Where WE review our games

[Maniacal]

Time to put some meat on the bones here.

The Scourge Project: Episode 1 and 2

The Scourge Project is a co-operative Gears of War 'inspired' 3rd person shooter for the PC. However, it fails to be impressive in anyway and is well deserving of its 44/100 Metacritic rating. I had picked it up during the Steam holiday sale on the request of a clanmate for some cheap price, and I had more fun talking with him during the game on teamspeak3 about how many things went wrong than playing the game.

The graphics aren't bad, but they fail to take advantage of the Unreal 3 engine's power and are not very detailed, and/or that detail is lost because of one of the most bland colour schemes I have ever seen in a game. Sure you can still tell that different objects and parts are different, but it all blends together and is utterly unremarkable. It fails aesthetics.

The level design ranges from corridors with chest high walls or objects, to wider and slightly more open rooms with chest high objects, walls and/or debris. There was one level where the enemy flooded the area in a toxic gas where the game bugged out, I and the AI was dying every 5-10 seconds while THEEVERGOD was unable to attack but wasn't taking damage so he complete the objectives and picked us up. It was the most broken part of the entire game except having to rehost every few levels.

The story is... well it isn't really explained during the game until the end. You get random flashbacks (like, 4?) throughout the game that no one remarks about until the end, when it turns out your squad are actually clones of your past selves who died on a previous mission here. And then the game ends as the guy you were supposed to be saving turns out to be trying to kill you and just used you to kill a rival and the Scourge (some aliens this company bread because.. I don't know why, insanity and power I guess) Queen still remains at large. I guess they planned to have a sequel (just like they planned to have episodes, except each one is about 2 hours long and was released as a single game).

The gameplay is a bit better, with alright cover based shooting mechanics that don't make you invulnerable (even when blind firing) and are quite intuitive with the keyboard and mouse. There aren't a lot of weapons, you basically have a SMG rifle (Firefly), an assault rifle (Reaper), your pistol (which is actually useful for the entire game), grenades (can be throw normally with LMB and bounce around a bit or with RMB be set as a sticky grenade, although there is nothing to guide you as to where you are throwing it except your own intuition), later on there are also a carriable minigun and sniper rifle (1 shot 1 kill for headshots). There are some upgraded versions of the Firefly and Reaper and the shotgun with red dot scopes (accuracy, tightens the crosshairs), and either a red dot sight (useless for the rifles, good for shotgun) or hand grip (reduces recoil).

The game has up to 4 player co-op and that is the only way I'd ever play it (although I don't recommend playing it at all) and the AI will take over any extra characters. However, the AI is basically only good for picking up the human players when they get wounded (when wounded you just crouch down and can't do anything until you get picked back up, game ends if everyone is down or one person bleeds out (takes like a minute or something)). The rest of the time the AI (both friendly and enemy) can be pretty bloody ********, but at least they didn't get stuck until a couple of levels at the end of the game (and they teleport to you if you go to far away), and they actually threw a few grenades and threw them pretty well.

You'll be fighting the same enemies the entire game, although some larger Scourge show up later on you will mostly be fighting Nogari's heavily armoured space-marine esque security forces. With a few incredibly typical boss fights.

We never had a problem with losing connection during the game, but whenever we died or complete a section (every few levels it sends you back to the lobby to start the next section, for some reason) we had to leave the game and rehost it which was annoying.

I don't recommend this game, no matter how cheap it is. It isn't the worst game I have played and I had fun but most of my fun was because I was playing with someone else. Its a bad game and it should feel bad. It was obviously cut down considerably and rushed out.

 

[Disgustipated]

Dragon Age 2 review

Here's a quote that sums up a quick overview of the game: "I think I'm sick of mages and templars"- Varric

Quick summary: Good action, but very unoriginal level layouts, drab environments, poor characters, poor story, low budget reused levels, and tedious plot. I suppose if you like Templars, this is your game.

Plot: The evolving city does seem like a novel concept, but it doesn't really evolve, and there is not significant, or even noticeable change from your actions over time. I feel limited in my options regarding the plot. Why must I stay in Kirkwall? Why must I help the Templars or the mages? Yes, DA1 had this problem too, but there was clearly reason to stop the blight- self survival. I'm not given enough incentive to get involved in their affairs. Both sides seem bad imho. I help the mages and

Spoiler :

The main guy ends up turning to blood magic for some inexplicable reason, and I had to put him down. And the head Templar is insane from the relic. So many mages turn to blood magic, why am I helping them? It is best to put them down, but Meredith is insane. I hate these choices

. The templar/mage situation was one of the weak parts of DA1, and it shows here. It makes no sense when you are walking around with a mage in your party. Even Meredith knew I had a mage in my party. I did not get involved in the plot at all, and I was let down by the ending very much. No wrap up like Dragon Age, or games like Fallout: New Vegas. Score: D

