemanz!

7/10

Notes: On europe nintendo the site had a coding problem so all the old post's with special cases like ' ended up with code everywhere. This one was a knightmare because of the e in pokemon.

Star Fox Adventures Game Cube Review

2010-01-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

Introduction
StarFox adventures is the sequel to Lylat Wars (also known was Star Fox64) and takes place eight years after the war against Andross.
In those eight years many things have changed for the team due to the Lylat System being at peace, jobs for fighter pilots and mercenaries have become hard to come by, sad to say the Star Fox team has suffered, boredom struck causing Falco to leave Star Fox and Slippy to quit piloting and work in weapon development, Peppy has also retired from piloting due to old age.
Fox and co do what ever they can to get by so they were happy when General Pepper gave them an offer for a high paying job.
Dinosaur Planet a planet located on the edge of the lylat system has for some reason come apart and it is up to Fox to put the planet back together.

Gameplay
The game starts you playing as Krystal the sole survivor of an ill fated planet called Cerinia, this part of the game acts as a tutorial.
You destroy a battle ship and meet the games leading villain (Sort of) General Scales and then fly off to a place called Krazoa Palace where you meet some dying dinosaurs who tell you to find the Krazoa sprits and return them to the palace.
To get to the sprit you have to step on these panels that teleport you to an area where you must solve puzzles and get past many different kinds of dangers to get to the sprit.
There are six Krazoa sprits in the game so get use to doing this.
After getting and releasing the first sprit you end your play as Krystal, it's now Fox's turn to shine.
So after a long cut scene explaining the games plot you play as Fox in a way that can only be labelled as nostalgic.
Your in the Arwing flying through space shooting things the idea is to collect gold rings, its just like Lylat wars you can do a barrel roll, you can boost and you can break the only thing that you can't do is loop.
These flying sections are brief but extremely satisfying.
So after flying through space you land on Dinosaur planet for the first time you are told they you couldn't bring any weapons with you so you will have to find one. So you can now walk around and explore, eventually you will find the staff that Krystal dropped at the start of the game now you will learn combat by fighting the games main enemy, they are called the SharpClaw a mutant race of dinosaurs.
The staff you have is used to do nearly everything in the game you use it to fight, you use it to activate switches, use it to shoot things, use it to solve puzzles, use it to open passages ect ect, as you go through the game you will discover upgrades for the staff that gives it new abilities, you have a magic gauge this is the "power bar" for your staff, it depletes when you use the staffs magic.
After a while you will most likely say to your self "I've played this before".
I will not deny it this game is a lot like Zelda.
The combat is like that of Zelda as well, but that isn't a bad thing now is it.
In the game you obtain several items that you can use to help you do things like blow up walls, light up dark areas, make vines for you to climb and so on, you also have key items that can only be used in the right place, you scroll through the items using the C-Stick, you can also scroll through your staff powers and commands for Tricky with the C-Stick.
In the game you befriend a dinosaur called Tricky who becomes your sidekick.
Just like the staff you need Tricky for almost everything you need him to solve puzzles, make new path ways and find buried items, this doesn't come for free you need to feed Tricky so he will have the energy to help, he eats these blue mushrooms that you find scattered almost every where.
The game has you spend a lot of time going through various ruins,temples,caves ect looking for the spell stones, the spell stones must be returned to the force point temples so the planet can be used to put the planet back together.
The game has some other supporting characters that help you:
Peppy: He provides you with a map of dinosaur planet and tells you where to go next.
Slippy: He provides you with clues on how to get past bits that you may be stuck on.
General Pepper: He shows you your quest stats.
Warp Stone: A giant stone person who teleports you to different places.
Shopkeeper: This greedy lizard sells you items that you can use on your quests, he also sells maps, the games currency is scarabs, small insects that you can find under rocks.
Dinosaurs: These guys you can talk to some can be helpful, there are several dinosaur tribes.
Gatekeepers: These dinosaurs help you by opening gates to the parts of the planet that have broken off so you can fly to them in your arwing.
The games control is good it's responsive the only time when the control is a problem is when you are using the blaster on your staff the aiming is horribly over sensitive.

Graphics and sound
Both are great the graphics are detailed and realistic the arwing looks nice and dirty, Fox looks furry and the dinosaurs look as dinosaurs should. The environment looks nice too.
To go with the great looking environment is some great sounding music to fit the mood. Some of the music (mainly the arwing parts) comes from Lylat wars.
Like with most RARE games the voice acting is ...well different from most games, I'm sure RARE just have their staff do the voice acting.

Funfact
StarFox Adventures was never a Starfox game to begin with, it started out as a N64 game that RARE was making called Dinosaur Planet but due to the death of the N64 the game was scrapped and turned into Starfox.

Summary
Its a great game and the only Nintendo published alternitive to Zelda that I can think of.

+Arwing sections are nostalgic.
+Graphics are great for the time.
+A nice change.
+Good alternative to Zelda.

-Krazoa Sprit tests can be frustrating.
-Staff Blaster aiming is horrible.
-We want more arwing

8/10

Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance Game Cube Review

2010-01-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Set on the Continent of Tellius, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance tells the story of a mercenary group known as the Greil Mercenaries.
The game see's you commanding the Greil Mercenaries and other units in a way that is very similar to Advance Wars.
Fire Emblem takes Advance Wars and gives it RPG elements such as leveling up, equipping weapons, and character classes.
The story is this the peaceful nation of Crimea is one day attacked by the neighbouring nation of Daein unable to defend the country Crimea is defeated and the royal family is murdered.
The only member of the royal family left is princess Elincia.
After saving her from Daein troops Elincia Hires the Greil Mercenaries to help her reclaim her country.
Will the Greil Mercenaries succeed? Only time will tell.

Gameplay
Fire Emblem is only what can be described as chess + RPG.
The game has several types of units that upgrade into different classes the games basic units are:
Fighter- A axe wielding unit that has great strength but lacks defence, fighters are at a disadvantage against sword users.

Myrmidon- A sword wielding unit that has great speed and skill but is lacking in the area of strength and defence.

