I was so certain this game was going to bomb, but I have been proven wrong. Penny Arcade is about Gabe and Tycho, who try to stop an evil and mysterious robot. The robot crushes your house, and you are then sucked into the adventure. I have to say, first off, that the game is hilarious. PA actually makes fun of RPGs throughout the game. While you run around everywhere, you can click on things and read funny notes about them, but what really is great is the combat.
While the game isn’t random, it is turn-based once you get into the fight. Instead of selecting your attacks or magic, you have to wait for the three icons for each character to “boot up.” You have an inventory icon, then your basic attack icon, then your super attack icon. Each of these boots up at faster rates. Some enemies may be vulnerable to your created character’s rake attack (yes, a rake!!), some may be to Gabe’s fists, and some to Tycho’s machine gun. This gives the game a great element of strategy, so you can concentrate on who attacks who (some are even invulnerable to super attacks, and some are weak to even basic attacks).
The enemies are just great: hobos, mimes, clowns, and fruit fuckers. The mimes use invisible weapons to hit you, such as a pretend grenade, a pretend bow and arrow, etc. You can block these attacks with timed space-bar presses. Among the other funny shenanigans, you get items for combat such as slick oil (which reduces speed by 50%), items to increase defense, decrease enemies, increase health, etc. The combat is just so fun that you never get bored of it because you constantly level up, and if you’re lucky, you may get an overkill bonus by doing super strong super attacks. You can upgrade your weapons by finding weapon upgrade parts throughout the game.
The visuals are really great because they look just like the comic. They are vibrant yet dark (they look more or less like a Cthulhu setting). There are no voices in the game, which is a disappointment, but then again, it could have ruined the comic feeling. The cut scenes are flash animations, yet there aren’t enough of them, which is too bad. On that note, this game isn’t worth $20—maybe $15—because you can beat it in one long sitting or about 6 hours. No matter what, everyone who has a sense of humor and loves RPGs will totally dig this game.
I first have to mention that this game was made by the extremely talented Square Enix, and Tetsuya Nomura was behind it (Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts). The World Ends With You is an RPG like no other. They took the cliche elements of RPGs and twisted them around so much that it’s an enjoyable new welcome. First off, the story is the strong point here. You wake up in Shibuya without your memory, and all you have is a player pin. You have to stop the noise and find your way back to the real world. The combat here is great, but it is the most flawed part of the game. You use the stylus to fight with Neku by using player pins. Think of these pins as weapons with different attributes. You can tap empty space to send sparks flying, shout in the mic to create a shockwave, slack up on Neku to hit enemies, use healing pins, draw circles to send meteors crashing, and use telekinesis to send signs, cones, and even cars flying into your enemies. On the top screen, you control your partner (there are three throughout the game) by using the D-pad or the face buttons.
This is where it’s flawed; controlling two screens at a time does not work. You either have to focus on one or the other, but what makes it harder is that you have a combo tree when you hit the button and you have too many up certain cards to make a fusion pin appear for a super-powerful attack. This is really difficult and annoying because some fights make you control both. You can, however, have the game do it on its own, but the AI seems to be flawed since if you don’t, you’ll lose health really fast.
With that aside, everything else is great. While you run around Shibuya, you can visit stores and buy clothes (think armor) to increase attack and defense, etc. What’s neat about this is that each section of Shibuya has a “brand chart,” and if you wear those clothes or pins, you get an attack or stat bonus. This is also the other flaw in the game; each section is a tiny little area, so you’re not going to stop through every section and change your layout, so you just have to use what you like and try to make it popular by fighting the noise. While we’re on that, noise is the enemy in the game. You can scan the area with your player pin, and they all show up as red symbols. Tap these (or more than one for a chain battle) to level up and fight them. When each day of the game starts, you have missions you have to complete via your phone, and you have to get past walls that the Reapers put up. To get past these, you have to meet objectives such as defeating this many noises, buying me this or that, taking this quiz, etc. This tosses things around and makes you want to keep playing. You can add to your attributes without leveling up by eating food. This food has to be digested through battles, and after so many bites, you’ll get the start. You can also change your level to drop more pins if you need some good ones.
