Shin
May
05

Sonic Heroes

Game Title: Sonic Heroes
Console: Gamecube
No. of Players: 2
Memory Blocks Needed: 2
Difficulty: Medium-Easy
Extras: N/A
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Age: General

Story
85/100
Could Sonic ever have a normal day where he doesn’t have to save the world? Would the blue hedgehog want to live a life of normal stuff!
Well Eggman is up to his old tricks again: world domination. (I’ve always wonder how he pays for all of that.) However this time Sonic is going to have some friends and some friendly competition. It seems everyone–or at least every character in the game–is after Eggman. Our characters form teams and search for the illusive mad scientist; together they’ll face new monsters and save the world from the mysterious villain that seems to know everything about our characters.

Gameplay
85/100
Sonic Heroes present a new form of game play–at least where Sonic games are concerned. Alternating players in one stage, switching to accomplish certain task only that character can. You’ll pick one of four teams: Team Sonic, Team Shadow, Team Rose, Team Chaotic; and complete the mission. An interesting twist is that although you’ll be going into the same stage, the difficulty and complexity to each will be different depending on your team. Team Sonic for the most is pretty average, their stages present some difficulty but after a few tries you’ll pass. Team Shadow is by far the hardest to beat (keeping the black hedgehog down, those racist bastards!), their stages are the longest and most difficult to accomplish–some of those stages seem to go on forever, and face the hardest of all the enemies. Team Rose is the easiest and probably the best for beginners, their stages are short and pretty easy to accomplish. Then you have Team Chaotic, this is the interesting team, the first time we’ve ever seen these characters. Their stages aren’t specifically a race to the finish but instead at the beginning of each stage you’ll your orders on what you have to do, they range from finding the sea shells to going unnoticed by all enemies.
You play as a team of three characters, only one is the active character at a time but you’ll be able to switch via the X and Y button. Each stage is created for you to use each one of your team members’ special abilities. You’re team will have one FLY, SPEED, POWER character and it’s going to be up to you to figure out when it’s best to switch. There isn’t much complication figuring out what their abilities do: FLY can lift your team up to reach higher places and you’ll be able to launch them at enemy targets, SPEED can well really run fast and perform a special move that can lift enemies in the air and temporary stun them, POWER are your muscle power character if you want to smash stuff this is who you’ll want to be.
Like all Sonic games the floating golden rings are always good. In Sonic heroes they perform an extra feature; they allow your team to perform its ultimate special move, which depending on your team will have several different effects.
Overall game play is cool, it offers players a unique experience to test their skills with different characters and in different situations.

Graphics
95/100
Probably the best thing to this game is the graphics, more specifically the cut scenes. Very clean and smooth both the cut scenes and when you actually play the game. Best graphics in a Sonic same by far. Although some (like me) might say that it’s a bit too cute for comfort, but tolerable.

Controls & Camera
80/100
A lot of the game will require you to switch between the characters on your team very quickly so being able to do that is crucial. The buttons are easy to switch (X, Y) it might take you a while to master it though but once you do you’ll be ok. Other than that the actual game play does have its flaws too. Other than the SPEED character on your team the other two seem to be more chaotic and less stable. For example many times your team will have to be in FLY mode to flip a switch to progress however many times it’s you just launching your team members into nothing ness. There is no aim, you’re basically just trying to shoot, and while that separate those with aim and other without it can be very annoying and dangerous. And the same is with your Power character; it’s usually you just blasting away hoping that you hit the enemy. So in that regards other than you SPEED character the controls suck. The camera works ok could have been more focused on your team but alright.

Music & Sounds
85/100
The music was ok, the theme was particularly nice, but it wasn’t anything outstanding. Overall it was good but if your volume button was pushed in and you couldn’t turn up the volume, you wouldn’t have missed much.

Replayability a.k.a What is there to do when finish the game…
80/100
Well first you’ll have to finish finish the game. Let me explain, each team will be able to defeat the final boss (Eggman’s Robot Emperor); however that isn’t the final ending. To reach the final ending it will require you to collect all seven chaos emeralds.
Now there is a multiplayer feature in this game, but that’s only after you complete the requirements to unlock them. Then you’ll be able to choose from the four teams available and enter different forms of play, whether it is a collect the rings mission, reach the finish line; there are about 6 different categories that you will be able to choose form. That’s about it in terms of Multiplaying/Replayability available in this game.

Overall
80/100
I must say I’m kind of disappointed in this game, while I loved the graphics and the new form of game play, I don’t think it surpassed Sonic Adventure 2 Battle in terms of overall coolness. What was cool is that you were able to play with 6 new characters (Team Chaotic {3 new characters}, Team Rose {2 new characters}, and Omega from Team Shadow). That was awesome. Team Chaotic and Team Dark were my favorites, they were just overall kickass. But that’s about as far as I go with giving this game prop. The stages were so predictable, and overall everything looked a bit too cute for me. There wasn’t much to do after you collect the seven emeralds and fight final bad guy. And I didn’t know what to think of the game in terms of story plot line. It’s obvious that they wanted to make a connection to the final scene in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, with what happened to shadow and all, but the story in this wasn’t very clear and broken up. While it was fun to play, it got pretty boring since I began to fell as if I wasn’t getting anywhere in the story anytime soon. It was a good game but not much content to get mild fans or gamers new to Sonic hooked on it in my opinion. It’s probably a game for Sonic fans looking for their next fix. Very Happy

