Where WE review our games

[remake20]

I edited EU3 and hope to put some more up.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Here I go...

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 - 360​

Graphics: Good enough, though not the best. 7/10 I guess. Eggman's robots looked BADASS in the opening scene, yet were horribly subpar with in-game graphics.

Plot: Crap crap crap. Is this a game or did I get landed in World's Dirtiest Jobs?

Sonic coincidentally happens to show up at the beginning just alongside Eggman. Besides having a sucky voice that he had since Shadow the Hedgehog(2005), it gets worse.

Sonic finds himself being friendly with some whiny princess chick named Elise(who is voiced by Meg from Family Guy, so it gets even worse), and to make things even more bad, she has a fetish for being kidnapped all throughout the game. This gets repetitive and annoying as can be.

Shadow's story. Shadow's story starts out pretty cool, even if I hate his voice beyond anything else. His opening scene is pretty cool, but like the rest of the plot, quickly goes to hell. Shadow finds himself facing off with some demon... thing called Mephiles that grows out of his shadow, and the rest of Shadow's story focuses on finding and defeating Mephiles. Mephiles is fairly foreboding, especially when he transforms into his second form. I attribute this to Dan Green's voice acting more than anything.

Silver's story. Silver is completely naive and doesn't suspect he's being manipulated in the slightest when Mephiles says he has to go back in time and kill Sonic to save the future. Silver also gets on your nerves VERY quick, since he's the reason Sonic keeps having to rescue Elise, since Silver keeps distracting him.

Overall(tying this mess together): Silver annoys the hell out of all Sonic players very fast because of how Elise keeps getting kidnapped, and Elise herself is annoying as hell, to the point you wonder: "WHY THE EFF AM I TRYING TO SAVE THIS STUPID CHICK?!" The game also makes liberal use of time travel... (heeheehee) ...which promptly spirals into insanity as a bunch of inconsistencies and plotholes rip into the fabric of the game, such as the fact the emeralds keep getting brought to and from the future, yet there are no duplicates.

After you finish all the stories and their various insane components, you are treated to what has prevailed in most modern Sonic games: the final story that's unlocked after finishing all the other stories. In the final story, Mephiles is defeated by Shadow, but he manages to escape. Mephiles then appears behind Sonic and Elise, and, distracting them with an emerald, kills Sonic by impalement. (This begs the question of why the hell he needed Silver in the first place and just didn't kill Sonic outright... though maybe Silver's constant interfering triggered Sonic's constant rescues and built Sonic and Elise's friendship... whatevs)

Elise then cries, releasing the fire demon inside her. Mephiles then fuses with this demon into the ancient sun/time God Solaris, and plans to devour all of time itself. Eggman and everyone team up to bring Sonic back to life.

...And this is where it goes to hell, or, a deeper level, rather. After gathering the emeralds, rather than reviving them with, I dunno, magic, Elise seals the deal by kissing Sonic on the lips in a bizarre combo of necrophilia and beastiality. (What makes this rich is Amy just stares at Elise and doesn't care that she's movin' in on her man) Sonic is then brought back to life, and turns Super with Shadow and Silver to fight Solaris.

After fighting Solaris(who sadly(?) can't speak, greatly detaching his menacing nature), Sonic and Elise are teleported back to several years before Solaris was split into Mephiles and Iblis, and therefore before Elise's father and such were killed. Elise whimpers that if they blow out the tiny flame before them, Solaris will never cease to exist... but that they will also never meet... (BAWWWW) Sonic convinces Elise that it's for the better or some crap like that, and so she blows out the flame.

It then cuts back to the opening scene, but as Solaris and his powers never existed, Eggman never shows up to interrupt the festival... yet Sonic still speeds by and Elise seems to remember him. EVEN THOUGH THEY AVERTED THE WHOLE DAMNED MEETING FROM HAPPENING.

In a nutshell, Sega realised how crappy this game's plot and just about every other part of it was, and aborted it right after it went out of the womb. Best. Copout. EVAR.

Rating: FAIL!1/10

Music: Like in most hot out of the oven crap Sega's served since 2003, the music is one of the game's few redeeming features. Much of the music is adequate, and several boss tunes in particular are very sinister and get you set up for the action. 8/10.

Gameplay: Oh god. Where do I begin?

Sonic's gameplay is HORRIBLE. He runs at a horrifically slow pace (SEGA. HIS SPEED MADE HIM FAMOUS IN THE FIRST PLACE), and that kills his gameplay automatically. But there is good news! Sonic DOES get high-speed areas where he runs super fast in every level...