Setting: As I mentioned above, having a city change with your actions seems like it would be cool, but they did not actually do anything with this concept. It's a static city. Many NPC's have no names (not even generic names), and have nothing to say. The streets are bare, even in dirty areas like lowtown. Compare this to a game like The Witcher 2 which has stuff everywhere (almost too much, but I digress) and it seems like a realistic environment. I don't get that feel with this game. The environment is so cold and static. There is no life to it. Yes, some NPC's do make comments, and I like the fact they report to the Captain (when she's in your party), but that's a rare exception. The city structures look decent enough, it just doesn't look "lived in". And the reused environments is a huge negative for me. I got sick of exploring the wounded coast for the third time. I had no incentive to do so other than my obsessive need to pick up every piece of loot. It's like 1/3 of a game here. Score: F

Characters: Some of the characters did grow on me throughout the game. Namely, Varric. And the characters showed flashes of personality here and there, but the game does not capitalize on the friendship/rivalry thing enough, and there is little character development. You can't "harden" your companions as in DA1. Isabella changed from DA1 (and I'm not just talking about her breasts getting bigger) in some ways, they may have well just used a new character. I didn't care for the whole Anders/Justice thing. I'm pretty much sick of every character turning into a demon in this game. *sigh* Score: D

combat action: This is probably the game's strongpoint, but they fail at times here. I'm not going to say the combat is significantly worse than DA1. I can't remember DA1 combat enough. It feels similar to DA1 in many ways. It's a little faster paced, and I don't like the cooldowns and nerfed abilities. Why not make enemies harder rather than nerf all the cool things in DA1? Although they did try to toughen combat by throwing huge numbers of them at you. This really hurts the realism factor. Yes I know it's a fantasy game, but there are certain laws of physics the Dragon Age world should go by. Enemies dropping down from the sky is ridiculous. There is no way you can justify putting this into a game. There is no way to pre-plan for battles (and very little buffs you can do beforehand), you just deal with whatever silly, contrived things the game throws at you. The action is fun, but it also has some drawbacks. The boss battles are best handled by "Holding" your party, and issuing commands manually. Which makes them very long and tedious. But some battles do offer challenge, which gives the game some fun factor. Score: D

Graphics: Poor graphics. I used to excuse Bioware graphics because they would make it up in other ways. But this game does not make it up with a great story, or good role playing. I feel Bioware is falling behind the other contenders with regards to graphics (and setting above). The trend imho is towards open ended worlds. Fallout: New Vegas did it while at the same time providing great action, great story, and even had character development (although there could have been more) of your companions. It is possible to provide an open ended world, with some scripts/triggers, great story, great action, and great characters, while also providing great graphics. I had some slowdowns which shouldn't happen with graphics this poor. I could run The Witcher 2 with the highest graphics, why not this game? The Witcher 2 looks much better than this game. Score: D

Sound: I had some problems not hearing NPC speech, I had to turn music and sound effects to 50% and turn up my speakers so I can hear them speaking. Even then, sometimes I couldn't hear them speaking if I was behind them. Or I couldn't hear my own character talk to herself (like when you select objects inside your home) unless I rotated the camera so it is in front of her. There are some city background noises, but 11 year old games like Baldur's Gate 2 did it better. Sound score: D

Music: The music is pretty good in this game. It is the one high point. That being said, the music doesn't really stand out that much, and isn't "epic". But it gets the job done. Music score C+

Gameplay: Some of this is covered above. I just wanted to say I hate the heavy scripting and teleporting my party around without my consent. It used to be I would excuse this in DA1 if it served the story well. But it doesn't serve the story well here. I feel like the game is holding my hand. Give me freedom dammit! The action gameplay is good, but repetitive. I found myself wishing "Not another battle please". I got sick of fighting. There would be 2 minutes of fighting, 20 seconds of travel, 2 minutes of fighting, etc. There are too many battles, and dare I say it? - Too much loot. I get sick of finding a belt in every single container in the game. It's just silly. Score: D

Stability: Only had one crash that forced me to close the game. It's a very stable game. Very few bugs that I could see in patch 1.03 (other than what I note below in Cons). The game seems to run like a regular windows program which has its good and bad points. My monitor will black out after several minutes of inactivity. Good when I use the bathroom or make a sandwich, bad during long cutscenes. Also, things going on in the background like firefox addon updates, or updates from other programs will partially interrupt the game. Score: B+

Pros:

There is a storage container in your room. I never used it but once, but it's nice that it is there. Something I wish the Witcher 2 had.