By Cherubim

May
05

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

Game Title: Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Console: Gamecube
No. of Players: 2
Memory Card Blocks Needed: 11
Extras: Sonic Advance (GBA)
Difficulty: Easy
Genre: Adventure/Action
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Age: General

The blue Hedgehog makes a triumphant come back and this time he’s brought friends…

Story
85/100
Sonic’s back and as always getting himself in trouble. Only thing is this time he’s being mistaken for another talking hedgehog–you wouldn’t think there would be a lot of those. This “dark” sonic seems to be able to use the power of chaos emeralds to freeze time, and he can run just as fast as Sonic. Sonic and his team Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose–she just stalks Sonic really, are off to clear Sonic’s name and find out who that dark hedgehog really is. Naturally this being a Sonic game, Sonic will have to face his arch nemesis, Mr. Eggman, and save the world. What’s good is that the game has a good story line, both sides do. And while a lot of it might look separate at first it all comes together at the end.

Gameplay
90/100
The actual game play is easy on the players. As always rings are important so collecting them to survive is always good. You’ll play as one of three characters from whatever side you choose (Team Sonic: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles; Team Dark/Shadow: Shadow, Robotic, Rouge). Each stage is made for that character, so Sonic/Shadow stages would require you to run–so expect those path ways that appear out of no where–and jump whereas Knuckles/Rouge stages will require you to fly and very frequently would be very open so falling is always an option. This allows players to experience several different ways of game play in our game than all characters being able to do the same thing–because we are all different. You’ll be going on different missions, the Sonic/Shadow/Tails/Robotnic stages will usually have you reach a giant gold ring to finish, Knuckles/Rouge would have you find treasure or other things. Each type of game play has their appeal to them and their down sides, but overall it’s pretty cool.

Graphics
85/100
The graphics aren’t top notch but they certainly ain’t bad. The characters look awesome and while their environment isn’t the best it isn’t an eye-sore to look at. The stages themselves are huge, especially in the treasure hunting stages, but overall they are quite detailed and pleasure to see. Most of it is cut and clear so you won’t be getting lost in the stages, there is usually only one way to go.

Controls & Camera
85/100
This is a Sonic game so you can expect a lot of jumping and slamming down on the B button. During the game you’ll collect new items to increase your characters awesome, and instead of designated a button for each new item you will have to switch by using the X/Y button. This can be troublesome because you might accidentally press it twice or not enough times and might result in you dying. Some of the items switch on automatically, like Ring Dash, but sometimes you may not want to take the risk.
The camera controls and the camera on auto seem to work well. You really won’t have much use for them in your racing stages; only a few times did I have to use them. It’s easy to control and turns smoothly and quickly.

Music & Sounds
90/100
The music in this game is awesome. I find myself singing to it even months after I played the game. If you are familiar with Sonic you won’t be surprised by the music, you might think it’s better than you would expect but certainly nothing out of expected for Sonic. Very fast (but not techno) and very cool.

Replayability a.k.a After the game is done what is there to do…
95/100
This is where Sonic Adventure 2 Battle really begins to shine, especially the multiplayer feature in this game. There is a wide variety of ways you can kick your opponents ass, whether it be racing with Sonic, Shadow, Amy Ross, and Metal Sonic (interesting in multiplayer you get to play with 2 addition character in each set that aren’t in the storyline, a nice bonus since each characters has their good and bad points), finding treasure, shooting down you opponent (the chaos are so cute in there machines especially when they try to shoot you), even play Chao Karate (even cuter then) and Chao racing, and a traditional cart race. The game also keeps score of all the winnings of both players in all sets. Which means the multiplayer screen will display the numbers of wins on both sides.
But aside from the hours you can play fighting your opponent when you should be racing (all you have to do is set the clock to unlimited and just attack each other) you can raise Chaos. With the help of Sonic Adventure for the GBA you can unlock secret chaos and new items for them, but that might be too much on your plate, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle gives you enough to keep you busy. You’ll be able to raise many Chaos and open two new gardens for special Chaos (although after they are open you can put which ever you want) and then you can teach your Chao songs and dancing at Kindergarten, and then you can feed them and train them in the Dojo or have them race each other. And then when you’re done with all of that you can mate your Chao (don’t worry they only kiss and get pregnant, this is a kids game people) to make more Chao. Yep, the taking care of your Chaos takes up a lot of time, of course if you aren’t the paternal type you can skip this altogether but you’ll me missing out on a lot.

Overall
90/100
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is just an awesome game to play, not just for Sonic either. The appeal to this game lies in the fact that players are allowed to play with several different characters, in two very similar yet different story lines, and when that’s all done there is a still load to do. Completing this game, entirely, can take a while–with the Chaos and many unlock able customs and secrets. The introduction of a “dark” Sonic, Shadow, was like a dream come true for me, being able to rub off that goodie-to-shoes aspect of Sonic while still retaining the coolness and adding a bit of a dark mysterious feel. The game does a good job of making the characters reflect one another, and keeping both sides equally interesting. You’ll fight pretty much the same enemies just in different settings and objectives. The greatest aspects to this game to me (obviously) would have to be the game play, music, and massive amounts of replay ability.
Another great thing about this game is the options they make available to you. You can choose a background picture, much like a desktop wallpaper, to be in the background on your menu screen. I believe the options are of the characters in the game, I don’t remember if there are neutral ones. Anyway, if you pick say Rouge (my favorite) you’ll hear her talk in the background when you making a selection many times. Which is cool!
You have get ability to listen to tracks/music on this game, which I suggest you do. And the list goes on.
It’s a good game to buy if you’re a fan of action/adventure stuff without the blood violence, or if you want a game that would take you a while to finish. The game covers a lot and I think it does it pretty well and not brush over stuff just to add it in. There is racing, cart racing, treasure hunting, to a certain extent shooting–however not exactly what shooting fans would consider “shooting” more like shoot the duck taken to the next level–much more all wrapped around talking always and an egg shaped mad scientist. Very Happy Sonic Adventure 2 Battle really set a new milestone
To sum it all up good game with very few flaws, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle gets my thumbs up.