...The fun part about these is they are insanely difficult and that you can die around every corner. It's a common joke you have more chance of surviving NOT touching the buttons than if you do. And it's probably true!

Shadow: Sega realised their failure in Shadow the Hedgehog and decided to get rid of guns (GENIUS!) and then actually show Shadow's capabilities as the Ultimate Life Form. He can use Chaos Spears as a standard weapon, but these only stun foes rather than hurt them... (FAIL!) He can turn into a superpowered form like his evil gauge in Shadow the Hedgehog, and this makes his Chaos Spear become a "Chaos Lance" capable of destruction.

...Shadow still has vehicles though. WTH.

He's good enough, though not perfect by any means. Ultimate Life Form can't enjoy his ultimate gameplay.

Silver:

Oh boy. Anybody who says Sonic is about speed will hate this potleaf-haired white boy. He's the slowest of them all.

However, his levels are neat if you're into psychic powers, which are used for a great degree of platforming and stuff.

However, one fun stage is in the desert. You have to roll balls around with Silver's powers and such...

...What's really fun is the last part of this stage, where to get to the goal ring, you have to maneuver a ball AROUND a corner, through the many obstacles such as hills/giant gaps of doom, and what makes it best is that you can only hit in 10 times before it blows up and you have to start over. You have to start over should it fall into a hole as well. This stage is EVIL, and it took me like 40 minutes to do JUST the last part!

Overall:

Every so often, you switch to OTHER characters(Amy, Rouge, Blaze, Omega, etc.) and this is often pretty freaking confusing and out of nowhere.

Loading times are the worst. It takes god only knows how long for a stage to load up, and you have to sit through the SAME loading screen every time you die. And you die a lot.

Loading times become even worse because of the fact there are many town missions.

In town missions, you get a loading screen. Then people say a few sentences explaining what you have to do. Loading screen. Do the mission. Loading screen. Person's comments on your failure/success. Loading screen. Go find the next stage or whatever and get another loading screen.

...And if you fail the mission, you have to do it all over again from scratch, meaning all the way from the first loading screen I mentioned. Have freaking fun during this one level where you have to protect some chick from Eggman's robots. (Seriously Sonic, what the hell is wrong with you and protecting all these girls?! Just let them die!!)

The town level itself has its issues, given that you don't have a map to look at crap outside of the seconds when the map loads up.


Gameplay: 3/10

Price: 2/10. Definitely not worth the buy at full price. Get this from a bargain bin, for the sake of your sanity. If you're a masochist though, do feel free to waste your money.

Overall: 21/60 = 35%. Probably lower than that actually. This is a piece of junk that is nowhere near deserving of sharing the title of the game that started it all. If you want a better Sonic game, get Unleashed, or hell, even Sonic Adventure 2.

Stay as far away as freaking possible from this abomination unto God.

 

[Omega124]

Here I go...

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 - 360​

Graphics: Good enough, though not the best. 7/10 I guess. Eggman's robots looked BADASS in the opening scene, yet were horribly subpar with in-game graphics.

Plot: Crap crap crap. Is this a game or did I get landed in World's Dirtiest Jobs?

Sonic coincidentally happens to show up at the beginning just alongside Eggman. Besides having a sucky voice that he had since Shadow the Hedgehog(2005), it gets worse.

Sonic finds himself being friendly with some whiny princess chick named Elise(who is voiced by Meg from Family Guy, so it gets even worse), and to make things even more bad, she has a fetish for being kidnapped all throughout the game. This gets repetitive and annoying as can be.

Shadow's story. Shadow's story starts out pretty cool, even if I hate his voice beyond anything else. His opening scene is pretty cool, but like the rest of the plot, quickly goes to hell. Shadow finds himself facing off with some demon... thing called Mephiles that grows out of his shadow, and the rest of Shadow's story focuses on finding and defeating Mephiles. Mephiles is fairly foreboding, especially when he transforms into his second form. I attribute this to Dan Green's voice acting more than anything.

Silver's story. Silver is completely naive and doesn't suspect he's being manipulated in the slightest when Mephiles says he has to go back in time and kill Sonic to save the future. Silver also gets on your nerves VERY quick, since he's the reason Sonic keeps having to rescue Elise, since Silver keeps distracting him.

Overall(tying this mess together): Silver annoys the hell out of all Sonic players very fast because of how Elise keeps getting kidnapped, and Elise herself is annoying as hell, to the point you wonder: "WHY THE EFF AM I TRYING TO SAVE THIS STUPID CHICK?!" The game also makes liberal use of time travel... (heeheehee) ...which promptly spirals into insanity as a bunch of inconsistencies and plotholes rip into the fabric of the game, such as the fact the emeralds keep getting brought to and from the future, yet there are no duplicates.

