No reviews for a while.

I'm currently in the process of moving to a new home and wont be able to provide reviews for about a week. I apologize and will update the blog with a new review as soon as I can. I will say however that my next review will be on Phantasy Star, a game originally released for the Sega Master System and is currently available for several current gen consoles in different ways.

I'm also thinking about not only doing reviews, but top ten countdowns or something like that. I'm going to keep this blog video game related. Good bye for now.

Ikaruga

Released in Arcades in 2001 and a year later for the Dreamcast in Japan, Ikaruga is a gem among the shoot em up genera. It wouldn't see a world wide release until 2003 for the Gamecube and it was also released on the XBL Arcade in 2008. The story is almost non existent in the game, I think the manual covers it, but I didn't have the manual so I can't comment on it. Anyway whatever the story is, the game is still fun to play.

The game works on a polarity system with your ship, the bullets, and the enemy ships. To put it simply, there are two colors, white and red. You do more damage to enemy ships if you're using the opposite color but you also die if the opposite color bullet hits you. However you absorb the same color bullet for an awesome special attack, but deal less damage to enemies of the same color. It can get chaotic from switching from color to color to keep your ship from dying. At the end of each level you're greeted with unique bosses that puts your skills to the test. If you're not quick enough to kill them, they'll just get board with you and leave.

As you play more and more the game becomes easier and easier. After so many hours of playing you unlock more lives to start off with, more continues, etc. There's a practice mode to practice at levels but for some reason, even though I beat the game multiple times all the levels aren't unlocked to practice in. You can even switch the game from horizontal view to a vertical view. Heck if you wanted to you can play the game without firing a single shot.

Ok I've ran out of things to say about this game. To sum it up, it's short, fun, difficult, and the music is spectacular. Pick it up if you want a good but short game.

Summary:

Good:

-innovative polarity system

-great music

-sweet bosses

Moderate:

-hard in an unfair way even on easy difficulty

Bad:

-Short

-almost no story

Graphics: 4/5

Gameplay: 4/5

Story: 2/5

Sound: 5/5 

Overall: 3.75

Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne

I have found my fat PS2 so now I can review PS2 games again. Atlus is known for making their games difficult for new comers and Nocturne is no exception. Originally released in Japan in 2003 it was updated an released again in Japan the following year to include Dante from Devil May Cry and was released in America later that year, Europe finally received it in 2005. In 2008 it was updated again for a Japan only release, this time Dante was cut and Raidou from the Devil Summoner SMT series replaced him.

After naming your character and meeting up with your friends, you're thrown into the vortex world, where demons rule everything in a post apocalyptic Tokyo. You're given the powers demon and turned into a demi-fiend by a young boy and an old woman to survive in this chaotic world. Over the course of the game you're given choices of what reason, or way to shape the world, to follow. You can either create a world where only the strong survive, a world where everyone is isolated, a world where there's peace and harmony where everyone is under the rule of one person, reject all reasons and keep your powers, destroy the world under Lucifer's command, or return the world to the way it was.

The battle system is a turn based system with a few tweaks. Officially it's called the press turn battle system, you have as many attack icons as you do allies. If you have a full party of four, you can have up to four attack icons. If you get a critical hit, pass your turn, or you hit an enemy with their weakness, one of the icons begins flashing, indicating it's only half used. Be careful though, if you attack an enemy and you miss, you lose two icons and you lose your entire turn if you use a magic that your enemy absorbs HP from, same thing happens if you hit them with a skill that has no effect on them or reflects.

In order to gain new skills, you have to have a Magatama equipped. Think of it as a parasite that makes your stronger instead of doing something negative to you. Each Magatama has its strengths and weaknesses, so think carefully if you have one equipped that's weak to ice and you're running into lots of enemies that uses ice skills. You can only have eight skills on your character at any time, if you want to learn a new skill you'll have to drop one other skill forever. Your demons don't need Magatama to learn skills though, they learn new skills naturally by leveling up. The downside to leveling demons up is that it takes longer to level them up than it does your main character. To counter this, you have to recruit new demons by talking to them or fuse them into more powerful demons.

While playing the game, I did get stuck several times. Be it a tough boss or tough to navigate dungeon Nocturne isn't shy about becoming difficult out of nowhere. One boss is easier to beat at a certain time of Kagutsuchi phase (think of it as a phase of the moon), another can just keep giving himself more turns when he's on his last turn icon, and one can turn your party into useless flys with no way to undo it in battle. Dungeons can range from very large with empty rooms to very large with teleporting panels with elevators and damaging floors.

The graphics are great for its time and still looks good today. Even the soundtrack is great, I never got tired of hearing the same battle theme every time I enter a battle. Each demon looks strange and unique although some do come close to being duplicates. Overall if you're looking for a fun and challenging RPG, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne is a great game to pick up.