By Cherubim

May
05

Skies of Arcadia: Legends

Game Title: Skies of Arcadia: Legends
Console: Gamecube
No. of players: 1
Memory Card Blocks needed:
Extras: N/A
Difficulty: Medium-Easy
Developer: Overworks
Publisher: Sega
Genre: RPG
Age: 13up

Story
85/100
Young Vyse is a member of the Blue Rouges, a group of friendly pirates that act more like Robin Hoods than actual pirates. Vyse is determined to become a pirate and make a name for himself in the skies and become legend. Teamed up with his best friend Akira, Vyse and Akira work under Vyse’s dad, the leader of the Blue Rouges. One night while on a routine search-find-and steal the Blue Rouges cross paths with the Verlunian Fleet, who were chasing a mysterious ship with a girl in strange clothes. The Blue Rouges board the ship of Valuan Admiral Alphonse, who has captured the girl and her ship. Vyse and Akira save the girl and while Alphonse runs away leaving his ship and crew behind he vows revenge on the Blue Rouges, still the night seems like a victory for the Blue Rouges. Vyse and Akira decide to take the girl with them to Private Island, the HQ of the Blue Rouges. The girl is greeted with a warm welcome however the girl doesn’t seem to like talking much and remains quiet.
While Vyse and Akira go out to collect a piece of a falling moonstone, Valuna strikes an attack upon the Blue Rouges destroying everything and taking all the men and the mysterious girl, who’s named Fina, captive. When Vyse and Akira return they are left in shock. Luckily Vyse’s dad was able to sneak the women and children into the secret underground base. Vyse and Akira decide to go and have his father and the crew before they are executed, because being a pirate in Valuna is punishable only by death. The odds are against them though Valuna is knowed for getting what it wants and destroying everything else.
What seemed to be like a simple, but by no means easy, rescue mission will turn into a race to save the world from the power of the ancients. Vyse will sail the skyes of Arcadia discover new and amazing people and places, and battle monsters and opponents seen no where before.

Gameplay
85/100
In skies of Arcadia there are two kinds of battling players will get to experience: ship battles and hand to hand combat. The skip battles are few but probably the best part to this game. You and your active crew/team of four will each take turns performing different tasks such as attacking, healing, or charging. You’ll have chances when certain attacks would be more effective or a high chance of hitting your opponent, so it will take some strategy to beat some ship battles bosses. You’ll fight pirates and other large monsters that will put your strategy skills to the test, eventually you’ll get the hang of it–which might be the down side that their aren’t many default bad guys.
Then there is the hand-to-hand battle. This is a rigid turn based system. You’ll take turns controlling you party having them perform different task: heal, attack, charge, depend. I say rigid because it’s pretty basic to look at, you’ll have a wide battlefield, and occasionally you’ll move across the battle field automatically–you’ll have no control over that–however most of the time you’re opponents will be on one “side” and you on the other–not very realistic but tolerable. What’s cool is that you’ll be able to change weapons mid-battle and not have that count as a turn which is vital when you’re fighting multiple enemies of different sorts.
Each move in both the ship battles and hand-to-hand require you to use spirit points that you can charge or just leave rise on its own. While battling players will have to keep on eye on that because when it’s done you won’t be able to use any moves. You’ll also have to be careful to watch your MP too or else you won’t be able to use magic, which is a vital part to this game. As you create your party, you’ll have three defaults and 1 optional which you can pick from three characters (not much in terms of options but still), it would be good to keep in mind to have each member special for something. My current team is like this:
Vyse=Attack
Akira=Magical Defense
Fina=Magical Attack and Heal
Enrique=Defense
Got to cover all the bases right.

You’ll also be able to collect Moon crystals which allows your party to learn special movies–which will be very helpful in the end.

The majority of the game will have you traveling to different “dungeons” collect the moon crystals, but you’ll also have to infiltrate and break into several different countries.
You will play as Vyse/the ship when in the air and travel the world of Arcadia as such, when you enter a battle–which are at random moments–you’ll see a scene, like those scene in FF X-2 or Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and be taken to the battle screen. Depending on your environment you’ll face different kinds of monsters, which will require you to change your weapons’ attribute or else you’ll be ineffective.
Overall game play will make you have to stay on top of the game and change your style depending on your enemy and environment.

Music & Sound
80/100
The music in Skies of Arcadia fits the style of the game: an epic adventure. The environment that you are in will play in will play a major part on the back ground music too. Possibly the coolest part is the music within the battle scenes, very dynamic! Th music will change depending on your status inn the battle, if you are in the general mode (both side are healthy to a certain degree) the music is general, if you are loosing the music will be imply that you are, and if you are winning the music kind of makes you wan to rub it in the bad guys face. Really good music no major flaws, if anything a solid thumbs up.
What does sucks is that you hear very little of your characters voices, most of the dialog appears on the bottom of the screen. You’ll hear your characters say something but nothing much usually just a few words or groans.