After you finish all the stories and their various insane components, you are treated to what has prevailed in most modern Sonic games: the final story that's unlocked after finishing all the other stories. In the final story, Mephiles is defeated by Shadow, but he manages to escape. Mephiles then appears behind Sonic and Elise, and, distracting them with an emerald, kills Sonic by impalement. (This begs the question of why the hell he needed Silver in the first place and just didn't kill Sonic outright... though maybe Silver's constant interfering triggered Sonic's constant rescues and built Sonic and Elise's friendship... whatevs)

Elise then cries, releasing the fire demon inside her. Mephiles then fuses with this demon into the ancient sun/time God Solaris, and plans to devour all of time itself. Eggman and everyone team up to bring Sonic back to life.

...And this is where it goes to hell, or, a deeper level, rather. After gathering the emeralds, rather than reviving them with, I dunno, magic, Elise seals the deal by kissing Sonic on the lips in a bizarre combo of necrophilia and beastiality. (What makes this rich is Amy just stares at Elise and doesn't care that she's movin' in on her man) Sonic is then brought back to life, and turns Super with Shadow and Silver to fight Solaris.

After fighting Solaris(who sadly(?) can't speak, greatly detaching his menacing nature), Sonic and Elise are teleported back to several years before Solaris was split into Mephiles and Iblis, and therefore before Elise's father and such were killed. Elise whimpers that if they blow out the tiny flame before them, Solaris will never cease to exist... but that they will also never meet... (BAWWWW) Sonic convinces Elise that it's for the better or some crap like that, and so she blows out the flame.

It then cuts back to the opening scene, but as Solaris and his powers never existed, Eggman never shows up to interrupt the festival... yet Sonic still speeds by and Elise seems to remember him. EVEN THOUGH THEY AVERTED THE WHOLE DAMNED MEETING FROM HAPPENING.

In a nutshell, Sega realised how crappy this game's plot and just about every other part of it was, and aborted it right after it went out of the womb. Best. Copout. EVAR.

Rating: FAIL!1/10

Music: Like in most hot out of the oven crap Sega's served since 2003, the music is one of the game's few redeeming features. Much of the music is adequate, and several boss tunes in particular are very sinister and get you set up for the action. 8/10.

Gameplay: Oh god. Where do I begin?

Sonic's gameplay is HORRIBLE. He runs at a horrifically slow pace (SEGA. HIS SPEED MADE HIM FAMOUS IN THE FIRST PLACE), and that kills his gameplay automatically. But there is good news! Sonic DOES get high-speed areas where he runs super fast in every level...

...The fun part about these is they are insanely difficult and that you can die around every corner. It's a common joke you have more chance of surviving NOT touching the buttons than if you do. And it's probably true!

Shadow: Sega realised their failure in Shadow the Hedgehog and decided to get rid of guns (GENIUS!) and then actually show Shadow's capabilities as the Ultimate Life Form. He can use Chaos Spears as a standard weapon, but these only stun foes rather than hurt them... (FAIL!) He can turn into a superpowered form like his evil gauge in Shadow the Hedgehog, and this makes his Chaos Spear become a "Chaos Lance" capable of destruction.

...Shadow still has vehicles though. WTH.

He's good enough, though not perfect by any means. Ultimate Life Form can't enjoy his ultimate gameplay.

Silver:

Oh boy. Anybody who says Sonic is about speed will hate this potleaf-haired white boy. He's the slowest of them all.

However, his levels are neat if you're into psychic powers, which are used for a great degree of platforming and stuff.

Overall:

Every so often, you switch to OTHER characters(Amy, Rouge, Blaze, Omega, etc.) and this is often pretty freaking confusing and out of nowhere.

Loading times are the worst. It takes god only knows how long for a stage to load up, and you have to sit through the SAME loading screen every time you die. And you die a lot.

Loading times become even worse because of the fact there are many town missions.

In town missions, you get a loading screen. Then people say a few sentences explaining what you have to do. Loading screen. Do the mission. Loading screen. Person's comments on your failure/success. Loading screen. Go find the next stage or whatever and get another loading screen.

...And if you fail the mission, you have to do it all over again from scratch, meaning all the way from the first loading screen I mentioned. Have freaking fun during this one level where you have to protect some chick from Eggman's robots. (Seriously Sonic, what the hell is wrong with you and protecting all these girls?! Just let them die!!)

