Blackpaw's Video Game Reviews
Welcome to a little page I've decided to throw
together, just for the fun of it.
Here you'll find what I think of random games and systems I've
played.
First up on our list is Starfox Adventures
for the Nintendo Gamecube.
If you've played the origional Starfox or Starfox 64, then you
may enjoy this game. True to the nature of the series, you pilot
the Arwing between your mission areas of the planet. Once there,
you find yourself playing Fox McCloud. You dont' have Fox's
prefered blaster, and he does voice his disdain for this early in
the game. You aquire a staff, and you're on your way. Through
this game you will fight various enemies and solve puzzles to
recover the spirits and stones you need to save the planet.
Overall, I liked the gameplay and enjoyed the story plot. They
keep unnecessary side quests to a minimum, and the only time you
really need to do anything that does not advance the story line
along, is something that will give you a new ability. The combat
system of the game does have the nice feature of only allowing
one enemy to attack you at a time. This allows new platform game
players, and young players, to fight one enemy at a time and not
have to worry about the other ones killing you while you play.
One of the things that did turn me off on this game though, was
the little dinosaur Tricky. This annoying little creature follows
you all over the game and is constantly whining about one thing
or another. His voice is annoying and the fact that he follows
you almost everywhere makes him a constant bother. The fact that
he is required to be fed to do the various tasks needed of him in
the game makes him almost more trouble then he is worth. On the
plus side, he can't follow you into some areas, and they give a
full level where you don't need him. I also enjoyed some of the
other piloting areas you get to experience. They allow you to fly
on the back of a "Cloudrunner," on the back of a giant
Mammoth, and my personal favorite, on a hovercraft. Overall I
found the game to be quite enjoyable, and find it has good replay
value. The many secerets and hidden items give the game lot of
things to find, and the puzzles can be quite challenging.
Pros:
Great combat system
Good storyline
Minimal side quests
Cons:
Annoying sidekick
Pointless cheats
Overall, I give this game Eight out of Nine tails
Next on the block we've got Resident Evil, also
for the Gamecube
Now, I've always been a fan of the Resident Evil series, but I
think that Capcom has truely outdone themselves this time.
Expanding on the origional game, they have taken Resident Evil to
a new level. The game has been completely redesigned with new
graphic enhancements and greatly expanded maps. Capcom has almost
doubled the play area that the origional Resident Evil offered.
The zombies have been upgraded to a newer level that will
challenge experienced players. Unless the body is burned, or you
take the head off the zombie, then in roughly half an hour the
creature will return. These returned zombies, or "dead heads"
as I call them, are twice as fast, hit twice as hard, and take
twice the damage before they die. Thankfully, once they are down,
they stay there. One of the things that did disapoint me was the
lack of inovative weaponry. All the weapons are the same from
Resident Evil, save for maybe one or two exceptions. The game
offers a good amount of replay value, as each time you finish the
game, it tends to unlock something new. Every time you finish the
game, you earn a new costume for the character you selected (one
of two new costumes) or you unlock a new game mode. The puzzles
are very challenging and can sometimes take quite some time to
figure out.
Pros:
Great graphic improvement
Awesome new levels and areas
New enemies
Unlockable Special Features
New defense items to ward off the undead
Cons:
Lack of innovative weapons
At times not enough ammo, causing you to restart the game from
the begining or an earlier save
Overall I give Resident Evil Six out of Nine tails. The lack of
new weaponry is rather disapointing, and the lack of amunitions
at certain points makes the game impossible to finish. On the
plus side, lots of new rooms and areas to explore make the game
worth buying.
Up next on the chopping block is Blood Rayne
for the Gamecube.