Soldier- Soldiers start out as really weak units but they have great growth and will soon become very powerful. They use lances.

Knight- A heavily armoured unit that is slow but not easy to damage physically, but are screwed when put against magic.

Archer- A unit that uses long range attacks to deal with enemies so they are not meant to fight the foe face to face. Make sure you upgrade them to sniper.

Mage- General Magic users have good magic attack and defence but lack physical strength so make sure that stay clear of any units who can hit them.

Priest- These are healers they can't attack at all unless you upgrade their class. Priests are vital as they can heal units, remember if a unit dies they stay dead and you will never get to use them again.

Lance/Axe/Sword/Bow Knights- These are all horse riding units they can move far and are reliable. If upgraded they can use extra weapons.

Wyvern Riders- These units ride dragons known as Wyverns, they can use Axes and lances and they have great movement, very powerful. This unit is screwed against magic and bows.

Pegasus Knight- The other flying unit, they are the opposite of the wyvern Riders they can defend magic easily but are weak to physical attacks.
They are also weak attackers but they can avoid attacks with ease.

Laguz- A new type of unit to fire emblem they come in 3 different tribes Beast, Bird and Dragon they are half human, half animal units that don't use weapons.

Fire emblem has what is known as the weapon triangle which is a rock, paper, scissors type system that works like this:
Swords beat axes,
Axes beat lances
and lances beat swords.
Sword> Axe> Lance> Sword> Axe> ect
The same goes for magic as well.
Fire> Wind> Thunder> Fire> Wind> ect.
The game at first may seem complicated at first but you will soon get into it easily.
As I mentioned with the priests before unlike Advance Wars you must take care of you units in this game if they die you will never get them back.
In the game you can power up your units using different weapons though unlike most RPG's all weapons (With the exception of Ragnell and Amiti) have a limit to the number of times you can use them, when the number of uses reaches zero the weapon breaks.
Stronger weapons have less number of uses then the weaker weapons.
If you want new weapons and items you can buy them from the market you can also have weapons forged and give them a name. (I made a sword called E_N RULES! it was the strongest sword you could make).
There is also a new feature that lets you give characters special skills and give them bonus exp which is great if you trying to train a unit without making it fight.
As the game goes on you will discover new characters that can join you some require a conversation with a certain person while others are won in more unique ways.
Try and Get as many characters to join as possible either as back ups or units who can really help as you go through the game.
The game has 28 chapters and should take 25 to 30 hours to complete the first time around, maybe more if you are playing at a higher difficulty.
The game has 2 possible endings so it is worth playing through twice.
The game feels very rewarding in that sense.
When you complete the game you unlock extras such as art gallary, sound track and trial maps to test you skill playing the game.
The game can be connected to a GameBoy Advance once completed but you need Fire Emblem the Scarred Stones on GBA to use it.
All you get is some extra art work though.

Graphics & Sound
The game uses graphics that as somewhat cel-shaded as much as I love the style I will admit that it is no where near as good as that of the Wind Waker.
The Cel-shading in the cut-scenes is amazing though.
As for sound the music effects in battles is great.
The Music is what I can only call amazing; the music is made to fit the mood of the game.
Energetic music when you are attacking, bad mooded music when the enemy attacks and others types of music made to fit the mood of the game weather it be a part of the games story that is emotional or a part that is in high sprits the game can fit the mood perfectly.

Summary
A great strategy RPG, another one of the lost gems of the GameCube.

+Great Story
+Rewarding to play
+You will grow to love the characters.
+Battle system works.

-Some characters are a waste of space
-Same can be said for some of the special weapons
-Can be frustrating.

9/10

quick note: This review was different to all the other reviews I had done and I don't every see myself writing like this ever again.

Quackshot Mega Drive review

2010-01-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Back in the late 1980's and early 1990's Nintendo were making deals with developers to make games exclusively for their consoles, in other words games like Mega man on Nintendo could not be ported to other systems, because of this Nintendo dominated the gaming industry and everyone else was left with a lack of must have games on their systems. Not wanting to fall behind Sega made similar deals, but instead of making deals with video game developers to make their games exclusive to Sega's system, Sega decided that they could do a better job themselves, so in the end they started making deals with Animation Company's like Disney and Toei Animation.
The result games like Castle of Illusion, Last Battle (Known in Japan as fist of the North Star), and Quackshot.

Single Player
Developed by SEGA AM7 Quackshot follows Donald Duck on his quest to find the lost treasure of King Garuzia, the old-time ruler of the Great Duck kingdom after he finds a map belonging to Scrooge McDuck, forgetting that he had a date with Daisy, Donald fly's off promising to get her something special. Join Donald along with his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie as they go on a world wide trip to find the lost treasure, just watch out for Pete and his gang of thugs.

Gameplay
Quackshot just like every other 16-bit Disney game is a side scrolling adventure game. The game has similar controls to other Disney games on the Mega Drive, prime examples being the Mickey Mouse games where the A button runs, the B button attacks, and the C button jumps. Just like the Mickey Mouse games you have a health bar that goes down when you take a hit, the health bar can be refilled by eating food, there are several foods in the game but only two refill your health bar (Ice cream fills one portion and the chicken fills the entire thing), I'll tell you about the others later. You also have ammo for your gun. You have three different weapons, a plunger gun, a popcorn gun (the third food), and a bubble gun. The plunger gun is the standard weapon for the game, it doesn't kill enemies, and it stuns them. The plunger gun is also upgradeable. You also have access to the popcorn gun from the start but that needs ammo to use, which is a problem because the popcorn gun eats up ammo, five bullets per shot so be carful how you use it.
The bubble gun is my least favourite out of the three guns, this one also uses ammo, that isn't a problem with this gun because each shot only takes one bullet, the problem is its use as a weapon, the gun is said to be the most powerful in the game but it is really slow so you have to shoot enemies at point blank range for it to always hit, besides that it is fairly useful for destroying obstacles.
Actually I lie the bubble gun isn't the biggest destructive force in your arsenal the peppers (the fourth food) are, you don't mess with Donald after he eats peppers, next to the health bar is Donald's temper bar, as you eat peppers Donald gets more and more angry, after you've ate five peppers Donald will become so pissed off that he will destroy all in his path in a blind rage, he even does his trade Terex syndrome tantrum, nice.
The game lets you visit several interesting places including Duckburg, Mexico, and the South Pole, all of the areas are varied, and none of them are the same.
Now on the games short comings, there isn't much to complain about in this game the only thing I see being a problem with this game is the many try and die moments that plague the game as it progresses. You will use up your three lives a lot, but then again the game gives you unlimited continues (questionable but not problematic) so this shouldn't be a problem, the only other problem is the lack of save/password feature so the game has to be played and completed in one go, also the game may seem a bit slow paced for some.
As you progress through the game you receive key items that are vital for unlocking new areas and getting closer to the treasure.
In all Quackshot is very good Mega Drive adventure that is full of ideas and moments that are taken straight out of the Indiana Jones movies (The costume and plot are dead giveaways, there's even a bit that rips-off the leap of faith out of the Last Crusade).
As for the games length, well that is entirely dependable on your skill, thanks to the unlimited continue and lack of save the game can take you hours to complete.

