Who would have thought winding rope on a wood figure would be fun? The guys at Secret Exit did and this is some simple fun here. While the graphics don’t push anything the wooden figure models are nice and varied, but this is a more challenging puzzle game than you think. As you work your way up a tree you have three goals for each figure by covering 70%, 85%, and 99% of the allotted rope. When you wind the rope it will turn a painted color, but be careful because if you wind the rope tight that’s lifted off the figure you can’t get underneath. The physics are great with rope sliding off corners and falling into place as it should.
Some figures have nails that you can use to redirect the rope, but the art of this is how well you can wind the rope and cover the whole object. Some are easy and some are hard with lots of arms, legs, or pieces that can easily be covered up or roped off on accident. That’s pretty much all there is to the game, but being such a unique puzzle game makes it great. There is nothing out there like this and you will have hours of fun here. There is some nice relaxing background music playing, but overall the game impresses on sheer originality. I highly recommend this to any puzzle fan hardcore or casual.
If I were to complain about this at all it would be the inconsistent difficulty that jumps around, the game lacks any type of mode like time attack, plus you can only play in short bursts because you will get bored after a while. Other than that this is one awesome game that comes at a small price.
Everyone was bullied at some point in their life during school, so Rockstar took it upon themselves to help people reflect on that and become bullies themselves or anti-bullies. Jimmy Hopkins is sent to Bullworth Academy because he’s a huge jerk and his mom and stepdad hate him. The story really makes you reminisce about high school because of how accurately it portrays it. You walk around, and you see jocks beating up nerds and greasers beating up preps. Of course, due to the game’s age (about 7 years old), there are problems, glitches, and stiffness due to the PS2’s limited technology, but the overall atmosphere and fun content will keep you hooked.
The game is based on Grand Theft Auto, so if you play that series a lot, you are right at home here. You get a mini-map with stars marked on it, a combat system, a vehicle system, as well as a shooting system. They all work really well and even better than the GTAgames, but don’t forget, this is a teen-rated game, so you can forget about Jimmy killing hookers and pushing drugs. After you get familiar with the engine, you will be introduced to the combat system, which works well thanks to a lock-on mode and target switching with the right analog stick (keyboard controls stink). A health bar is displayed around the target’s feet, and the melee combat system is surprisingly deep. You unlock combos and moves by bringing transistors to the bum that lives behind the school.
With grapples, takedowns, and various combos comes ranged combat, which is fun thanks to the interesting and fun weapons. Instead of rocket launchers and AK-47s, we get potato spud launchers, bottle rocket launchers, slingshots, stink bombs, itching powder, spray paint (for tagging), eggs, and various breakable melee weapons that are awesome to use. You can’t jack cars, but you can jack bicycles, and you have a skateboard in your inventory. I really wish there were more vehicles to use than just these two things, but it works because the world isn’t big enough to need anything faster.
The days in Bully go by like school, and of course, you can get busted and, instead of wasted, knocked out like in GTA games. Prefects are the authority on campus, and there are a lot of rules. There are two classes a day, and you will see a bell on your map. If you skip class, you can be busted for truancy, hit kids and get chased for violence, hit girls or adults, and the meter goes red, and everyone runs after you for this. You can be busted for trespassing (being inside a building after hours), theft, vandalism, and all the hijinks of kids, so watch out. Of course, getting busted is actually hard because you can always outrun them, and if a prefect gets a hold of you, you can rapidly press Y to break free. If a teacher or cop gets you, you’re done.
Classes are fun and consist of mini-games like music class, which uses the triggers to tap out the rhythm; biology class, which has you dissecting animals; math class, which has you answering simple questions; shop class, which has you doing button commands to repair bikes; and photography class, which has you snapping pictures. There are more classes, and they help keep you busy between missions and can be fun. When you aren’t doing missions or classes, you can do one of the two jobs in town, which is a paper route and mowing lawns. I really wish there were more jobs, but more on why later. There are also challenges for each faction as well as random activities like people having you egg things, make deliveries, or break into lockers.
