Monday, January 30, 2006

Super Mario Strikers (GC)

Reviewed by Kit and Yuuki
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This is a Mario sports game. Soccer if you really must know. You kick the ball, you pass the ball, you kick Peach into the electric fence…or was that only us? Ok…there’s not much to explain so let’s get to the review.
Graphics: Graphically it’s the best of the Mario sports games yet. It uses Gamecube’s graphical cuteness to its fullest. There are nice little cute scenes for doing super strikes, a goal kicking move that earn you two points. After a while they become annoying though, and are a bit generic. 4/5
Audio: The screams were nice. Voice acting was good, at least for a sports game. The best of the Mario sports games. There are cheering crowds, ball kicking noises, and Peach’s screams of pain….Have we mentioned how much that entertains us? 5/5
Gameplay
: There are four main buttons to be aware of. A passes, B kicks, Y tackles or dekes, and X uses items. The game is simple enough to pick up but there are more difficult skills to develop as well, such as perfect passes and super strikes. Team captains can perform super strikes, which though difficult to master are extremely useful, again 2 points per goal with them. A team is comprised of one captain and three players. The players can be Birdo, Hammer Bros, Koopas, and Toads. Each has its own strengths. I like Birdos for their tackling range, while Toads are nice because of their speed. The main purpose of the game is to play eight cups. The rewards for these are more cups opened up. Nothing exciting. It is much more fun to bring in friends to control the entire team. 5/5
Story: There isn’t one. It’s a sports game. Maybe there’s something involving Bowser…as he randomly shows up to cause mayhem, and you get to meet some of his minions in the final cups. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is tossing Peach into the walls. 2/5
Replay
: After you beat the cups, it’s much more fun to use as a party game. There are also trophies for doing certain things..such as knocking people down. These open special items to use in grudge matches (the none cup version of gameplay). They’re not that necessary, but very neat. 5/5
Overall
: There is little limit to how much fun you can have with this game. It’s fun by itself, but with people it’s excellent. Besides actually playing soccer, you’ll have a large amount of fun tackling and punting the ball around. And there is always Peach’s screams. 5/5

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Suikoden Tactics (PS2)

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Yo people welcome back. Today I have a game known as Suikoden tactics. If your fan of the series the majority takes place only a few years after 4. If your not a fan then shush and read.

Gameplay: Alright I am a huge fan of both Suikoden and tactics games. This is basically like any other tactics game. You move, they move, someone does something, and then everyone dies. Well not that simple but you get my drift. The game does share some nice features that can be both annoying and really useful. One being the elemental ground. As in stand on the wrong element get hurt and stand on the right kind and get healed. Another feature i grew to love is the fact that not story characters can die in combat and not ever come back. This isn't a bad thing because by the time you get all the good characters you'll have way more than you need so kill some. 3/5

Story:
Alright Suikoden games always have good stories. Lots of deep plot twist and stories that arc threw the games. Like Why is Jeane still alive and hot...seriously she's like 200...This game is no excetion. Your father is investigating Rune Cannons and at some point gets turned into a fish monster and dies. You then take hold of Kyril (the son) and his friends and begin investigating. Which leads to all sorts of trouble and of course a plot so deep you can't see teh bottom. 5/5

Graphics:
Suikonden games haven't ever had teh best graphics, but they've never had bad graphics. Tactics is no exception. The game has just so so battle and character graphics. Though the opening looks nice and important characters speech windows are accompanied by nicely drawn headshots. This is nothing new to the series though. 3/5

Sound:
Ok I'm never really one for audio as I don't pay the best attention. This game though got my attention the opening song was beautifully composed. Voice acting was excellent hands down some of the best casting. If your a fan of the series you'll like what they done. Battle music, ambience, and great suspenseful melodies to go with the cut scenes. 5/5

Replay:
Alright I personally didn't have enough time to really replay the game, but I wanted to. Partly because I missed things and I kinda wanted the 100% and secondly as I wanted to see the differences added into the game+. So I'd recommend a replay especially if you have Suikoden 4 data. It let's you get Snowe and Hero. 3/5