The town level itself has its issues, given that you don't have a map to look at crap outside of the seconds when the map loads up.


Gameplay: 3/10

Price: 2/10. Definitely not worth the buy at full price. Get this from a bargain bin, for the sake of your sanity. If you're a masochist though, do feel free to waste your money.

Overall: 21/60 = 35%. Probably lower than that actually. This is a piece of junk that is nowhere near deserving of sharing the title of the game that started it all. If you want a better Sonic game, get Unleashed, or hell, even Sonic Adventure 2.

Stay as far away as freaking possible from this abomination unto God.

That game deserves nothing but a 0/10 due to the simple fact they DARE call it Sonic.

 

[Maniacal]

Nice review Taniciusfox. @Omega: Could you please either spoiler tag the contents of the quote or delete them and write something like -snip- instead because its a lot to scroll through again.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Nice review Taniciusfox.

Thank you!

I like to prove that as much as I like Next Gen Sonic games(and old school ones as well, for that matter), I am by no means a slave to Sega, and will call them out when they produce corporate crap. I think I'll target Shadow's game next... just to prove that while Shadow is my favorite character, that is no excuse for that potboiler!

That game deserves nothing but a 0/10 due to the simple fact they DARE call it Sonic.

Technically had Sonic in it, and that's good enough for me to consider it Sonic.

...Doesn't make it annnnny bit less wretched though.

 

[Maniacal]

A 0/10 is a game that is released in pre-beta state (IEE Alpha, half-done, 100% broken).

 

[remake20]

I just got this tycoon game collection for $10, and it ain't bad for $10. It included: Moon Tycoon, Coffee Tycoon, Ocean Explorer Tycoon, and Marine Life Tycoon. For $2.50 a peice the're not bad at all. For this one I'm just going to do ups and downs.

I forgot to save to case, but it was something like, Tycoon 4 Game Collection. 8/10 Price: 10/10


Coffe Tycoon: 9/10 Price: 10/10

In short: Great game, that can get frustrating, but the frustration is needed.

Ups:
Nice balance of good and bad events
Simple yet very fun and entertaining
About 8-10 hours long (I have not actually played it that much, but there is a game almost identical to it that I have played and it took about that long)
Different locations and types of coffee shops adds some replay value

Downs:
Can be very frustrating with lots of bad events, but otherwise it would be too easy.
Add some building element, like the interior design of your coffee shop.

Moon Tycoon: 7/10 Price: 9/10

In Short: Fun game with crappy graphics, it's what you wanted, sim city on the moon!

Ups:
Who doesn't want to build a city on the moon
You have to consider what your building and make sure you don't build, what you don't need.
Can build up a huge city and destroy it with things like space pirates and meteor showers.

Downs:
Crappy graphics
Tutorial is not very helpful

Marine Life Tycoon: 6/10 Price: 8/10

In Short: A pretty pointless game, but gives you enough fun for at least a day.

Ups:
It can be fun breeding whales and other animals to live in your reef.

Downs:
Almost nothing to strive for
Fish are literally 2D
Pretty short with little replay value


Ocean Explorer Tycoon: 7/10 Price: 9/10

In short: Exactly like moon tycoon, only under water.

Ups:
Who doesn't want to build a city under water
You have to consider what your building and make sure you don't build, what you don't need.
Can build up a huge city and destroy it with things like Poseidon's wrath and giant squid.

Downs:
Tutorial is not very helpful
Graphics are still not that good

 

[nyk45]

Well, I've written a review on Oblivion some months ago. You can find it here.

I didn't paste it all here 'cause of images and such. I can still remove the link and post it though, if you want me to.

 

[GVBN]

Sound 8/10, they had like 5 voice actors

 

[Tani Coyote]

This should be fun, as a Shadow fan, I'm sure I'm going to love this!

Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) - PS2​

Graphics:

The opening scene is VERY impressive. Nice CGI, plenty of explosions, a fairly foreboding start...

...and then you get into the actual gameplay. They use the SAME DAMNED graphics engine as Heroes, but it's even worse in parts... like why is everybody shiny? This isn't Twilight!

5/10 - Would be higher, but they had 2 years to improve upon Heroes' graphics and didn't. At least the major scenes are CGI-rendered, however.



Sound:

OMG WTH happened to the voices?! Sonic has no emotion! Amy's a brat! Tails is a girl! Shadow went from being badass and having a full range of personality - capable of being both evil yet at the same time compassionate and saintly - to having two ranges of personality: either cutting you, or cutting himself! Knuckles and Eggman are the only redeeming voices, though Sean Schemmel helps pull off Black Doom's voice well... never thought I'd see the day Goku was a Sonic villain!