Missions are varied and range from throwing snowballs, playing tricks, assaulting faction fortresses, sneaking through an asylum, and helping teachers with adult problems. There’s a lot of variety in the main missions, and it will keep you hooked and wanting to do the next one. I just wish there were more side missions that had a good payoff because money is kind of useless in this game. I rarely spent it and didn’t really need to. There is also a lame dating system built in where you can compliment a girl, then give her a gift, and then she’ll kiss you. This is as far as it goes, and after trying it once, you won’t do it again.
All this sounds fun, and it is, but it comes with a price. Everything feels stiff, stilted, and linear, which really detracts from the experience. The same NPCs walk around, sayings repeat constantly, animations are stiff and awkward, the same music repeats constantly, the sound is low quality, and the graphics aged poorly with low poly models and some ugly textures. The only things that haven’t aged are the excellent voice acting, memorable characters, and charming and witty dialog. This is the best part about Bully because of characters like Gary, who are whacked sociopaths who you want to just punch. The world isn’t very big at all, and while you can change your clothes and hair and earn money, there’s really no reason for it. You can find collectibles in the world, do races, and more, but honestly, for what? There’s no payoff, and I guess you just do it to be the best completionist.
I could go on about how stiff the game feels or the multiple glitches that I encountered, but after completing the 10-15-hour campaign, I felt no reason to continue on. I couldn’t bear hearing the same saying, listening to the same music, or seeing the same NPC walk by me. Back in the day, it was revolutionary, but now it’s just a wrinkle in the game timeline as something unique and playful because there isn’t a single game out there like it. Enjoy the game for the great dialog, characters, and story, as well as the fun mini-games and varied missions, but if you can’t overlook the many faults, then move on.
In defense of the game’s formula, you really have to be an FPS nut or a fan of classic games like Doom and Quake to appreciate what’s going on here. There are no cinematic events, no quick-time events, or helicopter rides. This is just pure shooting, with enemies doing nothing but coming after you. If you played the last game and its expansion and got tired of it, you probably want to come back again because of the interesting and completely original levels and enemies. That’s probably the only saving grace for Overdose, but it does have some niceties.
First off, the story is semi-interesting, with you playing as a half-demon or half-angel who gets thrown into a prison in Hell for thousands of years by Samuel and Cerberus. You ascend through Hell, up to the middle plane, and then up into heaven. The levels are just awesome and so original, like Dead Marsh, which is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft with Cthulhu-type enemies. Riot is a level with creepy-looking police, hoodlums, and sexy nurses. Farmland has creepy, reanimated butchered animals, and the list goes on, but the gory, mature nature of Painkiller stays. I liked this game over the last few years because of these awesome new levels and enemies that are drastically different from before and never feel repetitive.
The weapons are all new, including an Evil Eye, which is a severed demon head that shoots a laser eye. You get a cannonball launcher with a machine gun attached, a crossbow, a radiation launcher, and just a bunch of cool weapons that make the game feel completely new. Of course, you get to collect coins in the game and use them on tarot cards that act as perks, which you will really need if you aren’t playing on Daydream difficulty.
The main problem with Overdose is that it’s ten times harder than the last game. You will die hundreds of times throughout the game, and I couldn’t beat it on anything higher than Daydream because it’s just too damn hard. My only other comment is that the character you play chimes in every so often with funny comments and will react to the level you are in when you enter it. Despite all this, the game is just running around and shooting; that is the end of the story. It can get boring really quick, and only hardcore FPS fans should stray into the Painkiller realm because it’s damn hard. Unfortunately, online play is pretty much dead now, but we do get updated visuals, and it looks good even for its age. Stay away if you don’t like tough shooters; come back if you love Painkiller.