Of course, this is a Square Enix game, so it is dialog-heavy, and there are text-based cut scenes every five minutes. This adds to the incredible story, though, so it’s all okay. The graphics are all 2D, but they have the same art style as Kingdom Hearts, it looks like, thanks to Tetsuya Nomura. The sound is a bunch of swishing and bleeping, but the music is pretty nice. There are dozens of tracks you can buy in stores. Overall, if you can stomach odd combat design and you want a great story-driven game, then go for this. This is too complicated for a portable game, but for some odd reason, it still works. I think Square tried to take advantage of the hardware a little too much, but this game will sit in our hearts along with Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts because I know it has for me.
I’m not really a comic book person, but when a good game comes along, I won’t pass it up. UD is probably the only game ever made that lets you jump 300 feet in the air. Jump over skyscrapers, grab cars and use them as steel fists, battle giant mechs, grab on the copters, and bring them to the ground. UD pulls this off superbly, but not perfectly. The main problem with UD is the extreme difficulty. The difficulty is unbalanced, so you’ll get an easier mission than an impossible one. The enemies just won’t let up at all. You’ll have 10 mechs come after you, shooting missiles and whatnot, and after a few minutes, you’re dead. This will make some people just give up (such as myself).
The game has a pretty decent story, but it’s nothing too special. You are Bruce Banner, who tries to tame the Hulk inside of him by partnering up with a scientist and getting various parts to build the machine to do the latter. Some missions have you protecting things, some have you destroying things, and some have you fetching things. That is pretty much all the missions are about. The combat is really rewarding and awesome. You have to use a basic attack, but combos with these will do massive damage, along with grabs and slams. You can buy new upgrades after you unlock each chapter.
There are 50+ moves, and they are all different. Some vary from being able to grab and throw things while running to jumping on copters and bringing them to the ground. This would be even more fun if there was some sort of block or counter button. You have to take all the damage that is sent at you unless you purchase moves that send missiles flying back and whatnot. You can run up buildings and fly over them to get healthy, but you’ll be doing this more than fighting, and it’s so annoying. While the initial introduction of flying all over the place, jumping as high as a plane, and being able to utterly destroy a whole city is fun, it gets old kind of fast because that’s all you do in this game.
You do have mini-games you can play, but they are pretty lame and boring. You can use a pole to smack enemies as far as you can in one, race, float and land in the middle of a giant ring, rescue people, etc., but they just aren’t as fun as they sound. Hulk fans will be able to unlock artwork and whatnot through pickups in the game, but this still doesn’t save you from fighting the difficulty. The graphics are nothing special. This is a 2003 game, so it looks pretty bad compared to today. If you can stomach the high difficulty, then pick this up. If only this game were easier, I would have been able to finish it.
I remember when Doom 3 came out for the PC in 2004, and it looked astounding. Compared to today, it’s a bit ugly, but it did shine on the Xbox. While, even on the Xbox, it looks dated, the game keeps a constant focus on the action. Through the whole 5–6 hours it takes you to beat the game, you’ll be on your edge and jumpy.
The graphics engine is exactly the same as in Doom 3, even in the way it plays. The only additions are a few new enemies, such as a big burly guy who has two giant cannons on his arms and head, Vulgar, who is a bat-looking thing that can teleport at you, and the Hazmat worker, just to name a few. You also get some new weapons like the Ionized Plasma Rifle (Think: Gravity Gun Half-Life 2), Double-Barrel Shotgun, and a new Heart Artifact that lets you slow downtime. These essentially help the game with its extreme difficulty in many ways. You now have a flashlight on a gun! Except it’s on your pistol, so it still doesn’t make a difference, but at least you can defend yourself now. You now have to defeat the bosses using the heart, and it also gets you out of a pinch.
The “Gravity Gun” lets you throw back energy balls and whatnot, and this is good for preserving ammo. The story has you playing as a clean-up crew for what happened on Site 1 two years ago. You discover the heart, and you have to return it to Hell. While there are very few cut scenes in the game and the PDA files aren’t as interesting as in Doom 3, you’ll mainly just play for the action. Another note is that no one is playing this online. I tried connecting three days in a row, and not one person was playing. So if you just want a great, fun single-player game, then pick this up. I also should mention that the game has backward compatibility issues with the Xbox 360, such as movies in the beginning not skipping and some slowdown.