I'm a vampire game fan, but I must say that this game disapointed
me in many respects. The combat system does have a nice
combination between hand to hand combat and firearms. The ability
to drain the blood of your enemies and regain your life is a nice
feature, as it givse you a constan supply of health in almost
every level. On the other hand, the camera angles can sometimes
be annoying and make it difficult. Also the weapon selection
seems quite large, but in reality weapons of the same general
time don't do very much of a difference in damage. The extra
vision types aren't always a great addition, as some of them are
rather annoying and hard to see in. The slow motion does make the
enemies easier to kill, and their fire much easier to avoid. The
storyline is different from most vampire games, and does offer
some inventiveness, but it is hardly a compensation for the
sometimes excessively large levels. Some levels are spread out
between three and four areas and you need to keep wandering from
one to the other. Also the compas, though usefull, is not very
accurate.
Pros:
Good combination between hand to hand and ranged attacks
Easy to access health regain
Nicely rendered movies
Cons:
Sometimes annoying angles of view don't let you see everywhere
Excessive levels, and too much backtracking
No unlockable features
Overall I give this game Five out of Nine tails. Not a bad game,
but the lack of camera angles and no unlockable special features
give very little replay value.
Next up is Legacy of Kain:Soul Reaver for the
Dreamcast and Playstation systems.
At first glance, Soul Reaver is a great game with an intersting
gimick. The game is played on two different worlds at the same
time. As Raziel, you shift between the mortal plane and the
spiritual plane to complete your missions, and hunt down your
former vampire breatheren. You start out with no real abilities,
except sucking the souls of your vanquished enemies. For those
who have played Blood Omen or Blood Omen 2, you will find the
style of play quite similar. You retain the abilities to pick up
weaponry and use them to vanquish your vampire foes, and as you
defeat the vampire bosses, you gain their special ability. The
enemies in this game are quite challenging, as if you do not find
some way to destroy them via water, impalement or immoalation,
then they will quickly recover and come at you once again. Also
if you do not drink the soul then they will re-enter the body and
may come back to life. Vampires without bodies become wraiths,
and attack you in the spirit world. One nice feature of the game
is the difficulty to truely die. when your energy runs out in the
mortal world, where most the combat takes place, you return to
the spirit world. Here your energy very slowly recovers or you
can defeat enemies and drink the lost souls or the souls of the
vanquished foes to restore your life force. Should you die in the
spirit world, you are returend to your home point where you may
return. One of the things that annoys me are the warp gates. You
activate them and then you can return to previous areas you have
visited. But they are not very well marked to diversify them from
the others, as they all ahve a uniform look. But the biggest
dissapointment to me was the storyline. They lead you up to the
great confrontation with Kain, and then as you are ready to
defeat him, he jumps into a time portal and the game ends...To be
continued. This is my biggest beef with this game. They had a
great game with lots of intersting levels and a revolutionary
play style, and then they go and make you wait for the second to
finish the story. The general shortness of the entire game is
also a big dissapointment to me. Having played the Blood Omen
games, I expected larger levels and a better story finale. I was
sorely dissapointed to find how short this game was, and that
when you do finish it, that you do not even get the satisfaction
of finishing off Kain. The creators include a number of spell
abilities, but these are not needed to finish the game, which
makes them almost pointless. I finished the game without finding
any of the glyphs and without finding the forge of fire, which
makes me question their relevance in the game at all. You cannot
get most of them until you gain all of the abilites in the game,
and at that point you can finish it without them.
Pros:
Nice new world interaction that gives two levels of play
Difficult to die
Challenging enemies
Cons:
Bad ending
Short overall game
Pointless added abilites
As much as I enjoyed this game at the begining, I'm going to have
to give it only three out of nine tails. It starts out fun, but
the way they end the game and the pointless content and short
game length ruined the experience for me.
Next let's look at Lost Kingdoms for the
Gamecube.
Lost Kingdoms is a new spin on an old style of game. Lost
Kingdoms is a combination between a role playing or platform
game, and a collectable card game. In Lost Kingdoms, you are a
princess. There are problems happening throughout the land, and
you are the one to go out and deal with them. The game is more
mission based then it is free roaming. You start out with one
mission, and after you defeat it, a new one opens up. This
continues for every level, though you do have the option of going
back and re-entering many of the old missions. You also have the
option of going to a card shop or a "fairy house."