Graphics
85/100
Skies are Arcadia was released before everything became cell shaded (lol) but still the graphics isn’t bad. You might be a bit annoyed if you playing the game now than when it came out about the bad edges and box like appearance some of the things have, but overall the graphics aren’t bad compared to cell shaded stuff today. On their own the graphics are pretty good, certainly not horrible.

Controls & Camera
80/100
Not much in terms of controls most the game, maybe even all of it, you’ll use the dialog stick and the A button to confirm the option or the B button to cancel. The gameplay doesn’t really require much, it’s pretty cut an dry. A downside might the controls for the ship. You have 7 directions available to you: up, down, forward, backward, turn (either left or right), dive, and rise, and they are all pretty rigid. You don’t really feel as if you’re really piloting a ship, I would have preferred if the turning ability seemed a bit more realistic. Still it ain’t too bad. The controls are simple and present no difficulty to understand.

Replayability
90/100
This is one of this games high points, while you can rush through the story rather easily–defeating the bosses takes very little time–it’s the side quests and other miscellaneous stuff that makes this game shine. You’ll have the choice of finding and recruiting new crew members, constructing your own private island, discovering all 89 or so hidden secrets in the skies of Arcadia, helping a little and her baby chic, and defeating other prirates on the wanted list to clear you name and get a handsome reward, and much much more. All of that can take you a while to finish so be prepared to waste many ours trying to find that spot on the map where the clue said the discovering would be.

Overall
85/100
This is one of my favorite RPGs that I own. The game play was simple but still had a lot of BANG! to it. The story had dept to it which made it interesting and a real epic feel to it too. Game play was easy to grasp, although it took a while to figure out which element attribute did best against which. A lot of game play time wasn’t spent on the actually story but other stuff like collecting all the moon shards to unlock your team’s most ultimate move or fighting side quest characters–who will always be on the same level as you, so it’s not to say you’ll have the upper hand if you level up (sneaky bastards!) in fact it might be harder if you do. The game will surprise in the number of option you’ll have and how that will effect you in long run, the decisions you choose as Vyse will have an effect on how people view and treat you.
It’s a really good game if you’re fan of adventure turn based RPGs, it’s easy but it will have it’s moments where you’ll have to think about how to beat that certain bad guy.
Good story, good game play, sweet music and easy controls, not much more than you can ask for.

By Cherubim

May
05

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Platform: Gamecube
Number of players: 1
Difficulty: Various
Developer: Konami, Silicon Knights
Publisher: Konami
Genre: Stealth/Action
Age Rating: 15 (UK certificate)

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a exact remake of Metal Gear Solid that was released for the PS in 1998. But here is the twist, it now has much cleaner graphics, new cut scenes, and some surprising twists, and with new tricks that were unavailable in the original game. This time, Konami alone did not make this game, They teamed up with Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness) Hideo Kojima, and for the cut scenes they teamed up with Ryuhei Kitamura (Devil May Cry).
So on with the review.

Story

In 2005 (not confirmed in game, but think of time and things, its in 2005) a special group soldiers under Fox Hound (A unit in the USA army to stop terrorist acts) take hostage a small island in Alaska, called Shadow Moses Island, that is used as a place to dispose of Nuclear Weapons and train next generation Fox Hound members. If there demands are not met in 24 hours, they launch a nuclear weapon at America. The same origination, Fox Hound send Solid Snake into Shadow Moses to try and end the problem….

Gameplay

Gameplay mostly consists of going from one area to the next without being seen by the soldiers/animals that guard Shadow Moses, with the occasional boss event in between. If you are seen, you can either stay, and fight the oncoming back up of guards (never a good option when playing in normal/hard/extreme) or try to hide in gaps, rooms, under vehicles and yes, hiding in a cardboard box, until they stop looking for you. You can do various things in Twin Snakes to avoid being seen that you would never dream of doing back in 1998. Such as hanging of ledges, hiding in lockers, you also have the trusty tranquilliser gun from Metal Gear Solid 2 (basically all the new tricks are from Metal Gear Solid 2) this is handy seeing as you can finish the game without having to cause a single kill. First person view also becomes a lot more helpful for them head/leg/arm shots, also if you want to shoot there radio so they cant call for back up.

8/10

Cut scenes

Cut scenes, they are either brilliantly made, or just ridiculously over done. It looks like most of the game was inspired by the matrix. Such as Snake firing a bullet in slow motion only for it to be cut in half by a ninja’s blade then only to narrowly missing a hostage. Then some cut scenes are just over the top, either making Snake look like Neo, way to many explosions are something stupid such as snake jumping of a stinger missile and firing a rocket at a helicopter all in slow motion. It can be really well made none the less.

