When Midway announced Mortal Kombat: Unchained for PSP, Nintendo fans screamed that they wanted one as well. They got their wish with a port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Puzzle Kombat from MK: Deception thrown in. Here you have a perfect port for both responsive controls and a useful bottom screen that shows finishing moves and special moves. All the characters from UMK3 are here, plus some unlockables. There’s not much to say other than the controls work well, and I could pull off fast combos online while dishing out fatalities and animals left and right.
A couple of small gripes are that the -ality position isn’t listed on the bottom screen, so you kind of need to experiment, and the time to pull off the fatality is like 4 seconds, so you get one try. I also found the graphics slightly blurry due to the low resolution and small screen, but it’s only noticeable to people who play the classics a lot. I also found the Puzzle Kombat graphics were toned down a bit, even more so than on the PSP. Overall, this isn’t a huge package, but enough to satisfy fans, and online play is the best way to go.
Being able to make the fight screen on the top or bottom is a nice feature, but the problems from UMK3 still exist, like ridiculous AI, combos that are hard to pull off, and forgetting to try to beat Shao Kahn unless you cheat. I just wish there were some more modes that could have been thrown in or maybe a few more arcade ports, but what’s here works well and feels great to play and come back to.
Racing games are usually highly criticized because there is an overabundance of them. Everyone quickly pushes out the crappy racers and holds the good ones up high enough so everyone else can see through the overcrowded genre. DiRT 2 is an amazing rally simulator, and I don’t think there is another rally racer that does this better. The first thing DiRT fans will notice is the complete visual change from the last game. It uses a lot of elements from GRID and has a more Americanized visual attitude by using real-world famous drivers with voice clips to help you out. Gone are the more serious-style menus, and I kind of miss those. The virtual menu is pretty neat, though, which has you walking inside your tour bus for various options and outside to select your cars. It’s a neat idea, but the whole Americanized badassery with the drivers is a turn-off. Not to mention the voice clips are really annoying to hear over and over again, and there’s no option to turn them off.
Once you select a series of events (there are a ton of them) from one of the several areas around the world, you get to pick up your car. Each car has different stats, but you have to buy upgrade packs for different types of events. There are so many different types of cars for raids, rallies, races, trophy trucks, dude buggies, and the list goes on. You can’t upgrade your cars (still), but that is OK because you can now adjust settings such as downforce, gear ratio, suspension, etc. before the race starts (you will have to adjust these occasionally).
You can also select different liveries, rearview mirror toys, dashboard toys, and horns. These are to actually just show off the amazing physics engine, but it’s neat to see a toy dangling around in real-time physics on your dashboard and mirror. Once you hop into a race, you’ll notice the superb cockpit view that was revolutionized in the first game. Everything can be seen, not just your hands. You can look down and see your foot moving on the pedals, your hand shifting, and all the switches and parts of the interior. You can even see your screen swaying to your left in the Raid cars. It’s astounding how Codemasters got everything so detailed without having to have some sort of crazy hardware requirement.
When you’re actually racing, everything comes to life with the physics and sound design. You can hear rocks singing off your car, dirt scraping under your tires, water splashing up on the windshield, and your wipers kicking in and wiping it off. It all looks amazing and adds to the realism. Your car will get damaged in real-time, and dirt will stick and cling to the car as you drive. Depending on what difficulty you chose, you can view your replay at any time and rewind time, which was borrowed from GRID. This helps a lot during tough and long races. Sliding around and drifting around corners is all about skill, and that’s what’s so great about DiRT 2: that you win entirely based on your skill. The AI is also great since they will crash and go crazy when trying to catch up to you; they may even get totaled and have to drop out of the race altogether.
You never really get bored with the game because you’re always leveling up from the XP you earn in races (even completing “missions” such as jumping a certain height, etc.) and constantly unlocking new tracks, locations, and different event types. DiRT 2 also supports Windows Live and the Xbox 360 controller, which is great for people who love that. I want to give DiRT 2 a perfect score, but I wanted more than just racing-type events, and the sudden change in style really bothered me. I also wanted to be able to actually upgrade my cars and have more toys, liveries, and unlocks. There’s a very small amount, and that’s a little disappointing. The game can also be very hard thanks to such realistic physics where you’ll be retrying some events 20+ times to get first, but if you drop your difficulty too much, you won’t earn much money.
