Your Latest Game Purchase and How it Fares

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Ahh, the post-christmas discount bins just keep getting larger and larger, still this far into the new year, yahoo.

It\'s a good thing, good games for cheap, a time to get some new experiences you might\'ve missed along the years. It was a strange experience for me, as I purchased the first PS2 game that has fallen superlatively short of my expectations. And I didn\'t even have any expectations.

The game being Herdy Gerdy.

There doesn\'t seem to be anything fundamentally wrong game wise, actually there\'s a rather enjoyable little adventure in there... there, under the pitifully shaky visual output, eep. The whole game seems to have this "smudged" look, kinda like some compressed MPEG1 videos. And the framerate is HORRIBLE! HORRIBLE I TELL YOU! AAIIEEE! Under all that, the animation routines and game mechanics seem almost above average, but they\'re hidden behind the... ugliness... ugh.

The game itself is pretty fun, the herding routines are very simple, but there\'s something oddly compelling in it after all... then the framerate kicks down and the camera goes screwy. Yay! I\'ve also managed to crash the game a couple of times. Which is super-annoying; a Gromp had eaten a poisoned snail, and the poison wore off during a cut-scene. The game couldn\'t handle it and crashed. It wouldn\'t be that bad, IF I HAD FOUND A SAVE POINT BEFORE THIS HAPPENED! Well, about 45 minutes down the drain again.

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Not a game, but a game-related purchase... or to-be-purchase, actually. Just today I got a call from a local music store; my Grand Theft Auto : Vice City Original Sountrack 7CD box has arrived!!! I\'m gonna pick it up tomorrow

I am the proud new owner of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter for Gamecube, and Splinter Cell for X-Box.

I\'ll tell you how they fare later.

I\'ve gotten quite a few games since my last posts here...

Phantasy Star Collection - GBA   - Love it

Animal Crossing - NGC                - Loved it.. but it lost my interest quickly

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - NGC  -Nowhere near as good as SA1, but an above par platformer.

Darkened Skye - NGC - Pretty good... least in the story and dialouge department. The rest of the game is pretty lame.

Eternal Darkness - NGC - Ok.. but failing to grasp my attention for much longer than 20 mins at a time.

Medal of Honor: Frontline - NGC - Good game, but it should have been improved over the PS2 version.

Skies of Arcadia - Dreamcast - Wow......

Outtrigger - Dreamcast - Not what I expected, maybe it\'ll be better if I go online but I can\'t connect to the servers now.. or maybe ever again. ._.

I was gonna buy Die Hard: Vengance for the NGC out of pure lust for blood.. until I saw the "Sierra" logo on the bottom. Still, despite my boycott.. I gave this one a rent thinking Sierra learned a few lessons with Valve\'s HalfLife. Thank god I didn\'t buy it is all I have to say. What a waste of disk space.. has there ever been a good Die Hard game??

Oh... and Omen.. despite what the box and reviewers and store clerks and whoever says so.. Shenmue is NOT an RPG. It\'s an adventure game.. which is why you probably think it makes a piss poor RPG.

It\'s actually not that good of an Adventure game either.. but eh.. for a console adventure game, it\'s the best available, not to mention being a very good game on it\'s own merits.

Welcome back, SonyFan...

Danke

One more update, few more dollars.  Zoom zoom zoom.

Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox):  Well, it\'s great.  It\'s amazing.  It\'s super.  I bought it and reviewed it all in the same week.  Amazing.  It\'s at the bottom of this post.

Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2 (GCN):  It\'s OK to say the least, but it\'s nothing special.  It\'s definitely nothing compared to the first Soul Reaver and nowhere near as difficult as the first Blood Omen despite being two different games.

The Revenge of Shinobi (GBA):  Bad.  Depressing.  I don\'t know why Sega keeps making poor GBA games, with the exception of Super Monkey Ball Jr. and Sonid Advance, but they must have a good reason.  Maybe it\'s just the development houses they keep handing their properties off to, but they do piss poor jobs.  Avoid this one if you can.

Well, that\'s it for this week.  In the coming weeks, there\'s plenty of stuff coming out to look out for which are on my must buy list including Star Wars KotOR, GBA:SP, .hack, Capcom Vs SNK 2 EO, Unreal II: The Awakening, and hopefully, Guilty Gear XX.  Until then, here\'s a couple of reviews to enjoy.

Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox)

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance (Xbox)

Pro Race Driver (PS2)

Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland (GBA)

Until next time everyone!

AHEM AHEM!!!

Forgetting something?

The other day I bought Project Eden. Man that thing is old. And dayum \'tis good too! At least I like it at the moment, a lot. The aesthetics are pretty crude all round, but the control system and base idea that has you taking care of 4 characters at one time (almost?) work wondrously well. Yum. I\'m on level 3 now, and a bit stuck... i\'m 101% sure I\'ll be swearing my socks off after I notice I\'ve missed the blindingly obvious once again...

Small update again, here we go!

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Xbox): I wrote the review already.  It\'s below.

Suikoden III (PS2): It\'s an OK RPG, but I was mostly just borrowing it for a time being.  I never had a real commitment to it so maybe I\'m not the best judge for it.