I remember playing GTA III when it first came out. I didn’t have a PS2 yet, and I went over to a friend’s house and played it for hours every single day. While we mostly just messed around, it was something I had never played before and was just so addictive. Thankfully, GTA IV goes back to its roots and brings us to good ol’ Liberty City. You play none other than Niko Bellic, who is a Russian immigrant who came to LC with his cousin Roman to start a new life. The game’s main attractions are its story for once. GTA IV has a superb story that makes you want to keep playing. Gone are the lukewarm stories from previous GTAs where only the main character was the main attraction, with just OK side characters. In previous GTAs, you never really got a good feeling for the employers due to the lack of building up the story. You were just in and out of the short cutscenes, not knowing what to really do. This kind of problem was solved in San Andreas, but even then, only a select few were really fleshed out. In IV, you feel every character in the game, and there are tons of plot twists, which really keeps the game fresh through every single mission.
On another note, the graphics are amazing. While not Assassin’s Creed or BioShock amazing, they’re really good. It’s mainly the subtle details, though, such as people now putting their blinkers on, cars are damaged in real-time now with realistic physics, so half-broken fenders and bumpers sway as you turn the car, the paint can get scraped up, crowd AI is more efficient (yet not by much), better enemy AI (still not by much), further draw distance, everything has high-res textures, bump mapping, and the whole next-gen works. There are a few things that they stripped away, such as the whole working out system, swimming underwater (you can still swim though!), and territories. There are other subtle details, such as the internet, that you can now use. It’s a virtual made-up internet, but it’s still as funny as hell and has a dating system (yes, it’s still here) implemented on the dating website. You can get emails for side missions from employers as well. You can now take taxis around the city and either watch them drive or skip them if you want. This really helps a lot if you are tired of driving everywhere. There is also a new route system where the game will plot the safest and most legal course to your destination. Red is a target, blue is friendly, green is a waypoint you made on your map, and yellow is an objective. This is probably one of the better additions because it keeps you from getting lost during time-sensitive missions.
Another thing is the revamped wanted system. You now have to flash “zones” for every star. The more stars, the bigger the circle will get on your radar that you have to escape. Cops are now shown as flashing blue and red blips, and copters are now flashing Xs. While we’re talking about characters again, the voice acting is amazing. I really felt like I was watching bits of a movie every time there was a cutscene. The characters are really fleshed out here, every single one. You’ll remember every character in the 60+ hour game, and that’s a really hard thing to achieve. Rockstar really went the extra 20 miles with this game, and you can just feel it.
The game is huge as well; while not as huge as San Andreas, it’s about as big as GTA III, yet it’s also big and taller as well. You can fly planes and copters again in here, and while it’s a lot easier than San Andreas, it’s still not very fun. Speaking of controls, they are more refined this time, and the auto-aim is a lot better, yet there’s still that stupid camera! Switching targets is not very easy. You have to press the right stick exactly left or right, or you won’t switch targets. Whenever you lock on, Niko always aims for the wrong people and ends with cheap deaths and what have you. The cars are also a big pain because they just don’t feel right. They all feel really heavy, and they slide way too much, no matter what car you use. You try to put the brakes on, and your car will slide and slide and you’ll miss your turn, and the same goes for the handbrake. You hit it, and your car spins out a few times, no matter how good you are with the handling. I found this very annoying with the driving missions because it would lead to cheap and frustrating failures.
Apart from all this, the game has 16-player Xbox LIVE support. You have tons of game modes, from deathmatch to cops and robbers. In cops and robbers, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You all get in a car and try to kill each other. This is also very fun yet annoying because the game can lag a lot, especially with people who have crappy connections. It also may take a while to start a game due to everyone wanting 16 players, and they just won’t start the game. Aside from the minor issues, GTA IV is probably game of the year-worthy, but it doesn’t do anything as groundbreaking as GTA III did. It just perfects it 100% this time and gives us what we’ve always wanted. The perfect GTA game.
… For 99.9% of people, GHIII is the same as GHII, yet we get online play (which is just as awesome as you’d think) and tons more songs, yet it is probably the most disappointing GH when it comes to cover songs. You get songs like One, Number of the Beast, School’s Out, Cult of Personality, and more, but they aren’t showstoppers like in GHI and II. GHIII, however, has the best song list for more indie music and lesser-known covers like My Curse, Stricken, Before I Forget, Through Fire and Flames, Prayer for the Refugee, and more. This is also the first GH that’s impossible to beat! While the game is hard enough on Hard, good luck beating the last few sets on Expert. It’ll take you months to master these songs, if at all. Through Fire in Flames is probably impossible for most GH buffs on Medium or Hard. Luckily, after hours upon hours of practice, I barely scraped through the song on Expert.