The main point of the game from what I can gather is to go from
area to area and complete your mission. Now the unique part of
this game is the battle system. It can be a little confusing at
first, and even as you begin to get used to it, it is still a
littel difficult to use during combat. Though the combat is
innovative, it can be difficult to use. The game randomly gives
you four cards to use. Every time you up a card, then it is
replaced with another from your deck. One nice feature is it
allows you to discard cards back to your deck, and it shows you
the next card coming up. Now when you use the card it can do one
of many things. Some cards summon a monster to fight for you.
Others heal you or force an effect. Still others are used like
weapons, attacking your enemy once and then dissapearing. You can
also use a card to capture the monsters attacking you. This is a
great way to build up your deck again, since you can only carry
30 cards at a time. And once you use a card, it can not be used
again that mission, unless you find a blue fairy to restore it.
If you run out of cards before the boss, then you can kiss your
rear goodbye. One of my other beefs with the combat system is
that it is not turn based. This makes it quite difficult to take
the time to select the card you wish to use. Slower or new
players would not last very long, as the monsters constantly
attack you. This makes it hard to decide what tactics to use or
what elements to use against the enemy's element. I have
accidentially used fire elements agaisnt water elements, because
I did not have time to pick the right card, and it is not always
very clear what element the enemy is, as they are always moving.
The graphics in the game are actually quite beautiful at times,
and the game is overall graphically pleasing. If you can get used
to the combat sysetm, then it is a good game to waste some time
with. The game features a good range of different cards, and
monsters to use in your battles. The ability to move arround
makes it more interesting then just another CCG video game. The
RP aspect of the game makes it a refreshing change from other
CCGs, and giving the cards an experience system that allows them
to turn into other, and sometimes far more powerful, cards is a
great idea. The confusing battle system and fairly repetative
levels (constant battles) make this game not as good as it could
be. I think that if they had deveoloped the RP aspect of the game
more, and cleaned up the combat it could have been much better.
Pros:
Great graphics
Wide array of cards to use
Nice blend of CCG and RP
Cons:
Confusing battle system
Non-turn based combat makes choosing the right cards hard
Not a whole lot of RP content, making levels a little tedious
Overall I found Lost Kingdoms to be an okay game. Not something I
would rush out to buy, but okay if you have time to waste and
nothing better to do. I give this game Five out of Nine tails.
Okay, this week we're taking a look at two
games I just aquired. First, let's look at X-Men: Next Dimension.
Now being an X-Men fan, and having played the Playstation
fighting game, I had great expectations of this game. I'm sorry
to say that I was sadly dissapointed. X-Men: Next Dimension is a
fighting game for the Nintendo Gamecube that allows you to pick
one of twenty four mutants. Now this sounds pretty cool, right?
Wrong. The varying mutants have no real equalizing force between
them, so you could slaughter everyone with one character, and do
almost nothing with another. Some characters are so weak in their
attacks, that they are slaughtered when they go up against vastly
more powerful mutants. A good example of this is trying to attack
the Juggernat with Mistique. While Mistique has a great martial
arts style of combat, she is so physically inferior to Juggernaut
that you will have your butt dragged all over the level, without
you landing any decent amount of damage. Now while this is nice
if you're playing Juggernaut or The Blob, but in the single
player action this makes the game rather hard to play. I found
the control of the characters to be severely lacking as well,
being sort of choppy, and very difficult to learn. The
combinations for the special moves can be simple for some, but
others are more complex and take far longer to learn. The single
player character selection can hardly be called that. You are
given an option of certain mutants you can use for any given
"mission," and in some you are not even given that
choice. The game has several bugs in it's coding, and this causes
some gameplay problems. Sometimes the camera will get stuck
behind an object and the screen will be black. Other times the
character models will not properly load, and you will be stuck
with an entirely white character. While the player model problem
does not cause any real game play issues, the camera angle
problems do. It's kind of hard to see what you're doing when your
screen goes black. This gives the computer a very unfair
advantage, as well as being quite annoying for two player mode.