Summary:

Good:

-Battle system

-Numerous demons to fight with

-Multiple endings

-Soundtrack

Moderate:

-Updated version with Raidou unreleased outside of Japan

-Dungeons can be difficult to navigate

-Semi weak story

Bad:

-Can get lost easily

-Some boss fights are cheap like nothing else

Graphics: 4/5

Gameplay: 5/5

Story:  3/5

Sound: 5/5

Overall: 4.25

Starcraft and Starcraft Brood War

Released back in 1998, Starcraft quickly became one of the most popular real time strategy games that took over the world by storm and a year later the highly anticipated expansion, Brood War, was released. Selling well over 10 million copies since its release, Starcraft has developed into a highly competitive sport that continues into its sequel Starcraft II Wings of Liberty.

It takes place in the 25th century in a part of the milky way galaxy called the Koprulu Sector where three races fight for dominance. The Terran, humans that have been exiled from Earth, are quick to adapt to any situation with a force of marines, tanks, battle mechs, and star fighters. The Zerg, a race of incest like creatures, who wants to consume and assimilate every living thing they come across. The Protoss, a race of technologically advanced aliens with psionic powers that wants to prevent the Zerg from destroying all life.

Each race has a different play style. The Terran can use a variety of tactics to defend and attack. Assuming you have the correct buildings built, you can switch from flying in a dropship full of marines to reak havok on your enemy's miners to a frontal assault of tanks and robots. They can even fly their buildings anywhere on the map if they need to relocate for any reason. The Zerg uses their workers to mutate into their buildings. Everything the Zerg can build is generally cheaper to produce compared to the Terran and some of them comes in pairs, however they're a tad weaker in both health and attack, so attack in high numbers. The Protoss are the exact opposite of the Zerg, just about everything cost more than the Terran but, they have the advantage of a tough shield to protect them as well as a high amount of health and can hit hard.

Over the course of the game, you start out commanding the Terran forces, lead by Jim Raynor, who wants to free themselves from the Confederacy, a tyrannical group of Terran. Over the course of the Terran campaign, you're taught about the basic controls of Starcraft. You're tasked with missions from destroying enemy Zerg, Protoss, and Confederacy forces to raiding bases for secret codes to surviving a seemingly endless onslaught of Zerg forces.

After the Terran's campaign, you play as the Zerg. Even though you've been playing the Terran campaign, you still have a few more tutorial levels to learn how to play as the Zerg. Unlike the Terran, Zerg buildings can only be built on creep, a purple substance that spreads on the ground that spawns from their main building and their defense buildings. You also can only spawn your army and builders from your main building, however you can spawn three of anything at once assuming the larval to spawn them. Your objective as the Zerg mostly task you with protecting a special egg that spawns a powerful Zerg general, then using your powerful character, wipe out anything that stands in your way so the invasion of the Protoss home world can begin.

The final campaign has you playing as the Protoss. Again there are more tutorials to learn about their play style. Their buildings can only be built near a Pylon except for their main building and the Vespene gas building. Unlike with the Terran and Zerg, you can use just one worker to build as many buildings as you can, you don't lose it like with the Zerg or have it sit there and work on it like the Terran workers have to. As the Protoss, you have to find a traitor who tells you the secret in killing the Zerg cerebrates or generals, find the race of Protoss that can kill them, then return to Aiur repeal the invasion of their home world by the Zerg.

Asides from the campaign, you can play on different maps against the AI or go online to test your skills against other people or play fun custom games like a turret defense game, a battle arena type map, unit mass maps, and many more. Even today the game is still receiving new patches to fix the online bugs and exploits. The online community is alive and thriving as new content is always popping up from custom maps to new vs maps.

The expansion adds new units and a new campaign to continue the story. You start as the remaining Protoss that has to flee from their homeworld to find a new home. Then you play as the Terran UED in order to take control of the infant Zerg overmind. Finally you play as the Zerg under Kerrigan's control. Since most of the Zerg are under the control of the UED, Kerrigan has to trick the Protoss and non UED Terran forces to help her kill the remaining cerebrates and the Overmind so she can gain control of all of the zerg.

On a final note, there's a map editor where you can create your own maps. It's simple enough for small things such as designing a new map to play against your friends and complex enough to make a complex and fun custom map.

Summary:

Good:

-Gameplay

-Sound

-Story

-Online

-Map Editor

Moderate:

-Campaign can be difficult at times

-Graphics

Bad:

-Some levels are very short

Graphics: 4/5

Gameplay: 5/5

Story: 5/5

Sound: 5/5

Overall: 4.75/5

(I apologize for the lack of screen shots, there was a coloring issue in most of them and the few that did turn out ok wasn't that good. I'll get screen shots up soon.)

Death of a Console

This blog is going to be short. I was going to play a PS2 game for my next review when the thing decided to crap out on me. It just simply refused to read any disc at all. Until I can find my fat PS2 or get a new one I wont be able to review any PS2 games.

This is my first time a console has flat out died on me like that. Sure my fat PS2 wouldn't read any dark bottom disk but at least it still played other games. This also means that the few PS1 games I have won't be reviewed any time soon.

R.I.P. Slim PS2 2005-2012. You're in a better place now. May you play games in the afterlife of consoles. You brought many found memories to me. 

