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October 11, 2011

Review – Space Channel 5 Part 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: Dreamcast, PSN, Review, Sega, Space Channel 5, Space Channel 5 Part 2, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, ulala, XBLA — 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: Badge of Carnage, Beyond Reasonable Doom, Episode 3, Hector, Review, Straandlooper, Telltale Games — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 9:06 am

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 4, 2011

Review – Rochard

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, PlayStation3, PSN, Recoil Games, Review, Rochard, Sony Computer Entertainment — 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: DS, DSi, DSi XL, HAL Labs, handheld, Kirby, Kirby Canvas Curse, Kirby Mass Attack, Nintendo, Portable, Review — 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 21, 2011

Review – Driver: San Francisco

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: Driver: San Francisco, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation3, Review, Ubisoft, Ubisoft Reflections, Wii, X360, XBOX, Xbox 360 — Brad Johnson @ 8:42 am

Review Driver San Francisco
Before I begin discussing Driver: San Francisco, I feel it’s important to mention that I have an issue with driving games. There’s a conversation that happens between myself and any such game I sit down to play, and it goes like this:

“Use the handbrake for sharp turns, Brad!”

“Okay, driving game—oh, I made the widest possible turn, spun out and crashed into a wall. Thanks.”

As a result of my crippling deficiency, driving isn’t usually a lot of fun for me. The driving games I play are invariably the ones where I can mitigate my incompetence with offense. That is to say, there’s a gap between me and the amount of skill necessary to win a driving game, and I close it by shooting other drivers. Mario Kart, Extreme-G, Blur—these are the games I can contend in (just barely), because I can leverage missiles and mortars and heat-seeking koopa shells against my fellow racers.

Driver: San Francisco doesn’t have any of that—but it does have something even more unusual.

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September 20, 2011

Review – Gears of War 3

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: 360, Epic, Gears of War 3, Microsoft Game Studios, Microsoft Studios, Review, X360, Xbox 360 — Brad Johnson @ 2:24 pm

Review Star Fox 64 3DS
So, here’s Gears of War 3 in a nutshell: somewhere on the battlefield, a Locust drone fell to his knees, and out I ran—because it wasn’t acceptable that he might just bleed out. I had to get to him, so that I might ram my flamethrower into his chest and burn him from the inside out.

Yeah, that’s a thing you can do.

I think what makes Gears of War special, as a franchise, is its unique aptitude for making me want to do things like that, and, more importantly, for making me need to shoot monsters.

That’s the impetus of any shooter, of course, but the focus here is notably more pure. Every asset is leveraged toward this end. Whether it’s brutish dialogue that can only rightly be answered with a shotgun, the satisfying kick of the rifle, the suffering atmosphere of the world, or a story that demands good old-fashioned revenge, everything in this game compels me to shoot monsters, and fashions that need into the most satisfying experience possible.

It’s the art of the shooter, and Gears of War 3 is a symphony on the subject.

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September 18, 2011

Review – Star Fox 64 3D

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: 3DS, Dylan Cuthbert, Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo EAD, Q-, Review, Star Fox, Star Fox 64, Star Fox 64 3DS, StarFox — Jamie Love @ 1:49 pm

Nintendo and Q-Games have joined their power rings together to bring the definitive version of Star Fox back for the 3DS. It’s a sensible partnership considering that the N64 release owes its existence and primary ideas to the original Star Fox on the Super Nintendo, and the unreleased Star Fox 2 – titles forever linked to Q-Games president Dylan Cuthbert.

This remake is also a beacon of hope for a series that has often appeared to baffle Nintendo, and in many ways was left keeping company with Metroid on the outer rungs of Nintendo’s famous franchise list.

Depending on your feelings toward last year’s release of Metroid: Other M, you may or may not agree that Star Fox has received far less respect over the years, often acting like a square tube Nintendo frustratingly attempted to squeeze through a circular hole – whether calling team Star Fox into service to make Rare’s Dinosaur Planet more marketable with Star Fox Adventures (2002) on the GameCube, or attempting to force the series into a more robust but less focused action game with Star Fox Assault (2005) on that same system.

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