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February 24, 2011

Review – Gemini Rue

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:54 pm

Review Gemini Rue
Prior to technology enabling us to connect with the world while ignoring everything immediately around us, the blinking lights of evolving machinery offered means for introspection – specifically a fresh perspective on a very old worry keeping us up late into a long night called existence.

Theoretical speculation on ideas of artificial intelligence and memory constructs allowed us the chance to chew on the question of human identity with fresh vigor, externalizing that oldest of mysteries to question who we are as individual grains caught up in the dust-storm of civilization.

Pro-tip – if you tend to worry about your identity while feeling that society marches around in circles with no particular direction in mind, you’re probably a replicant.

However, since Gemini Rue isn’t about a tortoise laying on its back in need of your help while its belly bakes in the hot sun, we should probably move along.

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February 21, 2011

Gamesugar’s Ys I & II Chronicles Contest!

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 7:14 pm

Ys Contest Ys I and II Chronicles
This is the week that Xseed Games wraps up their PSP Ys trilogy, with tomorrow’s release of Ys I & II Chronicles serving up a retro dose that includes a bonus soundtrack with the retail version, which Xseed has dubbed the “Hair Metal Pack.”

Xseed’s whole hair metal kick got me thinking that some of you out there are probably pretty “metal”, and as is the tradition around here, we’ve got a few codes for a digital copy of the game courtesy of Xseed – three codes to be precise – so here’s the deal…

Hit up the comment section of this post between now and 11:59pm est on Sunday February 27, 2011 – and tell or show us why you are, in fact, Metal.

Since that’s open to wide interpretation, we’ll spend the following Monday combing through the comments to find the most entertaining and ridiculous responses in order to crown three winners with a digital copy of the game.

Throw up the horns!

Also, good luck!

February 16, 2011

Review – Explodemon

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 6:16 pm

explodemon review
I was perhaps too young to fully appreciate classic platformers like Mega Man during their heyday; I certainly played and enjoyed them, but that was a time when I didn’t have the coordination to excel (or even succeed) at them. For me, the resurgence of these games in the market marks a second opportunity to explore that classic style of game and more fully appreciate those offerings.

Explodemon, like Shadow Complex before it, seeks to revisit that place with a contemporary twist and a unique property. The player controls the eponymous Explodemon, the unstable robot creation of Dr. Light Dr. Nitrous, afflicted in such a way as to spontaneously explode at regular intervals. Sealed away to protect the world, Explodemon is accidentally freed during an alien invasion, and sets out to defeat the invaders in the way you’d expect from an exploding anime robot: by exploding them.

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February 14, 2011

170 hours – A Final Fantasy Tactics Love Story

Final Fantasy Tactics Tactics Ogre
I am eagerly awaiting this weeks release of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, the PSP port of Yasumi Matsuno’s PS1 strategy RPG staple. Having looked forward to this release since word first came of the revisit, I thought I would relate my experience with another Matsuno masterpiece, Final Fantasy Tactics.

Final Fantasy Tactics was the brain child of Yasumi Matsuno, mastermind behind the Ogre games to which Tactics owes much of its style, substance and core gameplay mechanics. Matsuno left Tactics Ogre developer Quest in 1995 to join Square and his first task was creating the world of Ivalice and developing Final Fantasy Tactics using the skills he honed on the Tactics Ogre games.

Released in January of 1998, Final Fantasy Tactics came to North America only three months after Final Fantasy VII, just as that game was catching on like wildfire. For this reason Final Fantasy Tactics never gained the exposure or rabid following it should have at the time, but since its original release, Final Fantasy Tactics has achieved cult status and is counted among the best of the original PlayStation library.

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February 12, 2011

Review – Stacking

stacking review
Stacking is one of those games that could only exist in the current generation of consoles—a labor of love the digital market allows for that, six or seven years ago, would have never seen release. In the vein of LittleBigPlanet, it often feels more like someone’s cute arts and crafts project than it does a videogame, characterized by sharp art and a carefully designed gameworld—however, in this instance the art unfortunately overwhelms the game, leaving the experience ultimately unengaging.

The player controls Charlie Blackmore, the youngest child in a family of chimney sweepers. The game begins as Charlie’s brothers and sisters are drafted as child laborers to pay the family debts; Charlie, too small to be of any use in such endeavors, is left behind, and embarks on a journey to reclaim his lost family. The story is told through silent-film style interludes, and the design here is impressively genuine—though the animation in these films largely consists of dolls shaking (to indicate speech), which becomes tiresome as the game progresses.

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February 11, 2011

Review – Hard Corps: Uprising

hard corps uprising contra review
The jury may be out on whether an alias allows a rose to ditch its sickly scent, but I can confirm that Konami’s anime-styled breakaway from the Contra brand doesn’t sacrifice the bullet-points that have come to define the franchise. This uprising begins with heavy guitars and vibrant explosions to paint a scene of idealistic resistance against the forces of old and evil, with characters cut from a familiar cloth of eighties anime memories and mournful war-zones – but Contra’s principles of play are ever present, remixed once again to provide a war opera worthy of the twitching that stirs in fingers left unsatisfied by many modern releases.

The lush palette softens the traditionally gritty edges of Contra’s battlefield, but a merciless spirit wears the pop-shifted aesthetic, and veterans can rest assured that Hard Corps: Uprising is fucking metal.

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February 7, 2011

The Fifteen Dollar Man

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 4:59 pm

bionic commando rearmed 2 review
Despite intending to spend a healthy slice of the weekend devouring Nathan “Rad” Spencer’s latest mission in Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, bite-sized doses became the norm, strongly encouraged by the volume of stages, which vary greatly in scale and often left me questioning whether I wanted to chew on another right away.

Granted it’s hard for any game to compete for my affection the same weekend that the Puppy Bowl airs.

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