Some new features are the updated graphics—they’re finally next-gen! The game has great physics with bouncing and swaying clothes and high-definition textures, so denim looks like denim. The characters also get more of a sexual upgrade! (thanks, Neversoft!?) Judy Nails is as hot as ever, yet they left out Pandora and added a preppy Japanese chick. There are a few great new characters, like Slash, Tom Morello, and Zeus the Rock God. Speaking of Slash and Tom, you now get boss battles. These don’t play out like you think. The first few are easy, but the last one, playing Devil Went Down to Georgia, is just pure luck. You have to hit sequences like when you get Star Power, but instead, you get weapons. These include breaking your string (you have to press a button really fast), raising the difficulty, blowing your amp (all the buttons flash on-screen), or doubling the notes. This is fun, but some may never beat it on Expert.
Minus all of that, you can now play a co-op career, which is really fun as well and pretty self-explanatory. Overall, GHIII is more for indie and lesser-known band fans. If you want famous songs, then you’re out of luck. Thankfully, the game has lots of downloadable songs now. I just wish the GHII songs were compatible.
I was so excited for Dark Sector after hearing about it years ago. I finally get to play it, and I wonder why it took so damn long. The story is about something along the lines of a government experiment in Russia to make money or something like that, and you’re a guinea pig in the experiment… The story is almost non-existent, but who cares?! It’s all about the gameplay. The graphics and audio are astounding, so don’t worry. The game plays, feels, and looks like a mix of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War. You have the over-the-shoulder viewpoint like in RE4 and the hold-down-the-button-and-run-with-the-camera-up-your-ass move like in GoW.
The game is based on the glare that Hayden gets in the game. You can slice enemies up (which looks killer) by slicing off heads, chopping off arms, and watching enemies clutch their stumps and scream, slice them in half, etc. The game slowly introduces things for your glare throughout the game. You can charge your glare with elements like electricity, ice, and fire and go figure out what those do. You can also do “Aftertouch” (was that stolen from Burnout?) which lets you control the glare in slow motion. You can also shoot things, but the gunplay is kind of weak.
You can upgrade your weapons by adding things to them, such as extra firepower, higher accuracy, and stopping power, through suitcases that you pick up throughout the game. The multiplayer is really bad, though. The game is always lagging and cutting out, and it’s just boring. You have to type Infection and something else (yeah, it’s so dull, I forgot what I was playing), and it’s just boring. Dark Sector is an awesome rental and will fill 8–9 hours of your weekend with gory fun.
If you’ve been holding out on a PSP (I don’t know why you have), here is another reason to buy one. CC offers an original game experience, and, well, here’s how. First off, people who hate turn-based RPGs can relax. We get a whole new real-time combat engine, and no, it’s not like FF12’s. When you engage in combat, you can select attack, your materia (more on that later), and your items with the L or R buttons. You attack with X (combat is very simple and pretty easy). Now for the new original hate-it-or-like-it idea: the DMW. It looks like a slot machine up in the corner, and this is how you choose your power attacks (overdrives), level up, and your Aeon. This is also random, so it mixes up gameplay, yet for micro-managing freaks, they will hate this. Each character’s face is on the wheel, and as you meet them, they are unlocked. Each character has a special move, either offensive or defensive, and they are pretty neat. You also have numbers, and for example, if you get three 7’s, you level up. If you get two of the same number, you level up your materia. Another thing is that you don’t have magic and all that anymore.
Materia is things like fire, thunder, vital slash, and even graviga. You also have AP now, which is for materia like Vital Slash, Jump Attack, etc. You can also fuse materia together to make different materia. This is really fun to do, and there are tons of combos and different materia to collect. There are plenty of enemy types, so don’t worry.
Now for the story, it picks up after the movie where you play as Zack (yes, just one character through the whole game, yeah, so…deal with it). You have to save the world from the evil projects that people are doing and stop Genesis from taking over the world. While the graphics are amazing and the voice acting (for the first time in an FF game) is great, you also get beautiful pre-rendered FMVs. Now for the issues. The DMW wheel is great, and it’s very fair on leveling you up (I finished at level 38) and balances your character very well for you.