7/10

Music:

Music has totally changed in this remake, it now sounds more along the lines of the music that the composer from Metal Gear Solid 2 made. It sounds a lot like a Hollywood film sound track! There are some brilliant songs in there.
9/10

Controls

This is were the game loses points. The controls are hard to get used to and can/are annoying. You have to press start and B just to pause the game, start and A to open the radio etc. but after you get used to the controls you should be okay.
6/10 (difficult controls)

Extra’s/ Replay value

There’s quite a lot of replay value in this game. There are two endings, the Otacon ending and the Meryl ending. For each ending, you receive an item to help you on your next game. After finishing the game for the fist time, you get a Battle Survival, were you have to defeat all the boss’ of the game without the aid of health items. A theatre to view cut scenes. There’s also irrelevant things such as a photo album and a dog tag viewer.
8/10

Overall

This is a good game despite its faults (over the top cut scenes, bad controls) but, this makes up for it in graphics and Gameplay. A good game for fans of the original Metal Gear Solid game, and for the newcomer of the series. The game is very short and can be finished in a day on one ending. Good for renting if you can.

8/10

By Flame

May
05

Enter the Matrix

Console:
NGC
Game type: Action/Adventure

Developer: Shiny Entertainment and WB

Publisher: Atari (Infogrames over here :3)

Number of players: 1-2

Blocks on Memory Card: 10

Gameboy Advance link-up: No

Online play: No

Languages: English

Enter the matrix. Click to enlarge!

Presentation:
68/100

Introduction
65
A minor and nice screen snow, oscilloscopic background screen, screen outage and a matrix codings rush intro.
You then immediately arrive at the matrix-esque main screen menu after the also matrix-esque green logos.

Demonstration
70
The demonstration is the trailer downloadable from here.
All in all quite nice and only a few glimpses of the actual gameplay, which also shows what it is all about;
Footages and what appears to be missing in the Matrix Reloaded.

Menu
70
Direct, simple, clear and a jackingly screen outage innage when selecting.
Nothing more then one would require normally.
Gotto love green and oscilloscopes now :3

Visuals:
70/100

Detail
70
Mediocrely nice on all systems, the X-box slightly better in these fronts.
Although they have used the original cast scans and all that, the detail of the characters, surroundings and object aren’t all that high.
There are a few nice breakable/interactieve objects/surroundings, but nothing really impressive.
Many things looks monotonous and bland, but some places are quite nicely close to the movie’s surroundings and spacious.
On the other hand you’re not really sight-seeing at famous places…

FMV’s, filmfootages and game’s engine rendered (some missing in PS2), spread thickly throughout the game,
are of high quality and beside the continuation of the story, oftenly portrais the most impressive undo-able moves.
The only time you will see the main characters, are bits of the Reloaded movie itself.

And some complain about too dark areas, but a certain rifle has a searchlight…
Or they need to set their brightness setting to normal.

Animation
75
The running and fast climbing of your controllable characters might look weird or jagged.
But if you don’t run or climb at maximum speed they move quite normal, it’s just their slightly above human movement :3
The agents dodging bullets movements doesn’t blurr, so that kinda looks funny too.
The execution of many moves are really good, although if you stand a bit higher or too close to your opponent it might not look perfect.
When fighting the camera will take a nice side view like many fighting games.
Although running out from that view gives a small problem of running back in after the camera shift to the standard third person view.

Frame Rate
65
There seems to be much problem with the framerate on the PS2, PC (if minimum requirements and such), X-Box lockage.
I only noticed a framerate drop at the cube at the few large group ambushes of swat teams.
Well you could take it as an extra focus time…

Audio:
80/100

Sound Effects
75
The sound effects are good, original voice actors and good difference in focus (slowmotion).
Although on the PlayStation 2 version it suffers a bevy of audio errors, for example an echo; audio played twice at cutscenes at different timings.

Music
85
Music directly from the movies, a big thumbs up.
You’ll definately hear when you need to run or to focus.

Playability:
60/100

Controls
65
Customable and for me perfect controls on the cube, a bit weird on the PS2 and fine on the old XBox controller.
And amazing that you can perform many kinds of moves with different simple combinations.
The movement stick with the punch, kick or action and or with the focus can perform up to a combo hit up to 4 and 5, with many different combinations.
And play dirty, hit them when they are down :3

Single-Player
65
2 characters to play with a couple slightly or totally different view missions.
The combat is done very well, all the key impressive moves are done with focus.
Focus also improves your auto aiming, speed and dodging abilities.
Chases are good too but not many civilians around, but then again you would panic and a certain agent…
You will be able to fly through these missions fast, thanks to regenerativity and quite many saving sequences.
Oftenly you will be running away, you’re not a Neo, no? And Neo got other things to do…
The main up part are the one on one with familiar or boss characters.
The vehicle and hovercraft missions are done really poor, luckily they are only a few missions.
It’s too monotonous and you got unlimited ammo when you are Ghost or in the hovercraft, which moves horridly.
There is an interesting sort of training mission too, unlocked by a cheatcode.

Multi-Player
50
The quite poorly multiplayer is unlocked by finishing the hacking sequence or enter a cheat code there.
Only preset characters on a few familiar places.
The plus side is being able to play a few familiar characters, downside no focus and focus moves.
But you still got a decent amount of moves and strikes.

Loadtime
60
Longest loadtime on the PS2 up to 15 seconds or more.
The other systems and the NGC has an acceptable loadtime up to 8-10 seconds.
Just enough not to make you study the matrix codings; blond there, brunette over there….
A good and fast matrix background transition towards to game and out though.