War of the Monsters (PS2): I haven\'t really played it too much, but the presentation is superb and has that ultra retro 50\'s feel.  Incognito is really good with their presentation and ever since Twisted Metal Black, I\'ve always had a great deal of respect for them.  I\'m glad this game doesn\'t dissapoint in that regard.

Now, for some reviews!  Shenmue 2 will be here next week!  Perhaps even this week if I have time Friday!

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (GCN)

Revenge of Shinobi (GBA)

Tom Clancy\'s Splinter Cell (Xbox)

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Xbox)

Alright, till next week everyone.

Devil May Cry  2. Impressions here. http://www.psx2central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27745

Hurricane you slut, where are your reviews?

I\'ll have my Splinter Cell review up in a couple of days, as I get the game tomarrow

Bounty Hunter (GCN): - Well, in fact I returned this game.  I liked it, played it, beat it, and did not desire to play it again, so I took it to EB and traded it in (i\'ll get to that later).  Anyway, the game had a PHENOMENAL story to it, particularly telling you how Jango gets Slave 1 and how he was chosen for the clone army.  Bounty Hunter, the Gamecube version, had significantly better graphics than the PS2 counterpart.  The weapons were great, but not enough of them.  The whole idea of Bounty Hunting was great but died and lost interest towards the end of the game.  The gameplay itself was like most games, fun until it didn\'t change anymore.  The cinemas were fantastic, but the in game camera angles were abysmal.  Overall, this game is one of those that you rent.  It isn\'t worth buying becuase once you beat it there is nothing to really go back and do.  Sure there are secrets, but they\'re kinda dumb, comic book and TCG cards, nothing special.  There\'s only one mode of difficulty so it\'s really not worth going through the game again.  Anyway, if you are really into Star Wars, or your looking for a well polished Action-Adventure with some really great cinemas and sounds this is for you.  Rent it though, or use the EB 14-day policy, its worth it to play definatly, but not worth owning.

Splintercell (XBOX):  Can\'t say much about this, I played through training.  This game is sooo cool, unfortunately my brother took off with the X-Box and I haven\'t played it since.  A wonderful title, but I need to play it more before I review it.

As for today\'s purchases:

Mega Man Zero (GBA):  I started to play this.  This is a real tough Mega Man, but I\'m enjoying every moment of it.  I was expecting this game to be somewhat of a dud, but it\'s turning out to be a GREAT GBA platformer.  Any Mega Man fan should love this game, or if your looking for a Platformer, this is your game.  I\'ll review it further once I beat it.

Skies of Arcadia Legends (GCN):  Haven\'t removed it from plastic yet but I\'m interested to see what Sega did with its old classic.  Check back with me in a few weeks, I\'ll let you guys know how things are going.

Latest purchases...

Escape from Monkey Island - PS2: I\'d to go on and on about how Monkey Island is a great series and how well this game fits in with it.. but unfortunately I don\'t own a PS2 yet so I haven\'t had a chance to play it. Kinda dumb to buy a PS2 game when you don\'t have a PS2 huh? Well, jus two more weeks till my next paycheck....

Broken Sword - GBA: God damn I love BAM! Entertainment. After their stellar port of Wolfenstein 3D to the GBA, I was pleased to see their names in the credits for Broken Sword. Althought the complexities of porting a PC adventure game to the GBA seems to have proven a bit much for them. Don\'t get me wrong.. the game is still great.. it\'s just that Adventures (with the exception of Shenmue) have never been fully realized on consoles. Broken Sword is no exception. The graphics are very reminicent to the art style of Willy Beamish, and have translated nicely over beautifully despite the GBA\'s poor screen resolution. The storyline is completely intact.. along with all locations and dialouge from what I\'ve seen of it so far. Voices are absent, of course, but you can hardly expect that when it\'s a miracle they fit the whole game on a single dinky GBA cart. The real problem with Broken Sword is that you have no mouse cursor. Where once you had to pixel hunt with a mouse, you simply press either your L or R trigger to cycle through the "hotspots" on the screen. This makes the game very easy, as everything you need is simply laid out before you. The real meat of this adventure has been reduced to mere grissle IMO. Thankfully the story is captivating enough to keep the player engrossed in the game. Seems a nice mixture of the supernatural atmosphere of Gabriel Knight mixed with the sillyness of Simon the Sorcerer.

Resident Evil: 0 - NGC: I don\'t know why I bothered picking up this title.. I really don\'t. Resident Evil has been played out in my mind, but being the only semi-adventure game on the NGC I felt compelled to buy it. Thankfully the "Been here, Done that" feeling that I get when I play most Resident Evil games has been downplayed by a nice mix of original and fairly logical puzzles so far. (No moving statues to their proper touchplates to get Red Gems or Crests.. so far). Can\'t say I really care for being able to control two characters at the same time, but hopefully I\'ll become accustomed to it. Graphics are gorgeous.. as usual.. and while (I feel) the storyline is lacking.. at least it\'s something new so far. I\'ll reserve further judgement until I\'ve played it some more.