Graphics and Sound
The graphics on this game are exceptional for their time, it's almost like watching a Disney cartoon. You'd be surprised what can be done on a 4-Meg Mega Drive cart.
Just like the graphics the music is pretty good too, it flows well and is quite ear pleasing despite being on the Mega Drive (a console that wasn't famous for it's sound that's for sure) well the music is good it's no Duck Tales (in other words it doesn't stick in your head like a pike).

Conclusion
Just like every other Sega/Disney game Quackshot is good, as good as the film franchise it spoofs.

+ Great visuals
+ Good music
+ Good platforming gameplay
+ Good story
+ Can be played by anyone

- A lot of try and die
- No replay value

9/10

Shenmue II Xbox Review

2010-01-25T13:47:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Taking place after the events of the first game Shenmue II is the second chapter in Yu Suzuki's (unfinished) Shenmue series.
The game sees you once again play the role of Ryo Hazuki who is on a quest to avenge his father's death and uncover the mysteries of the Phoenix Mirror (check out Shenmue if you want the back story).

Single Player
The game takes place straight after Shenmue, sadly Shenmue was never ported to the Xbox luckily though it is still possible to catch up and get into the story.
Shenmue II comes with an extra DVD entitled Shenmue the Movie.
Shenmue the Movie is a feature Length film made using Shenmue's game engine, the movie goes over all of the important bits of Shenmue so that you can get straight into Shenmue II.
Being honest Shenmue does make a fairly enjoyable film, I am impressed by the fact that they managed to fit the entire game into a feature length film.
Now if Shenmue the Movie doesn't do it for you then you can always watch the Shenmue Digest Movie that features in Shenmue II.
Shenmue II uses the same game engine as Shenmue so the two games are fairly similar.
Unlike Shenmue this game takes place in China instead of Japan so there are going to be some changes from the first because the countries are fairly different.

Gameplay
Shenmue II uses the same game engine as Shenmue so the games play more or less the same. It includes just about every feature that was in Shenmue.
Shenmue II is a bit of a mixed bag, first off all it is an adventure game you run around everywhere talking to people trying to find out what to do and where to go next.
Shenmue is also a fighting game the game is filled with fight sections that play just like the Virtua Fighter games (which is no surprise seeing how Yu Suzuki is Virtua Fighter's creator), which is great because Virtua Fighter is one of the best fighting games out there .
The other gameplay mechanic that Shenmue is well known for are the QTE's (Quick Time Events), a feature that is common in many modern games (resident evil 4 being a prime example).
The last feature is mini games, Shenmue is full of mini games, they come in two forms, your standard mini games like doing a part time job for money, the other type of mini games are arcade machines located in Shenmue II, the arcade machines let you play Sega classics such as Out Run, Hang On, and After Burner, normally you have to play to play them but there are free ones located within the game try and find them if you can. The games are ported more or less perfectly, I have played several ports of these Sega classics and these have to be some of the best ports out there.
Well the game is great and does everything right there is one thing that bothered me at first, the controls.
Playing an adventure game on Xbox you'd think that you'd control movement with the left control stick, after all that is what we use it for, but no instead we use the D-Pad for movement and the control sticks for camera control.
I have nothing against the D-Pad but it can make the movement awkward at first but after as while you get used to it but are can be a pain when for example climbing a spiralling stairwell.
Speaking of Xbox features this version of the game features two things that the Dreamcast version didn't have, the first is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (hooray for better sound quality), the other feature is a snap-shot camera so that we can take screen shots of the game, I would show you some but sadly I have no way of getting the pictures off my Xbox.
Back in the day Shenmue's genre was described simply as "life", Shenmue is the game of life, this game is just like real life, time moves realistically it gets brighter and darker as the day goes on just like in real life, I know, I know you are thinking "so what that has been in plenty of games" well play Shenmue or Shenmue II and you will understand straight away.
Another life like feature is the weather, the weather changes just like in real life clouds gather and it starts raining, the sky clears and it becomes sunny.
Shenmue II was one of the games that pushed the boundaries between art and games. Shenmue II is just like a movie it has a good plot, great dialog, likeable characters and decent acting, something that a lot of games try to have today.
Just like in real life one thing you need is money, money if very important you need it if you want to progress in the game, there are several ways to earn money, you can get a job, you can gamble, and you can sell stuff at pawn shops.
The money its self is used to rent a place to sleep, buy drinks and toys, play games, get into areas, buy maps and many other things.
Normally adventure games tend to be quite big but this is no normal adventure game, this game is huge there is so much to see and do.
In all Shenmue is an incredible experience, you will find it hard to put the controller down.
For what it is the game is really, really big, though saying that the Dreamcast version was on 4 disks.

Graphics and Sound
The only thing that lets this game down is the graphics, they looked amazing on the Dreamcast but on the Xbox they don't really stand out as well, but saying they are still really good.
The games soundtrack is still great, everything goes together well, and in the game each area has its own music.

Conclusion
If you haven't played this make sure you do it is a classic.
Just a shame that it is a cliff hanger, ten years on gamers are still waiting for Shenmue III, make it happen Sega!