Lastability:
65/100

Concept
65
Playing the part of the path of the many that lays the path of the one.
Enter the Matrix and do your part, mostly running :3

Story
70
The story picks up after the Last Flight of the Osiris and intertwines with the Matrix Reloaded.
It’s the complementory missing part of the Matrix Reloaded and is mainly about the 2 secondary characters.
Niobe and Ghost of the Logos, what their part is of laying the path of the one.
They seem to be visiting many places before the One in the movie does.
You almost need to play and see the movie at the same time.
Sparks the Logos’ operator is quite the sarcastic funny element.

Addiction
50
You’ll fly through it easily and with the cheats and weapon drops, thanks to the hacking, even faster.
So you’ll finish both single play lines in less then 6 hours.
Some multiplayer and boss one on one pummeling has a somewhat longer lastability.

Secrets
75
It’s all in the hacking option at the main menu.
A DOS like command interface and trying to give you the feeling of how Neo feels behind his PC.
It unlocks multiplayer, some mediocre bios, has some funny text (Sparks is big here :3) and audio sequences and gives you more control on the main game.
You can also unlock a sword hack, you’ll be like Morpheus with his sword.

Total: 68/100

Final verdict
It sort of fills the Niobe and Ghost plotlines hole in the movie, which makes it a real nice addition for Matrix fans.
They could have improved quite a few things to make this “the best evolution of interactive entertainment” as they call it;
~More and selectable characters for multiplayer,
~Perhaps a 2 player story game mode,
~Better vehicle and Hovercraft movement/chase sequence,
All in all it doesn’t leave much of a good impression beside the footages and minor side story.
It’s a rent game and a buy if you’re all crazy about the Matrix.

Quotes and Scores:

Presentation: 68
“~…matrix-esque main screen menu after the also matrix-esque green logos.”
“The demonstration is the trailer downloadable from here. ”
“Direct, simple, clear and a jackingly screen outage innage when selecting.”

Visuals: 70
“Many things looks monotonous and bland, but some places are quite nicely close to the movie’s surroundings and spacious.”
“FMV’s,…~~~…are of high quality”
“The execution of many moves are really good,…~”
“I only noticed a framerate drop at the cube at the few large group ambushes of swat teams.”

Audio: 80
“The sound effects are good, original voice actors…~”
“You’ll definately hear when you need to run or to focus.”

Playability: 60
“Customable and for me perfect controls on the cube,…~”
“The main up part are the one on one with familiar or boss characters.”
“The quite poorly multiplayer is unlocked by finishing the hacking sequence”
“The other systems and the NGC has an acceptable loadtime up to 8-10 seconds.”

Lastability: 65
“Enter the Matrix and do your part, mostly running :3″
“The story picks up after the Last Flight of the Osiris and intertwines with the Matrix Reloaded.”
“Some multiplayer and boss one on one pummeling has a somewhat longer lastability.”
“It’s all in the hacking option at the main menu.”

Total: 68
“All in all it doesn’t leave much of a good impression beside the footages and minor side story.”

By CommS007

May
05

Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour

Game Title: Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour
Console: Nintendo DS
No. of Players: 1
Release Date: 08.30.05 (USA) Nov ’05 (EU) 07.21.05 (JPN)
Genre: Trading Card Game
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

Story
75/100
The game’s story is pretty simple, it’s the actual playing of the game that can be hard. You are a deulist and you duel other duelist. The game incorporates the first three segas of the anime, and has you duel a loose adaptation of that storyline. If you’ve watched the anime all the important duels that Yugi Moto faced will be the people you have–I guess you beat him to it. You’ll face the major characters from the anime and collect Kaiba Points based on how well you did in the duel.

The story is very weak and poorly put toegther since you are just moving across your screen bumping into duelist and if you bump into the right one, you progress the story. The main object to the game is basically to clear certain points and move on. For example defearting Maximillion Pegasus, then winning the Expert Tournament, defeat the Big 5 and Mr. Kaiba and then defeat Yami Marik and the Shadow Ghouls. Each phase presents a new challenge all other Yugioh games did not.

Gameplay
75/100
Well besides from actually dueling (if you don’t know and are interested you can check out the official site here) you will be a character with a name and house where you check your email, save, and go to sleep. Outside of your house (a.k.a. Bedroom) you’ll see a map of a city and there will be a point showing where you are and you are free to move where ever on the screen. Eventually your cursor will pick up another duelist signal from their duel disk and depending on how far you are in the game you’ll be able to tell who it is, if not, you’ll just have to click to find out. Once you’ve clicked you’ll have to duel them, unless you’ve registered them (which you can only do after you’ve beating a few times).

As you progress the story you’ll sometimes be forced into duels with other people like the Ghouls or Pegasus’ henchmen from time to time. Once you get stuck in a something say a saga that you must complete you will have the defeat it or be defeated and get a game over, and restart from when you last saved. Many times your selection of duelist will be cut down down in order to press you to continue with the story line. (For example restricting you to weak duelist until you fight the boss and win)

But this is still a TCG Video Game is lets talk about that.

At the very beginning of the game you get to pick a starter deck, mostly common cards and a few rares. It’s then your job as a duelist you to duel other duelist and collect Kaiba Points based on how well you did in the duel. Once you get the points you can then exchange them for Card Packs which contain, I believe, 5-6 cards. Sometimes you’ll get a very rare card but most often than not you’ll get commons. The object is to build and customize your own deck–you can have up to 16 different decks. As you duel you will gain experiance points and go up levels, and as you do that you will unlock new packs and new and stronger foes, which in return once you duel them give you more experiance points thus gain more levels and unlock more packs–it’s a depressing cycle, eh! You don’t have to collect them all you just have to make a deck that works for you, but the more packs you have the better cards you unlock.

Eventually you’ll beat the final boss and have access to battle all the different characters till the end of your days. You can also wire-lessly link with a friend and duel.

Difficulty
75-80/100
If you know how to duel it’s going to be easier for you for sure; however, if you don’t it might be a bit tricky. The A.I. in this game is a lot more intelligent than in previous games and tends to pull of some tricky moves. Still their decks will always stay the same, so if you beat them at level 1 with start decks you can pretty much kick their ass at level 22. The games does present more challegens in this one though. For example of placing requirement in order to progress or even defeat the duelist. (Example and Spoiler: the final boss is Yami Marik and in order to beat him you must defeat him with an Egyptian God card. Now while it can be easy for some people, and their decks to beat him, having to use or Egyptian God card is pretty annoying. It took me about 15 tries 9 of which I defeated him but not with Slifer).

Replayability, or in this case, why battle stronger duelist when I can just stick with the weak ones.
80/100
First off, like I said before the game makes certain duelist inaccessible when you progress the story in order to suggest to you to contine one, and once you gain levels you’ll automatically go onto a next level; however, the developers understand that somtimes you just might not be ready to face X person you they leave out very weak duelist and throw in a few Ghouls and their shadow games (which if you loose to it’s Game Over and you restart) to keep you busy so that you can gain more experiance and thus get better cards.

Overall
75-80/100
I’m sort of disappointed but at the same time glad that I bought this game. As usual not every card is in this game and there isn’t much of a story line as so much random battles that you can sort of consider a story. The stronger A.I. is cool because it present more of challenge but overall they still are mediocre since they will always have the same deck, so they get weaker as you get stronger.

The overal attraction to this game, especially for the franchise’s fans, is the fact that the cards are in ’3-D’ and the Egyptian God cards are in the game. HOWEVER: 1) the 3-D feature is pretty crappy, horrible pixels and the notion that some cards get a cut-scene and others don’t pisses me off; 2) the Egyptians God cards have been turned into a joke: half of their abilities have been taken away and they can be destroyed by almost everything. I’m still very pleased the actually be finally able to play with Ra but it’s still hurts to see what they have done to it.

Overall, the game is still an overall ‘plus’ and something most fans have been waiting for. It’s a short run but if you have the tallent to build a good deck you can defeat it in a matter of hours/a day or two. The games give you the chance the duel a lot of different duelist, duelist that have been neglected in prior games. So if you like the card game, you might want to seriously consider buying this NOT to be blow away by whatever but mainly to get some awesome duels out of it.

By Cherubim

May
05

Kirby Canvas Curse

Game Title: Kirby Canvas Curse
Console: Nintendo DS
No of Players: 1
Release Date: June 2005 (USA) Sometime this fall for EU
Developer: HAL Labs
Publisher: Nintendo
Age: Everyone

Story
75/100
While just chillin in dream land our pink friend, Kirby, comes across a magical mirror and within that magical mirror a dark and evil witch. Thinking that her plans for turning the world into a world of paint would be foiled by Kirby the evil witch turns Kirby into a ball (How very creative of her!). That’s where you come in, you you’re going to have to help Kirby defeat the evil witch and her paintings. How are you doing to do this, well you play as a magical paint brush with your DS pin on the touch screen. You will have to guide Kirby through 7 different stages/worlds and save the dream land from the evil witch.

Game Play
70/100
Alright this is where this game gets annoying, as Kirby is freakin helpless with out you–dependant pink bastard. Kirby basically can roll and that’s about it, he can’t jump, move backwards, duck, attack or anything. You’ll have to use your “paint brush” to guide him and stun enemies which would then allow Kirby to kill them. This is can get annoying when you have about 5 enemies on the screen, you’ll have to stun then (which doesn’t last for a long time) and then “paint” a line for Kirby to roll on to attack them. The fact that the slightest touch would hurt Kirby and he can’t do anything for himself annoys me to no end. Since Kirby as no control of where he rolls he can’t stop rolling, which means you’ll always be on high alert checking that he doesn’t run off somewhere and get killed. You’ll have to use the “paint brush” in more ways than just to guide Kirby, from using it as a shield to using to block laser beans. Still it giving you this amount of “freedom and creativity” doesn’t pay off from the sheer annoyance that Kirby can’t stop of moving. Now one of the great appeals of Kirby games is his (is Kirby a “he” I’m not sure) ability to absorbs enemies powers. Sadly in Canvas Curse that too is a let down, the amount of enemies you have to absorb their powers has been cut since the last game by a huge amount. I don’t know off the top of my hair but I’d say about 5-7 in the entire game. This of course because many of the forms he could have absorbed (in the last game) required him to have hands and feet. And even when you have an enemies power (which all you get to see is a ring around Kirby) the powers seems more of a curse (go figure!) than a blessing. Overall the fact that Kirby as no ability other than rolling and you’ll be constantly drawing lines to save him falling over or landing on spikes begins to strain on you.

Controls & Camera
60/100
What controls! You use a pen and draw lines and tap on bad guys, that’s it! If Nintendo was trying to so off what the DS Touch Screen can do, they’ve probably annoyed more than they wanted to with this game. The camera is pretty simple too, there is none. Probably more annoying that you have a limited amout of paint that you can use, which means you could be drawing a line and then run out of paint, so you’ll have to keep an eye on that (which is located on the top screen of the DS). It’s damn annoying the fact that Kirby is just always rolling and can’t stop! When you need to go up, you have to “paint’ the line. Kirby has no control he’s always running into things. The fact is you’ll be too busy trying to save the pink ball to notice anything else about the game.

Music
75/100
The music is this game varies a lot; for the most part it’s rather simple background music. The best music sequence for me had to be when you fought the final bad guy, it was fast paced and really sounded epic–with a touch of cuteness. The rest of the music in this game is pretty ok, nothing spectacular or out of this world but just generally “ok”. It’s more relaxing, getting you into that mood for playing a annoying game.

Graphics
80/100
Ah One of the good things about this game. The graphics are smooth and clean, plus everything is much more close up than in previous Kirby games. Everything has a cute and cuddle-cious appeal to it, even the enemies are adorable. ^_^ The worlds are some what different from one another so that leaves the feeling of repetition at bay which is good. It’s

Replayability
70/100
After you’ve made it through the stages, defeated the three types of bosses besides the main boss, you’ll unlock a few extras to keep you busy. Something like a race to the finish type deal. Once you finish that and collect all the medals you’ll unlock new character balls (each with their own special ability) to play with in the stages. Meh, it’s nothing to get worked over and the new character balls aren’t that great in the first place.

Overall
70/100
I must say it’s the commercial that got me into this game–damn subliminal messaging. The game is really for Kirby fans because they might be the only ones that could take it all. Kirby Canvas Curse is one of those “1 Day” games, where you can finish everything in a day’s time and pretty much put the game down and never play with it again. This game would probably be enjoyed more if in the back seat of a car and have a long drive ahead of you.
The touch screen feature was probably the one feature this game wanted to present the most to DS owners, and I have to say I’m not impressed. This game clearly showed that while the touch screen feature was interesting to use, it by no means beats the good and always reliable control pad–at least with the control pad you would have had some more control. I must say that my main things with this game was the fact that their was so little control of kirby and that it became annoying to wtach after him and draw lines. With only 8 stages and very few extras this game will be finished in no time and really won’t be much entertainment. I say if you really want to play this game and you really like Kirby, rent it and save the money.

By Cherubim

May
05

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

GAME TITLE: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
DATE LAUNCHED: 10.05.05 (North America)
09.30.05 (Europe)
# OF PLAYERS: 1 (2-player multi-play)
CONSOLE: Nintendo DS
DIFFICULTY: Normal / Hard
GENRE: Action / Adventure / Horror
EXTRA MODES / GOODIES: Sound-Select, Julius Mode, Boss Rush Mode, Wireless Soul Trade
PUBLISHER: Konami
DEVELOPER: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
RATING: T

A sequel to the GBA’s Aria of Sorrow, and the first game of the franchise to reach the DS, Dawn of Sorrow is namely the best game of its time. It surpasses the beloved classic Symphony of the Night.

- [ MUSIC & GRAPHICS ] -
the music to DoS is much like Aria’s, if not improved. It still has that rock-riff-turned-midi feel to it, which I think is awesome. as far as the graphics go, it still maintains the gothic-feel that was used in Aria of Sorrow, but have transformed into a more anime-ish feel, making it look somewhat like the classic games Dracula X (SNES) and Symphony of the Night (PSX). An awesome transformation if you ask me. though on the minus side, I was hoping the game could use anime-like cutscenes aside from the opening video shown somewhere during the main screen.
———————-
SCORE – 9/10

- [ GAME-PLAY ] -
the gameplay is basically the same as the GBA Castlevania games, with the addition of a “power-strike” when pushing the X button for attack. There is also the addition of “magic-seals”, which are required to reach certain areas of the game as well as finish off bosses using a respectively specified magic seal. there are 5 seals total in which you will need to possess and master.
———————-
SCORE – 9/10

- [ DIFFICULTY ] -
As with most games, the more you get into the game, the harder it gets … unless you’ve been powerleveling up like crazy. the only things I would actually find hard in the game are the later bosses.
———————-
SCORE – 8/10

- [ STORY ] -
“Ever since the solar eclipse of 2035, my life has never been the same. It was then that I realized that I, Soma Cruz, am the rebirth of Dracula … It was in his castle that I learned the truth … that I possessed the power to seize the souls of my enemies … That evil almost engulfed me, but my friends pulled me out from the brink. About a year has passed and I thought my troubles were over …”

–
ok, so basically, this game takes place a year after the events of Aria of Sorrow, and, like its predecessor, Soma finds himself in trouble as Celia Fortner, leader of a cult destined to ressurect the dark lord, will do whatever she can to either make Soma the lord of darkness, or kill him and use one of her recruits she picked up along the way. and as the story may or may not tell, those who were born in 1999 when dracula was destroyed by Julius Belmont and Mina’s father, they are to be the candidates for becoming the Count.

———————-
SCORE – 9/10

- OVERALL SCORE -
9.5/10

By TurkMasterZero

May
05

More car fun

Shadow
Last week 4 new relais for 320 euros.
Yesterday the car got broken into, window smashed in and the Mio satnav stolen.
Today the car’s at the garage for a 30000km big checkup and to have the window replaced, total amount to be determined…
The fun never ends.

Work in progress... not home!
Trying to get all/most of the new code working before I start on the eyecandy.