You can move one handed. Nice when you want to sit back in your chair and relax your left hand. You can point to move or hold down both mouse buttons. If only you could move somewhere in this game without being attacked...

Combat can at times be fun and challenging.

Cons:

The game moves my party around automatically. Like after a battle, it would move my party near a chest (which conveniently has the quest item). Silly hand holding.

I also don't like conversations teleporting my party around.

Too much loot: Barrels holding highly magical rings, amulets, and belts. Kind of silly.

Combat targetting. My main gripe is trying to target shades (when paused especially) when they are moving.

Mansions that magically rearrange and doors become unusable. See the Bait and Switch quest specifically. When your companion takes it over, it changes around.

Many NPC's with no names over their heads, and have nothing to say. I suppose they did this to make it look like a living, breathing city, but the city still does not feel "alive".

Marbari hounds and spiders carrying silver. Not to mention darkspawn. I'm not sure what they are doing with the silver, or where they are putting it...

Cannot even touch water, and even the smallest objects cannot be walked over. It's funny when something 2 inches high prevents my character from walking over it. I can't even touch the water. I also get hung up on stairs and actually have to back up and go around where I'm hung up at.

Limited dialogue options. Yes they give you 3 choices (and investigate/questioning) but it all leads to the same place. They give you the illusion of choice and roleplay, but almost no decision you make in this game has any lasting or significant effect. To be fair, some decisions do affect future quests, but the quests are so minor, I forget what the NPC's names are that I affected in Chapter 1 by the time I reach Chapter 3.

Can't see quest items. I think I opened a chest to see nothing in it, but I was able to get my quest item. Annoying during the Qunari sword quest as I wasn't sure how many I collected yet. I have no way of telling as I can't see them in my inventory.

Can't talk to NPC's after your initial conversation. If you missed what they said you are out of luck. They won't talk to you anymore.

Outdoor (and indoor too for that matter) maps are linear. It's kind of silly how a coast in the open wilderness has a narrow passageway. It's either forwards or backwards (sometimes a branch), you can't go around something.

Ridiculous encounters. Enemies appearing out of nowhere (either out of the sky or behind you in areas you've already explored, or at times appearing out of thin air).

Resource system is dumbed down for newbies. It's not the worst in the world, it is easier, I'll give you that. Yes managing resources in inventory is tedious at times, but there is a reward for all that work. I feel the game is taking away the work, but giving the reward.

Minimap will show more explored area than you already explored. If you check your main map it will still show fog of war/unexplored.

The map seems to show there are multiple ways to go, but they are blocked by unopenable doors. It gives the illusion the game isn't as linear as it really is.

Some locations I cannot enter until I have a conversation with someone. Specifically a cave on the wounded coast. Very limiting.

Numerous unopenable doors

Unimaginative enemy names like corpse.

Predictable ambushes. And too many ambushes. I like when one of my companions says "it's a trap"- like it wasn't clearly obvious. How many times in a single game can I fall into a trap? Especially when I see it coming a mile a way.

No weather effects. No rain ever in Kirkwall, or the surrounding area.

Some enemies like Dragons and Revenents were nerfed. They used to be so much tougher in DA1. I used to fear revenents in DA1. High dragon is pretty easy too (the hardest part is the adds).

Cartoonish attack animations. Watch Fenris with a 2 handed sword. It's hilarious. I should say cartoonish graphics in general. The entire game is cartoonish.

Poor time mechanics. Anders appeared to be in the chantry at night and the darktown at night at the same time. I also went to a warehouse in the docks at night, but saw sunlight streaming in from outside. There is no passage of time in this game. Horrible. Yes, DA1 had this flaw as well.

I had a resource (associated with a quest) not show up until the creature nearby was defeated. Very gamey.

Party hold sometimes doesn't seem to work. Or party hold will not work at long range, they will follow you if you get too far away. This limits stealthing and exploring opportunities.

I don't seem to have a secondary weapon slot like in DA1 (although it seems I can change any equipment even while in the middle of battle)

NPC's companions can't wear armor. This makes the game too easy. Yes the upgrades are nice, but I feel like there should be some work to get the rewards. If you want strong NPC companions you need to find them good equipment. There is plenty of equipment that drops or you can buy.

Indoor areas/caverns/darktown locations all look the same.

Enemies that materialize out of thin air, or drop down from above.

When you open the journal, it doesn't remember what tabs you had open before. It always opens rumors or main quests, when I really want to look at secondary quests or companion quests where I was looking the last time. Same thing for the Codex.

I went in one door that led to a warehouse in chapter 1, but the same entrance in chapter 2 leads to a back alley. You can say the city changes over 3 years, but the graphics on the outside don't show this. It's just lazy programming is all it is.