+Great Story
+Brilliant Dialog
+Very Life Like
+Really good Sega Classics ports
+Great Fighting System

-Still No Shenmue III after 10 years
-Not everyones cup of tea

9/10

Halo Combat Evolved PC Review.

2010-01-25T13:40:00.000-08:00

Introduction
In all fairness I would be insulting your intelligence if I started to brag about how good Halo on Xbox was, "Oh its ground breaking blah blah blah".
But I'm not here to talk about that I am here to review the PC port of Halo.
Now normally with FPS games they are released on PC's first and consoles later, which makes sense seeing how PC is the home of the genre.
But every now and then you get games like Halo that decide to do it the other way round. Since then a trend has started where console games come out first and PC last, which is a shame for all those people who spend a killzillon quid on computer hardware, so that they can play the latest games in the highest quality.
Anyway Halo was released as a launch title for the Xbox back in 2002.
In all fairness at the time the Xbox was the underdog console, most people were use to a market of Sony, Nintendo and Sega. But sadly in 2001 Sega decided to drop out of the console race because it became apparent that they stood no chance against the incredibly popular PS2, not to mention the Nintendo Game Cube was on its way, and let's not forget the Xbox either.
Anyway enough of that on to the game itself.

Single Player
The game shares the same single player campaign as the Xbox version.
The game follows the war between Earth and what I can only describe as an alien religious cult. This cult is known as the covenant, now there are two types of covenant, Grunts who are very small and feeble, and then there are the elites, these guys are fairly tall and they put up a good fight.
In Halo you play the role of a solider known as the Master Chief, the Master Chief is unlike other soldier he wears a suit of armour that protects him from enemy fire, he is also incredibly strong, in fact he is on the par with the covenant elites (who are a lot stronger than the Human Marines).
Anyway like I said the single player campaign here is the same as the one in the Xbox version there are no extra levels or anything like that.

Multiplayer
The Xbox version of Halo did get some good feedback for its multiplayer mode. Because the multiplayer was so good people started to call it a modern Goldeneye, sadly through the multiplayer for Halo was missing something that past console FPS games had as a feature, online play (For example Quake 3 on Dreamcast was known to have good online play, saying that through online for the Dreamcast wasn't cheap).
Anyway as you'd expect from a PC game there is online play and it is very, very good, it features all 13 maps from the Xbox version of Halo plus 6 new ones, that's 19 maps in total.
The PC version of Halo also features game modes that weren't in the Xbox version of Halo.
In all the multiplayer is worth the time and it does add a few hours to the games lifespan.

Gameplay
The game still has the ideals and mechanics that made the Xbox version a hit, you still have the shield to protect you from damage, you still have the easy to use grenades, you still have the cool vehicles, and you still have tea bagging.
The game has your standard keyboard controls W,A,S,D to move, space to jump, and left click to shoot so I'll move on to the other stuff.
First let's try the aiming, for starters you are using the mouse so you would expect it to be better, the good news is that the mouse does give you better aiming than the normal gaming joy pad.
On the Xbox version the grenades were easy to use all you had to do was press the left trigger, as you would guess this has become a standard with most FPS games today, here grenades are just as easy to use, all you have to do is right click to throw a grenade.
Another thing worth mentioning is the weapon switching, to switch weapons you press the Tab key witch is different to most FPS games where you would press the number keys to switch weapons, but then again you are only allowed to hold two weapons at a time so I can see where they were coming from.
There isn't much more for me to say really this is a really good port it takes everything that was in the Xbox version and improves on it.
As for the difficulty it lets you choose from easy to hard (which is fair enough because not everyone is good at FPS).
The difficulty effects things like enemy AI, if you have the game on a low setting there will be fewer enemies and they will be easier to kill, but if you set the difficulty high then there will be more enemies and they will take a lot more to go down.
Be careful what difficulty you choose have it too high and you will drop dead every few seconds, but if you have it too low then you will breeze through the game and find it boring.
One thing that I did really like about the game was its ability to create tension, the game is also full of moments that burn themselves into your memories for years to come.
In all the game takes about 10 hours to complete (add a few more hours if you play it online), the game features several levels all of which are different, in all there are only a few levels that you won't like.

Graphics and Sound
Playing the game on the highest setting I didn't notice much of a difference, in all the graphics are very similar to the Xbox version only with better textures and a higher resolution.
The music is great the game has a piece that fits just about every scene.

Conclusion
While it is an improvement over the Xbox version it really doesn't stand out much as on the PC due to its huge library of FPS games.

+ Same Great Gameplay
+ Improved Graphics
+ Some nice extras
+ Good Online play
+ Very Good Single Player

- Doesn't stand out as much on PC
- Can be very try and die later on.

9/10

Sonic The Hedgehog Sega Master System Review.

2010-01-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Most of you here have probably played Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis if you're American) and loved it growing up.
But did any of you know that there was a version of the game made for the Sega Master System. Yes that's right the game that was made to boost Sega's 16-bit console sales in the bit wars was on an 8-bit console.
So how does it do compared to its 16-bit counterpart?

Gameplay
Not much can be said for this game play wise it was made to be just like the 16-bit version, the games controls are the same as the 16-bit game as well.
All I can do is point out what is different about this version.
This version of Sonic the Hedgehog does feature some game mechanics that are different to that of the 16-bit version.
For starters the level design and zones are different, the only zone in this game that is in the Mega Drive version is the Green Hill Zone.
The game has 6 zones in total, each zone made up of 3 acts. The 3rd act is always a boss battle, sadly though the 3rd zone never has any rings in so it is a test of skill.
The last big differences are:
The world map that pops up each time you start a stage.
The bonus stages.
And the chaos emeralds, in this game the emeralds are not found in the bonus stages, instead they are hidden in the main stages, the other problem with the chaos emeralds is that there are only 6 of them in the entire game. Besides the chaos emerald aren't important in this game, it isn't like in the 16-bit version where you get a secret ending if you manage to collect them all, no all it does is give you extra points when you complete the game.