I highly recommend DiRT 2 for rally fans, racing fans, or anyone who just loves simulators. There’s enough here to make fans of the last game jump for joy, but some of the sudden changes will make them grumble in annoyance.
Physics games on portable devices are a dime a dozen, but the ones that truly shine have unique gameplay ideas, cute characters, or interesting ways to manipulate objects. Another thing that is mandatory for a great physics-based game is fun objects to manipulate. Cut the Rope is a very unique game in the sense that it’s based on skill rather than luck. You have to time things just right, and you actually feel like you’re manipulating the physics.
The main goal is to get a piece of candy to drop into the mouth of a little creature. To do this, you have to maneuver the candy by cutting ropes, blowing air, popping bubbles, etc. Elasticity in the ropes also comes into play, as does avoiding spiky bars and other obstacles. Some blue dots have a circumference around them, and if you get it in this area, it will attach a rope to the candy. Swiping your finger to cut ropes (sometimes having to use both fingers) is a lot of fun, as is tapping blowers to push them through the air (when they’re in a bubble).
Sometimes there may also be a spider crawling down your rope, so you have to cut it before it gets to it, so speed also comes into play. The reason why this game requires skill over luck is that it’s all about timing. Popping a bubble just in time to make it fall past an obstacle as it swings requires precise timing, so this game isn’t exactly for babies. It’s just so fun to make these candies fly, swing, and float through the air, and it’s so satisfying when you complete a complex level knowing it was all thanks to your skill and not dumb luck (Peggle?).
Cut the Rope has sharp, charming visuals that look great on the iPhone 4, and there are so many levels to play that you won’t get bored. Not only does the game have varied game elements, but it’s also very responsive and feels great to play. Cut the Rope is great for hardcore gamers (if you want to collect the three stars in each level) or casual gamers, and I think “casual” games need to have this kind of balance.
A lot of games wind up getting overhyped and overall pissing off the entire gaming community, especially if it’s a game with a huge and strong backbone of fans. Star Wars has always been this way, whether it’s books, movies, games, or cartoons; there has been a huge following with the Star Wars universe, and this is one such game to be buried under the overhype train. LucasArts promised a huge sequel that would make the first game seem like a pile of doo, but it’s only slightly better. Sure, the mechanics are tighter, and the fat has been cut away, but we’re just left with the bones because they somehow fed the meat to the dog.
The developers even had to come up with some absurd way to resurrect Starkiller by having Vader clone him. He’s possessed with memories of his former self and wants to find Juno Eclipse, his lover from the first game. The story is really bare and is really one-dimensional, and only in the last cutscene does it get interesting at all, and this is so lame and cliche that it makes you want to smash your computer in frustration. We’re at the end of 2010, and LucasArts can’t hire writers who can write better than this! You could probably write the entire plot on a napkin. Oh, wait.
Other than that, the combat is fast but still flawed. While Starkiller is dual-wielding here, he still feels stiff to control and a bit chaotic. You have all your powers from the original game, so you’re not trying to find them again. You can use lighting, pushing, mind tricks, tossing crap around, and charges and upgrades of these Force powers, but you’ll mainly stick with Force lightning. I never used the mind trick and only used push when the game called for it. The enemy variety is even less than the original, with your usual Storm Trooper grunts and some bigger guys that are taken down with QTEs, but these are repeated dozens upon dozens of times and get very boring.
Other than that, the actual fighting is okay if only Starkiller could move more than two inches when swinging his sabers around. Mashing X will only kill people next to Starkiller, so you have to stop and move next to the enemy, then start mashing away. That’s why you end up using lightning so much since storm troopers are easy to kill. The combat animations can’t be interrupted, and when he gets stunned during a fall, you’re still vulnerable—and even vulnerable during some QTEs! What’s up with that? Even allowing you to change your saber crystals for stat effects doesn’t really do anything, and you’ll forget it’s there once you discover it.
The game doesn’t have many epic moments, and the only good one is the second level facing off against a giant creature, and it’s completely God of War-style and hugely epic. The only other memorable moments are the few free-fall sections, and that’s all. The game lacks any moments that are memorable, and this is a huge kick in the teeth for a game with such potential. The game is just really repetitive, highly unbalanced, and just isn’t what it could be. The game looks pretty good in some spots, but it could look a lot better. Unleashed II just feels like it’s half done, and even the short length helps this along. There are challenges and extras, but after spending 5–6 hours with this game, you’ll just uninstall it and forget it, just like the last game. If there is ever a Force Unleashed III, please take your time and make it what it should be!