The music, like in most Sonic games, is pretty much the only factor that tends to stay high in quality. Many of the tunes are very fitting for the stage, and Sega even remixes some of Sonic Adventure 2's beats for the game.

6/10 - The voices ruin sound enormously, being a huge departure from the previous actors. The actual music helps redeem the game, if only somewhat.



Plot:

Spoiler :

The plot starts off in a neat CGI cut scene where Shadow wanders about his past, only to see the sky turn into a portal from Hell and demons aliens called the Black Arms invade the nearby city. Shadow is about to leave for elsewhere, when the Alien leader, Black Doom, appears before him and states that Shadow must collect all the emeralds for him. Shadow reluctantly agrees to, believing it to give him a key to his past.

From here, the story branches off. You can keep switching between the various storylines of Pure Evil, Somewhat Evil, Neutral, Somewhat Good, or Pure Good. You do this by finishing one of two or three missions in each state, each one having an alignment. When you reach the 6th stage, regardless of which one it is, your choice affects which final boss you face, and the ending you get.

There are 10 endings in all, and they range from Shadow turning angsty and lamenting how he should have never been created, to stating that his duty is to protect all the life on Earth, to finding out he is an android, to finding out he's an android and wanting to conquer the world, to saying that he is Black Doom's servant, to saying he is going to use the Emeralds to destroy Earth, to talking about how he is going to use the emeralds to take over the Black Arms and conquer the universe. Quite a variety. Eggman actually dies in two or three of the endings, the screen going dark as Shadow does the deed.

Before we get to the true, final story, know there's plotholes galore. My favorite is the mission where you can kill the President of the United Federation by blowing up his escape pod. When you succeed... the next cutscene immediately has the President disembarking at a top secret military base. The transition between stages was poorly designed, as one can see, as this cutscene plays regardless of how you get to that stage.

There's also ******** writing. For example, time and time again, the Black Arms are called "terrorists", when they are technically invaders. It sounds like a fearmongering propogandist wrote the script. Shadow also makes excessive use of the word "damn", showing he's gone the way of Grand Theft Auto in San Andreas in terms of taking advantage of less language restrictions.

Now for the final story...

Shadow confronts Black Doom, ready to give him the emeralds in exchange for the secrets to his past. Suddenly, everyone comes out of nowhere and says "Nooooo!" and how Black Doom will destroy the planet. Despite Shadow's hesitation, Doom summons the emeralds to himself anyway. Rather anti-climatic...

Then it turns out the whole damned interior of the Black Comet is filled with... nerve gas or some crap, so everyone gets paralysed as Black Arms larvae come to feed on them. Black Doom, meanwhile, explains that he needed the emeralds so he could teleport the comet to the surface of the Earth so he could enslave/eat its population. To add salt to the wounds, he explains that Prof. Gerald, the one who caused the events of Sonic Adventure 2 with all his creations(Shadow in particular), had arranged a deal with Black Doom to create Shadow: Black Doom's genetic material would be used to endow Shadow with great power, and Shadow in turn would collect the emeralds for Doom. Black Doom then teleports off using Chaos Control, leaving the others to be eaten by larvae.

Shadow then manages to break free from the nerve gas(my guess is because he's part Black Arms), and, after crushing the larvae, takes off to stop Black Doom. After an insanely large level, Shadow reaches Black Doom, and confronts him again.

Black Doom has already teleported the comet to the planet's surface, when suddenly Prof. Gerald's voice performs the haxx0rz on communications around the globe(As it did in SA2), and the Professor laments to Shadow that he made a terrible mistake by aligning himself with Black Doom. The Professor explains that he created the superweapon - the Eclipse Cannon - on the Space Colony ARK to destroy the Black Comet when it returned 50 years after the dirty deal was made; the Professor explains that Shadow's true purpose is to activate this weapon, and above all, protect humankind from all who would threaten it.

Doom chuckles about how Gerald was a fool, before teleporting outside the Comet and using the emeralds to transform into Devil Doom. Shadow then turns super, and takes Devil Doom on. In a Metal Overlord-esque Battle, with the game's main theme (I Am... All of Me) playing, Shadow eventually crushes Black Doom.

In the final scene, Shadow uses all his power to teleport the Black Comet into space. He then teleports to the ARK's main control room, and activates the Eclipse Cannon, blowing the Comet to pieces.