Zone of the Enders the 2nd Runner

Zone of the Enders the 2nd Runner

PS2/PS3/360

Released in 2003 for the PS2 and recently for the PS3 and 360, Zone of the Enders the 2nd Runner is a prime example of a sequel that takes what was good with the first game and makes it ten times better. The graphics got a nice upgrade, the controls are just a fluent as it was in the first game, the sub weapons are more useful, new enemies to fight, the game is longer, and more boss battles. The story this time has you playing as Dingo Egret, a former BAHRAM soldier, on a mining operation and discovers an abandoned mecha in it. Soon BAHRAM attacks and he has to fend them off in Orbital Frame Jehuty. He ends up on BAHRAM's ship and is killed by their leader. He was brought back to life two months later by a spy in BAHRAM's ranks and is sent off to upgrade Jehuty so it can destroy its counterpart, Anubis.

Like with the first game, you control Jehuty and engage your enemies with long range laser attacks, close range sword attacks, grabbing and throwing enemies, use of different sub weapons, and powerful burst attacks. The same enemy types from the first game make their return with a few tweaks. The Cyclopes now has a ranged attack that hurts and the Mummy Head repairs damaged allies. With a new game comes new enemies such as the Narita, a fast and mobile enemy that can rams into you to have its allies follow up with attacks, the Lepard, a primarily ground enemy that can be tricky to deal with, and an enemy that grabs you and can deal massive damage.

Unlike the first game, you're mostly sent to do objective that involve going from point A to point B and kill everything along the way. It helps that the combat is fun and addicting, so it's a minor complaint. Over the course of the game you can find mission icons that unlocks new missions for you to do from the main menu that offer different challenges like killing so many enemies, killing enemies in a time limit, to killing so many enemies in a time limit without getting hit once. There's an improved vs mode that lets you control the various bosses from the game and fight your friends. I wish they included online play with vs mode but the PS2 version didn't have online play either so it's not that big of a deal.

In my review of the first Zone of the Enders game, I criticized it for a lot of back tracking. It's not present here, but even if you wanted to back track you can't. It has a linear progression which isn't bad but I would've liked some free roaming elements like there was in the first game. Overall I love the improvements, and I loved the extra missions, hell I loved this game a lot more than the first game. If you haven't played it, go get it or at least rent it.

There is something I would like the mention though. If framerate drops bother you a lot, then get the PS2 version. I can't say anything about the 360 version because I've only played it on PS2 and PS3, but the PS3 version has some framerate drops that makes the game play a little slow but not so bad it comes to a crawl.

Just an FYI there.

Summary:

Good:

-took what was good in Zone of the Enders and made it better

-sub weapons can be useful

-better graphics and particle effects

-new enemies

moderate:

-slight framerate lag on PS3 during some cutscenes and some boss fights. Not sure about 360

-kinda short

bad:

-linear progression

Graphics: 4.5/5

Game play: 4.5/5

Story: 4/5

Sound: 5/5

Overall: 4.5/5

Zone of the Enders Review

 

Released for:

PS2 (2001) /PS3 (2012) /360 (2012)

Zone of the Enders is Hedio Kojima's second major series that began on the PS2 and has recently been released as part of a collection for the PS3 and X-Box 360. It's a fast pace mecha game that takes place in the 22nd centruy. You play as Leo, a young boy who sadly watched his friends die right in front of him when BAHRAM launched their attack on the space station Antilia. He ran into a hanger that contained the Orbital Frame Jehuty, a powerful war machine that BAHRAM is looking for. He sets out to try to save his home and to protect the civilians that haven't made it out yet.

While controlling Jehuty, you have various ways to deal with BAHRAM's forces. From up-close sword attacks, to firing  a number of lasers at once, to grabbing them and throwing them into each other. There are several sub-weapons that you can pick up along the way that range from a sniper rifle, to a powerful beam, a Javelin, and even firing an enemy seeking energy ball. However you mostly run into the same three enemy types over and over and it becomes repetitive fighting the same mechas over and over again. There are optional missions that pop up from time to time where you have to not only destroy the enemies but protect the buildings that have people in them. The boss battles have you fighting against giant Orbital Frames and provides a nice change of pace between slaying the same enemies over and over again.

The graphics, while dated by today's standards, looked good for its time. The cut scenes are mostly talking between Leo, his friend Celvice, ADA, the AI for Jehuty, a few other people that wants to keep Jehuty out of BAHRAM's hands, and every now and then a short introductions of the bosses.

While I do find Zone of the Enders to be a pretty good game, I was annoyed with the amount of back tracking and repetitive nature of it. I felt that the back tracking was done to hide how short the game actually is. While playing the game I did suffer some slow downs during the boss fights that I don't recall being in the PS2 version. Also most of the sub weapons you get are kinda useless so you'll be sticking with Jehuty's primary attacks most of the time.

Summary:

Good:

-Quick and responsive controls

-good graphics for its time

-different weapons

-fun combat system

moderate:

-story

-reused enemies

bad:

-different weapons are mostly useless

-short

-side missions are difficult to get a perfect rank in

-lots of back tracking

-moderate lag in some fights

Graphics: 3/5

Game play: 4/5

Story: 3/5

Sound: 5/5

Overall: 4/5

Check back early next week for my next review.