The Legendary Starfy is actually the fifth game in the series, but the first game seen here in the States. You play as Starfy, who finds a little rabbit who lost his memory and must find crystal shards that will restore his memory. Yeah, it’s not too great, but this game is clearly aimed toward little kids.
The game has tight controls and is easy to grasp, with Starfy mostly swimming underwater, but he’s really slow on land. The goal of the game is just to navigate screen to screen, collect little stars (currency in the game), and watch cutscenes until the end. It gets very boring after the second chapter, and most older, more experienced gamers will turn it off. The game is just way too easy with enemies that don’t attack you. Yeah, you have to run into them to get hurt. Navigating the levels for treasure chests and stars is probably the only incentive to go through this game, but the items you can buy are pretty lame.
Try dressing up a star. It looks pretty bad and obviously only appeals to small children or simple-minded people. Even the boss fights are easy and can be killed in just a few hits, not to mention a save before a door, then a save when you go through it, then no save until the end of the level. Yeah, that makes no sense, but kids won’t really notice or care. Plus, you can save it in the start menu! Do we really need this many saves?! Well, you can find different abilities to help Starfy that are attached to the touchscreen, such as Moe’s ability to sense treasure, a mermaid’s ability to give you level info as you go, and you can transform into a fire-breathing dino, but it’s not as fun as you would think.
There are four different mini-games that are boring and pretty lame even with other people, but little kids will enjoy them, I guess. There is even a little talk show thing that Moe does, but it’s as strange and lame as can be, so I don’t even think kids will get this. Overall, the game has a nice art style, looks really cute, and has crisp, clean visuals, but the underlying game is just for casual DS players and kids. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone remotely more than the most casual of casual players or kids.
The LOTR franchise has been struggling in the games department since the movies came out. While there have been amazing LoTR games, the adventure games have been slacking since Return of the King. Aragorn’s Quest is a sneaky thing because it just retells the story of the movies in Aragorn’s eyes using the movie actors, and it’s kind of lame. While the movies are great, please let’s move away from them and do something original.
The combat is lackluster and pretty disappointing. You can find abilities and equip them, and these come in pretty handy for more powerful enemies. You can buy new attacks and find new weapons, armor, and bows, and these are all pretty useful. You can level up by killing enemies, but you can’t distribute the points at all. The whole RPG thing is very bare-bones, and I would have liked to see more depth here and more customization, but it’s not there.
Actually, doing the combat is boring since you just mash heavy and light attacks, and most enemies are dumb and easy to kill. You can parry and counter-attack and use your bow for far-off enemies, but it’s been done so many times before. Every enemy attacks almost the same, and while there are a few good moments, there just aren’t enough. Running around highly linear levels and hitting this switch, finding four stones to open this door, and hitting that switch is really annoying.
The game doesn’t look very good from an isometric perspective, and it doesn’t sound too hot either. The game is just boring and easy, and it drags on longer than it should. I was really looking forward to this game, but with just a few more months, this could have been something epic.
The Spider-Man games have always been generally good, but with the success that Treyarch made with Spider-Man 2, it’s a wonder why this game is not as good. With the success of that game, you wonder why this could have been messed up so badly. While the core game is pretty good, there’s just so much wrong with it, such as a terrible camera, a useless upgrade system, a poor story, bad voice acting, bad graphics, repetitive missions, and the list goes on. The game is about Venom fusing with a bit of Spider-Man and creating bastard symbiotes that are trying to destroy the town. They take over a few Marvel characters (Wolverine, Black Cat, and Vulture, just to name a few), and it’s an interesting twist, but not interesting enough.
The gameplay is what the game is supposed to be best at, but it falters on this. You have a pretty robust fighting system here with heavy and light attacks, web shots, and new wall and aerial combat, but it just doesn’t work very well. The aerial combat isn’t as broken as the wall combat and can be pretty fun at times. You can shoot a web at someone in the air and just keep juggling them. Upgrading this allows for more juggles and more powerful follow-ups. You can also just attack normally, and you will kind of home in on the enemies, and it’s pretty solid.