It then cuts to a scene of the President commenting to his Commander that while Professor Gerald had nearly destroyed the Earth in SA2, and despite the fact the military had caused the man so much pain, it was eventually Gerald's creations that saved the human race from enslavement by the Black Arms. The President states that Gerald must be honored as a hero.

...Then back to ARK.

As a sad, slow, instrumental version of I AM plays, Shadow laments to himself, concluding with, "Goodbye forever, Shadow the Hedgehog", throwing a picture he was holding into the air of the Space colony's research lab. It hits the window of the colony, revealing it to be a picture of him with the two people he held dear: Maria Robotnik and Gerald Robotnik.

The Credits then play. Thank God. This piece of crap is over.

5/10 - The writing ruins it, even if the ending was a bit saddening. It's a start. Doesn't save the game for all its horrible writing and plotholes, though.



Gameplay:

There has to be some chocolate sauce in this turd sandwich! ...Right?

Nope. It's feces through and through!

If you've played the speed parts of Sonic Heroes, you know the nonsense to expect here already. Let's just say it's very messy.

Shadow, despite being the ultimate life form...

...has GUNS. Why not use those awesome chaos power of his, since he can pull energy right from his ass... I mean, he's got eternal fuel right inside h-

Speaking of fuel, he can drive cars too. WTH. He's supposed to as fast as Sonic, and furthermore, if they're going to introduce Grand Theft Auto gameplay, they have to include the huge OVERWORLD too! Jak 2 pulled off making a game more mature EXTREMELY well, and if Sega pulled their head out from the chocolate canyon, they possibly could have made Shadow work.

Shadow gains good and evil points depending on the enemies he kills. When the good bar is maxed out, he becomes capable of Chaos Controlling, teleporting him through the stage... often missing key parts as a result or sometimes stopping over gaps and falling to his death. The evil bar yields Chaos Blast, which sends out a massive surge of energy that will kill practically everything and anything in its radius.

The final boss itself is just a big repaint of Metal Overlord! Sega took 2 years of time that COULD have been used developing the game, and like some student who waited until the last day, just took Heroes, repainted it, threw in some "cool" aspects like guns, swearing, carjacking and all sorts of violence(and even so, still made it so the blood was green rather than red... ), and then passed it off. ...In fact, even the freaking final boss THEME sounds like the final boss theme from Sonic Heroes in terms of lyrics!

Sure enough, the fact there's so many Shadow fans helped them get away with this atrocity.

4/10 - The usage of guns and vehicles is just pointless, and takes plenty of potential away from what could have been the development of a character's powers.



Price: 3/10

Shadow is repetitive, but at least you have a lot of choices with how to play the game or how to progress through it. But still, don't buy it at full price if you are smart.

Overall, this game is wretched. It wasn't as bad as we thought it would be - considering the Satanic adventure that came out the following freaking year - but it was by no means as good as ANY of its predecessors. I was sharply disappointed that my favorite character was so thoroughly assraped when he finally had his chance to shine, just like the guy who voiced him!



Overall score: 23/50 - 46%

While Shadow has plenty of open-ended gameplay, a massive rolling crap snowball of poor graphics, poor gameplay, average sound, and poor writing all depress any chance this had of being good. You can tell how saddened I was.

 

[Maniacal]

Well, I've written a review on Oblivion some months ago. You can find it here.

I didn't paste it all here 'cause of images and such. I can still remove the link and post it though, if you want me to.

No need to repost it, unless you want to change your scores to match my suggested rating system. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed oblivion, but I wouldn't rate it above an 8/10*. The gameplay is okay, combat could be better, spells could easily be more interesting, the AI's routines aren't quite as personalized as you suggest, but it certainly is a big improvement on having them stand around in one or two places all the time.

EDIT: This is not a proper review of Oblivion, contrary to what the OP suggests.

*8.5 actually due to the modding support provided by Bethesda.

I was thinking of doing a review tonight but I got called into work :/ So I'm going to do one on Mount&Blade: Warband in a few days.

 

[Captain2]

First Impressions of Metro 2033:

The Good:

+I really enjoy sneaking through the dark and taking down enemies with my silenced weapons and shooting out lights to keep myself hidden. Its the most fun I've had with stealth since Arkham Asylum.
+So far, the weapons seem really cool. I wish the smoke wouldn't obscure my view while shooting but its an acceptable reality
+ I laughed at a couple conversations I heard through the game "Mom, can we buy this?" "Shut up kid"

The Bad:

-I just met a character named Khan, I'm frightened by the idea of spending the rest of the time he's around imagining William Shatner scream.
- The human enemies are fun to fight but sadly this doesn't carry over to the mutant enemies where the only proper tactic is to backpedal and shoot.
- In the english translation the player character sounds like he just had a frontal lobotomy
- with the gasmask on for long periods as you're often forced to have it I begin going crazy from the constant sound of my character breathing loudly

I'll add more as I get further

 

[Rub'Rum]

I'm not posting every time I update the original post, but I am updating the original post as reviews come in indeed. I won't be able to do it much in the next week (a little Easter trip) but keep posting and I'll do it when I get back.