Speaking of two player mode, that is one of the few redeeming
qualities. With a broad selection of characters to choose from,
two player Versus mode can proove for some rather interesting
match ups. The difficult control also makes versus mode a rather
equal playing field for both old gamers and new ones. My friends,
being rather afraid of me in fighting games, will actually battle
me in X-Men. This is mainly due to the control difficulties make
both players at a disadvantage. In essence this equalizes the
playing field, and allows for more fun to be had by all. The
levels were also quite amusing, as you could start in one part,
smash your opponent through two more, and end up back at the
begining to do it all over again. The destructable items, and
ability to change scenery gives the game a nice touch to it, and
keeps things fresh. Also the ability of the flying characters to
actually fly for a limited period of time is a nice addition. I
spoke of being an X-Men fan, and I want to say one thing right
now. A game company FINNALY gave Rouge her true powers! For any
hard core X-Men fan, this point alone is worth the price of the
game....If you get it used. Rouge can finnaly steal a special
move from her opponent and use it against them. While some of
these moves are useless, against Cyclops or Pheonix, this ability
can be devestating. On top of more accurate character abilites,
the wide selection of costumes was quite enjoyable as well.
Though some of them are rather obscure and pointless, you are
still given the selection of one of eight different costumes for
each mutant.
Pros:
Twenty four mutants to choose from
Destructable and changeable levels
Fairly equal two player action
Rouge has her real powers!Woo!
Cons:
Bad control
Story mode limits character selection
Several bugs that cause game play issues
Computer AI is rather high, even on easiest settings
Overall, I wouldn't recomend X-Men: Next Dimension if you are
looking for a great action fighting game. If you're a hardcore X-Men
fan, and you've got some cash to waste and friends to bust, This
is a fair game. Just don't buy it with too high expectations. I
give X-Men: Next Dimension Two out of Nine tails.
Now for game nubmer two.We're going to take a
peek at Spiderman: The Movie also for the Gamecube.
I bought this game as something my neices and nephew could play
when they visit us. But I got curious and decided to run through
the training. This simple little joyride into the game got me
hooked. For any of you who are familiar with films like The Evil
Dead, The Evil Dead 2, or Army of Darkness, you will all be
greatly surprised. Doing the voice over for the in game help is
none other then the great actor, BRUCE CAMPBELL! Bruce's silver
tounge is brought to the world of Spiderman as he guides Peter
Parker and you through your new powers. Every time his voice hits
the speakers, you can be sure another funny, yet somewhat
sarcastic, comment can't be far off. The use of Bruce as the
voice over gives the game a great comic relief, even in the thick
of things.
Well, now that my own personal hero worship is done, let's talk
about the game. For anyone who played Spiderman on the
Playstation, Dreamcast, or Nintendo64, you will find the play
quite familiar. You have all the same abilities as the
predecessor, along with a number of new ones. Tobey Maguire also
came along for the ride as he does the voice for (duh!) Spiderman.
The wall crawler has retained his witty repetouir of smart
remarks, and has gained a few new ones for the new situations.
These range from cracks at the opponent's intelligence and
physical appearance, right up to a familiar phrase from 1980s
cartoon "The Jetsons." Each level gives a new
challenge, as you start the game from the murder of Uncle Ben, to
the defeat of the Green Goblin. The game does not follow the
exact storyline of the movie, and this is actually rather
refreshing. The addition of a great number of new combat moves
also keeps the game play fresh and innovative. The web slinging
levels are no longer restricted to the simple chase em down of
the last Spiderman game. Now you have to fight your way through
the air, as well as repair supports to keep the innocent peple of
New York from becoming just another statistic. The bonus material
you can unlock is another great feature of the game. If you can
actually manage to beat the game on Superhero difficulty you will
unlock the greatest of all the costumes....The ability to play as
Harry Osborne...The Green Goblin! But they didn't make it just a
costume. Activision took it one step further, and gave you the
ability to BE the Goblin and play through the levels with your
own storyline. You run through the game the same as Spiderman,
but they gave it the position of Harry Osborne, as he tries to
figure out the seceret connection between Oscorp and the green
menace. You get all the Goblin's toys, including razorbats,
exploding pumpkins, and homing darts. The hand to hand moves are
the same as Spiderman, so you won't be left completely in the
dark. Another great costume is the original concept for Spiderman
as the makers of the hit movie thought. I personally like this
costume, but you'll have to unlock it yourself to see.