Ground combat works too but feels pretty boring due to the fact that there are only a few combos that you can upgrade, and there really isn’t anything Spider-Man about it at all, like tying enemies up to light posts or anything like that. Wall combat is the most broken, thanks to the crappy camera. You can climb a wall, but instead of the camera zooming out at a fixed angle, it follows you, and if you’re locked onto an enemy, it’ll follow it, and the camera will do backflips and somersaults, and it’s nauseating. Not only that, but you can’t look very far up a building thanks to the camera being right behind Spidey. The camera also poses an issue when swinging around the city because if you get stuck on a building, the camera jitters and freaks out, and it can get mildly annoying.
Of course, you have a black suit that you can do, but it’s not much different from the red. Instead of being extra powerful or using a completely different fighting style, it just borrows from the red suit and changes the combos slightly. This also leads into the story of being able to be a good or bad spy, and the results are mildly amusing. It’s interesting to see Spidey turn bad, and you can choose the path at different points in the story. I would normally mention epic parts of the game that could have saved it, but there aren’t any.
The missions are also highly repetitive and irritating. There will be a mission that has you waiting and guarding citizens, and then the next mission will be the exact same thing, but just shorter! Forget about the side missions because they are even more repetitive, and even doing things like saving citizens, rescuing them, and fighting bad guys is just boring and not fun at all since it never ends.
Lastly, the game doesn’t look too good. It doesn’t look next-gen at all, but it’s a highly polished Xbox One game. The game just doesn’t look good at all and doesn’t even sound good. Spider-Man has a whiny voice and sounds like he belongs in an emo band. Plus, everyone else sounds pretty bad and just, well, isn’t up to Marvel standards. Web of Shadows isn’t the best game in the world, but it’s good enough for a mediocre rental if you’re craving Spider-Man action.
The first Puzzle Quest was amazing, and it just had a lot of charm, a great story, and good characters. There was just something magical about that game. Puzzle Quest 2 is a disappointment. The core gameplay is still intact, but it’s repetitive, has a toss-away story, and just lacks the charm of the first game.
You play as a generic character who is trying to free the town from the evil orcs, goblins, and whatnot, and it’s not very interesting at all. The first game had a nice overhead map you moved around on, but you walk around with stiff two-frame animations, and it’s not as appealing as the first game. Even the dialog is uninteresting and just feels like unnecessary filler.
The puzzle part is the best part of the game, and it’s still the same. You can use your weapon to attack, but you must get the first gems and reach the amount the attack requires. There are different colored gems, and matching three adds to the amount the magic spell requires. Getting four-of-a-kind grants you another turn, and getting five-of-a-kind grants you another turn but lands a wild card. Skulls are used to attack the enemy, and there is great depth and strategy involved, and it’s still highly addictive. Trying to find the right combination of spells will make you unstoppable, but there isn’t a huge selection, and unlocking the spells can take forever.
You can level up (thus the RPG elements), but it never feels like it does much because of how unbalanced the game is. You’ll have a regular foe with 184 HP rather than a boss with only 72. It’s weird, but you keep coming back for the addictive puzzling. Another downfall is that there are hardly any useful items in the game. Finding stronger armor, weapons, and shields should increase in quality as you progress, but halfway through the game, you’re still finding stuff from the beginning. There isn’t a large variety either, and using mana potions and health potions is almost useless since just playing through the puzzle board is good enough.
There are some new ideas thrown in, such as “mini-games.” These vary from looting treasure, picking locks, breaking down doors, etc. Looting is really fun since there are only four types of symbols. Getting treasure is fun since you can drop matches so many times and match rare chests that give you “rare” items, but they don’t seem rare at all. Breaking down doors requires you to match door icons; picking locks seems a bit overcomplicated, and I could never figure it out, but they are a nice touch.
Despite the charm being gone, Puzzle Quest 2 manages to be good only because of the puzzle game it was created from, but even hours into the game, you will get sick of it and may not even finish the story. The game just feels half-baked, and I know it could have been so much better. However, if you loved the first game or just love puzzle games, this is a great game for anyone.
You are the prince once again who will stop his brother from using King Salomon’s army of sand to destroy the kingdom. The story is pretty straightforward, predictable, and not very interesting, but it’s enough to keep you interested. The Prince’s banter is funny as always, but there isn’t any character development.
Prince of Persia has gone through a lot of changes since its original release in the 80s, and The Forgotten Sands adds some new things. First, the game’s focus has changed to elements instead of concentrating too much on time. Yes, you can rewind time if you mess up, but the focal point of the game is the ability to freeze the flow of water and use it as a wall or a pole. Let me set up a little scenario for you: Jump to a wooden beam, and then you have water spewing out ahead of you. Freeze it, jump to it, climb the wall of water, and jump back to another pole of water, but then you have two waterfalls next to each other and a wooden beam. Quickly unfreeze the water, jump in between, freeze quickly, jump back to the other waterfall, unfreeze the water to jump through the other one, and you’re done. Sounds complicated? It really isn’t, but getting your timing down is a bit tricky at first.