Sonic has seen so many rough years since its 3D outing in Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast. It has never had the same sense of smooth speed in 3D, and it seemed for years that Sonic Team and Sega just couldn’t get it. There were a few lights in the dark with some good GBA games, Sonic and the Secret Rings for Wii, as well as the last Sonic Colors being pretty decent, but all the rest were total crap. Sonic finally makes a 2D return with the ability to play as both the original and the new Sonic, but this also means each level has two different ways to play. The story is pretty thin, with a Time Eater and Doctor Eggman screwing time up and wiping the color away from the land. It isn’t much and can be easily ignored, as can the most awful voice acting.
Playing as the original Sonic brings back great memories when you step into Green Hill Zone and start flying around the level in 2D (with 3D graphics) like the grand days of old. The graphics are amazing, with great lighting, high-resolution textures, and great-looking models. This is the best-looking Sonic game to date, and Sega finally got the game up to speed with today’s graphics. Previous Sonic games had hideous visuals and tons of glitches, but you won’t find that here. You die and collect rings to stay alive, but you can use cards that give you both offensive and passive powers that help you along the way.
Playing as the new Sonic puts the camera back behind Sonic with the homing attack, but calm down! The game actually works now and flows great with some awesome cinematic moments, and the speed stays fast. You can use a boost that fills by collecting rings, and the homing attack can actually make you get through levels faster as well as fly through rings, but I found doing the flips in the air pretty useless. Overall, playing at each Sonic gives you a rewarding experience with memorable levels. Only two are from classic Sonics, and the rest range from terrible ones from Sonic Adventure, Shadow the Hedgehog, and even the failed Sonic the Hedgehog reboot from 2006. The levels are recreated in a fun way and are tons of fun to play.
There are a couple of boss fights, and I’m disappointed with how easy they are. There are three with Metal Sonic, Shadow, and Silver to get Chaos Emeralds, and three with Eggman. You have to find keys to unlock the boss stages and then move on to the next levels. In between, you can do side missions that range from a multitude of different goals to different ways to play. Each can be played as either Sonic, and they are a blast. However, the last two levels are poorly designed and just feel slow and difficult. Puzzle-solving? That shouldn’t be in a Sonic game. The last two levels will take you about ten minutes to complete, and that is way too long for a Sonic level. If you can ignore these last two, the rest is a blast. Repetition does set in from doing so many side missions because they start to feel the same after a while. Only hardcore fans will stick around and collect all the stars and get S ratings in each mission.
Sonic Generations does a good job of redeeming the failed series and pulling it out of the sewer. Fans of the old can return with a smile, and fans who have stuck with the series will finally get a game that isn’t a piece of crap. With an online mode, tons of extra activities, and amazing graphics, we can finally say Sonic is back!
A game claiming it’s one of the craziest around is something that would be hard to live up to. Thankfully, Saint’s Row: The Third does, and man, is it crazy. Parachuting out of planes and shooting tanks while falling out of the sky, a God of War-style boss fights in virtual reality, beating people up with giant purple dildos. Yeah, I’d say that’s crazy, but The Third offers even more!
The story is really great, with awesome characters and witty dialog. Johnny Gat dies in the beginning mission (that’s no spoiler), but returning characters like Pierce and Shaundi return, and the new characters are just as great, such as the bit brute Oleg and the nerd Kenzie. This time around, you are famous, and the Saints own the city, but they lose it because three new gangs move into town: The Morningstar, Deckers, and Luchadores. A paramilitary group called STAG has also moved in with heavily armored guys, tanks, and VTOLs (jets) that, yes, you can fly and keep in your garage.
A lot of the story missions are interesting and completely varied to help deliver this interesting and entertaining story. From going inside a supercomputer and fighting as a walking toilet, blow-up doll, or fighting in a Luchadore match, to shooting cars with a rocket launcher from a helicopter, to just running around and killing everything, everything is a huge blast, and each mission is different. Of course, there are side missions such as Trailblazing, where you drive around in a fireproof suit on an ATV and run into people and cars to blow them up to earn seconds on a clock as you blow through a checkpoint race. There are other side missions that let you pimp your girls around: Insurance Fraud lets you get hit by cars to earn money; Mayhem lets you use pre-determined weapons to cause as much destruction as possible; and a lot more. My favorite is the Genki matches, which are like a gladiator-type game show. There is no shortage of things to do in The Third, with collectibles to be found, assassination missions, car theft missions, and tons of challenges.