Okay....Much as I liked this game, it's time for the bad. I found
this game to be far too short for my tastes. Just as you're
really getting into the roll of Spiderman, they take you to the
climax of the game, and that's it. To me, this is very
dissapointing. As I went through I began to really enjoy the
overall game, and it has a really great base. Another problem is
the mid-air combat. This can be rather difficult, and locating
health and web powerups is even harder. It also doesn't help that
for your kick attack you need to be right over the opponent.
Another annoying bit is the goblin's play. They gave him his own
storyline, but they didn't add in any cinematics for it. And in
some areas, this makes you jump from one point to the other,
which can be rather disorientating.
Before I get to the overall scores, I just have to mention one
last thing, that makes this game worth buying.... The Pinhead
Bowling training sequence. This odd little unlockable feature is
truely a spiderman must. Peter parker (and up to three of your
friends) can go bowling for baddies. You websling down the alley
and try to knock over ten webbed up thugs like the pinheads they
are. Thus the name Pinhead Bowling. Though this really has
nothing to do with the game, it's a great way to waste some time.
Pros:
BRUCE CAMPBELL! 'Nuff said!
Good gameplay
Nice unlockable features
Goblin storyline
Pinhead Bowling!
Cons:
Game is too short
Goblin's levels sometimes jump where cinematics should be
Gameplay can be too hard for new players
Overall, I give this game Six out of Nine tails.I really enjoyed
Spiderman, but it could be better, and it could definately be
longer.
Okay, now that I've got a PS2, I can do a few
random PS2 game reviews. I don't have many games for it, so don't
expect a lot too quick here,but you can just deal. hehe. First,
let's have a look at Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven
Now, I used to own Tenchu 2 for the PSX, and the difference
between that and this is mind blowing. The control isn't quite as
touchy, and you can't jump as high, so it takes some time to get
used to. But they have made huge expansions to the stealth kill
system, and now it is actually possible to do a host of new
stealth kills upon your unsuspectin enemies. Now to get new
items, you don't necessarily need to just find them in a level,
as now you are also awarded items on how you perform. I also
found the new ability to switch weapons to be quite usefull. The
addition to dogs and cats that can spot your character, and alert
guards or ninja arround them just makes the game a little more
realistic and challenging. I also enjoyed the multiplayer aspect
of this game, and found both the co-operative and versus modes to
be a blast, though we have more fun playing the versus mode. In
either one the screen is split down the middle, which is one of
the few things I found wrong with this game. The verticle split
screen made the game a lot harder to play in two player mode, and
quite often cut off your view of who is attacking you or where
there are dropoffs. However, the vast selection of unlockable
charactesr to play in versus mode is a good redeeming quality,
and some of the characters are just hilarious. I won't spoil all
of them, but let's just say that a ninja dog, and the CEO of
Activision both make an appearance.
The new stealth kill reward system is both a good and bad thing,
as I see it. It is good that they reward the use of skill and not
just hack and slash tactics. But in some levels, it is hard,
sometimes near impossible, to get ten stealth kills. And in the
first level for Ayame in which you mean undead, it is impossible
to stealth kill the undead guards, since you can't stealth kill
them until you have the swords that you get at the end of that
mission. So it means that to get the ninja power for that level,
you have to go back and do it all over again. Because of these
reasons, I find it a good and a bad thing. Though some of the
tricks are VERY cool once they're unlocked. Personally I enjoyed
the Fein Death and Ceiling Cling abilites.