You can also use water to solve puzzles by freezing the water and having poles on the statue stop so the lower pieces can rotate, etc. While water is the main element, the others feel tacked on. You can jump to an enemy that’s on a ledge that’s too far away to jump, so you get this super dash move. It feels unnecessary since you only use it for this. The other “power” is the ability to bring back a piece of the environment, but this also feels tacked on since there’s no real challenge to it. It works like water since you can only bring it back one piece at a time. I wish they would have used Earth and the wind or something like that instead.
The platforming is top-notch, and every level is cleverly designed with tons of traps and obstacles to work yourself around. All the same types of traps from previous games are here, and each level never feels the same. The game slowly makes each level harder and harder, but the game always feels really easy, not to mention short. The puzzles are easier this time around, and there aren’t that many of them either, but there are a couple of head-scratchers thrown in there.
The combat is probably the worst part of the game. You get lots of enemies on screen, but they all look the same, and there aren’t even half a dozen variants. They are pretty dumb and don’t really do much, and you can quickly take them down. You get a basic attack, a shove attack, and you can jump on enemies. The combat is very shallow, and even with the powers you can upgrade, you never really use them since the game is so easy. These vary from flames to ice, wind, etc., but you only really use them if you are playing hard. Bosses are even easier since they all play the same and aren’t very interesting.
When it comes to looks, the game uses the Assassin’s Creed II engine, but for some reason it doesn’t look as good. It’s the best-looking PoP game to date, but artistically, it feels like all the others and stray away from the 2008 PoP reboot’s looks. Is this the best PoP game? No, but it is a good one. While the shallow combat breaks up the exciting platforming, you will get a good six hours of PoP fun.
Assassin’s Creed is an amazing franchise, and no one would have thought it would ever go to portable systems, but it did. Discovery follows Ezio in a 2D side-scrolling adventure that plays out fairly well. The story doesn’t really have anything to do with the console game except follow the Templar’s plots. Ezio must help Christopher Columbus get funding for his expedition to the new world, but the Templars are foiling his plans.
The game controls fairly well, with you just moving left and right. Ezio can jump, climb walls, attack, throw knives, and even sneak his way through levels. The levels are fairly large, and some even have multiple objectives, so you must climb your way around the platforms, kill guards, and pull levers to find your destination. Wall climbing is fairly simple with the press of the B button. Like in the console game, you can pull enemies off ledges that you’re hanging on, hide in haystacks, barrels, etc. While climbing walls is easy, it’s also the most frustrating part since, during tight situations, you will try to jump on a wall and you have to press B again for Ezio to cling on. You never quite get used to this (especially if you’ve played the console game), and it can lead to cheap deaths.
Fighting is just like the console game, which is a counter-attack fest. Holding R lets Ezio block, and pressing Y at the right time will let him counter. It’s familiar with the console game, so it won’t freak you out. The best way to avoid confronting guards in these fights is to use your minimap on the bottom screen. They show up as yellow arrows, and if they get into your field of vision (the black square around you), they will see you and alert nearby guards. Throwing knives before they see you are good, as well as waiting for them to turn around so you can run up behind them and kill them, just like in the console game.
Later on, all this gets more difficult and becomes hair-tearingly difficult since you can’t always see the next jump ahead of you and you can plummet to your death far away from the next checkpoint. There are multiple kinds of guards, and you will get the harder ones thrown at you more often in the last few levels. Navigating around these guards is sometimes impossible, and you must fight them due to the level setup. While these levels are hard, all the ones before them are pretty fun, and it’s satisfying to jump up from a ledge and land on a guy without him seeing you.
While there are different kinds of objectives, you can blow through the game in about 4 hours. If you have a DSi, you can take a picture of yourself, and it will be put on a wanted poster like in the console game. Tear 10 of these down, and you get a permanent health increase. Collect orbs throughout the game and buy Animus hacks to use when playing through the game again to increase your score. This adds to the replayability for people who really dig this game. The graphics are pretty good and look nice in 3D, but there’s really no detail to them. The voice acting is good, and the game’s just overall fun to play and worth a playthrough.
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Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…