Graphics and sound
I'll be fair to the graphics are very good for what they are, this game is a good port.
The music in this game is good but no where near as memorable as the music in the Mega Drive version.

Summary
I'll be honest, it's no where near as good as the Mega Drive version but that is to be expected. Still it's a very good master system game.
If you want this you can buy it on wii shop for 500 points.

+It tries to look like the original and succeeds
+It plays just like the original
+One of the best games on the master system

-Not as good as Mega Drive Version
-You can out run the screen and skip the stage

8/10

quick note: I recently found out that this was the last master system game released in North America, in europe the last master system game was released in 1995 (or so I have been told).

Off loading some old stuff.

2010-01-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

Quick story: I used to write for a website called europe-nintendo, it was the place where I stared writing, I have recently decided to quit the writers job as the site is more or less dead so I will be posting all my old reviews and features.

This is Jim Sterling's article on Destructoid and I'm going to argue against it. Pt.2

2010-01-19T09:47:00.001-08:00

Part 2.

Fanboys and fundies like to believe that sane, rational people are just as obsessed with consoles or religions as they are. Truth is, we don't really care and are just calling it how we see it, but the arrogance of fandamentalists is such that they want to make everything about them. Anything you write is just an excuse to "bash" them and their precious beliefs. Never mind the fact that they act like bullies themselves -- everybody is biased and has a personal vendetta against them and the corporation that they are in love with.

Depends if you are to go as far as clearly state that you think that such and such a console is the worse then you should expect some backlash from people who do not agree with you.
Just becuse you are "calling it how we see it" doesn't mean you are right, there are times where I have disagreed with people who called it as they saw it or called it as they thought everyone else saw it.
These people aren't bullies they are just idiots.
What doesn't help your opinion is that many times in the past I have seen cases where the said fandamentalists have been singled out and have been bullied, their reaction is to be expected and when that happens no one is the better man.

Be it gay marriage or abortion, fundamentalists love to impose their will on others who may not necessarily believe the same things they do. If THEY don't approve of gay marriage, then they'll do their best to make sure NOBODY can practice it. Again, it comes down to terror -- a fear that somebody who is not them will get their own way, and that if they do, it will somehow threaten their own sense of validity and security.

So you are saying that fanboys use terror to stop other people playing on other consoles.
They can't physically scare me or force me into selling my wii and 360 in order to get a PS3 now can they.

Review scores tend to be the gay marriage of fanboys. My favorite example, of course, is the Killzone 2 debacle, where anybody who dared give the game less than a 9 was thoroughly eviscerated by those who felt the game deserved better and therefore stomped down on anybody who disagreed. Despite the fact that they're not the only people in the world, these fandamentalists want everybody to bow down to them and how they think things should be run.

The same rule applied to anyone who dared give Sonic and the black knight more than a 7 but I happily gave it an 8.

You can rape a kid, but if you're wearing a big red hat, you'll get forgiven. That's what I've come to learn. I've also come to learn that you can release a billion firmware upgrades for the PSP and that's perfectly acceptable. Both fanboys and religious extremists have demonstrated that their respective leaders and say or do anything, no matter how stupid, and they will still command the loyalty of hundreds, who are more than prepared to justify, validate or otherwise absolve the leaders in question.

There is a clear difference between raping a child and bricking a console, one does no harm.

Just as many organised religions work to eradicate people who think for themselves and dare to question the sense of their actions, so too does fandamentalism turn its victims into mindless drones who impulsively defend any and all decisions their chosen company makes. It's amazing how some of these fanboys will defend the indefensible. From Red Rings to poor network infrastructures, there is always some excuse that threatens to break the laws of logic. Truly a religious experience.

I'd have to be a retard to have someone completely change my opinion on a subject that I am well informed in.
As said above there is a difference between hurting someone and bricking a console.

Just like most "mainstream" religions laugh at Scientology even though its backstory is just as insane as any other religion's origin, so too do fanboys have a contempt for other fanboys. PS3 loyalists think Xbox loyalists are ridiculous, and vice versa. They sidestep talk of their own ludicrous behaviour in order to poo on someone else who, to be honest, is acting the exact same way that they are.

There is evidence that support's the existence of Christ, there isn't much much evidence to support what a scientologist believes (yes we all saw that south park episode).
Again going back to sports teams, fans of one team can at times think that fans of another team are ridiculous, and vice versa.
"They sidestep talk of their own ludicrous behaviour in order to poo on someone else who, to be honest, is acting the exact same way that they are."

Perhaps it's an advanced form of self-loathing, where they know deep down how stupid they're being, so they find a near-perfect replica and call that stupid instead. In any case, many religions actively hate or distrust each other in the same way that various denominations of console fandamentalists hate or distrust each other. Can't we all just get along?

Well:

No. No we can't.

And here, I think, we come to the most important and salient point. Fact is, if you want to like your PS3 better than any other console, that's fine. If you want to believe in God, that's fine as well. It's an old cliché to say it, but if you don't bother anybody else with your business, then go do whatever you want. However, it's the extremists that make the rest of the crowd look bad. Christian fundamentalists make regular, nice Christians look like censorship-hungry, sixteen-kid-having hypocrites. Muslim fundamentalists make regular, decent Muslims look like terrorists who enjoy living in countries that they claim to despise.

I find that statement wrong and offensive and only because I know people who are very dedicated to their religion yet act nothing like the way which you just described them.
The I again I suppose those type of people don't exist across the pond.

Similarly, PS3 fanboys make all PS3 fans look like whining, crying teenagers who sign petitions over multiplatform games. Xbox 360 fanboys make regular 360 lovers look like Halo-obsessed frat boys who regularly bend over to accept a royal shafting from Microsoft. Both religious extremists and the newly crowned fandamentalists tar everything with the same brush.

You don't even have to be a fanboy to act like that, why are you needlessly criticizingpeople for being frat boys ect? If they think that Halo is the best gmew in the world then thats fine let them think that.

And that's why it's important to label them like cattle. Fandamentalists are what they are, and fandamentalists are what they'll remain. It also sounds pretty cool, don't you think?

People change, believe me they change, especially when they are in the age group that you have described.

Continued in part 3 (maybe).