I guess I should get into the bad now. Well, the first bad thing
I noticed is the repeat use of levels for all three characters.
For a game they've so obviously put a lot of effort into, I find
it rather dissapointing that they did not make levels you could
ONLY play for Rikimaru or ONLY for Ayame or Tesshu. Instead they
just re-used all the levels they had already created. But instead
of going and building new levels, they just made "alternate
layouts" for the levels they already had. Which seems kind
of pointless to me, since it's still the same level. They could
have used that space to put in some unique levels to the
different characters. Also, for first time players, it is hard to
follow the story at times. The story can be confusing and they do
not explain everything. Players who have not played the previous
games would be lost on several points, including some things that
are supposed to be very signifigant, like the return of Tatsumaru.
If people don't play Tenchu 2, then they won't know Tatsumaru's
story, and the scenes with him won't make as much sense. Also the
lack of a truely finishing storyline gets a little annoying, as
it seems they always leave one character alove to come back and
seek revenge in another game. I think we've all seen enough of
Onikage at this point.
Pros:
Expanded moves and stealth kill systems
Earn new items for better levels of stealth
Strong storyline with good plot twists
Cons:
Some levels are hard to unlock ninja abilities
Story is sometimes hard to follow if this is the first Tenchu
game youv'e played
Levels are re-used for all the characters without much change to
them
Overall I give Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven 7 out of 9 tails. It's a
great game, but has a few low points. So if you like ninja stuff,
go buy this and "Bring the Wrath of Heaven to your enemies!"
Okay, next up to be butched is X2: Wolverine's
Revenge.
Now I've always been a huge Wolverine fan, and I figured this
game would be great. Unfortuantely it was not as good as I had
hoped it would be. It is a good game yes, but nothing to write
home about. It seems to have not clear point of origin in the X-men
storyline, and seems to be just thrown in at some undetermined
point in time. But unclear continuity aside, the game was done
pretty well. If you're looking for a straight hack and slash game
with wolvie, then this isn't for you. They actualy put the
emphasis on using wolverine's stealth abilites and make you
really thing your way through a number of the levels, not just
hack at everything in your way with a pair of adamantium claws.
You need to use your sneaking and stealth kill abilities to avoid
detection, and you need to think to get out of a lot of the
levels. The bosses can't just be hacked away at, as they'll
simply kill you. This is a good and a bad thing, because it makes
the boss battles a bit harder to do. Unfortunately, you need to
think about what to do to beat them, but it's kind of hard to do
that when they're pounding your skull into paste. Activision has
kept true to their recent style of superhero games, and to unlock
alternate costumes for Wolverine, you need to collect comic book
covers that are hidden through the game. I'm not going to say too
much, but I will tell you that the original yellow and tan, as
well as the newer Ultimate X-Men costumes are available. You can
also collect data cards as you play, which will unlock
information on different enemies and organizations in the series.
Using the Cerebro bonus option, you can learn more information
about the different people seen in the game, and that's always
kind of cool. The whole feature is narrated by Patric Stewart, so
it seems to be trying to tie in with the X-men movies. However,
they should have gotten the voice of Hugh Jackman for Logan.
Patrick Stewart has been doing the voiceovers for all the recent
X-men games, but they need to put in the voices for the other
characters to keep it in continuity.
Pros:
Emphasis on thinking and not just hacking away
Stealth Strikes are pretty damned cool
See through wolverine's eyes as you use his animal senses
Various Wolverine costumes can be unlocked and used
Cons:
Should have gotten Hugh Jackman for Wolvie's voice
Emphasis on thinking makes bosses a bit hard to beat
No clear, defined point of time in the X-men universe
Overall I'm only giving X2: Wovlerine's Revenge 5 out of 9 tails.
Why? Cause it's a good game, but it just doesn't deserve anymore
then that. I liked it overall, but it could have been imporved
upon.