I can't seem to load my game until the server connects. One time I was uploading pictures to facebook, and it took a little while longer to connect to the servers, so I had to wait a little while longer before I could load my game. This game might be unplayable with no internet.

Arrows and spells that go through walls. I moved Varric who was badly wounded behind a wall, but an arrow somehow bended around the wall and hit him.
____________________________________________________________________

So That's a lot of cons. I'm especially hard on this game because it has the Dragon Age name to it. A game I really loved (although it shared some of the cons this game had, but it excelled in other areas). But I'm beginning to see Bioware is falling behind the curve to other companies. After playing games like Fallout: New Vegas, and The Witcher 2, Bioware's recent RPG's seem weak in comparison. But I will insist this game has to stand against DA1 and its competitors. Yes the action is good enough you can play the game all the way through. Although I found myself getting bored at times in Chapter 2 and 3. I got sick of clearing the 3 main city areas of the nighttime gangs 3 different times. There is a little bit of mystery that makes you want to finish the game. But I was disappointed at the ending that

Spoiler :

the main character talking to Varric during the cutscenes had no interaction with my main PC at the end. It seemed a bit pointless in retrospect (although at the time I wanted to finish my game so I could meet her)

.

Final score: 65%

 

[Phrossack]

I gave it a higher mark (in the actual Far Cry 2 thread I think!) but I kind of agree with you on mostly everything. However, I have heard this complaint about degradable weapons a few times and I just plain don't understand. I was actually disappointed that it did't affect my game more than that. It was a cool concept but there were so many fresh and brand new weapons waiting for me to use them all around the place that I never really had weapons getting old on me. Only a few times and I was like "wow cool". All of the safe houses you clear out become places where you can get fresh guns, and there are safe houses everywhere.

But yeah, the buddy feature was obviously botched, probably meant to be more than that, but didn't do anything in the end. It's almost as if they didn't have enough time to cut it out properly and there are the remnants of an abandonned system in the game.

Well, I made a point of purchasing weapons early on, upgrading their reliability, and replacing weapons after each mission, so it barely affected me, but modern firearms are exceptionally durable and reliable. The thing that most leaves a bitter taste in my mouth was how

Spoiler :

I rescued my buddies from captivity, did favors for them, fought and basically died alongside them, and saw them gunned down before my eyes, only to have them UNDIE in the end and try to kill me for the crappiest of reasons. Seriously, if they wanted to get out of the country so badly, they could've gone with the refugees or just, you know, ASKED me for money so we could fly out. And why the guy who has to bribe the border guards has to commit suicide is beyond me, as is the reason behind having to use the car battery to set off the dynamite and die rather than just throwing a Molotov and running like hell. And why did Gakumba try to kill me after I helped him? I could've been useful.

It was a pathetic ending to a good game, like Lost Planet.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition (8.5/10)
This is the fourth installment of the SimCity series, along with the Rush Hour expansion that adds new transit options such as elevated rail. The game is basically about being the mayor of a city. There are no goals in the game other than what you set for yourself, though generally most players seek to create a metropolis with hundreds of towering skyscrapers. But getting there is not easy. Yes, that is one thing to note about this game: if you do not know what you are doing, your efforts will crash and burn.

You must lay residential, commercial, and industrial zoning. Different wealth levels for each type have more demands for services with increasing wealth. You provide said zones with power, water, and sanitation services. Once people move in, you may need to put down educational and medical facilities. Fire and police protection are also important, especially in a growing city. In addition to the required expansion of services, one faces the growing problem of traffic and increased commute times. This may be the point where mass transit is needed. As the city grows, reward buildings are unlocked, which have various effects from increasing desirability in a location to breaking demand caps (more on this later). All these steps are also done while paying attention to one's finances and possibly the effects on the environment.

While the game has decent tutorials that explain some of these concepts (including Regional play, a new concept introduced in SimCity 4 that involves connections to neighbours for water/power/sanitation deals and transportation access), there are many important concepts that are not touched upon even in the manual. The concept of demand caps is an example. At certain points in the game, a city may reach a predetermined limit on the number of jobs/workers that it can hold. The mayor needs to place demand cap busters (e.g. parks, rewards, neighbour connections) that allow further growth.

These are intended challenges. However, the game code isn't perfect and has a number of game-disrupting problems. There is the "infinite commuter bug", where commuters going to another city will keep going to another connection if a job is farther away. This is particularly noticeable at corners that are connected. Even if this bug doesn't strike, your city's Sims aren't very smart at taking a good route to work. They will choose a congested road over a gleaming new subway system if the former has a shorter route regardless of the consequences. Moving away from gameplay, there may also be problems with running the game itself. It is very prone to crashing on multi-core CPUs, Macs, Windows 7 and Vista, and Radeon graphics cards.