This is Jim Sterling's article on Destructoid and I'm going to argue against it.

2010-01-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

We've all seen fanboys before. Ranting and raving, upsetting themselves by pretending that other people are trying to upset them, feeling persecuted while happily persecuting others. Wait, did I just describe fanboys or religious fundamentalists? It's so hard to tell the difference sometimes.

No you just described a hypocrite.

In fact, the two groups are similar enough to be considered identical. The more I think about it, the more I feel that "fanboy" is not quite strong enough a word to describe the hardcore insanity of the average Sony obsessive, Microsoft loyalist or Nintendo worshiper. No, these people treat videogame consoles like some sort of twisted religion, and follow that religion with the blind devotion of a cultist.

The attitudes and act of the followers are similar but unlike religion the beliefs are not based on what is a mystery, there is no living person who around in the time of Jesus, there are many people who were around when Microsoft was founded.
Saying that a person treats video games like a religion is something that can be said for most past times, for example some people treat (for example) Liverpool football club as if it was of a greater importance, kinda like a *cough* religion.
There are also people who play games like Dungeons & Dragons religiously.

I hereby decree that console fanboyism should be considered a religion in and of itself, and those who subscribe to it? Why, they're religious fandamentalists. Read on as I explain why this decision should be written into American history. Oh, if you're the type of person who gets upset over religious criticism, no matter how tongue-in-cheek, I'll warn you now that you should just skip this article entirely.

All it's all well and good if you are an American.
I suppose that Microsoft are mormans, Nintendo are Orthodox Catholic and so on.
Console fanboyism is as much a religion as the Jedi kights, on wait.

There is no such thing as a belief, opinion or theory for a fanboy. Everything is black and white, where statements are either completely true or completely false. In very much the same way as a hardcore Christian or Muslim would pass off their belief system as unwavering truth, so too will PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 fanboys claim that their console is undeniably the greatest.

I'll give you that.

The burden of proof is not on these people, and that's mostly because there is no evidence to ever back up their claims. Their reason for believing is merely "because I decided this is real," and that apparently makes it real somehow. Rather than try to prove these facts of theirs, they will simply shout very loudly in the hopes that you'll be distracted or irritated enough to not press the issue and actually demand some evidence.

Again there is a difference, gaming history is still fairly recent we know the facts.
Religious history goes back serval years, we can not know all the facts nor can we prove the excistance of a god and so on.

There is no real reason for console fanboys to choose one inane concept of superiority over another. It's simply a case of "this is the system I bought first, therefore it's the best," in very much the same way as someone might say, "I was born a Catholic, therefore Catholicism is totally correct."

That's personal preferance at the end of the day, I still believe that the Game Cube was better than the xbox and PS2.

If you fall in love with somebody you've never met or interacted with in any way, most people would call you a crazy stalker and lock you up. However, if the somebody in question is called God, it magically isn't creepy anymore and you're allowed to continue having an imagined relationship with somebody whom you haven't even spoken to on Gtalk. This is, of course, very similar to people who have a demented fetish for consoles.

The guy is wrong here, unlike these people you never met the consoles give you enjoyment, people fall in love with gaming for a number of different reasons, calling it a weird fetish is like saying loving a sports team is a weird fetish.

Fanboys are clearly in love with their system of choice. They respond to criticism in the same way a man would respond to an attack on his girlfriend. The amount of time they spend talking about their preferred system, it's very clear that they have fallen in love and they want everybody to love it the same way they do. They jump to its defence in a heartbeat, regardless of the fact that it would never do the same thing for them. Same with a corporation like Sony or Microsoft, a company that doesn't give two poo poos about them, yet the fandamentalists will happily do PR work for them as if they somehow owe them such fealty.

If a man was to respond to an attack on his girlfriend he wouldn't use words.
An inanimate object wouldn't jump to defend a living being, neither would a plant.
The same sort of thing can be said about most brands, artists and/or musicians.

Being in love with an inanimate object is vaguely terrifying, and a clear sign of fandamentalism.

Talking to ones self is a sign of insanity yet I find myself doing it often.

Have you ever seen a religious debate with a fanatic? It's not pretty, let me assure you. Religious fundies don't like criticism, and since it's always far easier to attack than to defend one's belief system (mostly because, again, there's no evidence in existence to defend with), they will go on the warpath, wielding straw men like swords in an attempt to deflect any and all critique and turn it into an attack on the belief system of the critic.

You will find that most people respond to critism in the same way, and again I must stress that with gamong there is fact where with religion there is mystery.

Just look what happened when I merely suggested that Sony wasn't doing everything perfectly with the PlayStation Network. (Reference to article where Sterling made the point that Sony should sort out cheating on their servers and fanboys went mental in the comments section.) You'll notice that barely anybody who takes umbrage at my suggestion defends Sony's decision properly. Instead, the fandamentalists use personal attacks and insults in a pathetic attempt to get their point across. It's this unrelenting, absolutely unyielding refusal to accept any kind of criticism, however light, that is truly worrying. In very much the same way as religious extremists, fanboys are so insecure in their beliefs that they'll lash out at anything that threatens their fragile sense of righteousness.

The case you (the writer) decribed is putting the opinion of one person against the opinion of others, people may not agree what you have said (and there proberbly was some truth to it) but that doesn't meamn that they can't voice their opinion too, even if the opinion is ignorant, wrong or illogical.

It's my personal theory that anybody so willing to lash out at the slightest, most polite criticism is insecure in their faith. If you can't accept or at least tolerate a bit of critique, then your beliefs can't be as strong as you think they are. It's that "what if I am wrong? NO I CAN'T BE" mentality that fanboys subscribe to. They are terrified of being incorrect, and that terror is what drives them to bite and snarl like cornered dogs.

As I at the start the people you describe are not all fanboys many are idiots, there are many who react like this to any kind of criticism.