Saint’s Row doesn’t stop there, with a ton of cars to drive as well as a bunch of customization options for building your character, upgrading and decking out cars, and even a crap ton of upgrades for you and your guns. You can use your phone to call in homies to help you fight, deliver vehicles, and even customize how your gang looks and taunts. You can run around and buy property to increase your respect rating and how much control you have over that territory.
But what about the world you play in, you say? It looks amazing with DirectX 11 features exclusive to PC, which makes the game look ten times better than that of the consoles, and the world is huge and bursting at the seams with life. The game never looks boring, feels boring, or sounds boring, with great radio stations with funny commercials and even one radio station dedicated to Adult Swim. I just can’t describe how crazy this game is because you have to play it to experience it. The controls are silky smooth, with great car control and even aircraft control. Is there anything wrong with the game? Yeah, there are some irritating issues like ragdoll physics when you get blown up, there are way too many enemies to kill, and the side missions are extremely difficult, but these things can be easily overlooked. If you love open-world games, I would say Saint’s Row: The Third is the best out there, and there really isn’t anything quite like it.
Not much can be said about this DLC for Renegade Ops. This closes off the story with just 3 levels and a couple of new enemies, but everything is the same, and that’s not really good or bad. If you couldn’t take any more after the end of the main game, then three extra levels may or may not kill you. The biggest change is the ice-cold scenery, but the overall design of the levels remains the same.
The final boss fight with Coldstrike is very challenging and even harder than Inferno was. The same problems consist of the repetitive nature of the game. The objectives are not any different from the main game, but if you really like the structure of this game, then this DLC is a must-buy for you.
The new enemies consist of a new huge bad boy called a Golem (who replaces the Juggernauts) as well as turrets that fall from the sky and just “re-texturing” of old enemies. There are a few scenes where you are running from missile drops that will break the ice for you, but that’s as exciting as it gets.
For the low price, you get an hour’s worth of fun activities, but you can go back with friends to experience it all again. With just 3 levels and barely anything new, it doesn’t add up to a “campaign” and more like, well, DLC.
Twin-stick shooters are running amok on mobile devices, but the best tend to be on consoles. Renegade Ops lets you choose from a variety of characters with a special weapon each. You can level up and unlock new upgrades while trying to mow down as many enemies as possible to rack up a high score. The story is actually really cliché and stupid, with a commando leader named Bryant trying to stop the evil Inferno from taking over the world. The cut scenes are drawn in nice comic book-style stills, but the dialog is as cheesy as it can get. No matter how you try to kill Inferno, he always seems to survive, and it’s just one of those “You’ll never kill me, Bryant! MWAHAHA!” type stories.
Besides the cheesy story, the action is really fun, with some great graphics and physics. You drive your vehicle using the right stick to shoot with your machine gun. Along the way, you can get pickups to make your machine gun stronger as well as secondary ammo pickups like rocket launchers, rail guns, and flamethrowers. There aren’t many pickups, which is a real bummer, but this is just the start of what else there isn’t much of. The enemy variety is interesting with varying degrees of difficulty, but it leads to the game being very difficult most of the time. You start off with 5 lives per level, and if you lose them all, it’s game over. The levels are very long, and you will be infuriated if you have to go through all that effort again.
My main concern about the game is that it gets very repetitive very quickly because all you do is drive around and shoot. The graphics are excellent, so you could get some cinematic scripted scenes going, but instead, you just follow an objective arrow around all over the place and kill everything in front of you. There are secondary objectives that lead to achievements, but they span the entire level and take way too long to complete. You are also timed on the primary objective, so if you don’t get it done fast enough, a 3-minute timer ticks down, and if you don’t complete it by then, it’s game over. This means you have to abandon the secondary, which makes things even more frustrating. When you die, you lose your machine gun pickups, so you start with the weakest form and can die easier that way because it takes longer to kill enemies.