The previous challenges may seem daunting, the game's fans have created a modding community that nearly negates all of these problems. One of the most popular mods is the Network Add-on Mod, which is considered an unofficial expansion pack to the game. It adds new transit options and also a traffic simulator that makes Sims much smarter at picking the right mode of travel for shorter commutes. The modders also have created tons of new content for the game, but some of them may require much installation and tweaking before they work. Their fan sites (Simtropolis, SC4Devotion, etc) are also great sources of information for any questions you may have regarding the game.

Indeed, this game isn't the most accessible, but once you master it, the possibilities are endless. And you'll have a great community to support your construction of your dream city. But one must have patience and perseverance in order to create a gleaming downtown core. After all, as the old adage goes, Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

The Witcher 2 review.

Overall this is a great game, but there definitely are some interface issues. When creating potions you have to make sure your best ingredients (some used for quests later on) aren't being used up automatically. You also can't compare your equipment to what you already have when selling items (a minor annoyance really). Despite many complaints of the interface, I quickly got used to it. It's adequate to get you through the game. The biggest annoyance is there is no junk tab in your inventory. And despite tabs to separate your inventory, you'll still end up with so many items that it takes a long time to sort through to lessen your inventory weight.

Combat action is very good in this game, but it can be unforgiving if you are the type of gamer who can't move around very fast. The combat action is exciting and a good improvement over TW1. It's fun to roll around and dodge enemies and tactically retreat to get your shield back up. Enemy AI can be good at times, but they don't pursue you when you retreat which seems like a weak point of the AI.

Roleplaying is pretty good in this game despite playing a character not created by you. There are a lot of cut scenes however, and the prologue is fairly linear. But you will find meaningful impact of some of the choices you choose.

The story is very good, although maybe a bit overly complex at times. They may have tried too hard to create a very complex political situation. It's a bit difficult to keep track of all the names of these rulers, sorceresses, and other NPC's. Sometimes dialogue goes so fast and you are like "who did what?" It's a lot of different people and political situations to keep track of. Overall it came to a satisfying conclusion at the end.

Boss battles are maybe what you hear complained about most in this game. It shares some characteristics with MMO boss battles. In that bosses have certain mechanics, once you learn these mechanics they become a lot easier. So this does mean multiple reloads. If you don't like this sort of thing, then you will hate boss battles. The boss battles in the end weren't bad, however, as my character was max level and very powerful. Overall, I like the challenge and feel it wasn't too unforgiving on normal level.

The auto save in this game isn't the greatest, and sometimes it won't save after long cut scenes before a battle. Your first fist fight in the game is one example. I didn't know how to fist fight yet, and had to repeat it a couple of times before I got the hang of it, but I had to skip past a bunch of cut scenes due to no auto-save. There are a couple other long sequences with no auto save (and you can't quicksave either), but overall it's not too bad.

I felt like the ending was a little short or non-existent. Did they run out of time or money perhaps? I would have liked them to have wrapped things up better.

pros: More great Witcher action. If you like an adult game, this is for you. Although sometimes I think these guys are a little too obsessed with sex LOL. And the bad language seems a little out of place, but for the most part it works. I feel a medieval society can be pretty brutal and un-PC, and this game shows that.

cons: interface issues, can't review conversations to find out what plot point you missed because you don't know who so-and-so is.

score: 92%

Just finished Witcher 2 and wanted to recommend it to anyone looking for a good rpg. There are annoyances as mentioned above, but in all - a great game.
I agree that the world is complex and it's not easy to keep track of all characters and events, but I also believe it contributes to the world which I became immersed in due the perceived depth. They've also managed to let the player make meaningful choices, and it adds up to a, in my mind, mature experience. There are lots of things to keep track of, nothing is sure and I kept wondering how the events would unfold. Perhaps the story was a bit loose in the sense that there were number of different motivations and reasons for the hero's main quest.

I didn't feel that the end was as short as mentioned. Not epic perhaps, but well suited to the game as a whole. Many questions were answered and there's a very good foundation to make a sequel (which I look forward too).

Some battles could get frustrating, especially when you have to see the same cut-scene again and again, or start next to the boss with a sheeted weapon every time you load. Some development paths were more difficult than others since the game prevented you from preparing and taking advantage of your character build in some instances. The controls are a bit unresponsive at times given action-oriented combat. I can't believe the devs didn't think of letting the players use the same type of ingredients to make multiple potions/oils. It can be a bit of a grind also if you have to take every quest.. and the game guide that comes with the very reasonable priced premium ed is worth the cost.

I enjoyed this a bit more than Witcher 1 and although Mass Effect 2 is a bit more accessible and have less annoyances, I think Witcher 2 is the slightly better game. The characters and gameplay was what made ME2 great, but the world and story of Witcher 2 felt more interesting.

Score: 9/10

 

[MajKira]

Im giving a review for my beloved game
Skies of Arcadiaaa
Published system/year: Sega Dreamcast Millenium 2000, later Nintendoo Gamecube
Story: SkyPirate Vyse and his childhood girlfriend Aika are embarking on a Great Adventure. Already his father is the great leader of Blue Rogues - SkyPirates. Now Vyse steps on his foot to become himself also a Great SkyPirate. The Two meets Princess Fina, who is hunted by the Valuan Empire. She is holding important information which would decide the Fate of the whole world. Vyse and Aika are going boldly and valiantly into fight against the evil Valuan Empire and wanna save Fina and also the whole world against slavery and occupation from ValuanEmp-to become famous and Blue Rogues are always good to people, they never capture and raid innocent merchant chips. They are treausure hunters but not bad at all as the Black Rogue Pirate are, rather goodhearted and fighting for all Good in the world.
Gameplay: You play in the usual conasole manner with gamepad and its always good to play an epical FarEast Roleplaying Game. Great feelings you always get and very enjoyed to fullest, I promise yeahhh
About 70hours of gameplay you get in typical Anime style which you have to love first to be able to love this game too. Its belonging to best of best Anime RPGs ever. And remember Millenium too yeahh
I give Note 10, absolute 10. Its only behind my Top One Final Fantasy VII as Top Number Twoo
SoundTracky: Best songs always you get in best Anime RPGs.
Like:
Introo

Link to video.
Battletheme 1 of 2

Link to video.
Battletheme 2 of 2

Link to video.
Shipbattle 1 of 2

Link to video.
shipbatttle 2 of 2

Link to video.

 

[Maniacal]

I'm sorry MajKira but posting a brief description of the game, some random videos, and saying its your favourite game 10/10 isn't a review.

 

[MajKira]

I'm sorry MajKira but posting a brief description of the game, some random videos, and saying its your favourite game 10/10 isn't a review.

nooo, disagreement. Dont think you really feel sorry. We never have problems writing a review about games we love and adding some best tracks from game. Why dont you like it anyway?

 

[Sonereal]

So, since that review didn't pan out, I'll do a review for Skies of Arcadia for Gamecube.

Skies of Arcadia: 9/10

First of all, I do love this game. It's one of the few games of the genre that I actually played through.

Summary of the Plot

You're Vyse, a Sky Pirate in a world where landmasses float in the sky. Along with your childhood friend, you embark on an adventure to SAVE THE WORLD (dun dun).

Gameplay

It's hard to break down gameplay without really breaking it down into four sections; the sky map, sky battles, normal battles, and normal-walking-around-on-solid-ground.

Sky Map

Sooner or later, you gain the ability to fly a ship around the very open-ended world. In the Gamecube version at least, the world is huge and actually does draw you in with the music and general feel of flying through the world. While your flying, you may run into random counters with flying creatures (these act as normal battles). For the most part, the biggest draw for me was making discoveries. In the Gamecube version, a side-game is finding discoveries before other discoveries which unlocks rewards and earns you payment from the Explorer's Guild (or whoever they're called, it's been a while).

Sky Battles

Sky Battles are the larger-than-life battles you don't get that often and this is where I can explain the biggest draw (for me) regarding this game. See, besides the required super attack, there are several other weapons your ship can use provided you buy the ammunition and weapon for it. In this regard, the sky battles play out like a puzzle-strategy game. When it's your turn, you can see the severity of the next four actions of your opponent ranging from green to yellow to red. So, when selecting your moves (which also includes evasive maneuvers), you have to take that into account AND take into account that you have to get in a certain position when firing your special weapon. Getting into special position usually just means that you'll see the turn on which you can fire your weapon coming up and it's up to you to decide whether it's time to fire there or not.

The battles themselves are epic. Sky battles double as boss battles and you do battle some pretty devastating enemies.

Normal Battles and Just Walking Around

The normal battles are your typical RPG-fare. Each character has a unique looking attack but sadly, by the end of the game, you're probably just spamming the combined special power during random encounters. Random encounters themselves can be difficult but not as difficult as boss battles until one point of the game.

See, at a certain point of the game in a certain region of the world, you start encountering the most difficult monsters on the planet. Imagine playing Final Fantasy and running into a random encounter against five or six moderate-health enemies who all can cast Doom Spells. Yeah, it's kinda like that. Though, it's possible to fly at such at attitude later in the game that you never run into them or any random encounter. Land boss battles don't tend to be that memorable.

But the actual environments are. Let's just say that every region you go to will feel unique.

So, what's the giant draw?