It's amusing to think that some Christians, by far the most numerous demographic in the most powerful nation on Earth, feel victimised. Just look at Bill O'Reilly, who claims that there is an "attack" on the wholesome Christian festival of Christmas just because some people say "Happy Holidays." Just look at groups like God Hates Fags, who love to say outrageously evil things about homosexuals yet somehow act like they're the ones being bullied. Take the Christians who have told me personally that they're sick of being the victims all the time, even though atheists are the minority group and American surveys claim that atheists are the least trusted people in the country.

irrelevant. Again there are many people who feel victimized, it doesn't have to be down to religion. Many people who were born in britian feel that they are the victims because they can't get a job wheres people from overseas can (though I am not saying they are the victims because not every person is the same, some deserve to work, others don't).

As I explained in my "PS3 fanboys are the worst" article, there is a similar persecution complex among fanboys. Although it is indeed worse among PS3 Fandamentalists, it can apply to other console cults as well. This is most evident by the use of the word "bias," a term that has almost lost all meaning thanks to the people who have overused it to the point of irrelevance. Whenever a writer criticizes a console, an exclusive game, or a company, they are accused of "bias." Fandamentalists live in a twisted fantasy realm where everybody who is not them is an enemy with a compulsive desire to victimise them and destroy their way of life.

Now you're being bias to the PS3 Fanboys by singling them out as the worse. As far as this gaming gen goes the PS3 could easily come out being the best console by the end of it, the last two gens show that hence why the PS3 fans are so convinced that their console is the best.

Continued in part 2.

They rest of the games.

2010-01-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

I said I'd get around to the Xbox 360 games so here we go.

Resident Evil 5
I played the demo for this game when it was released last year and I hated it, I couldn't stand the way that Capcom had messed with the controlls and the step back that had been taken back after Resident Evil 4. Two steps forward, one step back (we stick together cos opposites attract, I'm sorry about that awful joke).
Playing it again I had my feet on the ground, there was no hype and I wasn't expecting it to blow me away. After over comming huge disappointment I dug deeper into the game to find a enjoyable action game, it's got nothing on Resident Evil 4 but on its own it is still a good game.
You can get it for a tenner at most places.

Prince Of Persia
I remember played the trilogy years ago and enjoying it even through the games were getting weaker as they went on. Thankfully this game takes a step in the right direction and the franchise is now back in top form.
The game isn't very long and there is next to no replay value but for a fiver it was a brilliant purchase, even at a tenner it is still a brill game.

The King Of Fighters XII
I've been playing King of fighters for a number of years now and this is a decent update to the popular fighting series by SNK, the gameplay is better than ever making this one of the best fighters around for gameplay. The ghame is let down by a huge problem though, there is next to no content in the game, you have the arcade mode, vs, online and thats it, no survival, time attack or anything like that. To make matters worse there are very few characters, KOF games are famous for their huge character roster but this game has the smallest in KOF history.
You can buy it but you won't get much for your money.

I have got a tonne of other 360 games but I haven't played them yet so they don't get a mention sadly.

Happy New Year

2010-01-09T16:56:00.001-08:00

Ohh... haven't updated this in a while.
Anyway thanks to christmas and school cancellations due to snow and ice I have had a lot of time to play some games.
I've gotten my xbox live account back up and I have started to catch the call of duty bug, I'm not playing it non stop but I am playing it more than I normally would.
I really should get back to doing full game reviews but for now I'll just give you am quick summary of some of the games I have played.

Muramasa the Demon Blade (wii)
I wasn't huge on the game at first but the more I played it the better it got, the game provides a lot of challange to fans of 2D action games. It uses RPG elements such as level up, equipment and huge maps. It kind of reminds me of the Castlevania games with its action RPG style gameplay only this is hack and slash.
Would I recommend it? Yes, yes I would. If your looking for some new wii games to play get this.

A Boy and His Blob (wii)
A remake of a 20 year old NES game A Boy and His Blob is a puzzle platformer that reqires you to get from A to B by making you blob to transform into objects such as ladders, trampolines and bowling balls.
The game is much more forgiving than the NES original, the level's have many check points so you don't lose much ground when you die, to add to that you get unlimited lives.
The game is a worthy purchase and can be bought for £15 at most places including game and gamestation.

Onechanbara Bikini Zombie Slayers (wii)
I got this new for £5 at gamestation, when i got it I was expecting a decent hack and slash affair, nothing amazing but still fun.
The game itself is good but it is let down by one huge flaw, the controls.
In the game you attack by waggling the wiimote, it's almost as bad as in Twilight Princess which is a shame considering the games genre.

Boom Blox Bash Party (wii)
This is a lot like the first one, if you liked that get this. Not much more to be said.

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (wii)
If you didn't like Umbrella Chronicles then you will most likely not like this game either.
I quite enjoyed this game, most reviews complained that the game messes with the already messed up Resident Evil cannon and that the shaky camera makes it impossible to aim, but thats ok I like that, its a change from your House of the dead, time crsis type of game play where you are always in one place when firing.
It's worth a go and is very lengthy as far a shooters go.

Let's Tap (wii)
I've noticed that Sega have been experimenting with the wii publishing and developing all kings of games, out of all their expeimental wii titles (and there are a lot of them) this stands out as it is the most unique.
The idea of the game is to do things by tapping of a box.
The game is packaged with several different mini games, one mini game like a track and field sort of thing where you run by tapping the box (as opposed to tapping buttons) out of all the games this would have to be my favourite because it works the best.
Other games involve things like tapping to a rhythm (a bit like Donkey Konga) and a gme where you have to take a tower apart 9it's a lot like Jenga).
Out of all the games I played on it there was one I was unable to get my head around, there is a game where you control a guy flying froun the screen avoiding things, come think of it the game reminds me of balloon fight on NES only with less control over the guy.
In all it isn't bd and it is worth buying. I got my copy for a tenner on HVM's website.

I have more games to talk about but I'll get to them later seeing how they are all on 360.

Christmas Eve.

2009-12-24T08:43:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year again.
What are the geart thing about being as gamer at christmas.
Well for starters you don't worry about the cost of those Q4 releases like Modern warfare 2, Zelda: Sprit Tracks, Borderlands Left 4 Dead 2 ect.
You also get the chance to play catch up with the many great titles you missed out on in the previous year.
There isn't much more to say about this time of year other than boxing day is equaly awesome because, one you get to try out the things you got for x-mas and two the shops have their clear out sales.
So merry christmas, happy hanukkah, happy holidays, happy whatever it is you celebrate.