A few people have come back on posts and edited marks or more description in. That's fine but if you don't mention it I might not notice.

Also, remake20, if you could give like one grade for the whole collection of Tycoon games, maybe that'd be helpful, we'd consider the other marks the actual review of the Tycoon collection. What's the name of that collection?

Thanks for participating. Will most likely add a review or two of my own next week.

EDIT: Nice review of Oblivion, I guess I'll have to review it in a less glowing fashion to counter balance I didn't like it as much as Morrowind, but it is indeed pretty good.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I would just like to point out a typo in the opening post. The 2006 game is Sonic the Hedgehog, the 2005 game is called Shadow the Hedgehog.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I would just like to point out a typo in the opening post. The 2006 game is Sonic the Hedgehog, the 2005 game is called Shadow the Hedgehog.

Sorry, no matter how much I try to type this, only the words "Sonic" can precede "the hedgehog". But yeah, I'll do my best to correct the typo

 

[nyk45]

EDIT: Nice review of Oblivion, I guess I'll have to review it in a less glowing fashion to counter balance I didn't like it as much as Morrowind, but it is indeed pretty good.

It probably has something to do with the fact that I was introduced to TES via Oblivion. Still, I think the only real downside of Oblivion when compared to Morrowind is the leveled world.

 

[Rub'Rum]

It probably has something to do with the fact that I was introduced to TES via Oblivion. Still, I think the only real downside of Oblivion when compared to Morrowind is the leveled world.

Which is a pretty darn important flaw. This was Bethesda's first attempt at this I think, they got it a bit better with Fallout 3, but still, it's being perfected. In Oblivion though it was ridiculous. Anyway, I'll talk about this when I review it, but I thought it was way too limiting in the vanilla version of the game. Mods are what allowed me to enjoy Oblivion fully. There's a load of other crapola in there too, like the incessant boring gates opening, and the world itself was not as thematically strong (just the typical medieval thing). For the gates, I actually ended up not playing the main game. My most fun game was when I just didn't bring the amulet to that guy after exiting jail. That way, the world was left pristine.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Wow, gone for one week and nothing happens?

---

Sacred 2 came out horribly bugged for the PC, most people were told to get it for XBOX360, because it was fun to play with a friend on the same screen. I got it for PC months after release and while it was not perfect in terms of bugs and choppiness, it ran fine for me.

So yeah bla bla, it's yet another Diablo clone or whatever. But it's massive. Maaaassive. Six completely unique character classes to try, a quirky skill system that you have to get to know, huge variety of loot, massive massive world to explore with a variety of zones, funny voice acting. Game is over the top tongue in cheek, with a power metal band doing the soundtrack, corny stuff like skimpy armors for the female characters, etc. The game is quite aware of this and just plays with it. I suppose it could get on some people's nerves, especially mine, but I was okay with it.

Seriously, don't expect any sort of revolution as you play the game, but the massive amount of stuff is great candy for someone who enjoys looting and Diablo-like games. If you are that kind of person, you owe it to yourself to play that, especially if the game goes on special. Although I would try to make sure you get the European version of the game. The reason being that the company folded as the expansion got released, and the expansion was not released in North America and will not work with North American copies of the game. Actually that is a huge complain for me, the separation of the community in 2. You cannot play multiplayer with people who have the other version, and the US servers are pretty much empty...

I don't think there has been a better game while waiting for Diablo 3.

So I give Sacred 2 a 84% mark, and I think it got badly underrated. I do warn people that it's definitely for people who like this sort of games. Otherwise I think you might focus on the flaws a bit more than I did. The multiplayer and game community division hurts the game a little.

Angry Joe agrees with me, game was underrated.

 

[Maniacal]

Angry Joe is a pretty entertaining reviewer, and his reviews are pretty decent considering they don't go all that in-depth (but neither do they need to).

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

Bad Company 2 review:

http://flaktrack.blogspot.com/2010/04/battlefield-bad-company-2-review.html

Spoiler BC2 :

Bad Company 2 Review

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the first outing on the PC platform for DICE's Frostbite engine. Developed for the console-only Bad Company 1, the engine has a very cool party trick: destructible map elements. Enemy combatant ducked behind a wall? Switch to the grenade launcher and remove the wall. Buildings are no refuge either - apply enough firepower and they will come tumbling down into a mess of rubble.