The atmosphere. The game has atmosphere.

The characters are actually pretty likeable and the dialogue/actions is actually pretty funny when it tries which helps the serious bits immensely. When you reach Vaula, it is a stark contrast to the bright, happy island from where you're from. These days, a game like SoA would be seen as outdated but playing it is great for a simpler, retro feel and the game has a decent, enthralling story. I wouldn't recommend say, running out and buying a Gamecube for it but I would definitely rank it as one of my top five favorite games of all time.

Graphics

Oh yeah, some of you guys care about graphics. Given that it's a Gamecube game, don't expect the graphics to be top-notched but everything still looks good in my humble opinion.

(Rewatches Trailer)

Yeah, game really isn't in my top #20 best looking games. It's dated but it doesn't detract from the game like the bad graphics for Terminator: Salvation did.

Final Verdict

I got the game a few years ago at Gamestop for free due to a buy one, get one free thing. I just got it because it looked interesting and I didn't have much faith for it. A few minutes in, I was hooked in a simplistic must-keep-playing way I wouldn't be until I grabbed Earth Defense Forces a few years later. If you like great characters and a great story, and have a Gamecube, go find this game.

 

[Maniacal]

Nice Sonreal Despite the combat sounding like a typical JRPG that sounds like a pretty sweet game, too bad I never had a Gamecube.

nooo, disagreement. Dont think you really feel sorry. We never have problems writing a review about games we love and adding some best tracks from game. Why dont you like it anyway?

I don't like it because it isn't a review, plain and simple. I'm repeating myself but you can't just post a brief description of a game, a few videos of song tracks and say its your favourite game 10/01 and call it a review, because you didn't actually review anything.

Take a look at most of the other reviews in this thread, and the one Sonreal did above. They don't need to be hugely in depth or complex, but they do have to be an actual review of the game.

 

[Sonereal]

Atom Zombie Smasher: 8/10

Lolwut?

Atom Zombie Smasher is a game made by a Indie developer which I can only guess is based somewhere in South America (I don't know why I think this because I haven't played in a while but my guy says it to be true). In any case, the game has the player in charge of a national organization that is dedicated to stopping and eventually rolling back a zombie plague.

The main action of the game takes place in cities of various sizes. Your starting "power" is simply to call a helicopter which will call for civvies nearby to run for the helicopter to get to safety. Your goal is to get either a certain number of civvies out of harm's way or kill every zombie as they start flooding the city from the corners of the map. The game gets more complicated as you unlock zombie-immune soldiers, rooftop snipers and artillery pieces, land mines, and dynamite.

In-game, there are two periods: Day and Night. You WANT to get as many civilians as you can out during the day OR kill all the zombies during the day because at night, the city is FLOODED with zombies. Watching this pink dot horde is like watching the world's slowest wave destroy masses of civilians.

Region Map

In between missions, you're taken to the region map. At some point in the game, you unlock the ability to save scientists who can be used to unlock new upgrades. Meanwhile, your troops gain experience as the game goes on and they're used. From this map, you can also select your next mission after the game throws zombie points randomly onto the map. Sometimes, zombie points will stack ontop of existing points already on the map which, if you're falling behind, can lead to the entire map filling up.

At level one, there are very little zombies and you don't need to save as many. These are the easiest. At level two, there are more scientists and more civvies and more zombies. The zombies also come from TWO sides of the screen instead of the one for level one. At level three, it's basically an even harder two with THREE sides of the screen being access points for roaming zombies.

Level 4s are the worst in terms of geo-strategy. When a territory becomes a 4, all adjacent territories get upgraded and if those get turned into 4s, all THOSE adjacent territories get upgraded and so on and so on. The point is is that this can really stack up if you're not careful.

As the game goes on, both sides unlock natural weapons. For instance, you get the Catbird Cannon which is a huge kinetic strike that can level a couple of city blocks. Zombies can become faster or later on, Super Zombies appear which are very difficult to kill.

The game is won by the first side to earn a certain amount of points.

In Conclusion

This is a pretty simple game that I got for $10 on Steam. I think it's worth the cost and the campaign is customizable so that's bonus points.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

Nice Sonreal Despite the combat sounding like a typical JRPG that sounds like a pretty sweet game, too bad I never had a Gamecube

Dreamcast

Thanks Sonereal, good review of one of my most favourite games.

 

[mechaerik]

It was on Gamecube too, i have a copy.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

It was on Gamecube too, i have a copy.

Yes, yes it was.

 

[aelf]

Limbo of the Lost: 0/10

If there's anything that this game really needs, it's a big f'ing label on the box that says, "STAY AWAY".

This point-and-click adventure sucks monkey f***. The controls are horrible and the animation is awful. It's like they're too cheap to hire an animator to actually do this sh*t.

There's also no sense the puzzles. Like any point-and-click adventure game, they involve picking up all sorts of random items that you have to use to solve them. But the items you need often make no f'ing sense. There's this part where you need to get to the other side of a chasm. So what do you do? You pick up a coffin lid from somewhere else, put it in your inventory and then put it across the chasm like a bridge so that you can walk on it. Did I mention that the inventory system defies my imagination? What were they thinking?!!

Then there's this part where you're supposed to put some kind of torture device over an innocent guy's eyes just so that you can take his stuff. What are you supposed to be? Some sadistic thief from Genghis Khan's pillaging horde? Why can't you just ask?!

The graphics are awful. Most of the backgrounds are stolen from various games anyway, like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Thief 2 and World of Warcraft. Yeah, you heard that right. This game is a total rip off, IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD!

Most of the characters are downright ugly. I'd rather watch donkey's balls getting slapped by a piece of turd coming out of a cow's anus than to look at them. It's that bad. And the main character, the guy you are playing as all game, he looks like a drooling idiot; half the time you're wondering if he's going to slip on a piece of turd and smash his head on the floor. You know, that would actually be kind of nice, BECAUSE THEN I CAN STOP PLAYING THIS PIECE OF CRAP!!!

*takes a swig from the green bottle of beer*

I don't even want to talk about the sound effects. There are no words to describe the awfulness that is coming out of the speakers. I'd rather listen to a dead goat vomit piss out its rotten a**hole than to listen to this crap. And the voice acting? I'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in my ear than to listen to that.

If you manage to get through all the sh*tty dialogue and the nonsensical puzzles, you'd actually get to see a giant steampunk death robot near the end of the game. But guess what? You're not even the one who's in it! It's like the game's telling you, "Oh, let me give you something that actually looks cool for once. Wanna drive it? Well, f*** you, you won't be getting the chance, you a**hole!"

What a piece of sh*t! THIS GAME SUCKS ASS! THIS GAME SUCKS THE MOTHER OF ALL ASSES! I'D RATHER EAT A TRUCKLOAD OF DIARRHEA THAN PLAY THIS GAME! EVEN DRINKING ALIEN PISS WOULD BE WAY MORE SATISFYING! STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME!!!

*takes CD out of drive and sends it flying into limbo*

PS: Points for those who get the reference.

 

[Maniacal]

I'm shocked you actually found a CD for it. Though not as much as that you actually played it...

 

[aelf]

I'm shocked you actually found a CD for it. Though not as much as that you actually played it...

I actually got it a few years ago from a little game shop in Singapore. I was highly amused to find it and decided to buy it right away. Some months later I sold the game on ebay at a modest profit. Maybe I should've held on to it for a few years. As for playing it, there's a full walkthrough of it somewhere.

 

[Civ'ed]

Hearts of Iron 3
Hearts of Iron 3 (commonly called HOI3) is a Paradox game (same dudes as those behind EUIII) which is set in the Second World War. You can basically play any country that existed, or plausibly could have existed, during the time period from 1936 to 1948 - while this may seem short, the lowest time hierachy is years, months, days, hours. So yes, yes you have night.
So you can control technology, Production (soldier, soldier, soldier, tank, battleship, paratrooper, soldier...), diplomacy (I know! let's turn the USA into the comintern superpower of ЦS&#1044, espionage (yaknow, this George V dude, he isn't as calm as you think...), and of course the military (one tank here, a few paratroopers here...)
The good things are that you can go ahistorical as Austria and become best buds with the USSR, or be a nice Frenchman and own Franco during the civil war.
It's also very, very detailed, and has dynamic borders. (invade Berlin-Reach province-Belgium now controls Berlin! Hitler loses!).
Bad stuff: Holy god. If you do not like complicated games, but just bought this, get a refund as soon as possible. It takes 25 ingame hours to complete all your starting moves. "stacking" techs that improve, say, tank armor, will always continue. However you can let the AI do some stuff for you.
Additionally, tanks. As the USSR I managed to take out the whole of Scandinavia save denmark and all the Baltic states with TWO. TANKS. And 1936 isn't even over yet.
Still, if you like games where you have to think, this is a good game for you!
(btw, don't like the figures that are your soldiers? Go to Options and switch "NATO symbols" to on.)
9/10, really fun once you get the hang of it. I recommend Germany, the UK, Italy (starts at war with Ethiopia), Japan or the USSR. I do NOT recommend Tannu Tuva, you'll be autoannexed by the USSR in 1944.

 

[mechaerik]

aelf, you seem rather angry. Only nerd type people get that angry over video games.


.....Nintendo.

 

[Maniacal]

I look forward to your review Civ'ed!