The combat is very simple, with just one button: hit, block, and dodge. This could have been revamped more. The game is pretty short by FF standards. I beat the game in 17 hours, and I did 15% of the side missions as well. Speaking of that, the side missions get dull real fast. You access them through save points, and it’s just a “kill every enemy in the room” type thing, and it’s for getting more items. You can’t get new weapons either; you’re stuck with what you have. You can also access shops through the menu at any time, which is convenient but makes the game even easier. Overall, if you love FF, you’ll absolutely love this. If you hate FF, then try the game, and I’m sure you’ll like it now.
I’m going to write this review as if I were writing a review for five different games. After that (here at the top), there will be a summary of all 5. Overall, TOB is one of the best deals in video game history. With Valve’s ingenious talent backing this package, there’s no stopping it. Everyone has to pick this masterpiece up because there is something in it you’ll love.
Half-Life 2=9.0/10
I bought this on my PC about 2 years ago and played it to death (including all the mods). Even if you’ve played it on your PC, you’ll love it even more on your 360 (or PS3) due to the achievements, and people who can’t run the game very well can experience the game in all its glory. You are Gordon Freeman, who has mysteriously wound up in City 17 between a civil war against Dr. Breen and the Combine, thanks to Gman. You and your sexy companion, Alyx Vance, have to reach the Citadel and take down the Combine. Instead of explaining what you already know, I’ll explain what’s new. Nothing really. Just the achievements involved (and they are cleverly thought out). You have all the same weapons, levels, and monsters. Just sit back and enjoy the first part of the HL2 saga, and you’ll have the best 8–10 hours of your life. Back when the game was released, I gave this game a 9.5, but due to its age, it drops half a point.
Half-Life 2: Episode 1=8.5/10
The story takes off after the citadel blows up, and you now have to escape and stop the reactor before all hell breaks loose. With Alyx once again by your side, you have to push back the combine once more. While EP1 uses the same engine as HL2 with no enhancements (literally everything’s recycled to death), you still get a great experience. Well, there is one new thing: ZOMBINES FTW!!! While the game is a bit more on-the-rails-cinematic than HL2, you get more clever puzzles this time around, along with some memorable firefights. In the end, if you’ve played EP1 on the PC, there’s nothing new here either, but for first-timers, it’s a blast.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two=8.5/10
While this is the best HL2 entry yet, with more cinematic gameplay and some new content, you’ll love this one the most. After escaping the Citadel and City 17, you and Alyx must head through White Forest to her dad to stop the Citadel portal from letting loose monstrosities beyond our imagining. In EP2, we finally get new content such as acid ant lions, antlion larvae, Combine Hunters, a new vehicle, and an evolved story. EP2’s story is more touching than ever before, and we finally get some background on Gman. EP2 is a couple of hours longer than EP1, and you’ll want to play through it more than once.
Portal=9.5/10
This is a whole new creature. Portal is the introduction of brand new technology. You are an unknown tester for Aperture Science, and you are given a portal gun, which you use to solve puzzles. This is probably the most clever puzzle game ever made. You use velocity to launch yourself over obstacles, use portals to navigate through rooms, and even move objects. The game is just so clever; it really works your mind, but in such a way that you won’t get frustrated. The game has a next-gen engine and looks fantastic as well. After you beat the 3–4 hour game, you can go back and beat the advanced maps and challenges for more achievements. There’s nothing more than I can say than to pick TOB for just this game. It’s worth the $60. The game even sports an awesome and memorable story that you’ll joke about for years to come. The cake is a lie!!!!
Team Fortress 2=8.5/10
I remember playing TFC back when I bought HL1 Anthology, and it was a blast. TF2 sports a unique graphical style and wonderfully balanced characters to use. You all know who the characters are, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this whole time. You have a heavy weapons guy who is as slow as molasses in January but packs a serious punch, a spy who can disguise as the enemy and sneak into the other side, and a sniper who also sports a machete and a machine gun. This is why I love TF2 so much. Everything is perfectly balanced. Instead of being a vulnerable sniper with just a pistol, you get a moderate machine gun. Instead of being a slow, heavy-weapon guy, you get a shotgun. Instead of being a weak Pyro with a flamethrower, you get a shotgun as well. If you love online gaming, TF2 will keep you hooked for hours. This is just the fifth reason to buy TOB, and you’re bound to be happy.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !