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October 14, 2011

Review – Sideway: New York

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Mister Raroo @ 1:03 pm

Review Sideway New York
To my amazement and despite some initial concern, Sideway: New York didn’t make my head hurt. The main hook of the game is that you play as a character sucked into the 2D world of graffiti art, making your way from one point to another by moving along, up, and over 3D buildings. It’s an atypical game design concept, and quite difficult to explain in words. Imagine sliding a Shrinky Dink through a maze that runs over all sides of a box and that should give you a start.

Thankfully, what I figured would be a confusing, infuriating nightmare turned out to be clear-cut and easy to navigate. Color me impressed.

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October 11, 2011

Review – Space Channel 5 Part 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 1:55 pm

Space Channel 5 Part 2
A long time ago, before Tetsuya Mizuguchi created a bunch of synthesthetic puzzle games, he worked for Sega, where he created Space Channel 5. The crazy retro-futuristic style made it one of the most iconic titles for the now-defunct Dreamcast. Last year, when Sega announced that it was going to re-release a series of the Dreamcast’s most popular games in HD for XBLA and PSN, it was only logical that they would include Space Channel 5…

…Part 2, the sequel which was only available for the Dreamcast in Japan. Well, I guess it technically counts, even though a lot of the world knows it better as a budget PS2 release. I suppose the fact that all the backgrounds in the first game were pre-rendered in 480i disqualifies it from being released in HD. Space Channel 5 Part 2 is also a far better game than the original, but it’s still a bizarre choice for a collection that seemed like it was made to bank on Dreamcast nostalgia.

But alas, this is not a review of Sega’s handling of what could have been a great series of downloadable titles – this is a review of a classic rhythm game. Unlike the current wave of peripheral-based rhythm games, in which the goal is to make a small band into a very popular band, older titles of the genre always had a story to tell – though it was usually a completely messed up story.

The story of Space Channel 5 Part 2 features a futuristic news reporter who follows reports of bad guys who take innocent people hostage and force them to dance – which requires out-dancing the bad guys to save the hostages, who then show their appreciation by dancing in line behind her as she continues reporting; this is how you earn TV ratings in space. The game’s heroine, Ulala, does play a guitar and the drums as well, but only to demoralize rival reporters and to fend off the space police (yes, in the future, if you beat the police in a drum battle, they have to let you go – it’s the space law).

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October 7, 2011

Review – Hector: Badge of Carnage
Episode 3: Beyond Reasonable Doom

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 9:06 am

Hector Episode 3 Review
Well, the wait for Hector: Badge of Carnage Episode 3 – Beyond Reasonable Doom, certainly wasn’t as long as I was expecting for a game with “Episode 3” in its title.

With that dig out of the way, it’s time to return to Clapper’s Wreake and conclude this season of Straandlooper’s point-and-click adventure featuring Detective Inspector Hector, the hero that Clapper’s Wreake deserves – that is to say, a hilariously corrupt and loathsome one.

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October 6, 2011

Review Crow vs. Tetris Axis

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Review Crow @ 7:18 pm

Review Crow versus Tetris Axis
Caw caw, c-caw caw caw, caaaw! Caw ca-caw, caw caw caw caaaaaaw; c-caw caaaw! Caw, Caw caaaaw caw c-caw – caw c-caw caw caaaaaw!

[Review Crow would like to start off by mentioning shiny things – bottle caps, dew worms, keys, nickels, dimes, quarters, toonies, and loonies. Review Crow feels it is important that you know these things are shiny, and that shiny things are of interest to him, because he has to report that Tetris Axis is not such a shiny thing.]

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October 4, 2011

Review – Rochard

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 9:04 am

Review Rochard
Rochard is the story of burly asteroid miner John Goodman Rochard, his accidental discovery of an ancient alien artifact, and his quest to protect it from his nefarious corporate employer. It’s a story of lasers, gravity, physics, and boxes dropped on the heads of badguys.

Rochard begins the game with naught but his G-lifter and somewhat preposterous jumping height for a man of his, uh, build. The G-lifter will snatch items from anywhere on the screen (assuming an unblocked line of sight) and pull them to Rochard, whereupon they can be set down or launched as projectiles for both puzzle and combat applications.

Rochard later acquires the ability to create zones of low gravity and fire a mining laser at enemies, alongside a handful of other offensive and puzzle-based upgrades. In true Metroid-fashion, these upgrades enhance Rochard’s ability to explore and navigate the world, while skipping the backtracking that characterizes that series.

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September 29, 2011

Review – Kirby Mass Attack

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Mister Raroo @ 4:05 pm

Review Kirby Mass Attack
HAL Laboratory was the first developer to truly show just how cool games could be on the Nintendo DS. Those of us who survived the dark, dreary days that were the DS’s first few months of existence know how slim the pickings were. But, like the sun breaking after a long night, along came Kirby Canvas Curse, and gone was any buyer’s remorse we had been feeling.

Canvas Curse skillfully demonstrated that the DS’s touch screen could be used for more than gimmicky mini-games, while also taking the Kirby series in an interesting new direction. I still play it on a regular basis all these years later – it is fabulous, and if you haven’t played it, do yourself a favor and track it down immediately.

Now we find ourselves in the twilight of the Nintendo DS’s reign, and HAL returns once again with an absolute knockout release. Kirby Mass Attack, like its cousin Canvas Curse, does away with a traditional control scheme and opts instead for stylus-driven control. Thankfully, the wizards at HAL superbly integrated this type of control scheme into engaging and intelligent level design and aesthetics, and the end result is one of the most interesting, innovative, and fun games to hit the Nintendo DS in quite some time.

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September 25, 2011

How I Learned to Love Hitogata Happa

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Mister Raroo @ 1:21 pm

Hitogata Happa
Hitogata Happa seems downright impossible. Oh sure, everything starts off straightforward enough, and you might assume it’s a typical top-down 2D shooter. You blast enemies, you collect the goodies they drop, you reach the first boss… and then you die, again and again.

And if you’re like me, you probably give up and go play something else.

Yet, something about Hitogata Happa calls you back. You try again. You die again. You get angry. You get defensive. “This is the first stage! Why the heck is it so difficult?! This game sucks!”

I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I skillfully avoided every single bullet the first stage’s boss fired at me, while slowly whittling away at its power. When you start fighting the boss, a timer begins to count down, and when the clock hits zero, the boss suddenly goes bananas and unleashes a ruthless barrage that always resulted in me seeing the Game Over message. And the timer hit zero every single time. Argh!

My world became dark. I had really wanted to love Hitogata Happa so, so much. I was especially upset because I found the game’s world enthralling. Though I’ll admit I skipped the story sequences because I don’t care for such things, the plot’s gist is that the protagonist is extremely pissed off about some wrongdoing (her family was killed or something) and, in order to get her revenge, sends little “dolls” out to decimate her enemies. And, boy, are there a lot of enemies to kill!

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