Seeing how it is coming up to the end of the decade I am doing a list of the top 50 games to come out this decade on www.europe-nintendo.com.
Check it out, also check out my top 10 games of 2009.
The lists are currently being voted for by the public so if you want to see your favourite games on the list then vote.

Two reviews.

2009-12-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

I am very sorry for the lack of posts I have been tring to make the most of my time off.
It's been a while but I have finally gotten back to reviewing games.
The two reviews can be read here:
Bart Vs The Space Mutants:
http://www.europe-nintendo.com/forums/classic-nintendo-reviews/19652-bart-vs-the-space-mutants.html

Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers:
http://www.europe-nintendo.com/forums/classic-nintendo-reviews/19672-chip-n-dale-rescue-rangers.html

I'll be posting a lot of reviews now so come back everyday for updates.
Have a merry christmas.

Overly Happy.

2009-12-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

I am in a really, really good mood at the moment and for a very good reason.
I just won this on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250548129043&autorefresh=true

You have no idea how much I wanted those games.
I can't wait for them to come (which won't be for a while because they are being sent second class).

Not much else to talk about, cleaned up my room today everything is all neat and tidy and it my last week at school.
Christmas is fast approaching and I am kinda excited about it.
Dug through some of my old nintendo games today to find a bunch of posters which is cool I must admit.

Stressed out.

2009-12-07T13:45:00.000-08:00

This week is gonna be a nightmare.
I've got a 5 hour long art & design mock exam tomorrow. But thats ok because I like A&D and I am already prepared for the exam.
It goes down hill here.
I have a 5 hour long fine art mock on wednesday, which isn't a good thing because I am at a loss of what I could do. I had a mock last spring but I was ok with that because I had a good idea of what to do, I did a stop motion film for that. But this time I am screwed. it all started when my Fine Art teacher left, I've got a new one now and she isn't very good. She keeps putting pressure on me to complete my unit work on cultures, at the same time she has taken away some of the freedom that you have when doing art. Everything is going bad in that class and no one is happy.
I'm not the only one who has a problem with the teacher.
I have decided that my best bet is to try and make a cartoon using the same method as when I did the stop motion. Just one problem, I'm not good at drawing quick and I am heavy handed, a recipe for disaster.
Enough about art because I am getting sick of thinking about it.
i've also got two 1 hour long maths mock exams on thursday and friday as well so I have a lot to go through.

Anyway got some more awesome games today thanks to the members on the retro gamer forum.
One of them was kind enough to give me castlevania: The next generation on megadrive for free when I did a trade with him.
I also got the new zealand story, fantasy zone, donkey kong classics, F-Zero and Bionic commando so it was a good hull.
Also beat super metroid for the first time yesterday, easily one of the best games ever made.

Super Shenmue Country.

2009-12-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post because it is late.
Got Super Metroid today along with Shenmue and Donkey Kong Country (thanks dste).
Loving all 3 games, Super Metroid being the firm favourite.
Not much going on this weekend need to get to the post office to get some postal swaps sorted.
Had a tidy up before in my bed room. I unplugged the N64, Game Cube and PSOne. In their place I plugged in the Dreamcast.
Night.

Blog 3.

2009-12-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

Not much to say today. Working my way through the retro gamer collection volume 3, great bookazine for someone like me who has only just started buying the magazine, should be done with it at the weekend, worth the tenner I paid for it last Saturday.

Now for some bad news it has been a week since Muramasa was released on the Wii and play.com still haven't posted the copy I ordered on the 17 of November, not very happy about that need to send a complaint.

I got an A*!

2009-12-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

While this post is more about me it is gaming released (honest).
Last spring I had a speaking assessment at school, the topic was to take something we hate, put it in room 101 and explain why we are putting it in there (anyone who has the seen the Room 101 show on BBC will get this straight away).
Most people choose serious topics like bullying, racism and war. Others choose things that didn't affect them like the footballer Joey Barton.
I on the other hand choose what was one of the best Subjects for this king of thing. Seagulls, we all hate seagulls don't we, the flying rats that they are, we hate it when they attack use, we hate in when they rip our bins open and we really hate it when they do their business on us.
Anyway I got an A for doing that which is a surprise because I had never gone above a C in English,it may be that I am a good talker. It's like my Mum says "You could speak for the country".

Anyway today we did the same thing again this time it was on any subject we wanted.
There were a few who spoke about their favourite football team, some spoke of their favourite bands/musicians and others talked about Ant & Dec for some reason (don't ask why because I have no idea why several people spoke about Ant & Dec).
anyway again I went for a slightly more unique topic, video games with the Disney licence.
In the speech I focused on the Disney games from the late eighties and early nighties. I spoke about 3 games in great detail.
The games were Duck Tales (NES/Game Boy), Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers (NES) and Quackshot (Mega Drive).
I did the speech without any sort of reference and made a lot of stuff up as I went along (but I know these games in and out so I don't need to read any reference).
To add to that I went to the trouble of taking the games to school with me so that I could use them for demonstrations and such.
At first I didn't think that I would top the seagull rant, there were times where I forgot what to say and I stuttered a few times (a trait taken from my father).
In the end I went to the teacher expecting a B and got an A*, isn't life great.

First Blog

2009-12-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

This is my blog so I'll tell you a few things.
I'm currently in my last year of high school, I have benn gaming since 1998 and it is my biggest hobby.
My first video game was the brilliant super mario bros on the nes.
Since then I have gone on to own 20 consoles and over 400 different games.
I write for a gaming website called Europe-Nintendo but sadly the site hasn't seen the best of times recently so I hevn't been able to any work for the site.
I have an interest in film making, a while back I made some stop motion films you can watch them on my youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/GigaPepsiMan

Recently I have found myself with too many games so I have been trying to get rid of them either by selling them or trading them with other gamers.

Not much more for me to talk about, you can follow me on my twitter if you use the site: http://twitter.com/GigaPepsiMan

Thats all for now.