There is a lot of fun to be had here with destructible environments and a four-player co-op, which makes the game easier and more fun. The upgrades are disappointing because you can only equip four at a time, and this leaves a lot of useful upgrades unused. There are only 7 missions, so you will beat the game in less than 5 hours, but most people probably won’t go through it again due to the difficulty and repetitive nature of the whole game. Twin-stick shooters should pick this up and rejoice, but don’t expect it to change the genre.
The Dispenser of Justice! Hero of the Downtrodden! Those are just a couple of DeathSpank’s other names in this hilarious action RPG from Hot Head Studios. You play the silly hero DeathSpank in his quest to find the artifact and kill the evil king, Lord Von Prong. LVP wants DeathSpank’s magical thong to become eviler, but in the meantime, you need to do some saving for the downtrodden.
The overall story isn’t much, but the banter with NPCs is what really makes you crack up with the obvious stabs at RPGs and other games. It will take different shots at the genre without even saying anything, sometimes like one quest has you pleasing an orphan in the Demon Mines to put in your orphan bag. You must run into town and get everything she needs, but the store just so happens to have everything you need when you get there, like a cell phone and a pony! This is an obvious jab at RPGs, whose stores always have what you need.
The game also has some more childish jokes, like collecting unicorn poop, finding help letters in dragon poop, and helping villagers make their dirt and stone soup taste better using various animal parts. While this humor may not be funny to all, most will get a kick out of it, and DeathSpank is chock-full of it. Of course, the gameplay is important, and DeathSpank lets you assign four different weapons at a time to use, and there are a ton of weapons, armor, and different types of potions to use. You can even eat various foods to heal up, like pizza, fries, magic mushrooms, and root beer. When you whack enough enemies, you get to unleash your Justice meter, which is a power-up for certain weapons. The game consists of a huge map that you can wander around and travel via outhouses spread throughout the world. There are a ton of quests, and you’re looking at about 10–15 hours of gameplay here that is very entertaining.
The game has two major flaws, and this is the fact that no matter how high you level up or how good your armor is, you will be guzzling potions and healing items every 5 seconds. Enemies respawn when you re-enter an area, and you can’t move on to another until you are at a higher level, or those enemies will kill you quickly. This makes progression slow at first and forces you to complete quests because that’s the only way to really level up. You get very little XP for killing enemies, even if they are at a higher level than you. I found this very frustrating and made the game less enjoyable because of all these weird quirks. I also found that some quests were vague on where to go, and using fortune cookies spread around gives you hints, but those are just mostly useless.
The visuals are nice, but technically the game is very simple; there is a huge variety of enemy types, and you really won’t get bored on that end. The best part about DeathSpank is the humor in the dialog and the funny voice actors who over-exaggerate voices. Even as an action RPG, the game is fun and challenging for anyone looking for something out of the ordinary to play, plus it has co-op play for anyone wanting to share the fun and jokes with a friend.
Mixing RTS (Real-Time Strategy; Shogun 2, StarCraft) with FPS (First Person Shooter; Call of Duty, Quake) sounds like trying to hammer a nail with a banana, but it works here despite not seeing the RTS part too often. Unlike other games that poorly implemented RTS (Brutal Legend) into another genre, Nuclear Dawn does it right. The person doing the RTSing is the commandre, and only he can do it. This is an online-only game (boo!) so the commander must be voted in, but usually that’s the host, and rarely will he ever get booted.
The game uses standard RTS elements like building buildings that give your men on the ground more powerful ammo for their weapons (the FPS part is the men on the ground). You have to kill the commander to win the game, but capturing energy sources is also key for respawn points. Everyone knows an online FPS needs to respawn points, so that’s the commander’s job by making sure there are plenty. The RTS elements are light and not very complicated, but you have the constant fear of pissing off the guys down below and voting you off if you don’t manage your resources right, build useful structures, and give them frequent upgrades.
As the guys on the ground, you are doing all the work capturing resource points and killing that freaking commander. You get to choose four different classes that have unique powers, such as a tank that uses a minigun and can plant it and act like a human turret, or you can use alternate classes for each class, like the tank using an energy-type grenade launcher to knock out structures. You have a stealth class that can turn invisible for a while and knife people from behind. Plus, you get the typical sniper and foot soldier roles that have various sub-classes. The shooting mechanics are simple, if a little dated, and the whole game is rough around the edges.
Not that it isn’t any fun because fragging with other players is loads of fun because this game has a back and forth kind of like Team Fortress 2, and a game can go on for over an hour. Once a team starts knocking out your resources, you can make a comeback, and it’s just like a tug-of-war. This can be loads of fun since you can switch classes after each death and use it to deal with a problem like people camping in a small room or snipers that no one can spot.
Nuclear Dawn does not have a single-player campaign or even offline bots, so this is strictly online only. I really don’t like that, and it could use a campaign to get you better at playing it. Mainly because 99% of the time you won’t be the commander, you get almost no experience in the RTS part outside the tutorial. The menus are also pretty ugly, and the whole game feels more like a mod than a full-fledged game, but the unique mix of genres is worth a purchase for the low price anyway. The graphics aren’t anything to write home about because they are pretty average and will run on an average computer. This game is strictly for hardcore online players only, but pick it up if you want something new.
Based on a popular manga in Japan, Corpse Party delivers a great and haunting story with memorable characters in a very haunting setting. Several school kids perform a cult-type ritual called the Sachiko Charm as a gag. They don’t realize that the charm is part of a sadistic and horrific murder of four schoolchildren, including the girl the charm is named after. They get thrown into a parallel dimension of Heavenly Host Elementary and must find a way to appease the ghosts or get stuck there for eternity. What the children go through is horrific and gut-wrenching, but that is the beauty of Corpse Party.
Forget about gameplay and everything else, because this game is all about the story and atmosphere. I have to give the developers props for bringing across such a scary game with such simple graphics as a 2D survival horror with low-quality sprites and the occasional well-drawn anime shot. The game is disturbing, mainly in the well-delivered Japanese voice acting and just the raw terror and gore in the game. There are buckets of blood, severed heads, and mutilated bodies everywhere, but mainly in textual descriptions more than anything. The game really doesn’t do much in terms of visuals, so you solely rely on the great script to get the horrific images. Some scenes are just black, with only voices and text to go by, but it still brings across the feeling of sheer terror.
This is possible because you go through everything with these kids, and the things that happen to them are just horrific and extremely sad because you really get attached to everybody. The game, however, is also lacking in gameplay because you only run around pressing X on everything trying to find items to unlock new areas. The school is the same through every chapter, but it just changes and blocks certain areas off or adds new areas. The game is pretty easy to navigate and understand until you get to chapter 3, and then it all falls apart and requires a guide. Everything has to be done in exact order, or you wind up with “bad endings,” and it’s game over. While each bad ending is different, you get frustrated when the game takes you through 20 minutes of gameplay only to realize it was all part of the bad ending. There is even a glitch that won’t let you get all the school tags to unlock the extra chapters. I really hate how the game has to be played out in an exact way, not to mention that during certain scenes you can die by selecting the wrong choice, but there are saves throughout the game that help remedy this a bit.
While the game lacks any type of gameplay at all, you will still be satisfied with the excellent story and characters. This is the only thing saving Corpse Party from being another terrible attempt on the PSP, but being so late in the system cycle is a surprise. If the game had better graphics, or maybe just more anime cut-aways, the game would be one of the best on the PSP.
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ORC is probably the worst game in the entire series. It's objectively awful. Being bad isn't different. Different is Outbreak…