The effects aren't underdone: blast the side of a building with a rocket or shell and the subsequent explosion will send bits of brick flying in all directions and fill the air with dust, leaving a convenient new entrance through the wall. It not a complete system - many objects, such as shipping containers, remain impervious to influence by explosive - but it is nonetheless quite something to play with: thrilling, and a tactical game-changer.

It's a big development in back-of-the-box features, and Bad Company 2 pulls it off with a flourish. But what of the rest of the game?

Bad Company 2 comes in two segments, single player and multiplayer - I'll be looking at the multiplayer with this review.

The multiplayer supports up to thirty-two players, and can be played in four different game modes: Conquest, Rush, Squad Rush, and Squad Deathmatch. Conquest is the Battlefield classic in which teams fight over flags, Rush is an objective-based attack/defend game, Squad Rush is the same played with eight-players, and Squad Deathmatch is a deathmatch mode where teams of four compete to be the first to fifty kills. Maps come in temperate, jungle, desert or snow enviroments, and are much smaller and tighter than maps found in previous PC Battlefield titles. The Rush maps especially have a quite corridor-like design, but they generally flow well, allow for some maneuver, and are attractively put together.

When you jump into a game, the first thing you'll have to do is to choose whether to play Assault, Engineer, Medic or Recon. Each class has it's own set of weapons and gadgets to unlock, and has a special ability: Assaults drop ammo packs, Engineers repair vehicles, or destroy them with AT weapons, Medics heal or revive fallen comrades, and Recons call in artillery strikes. The different classes' range of weapons and abilities mean that no one class will dominate outright, and each must rely on support from other classes to operate fully effectively. It's part of an over-arching design, including a squad system and a neat spotting mechanic, that encourages team-play over lone-wolfing.

It wouldn't, of course, be a Battlefield game if it didn't include drivable vehicles, and there is a decent selection of them to play around with in Bad Company 2 – APCs, tanks, quadbikes, boats, helicopters, and remote-controlled UAVs (but no planes!). Good use of vehicles can be the difference between victory and defeat, though the vehicles do not take as prominent a role here as they have in previous Battlefield games. Bad Company 2 focuses more on tight infantry combat with vehicles complementing the action rather than defining it.

There are alot of cool moments to be had with Bad Company 2's multiplayer mode - you and a squad of buddies advancing towards an objective with support from a friendly tank, or scrambling through a gauntlet of enemy fire to revive a fallen team-mate, or dashing out of a building that's about to collapse. On the great minefield of the interwebs, it does not always come together, but when it does, it's alot of fun.

Graphically the game is on par with the best of this generation, but worthy of special mention are the sound effects, which are phenomenally good, especially in the slightly over-the-top 'war tapes' mode. With war tapes turned on, the entire sound-scape of the game becomes more punchy, intense and loud. Particularly in extra-chaotic games, it's a treat to listen to.

Bad Company 2 is not a game without problems, however. The server browser, bandied about so much by DICE following the revelation that Modern Warfare 2 would use an auto match-making system, is only adequate. It takes a long time to refresh, does not allow filtering of servers by location, and forgets previous filter settings every time the game is restarted. It is also not viewable in-game, which is a nice convenience in games such as Team Fortress 2.

Further, there is no way to see at-a-glance the current spread of classes on your team, no way to find the name of the current server outside of loading screens, the context-sensitive comm-system offers no quick way to thank another player, and there's no way to tell how many team-mates are riding in an APC or tank without attempting to enter yourself. Little things.

The worst of Bad Company 2's sins however, is the auto-balancer: it doesn't auto-balance. It is inert, inactive, passive - it does nothing. Compounding the problem is the well-intentioned limit on team-switching, which prevents you from switching teams too often. If you have already switched once in a match, switching back to even out the numbers will often not be allowed. As a consequence, 18 on 11 steam-rolls are not an uncommon occurrence. Presumably, this *will* be patched, but for the time being it is quite frustrating.

Overall, Bad Company 2 is a blast; a fantastic pseudo-realistic shooter in a distinguished line of such games. It has problems, but, encouragingly, they are almost all of the sort that can be patched relatively easily – hopefully DICE will deliver.

4/5

PLUS:
-Brilliant sound effects
-Top-line graphics
-Team-focused game play

MINUS:
-Adequate-at-best server browser
-No LAN support