Overall:
This is a good game and a nice new flavor to the series. Though it doesn't have to much to do with the main plot of the Suikoden as a whole its still pretty good. Its fun for the most part though sometimes you'll find yourself going off to level as fast as you can as enemies are mildly unbalanced sometimes. Also you'll prolly do a more than a few battles more than once trying to keep characters alive and trying to get the strat. right. Though is you like Suikoden or really like tactics games get this if not then procede at your own risk. 3/5

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Kit's Rant #1

As you might have noticed by now, our site is called Game Ranters. Also you might have noticed that as of yet, we've only really hated one game. Most of the stuff we've done have been good reviews. Don't think that means they all will. The fact is that for the most part the games we've just reviewed have been things we played before we decided to start this site. Thus, we had already done some research on them before subjecting ourselves. Soon we shall have an influx of games we would normally never touch, so expect some more varied reviews. In any case, that is not what this post is about. This post is Kit's Rant #1. I figured if I couldn't rant about games, I'll rant about somethings I've read in the gaming magazines recently.

So, here we go. In the past few months Nintendo Power, Official Playstation Magazine, and Electronics Gaming Monthly have released lists of the top 200 games (I only read the top 40), the 100 games you must play before you die, and the 100 greatest games of their time. There are two points to be made before I start, both OPM and NP are limited to thier respective concoles in their choices, and people are entitled to their own opinions and not limited to my RPG heavy preferences. However, there are some strange choices I feel. For example, OPM has ATV Offroad Fury, NP has Goldeneye 007, and EGM has NHLPA Hockey '93. I am not saying these are bad games. I can't, I've never played them, but are these really must plays? Anyway, this also is not what I want to rant about. My goal in this long, drawn out rant is...the overall choices.

NP places Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time at number one. Excellent game. Great choice. Of course the top ten are Marios, Metroids, Zeldas...and oddly enough Resident Evil 4, which is a good game, and i'm getting a review on soon. In their top 40 is also Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV (2 to most people), and Final Fantasy VI (3). That pleases me. NP did a great job of mixing Nintendo games with the other greats that came out onto their systems. Good job NP!

EGM did the 200 greatest games fo thier time. Some I question, and there is some placements that I would do differently, but overall it's not bad. Can you guess what is #1? That's right...or wrong depending on your guess. It's Super Mario Bros. Certainly that is one of the greatest games ever. Not because it's particularly good, but because for many this was the first console game you ever played. Also in their countdown...Pac-man (come on, you know you still play it), Pong, Super Mario Kart, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, Mortal Kombat, Pokemon Red/Blue, Halo 2..and so on. See, I tried to add some games that didn't appeal to me but would probably appeal to you. Not bad overall. *clap clap*

Then there is OPM. OK..some choices here I go WTF. Others I go, yeah I can see that, but then I read their reasons for said choices, and I bang my head against the wall. You wanna know why Dark Cloud 2 made the list? No, it's not because it's a great game. The reason they mentioned was that is was done by Level-5, the graphic designers of Dragon Quest VIII. Yes, they picked a game because it was made by people who made another game look pretty. Sadly, that wasn't what upset me most. The inclusion of Chrono Cross did...but let's not even touch that one. First, they did not add any games that had not been originally for the PS. Goodbye FFIV, FFVI, and CT. I can sort of understand, but still...come on. Then there was Final Fantasy VII. Ok, don't get me wrong. It's a great game. It has a good plot, good characters, not a bad magic/battle system. So what did they say that upset me. They said it was the greatest FF ever. They said that it had great graphics...it did. They implied that it was the first of the games where someone died. Ok...so most of you gamers who do play RPGs started with FFVII. Good, that's fine. But do not think that this is the be all and end all of FFs or RPGs in general. Meh...anyway, OPM had some good picks, but really, put some more thought into your reasons. Yeah...so I'm gonna go now. Don't hate me because I had to rant.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Mario Kart DS (DS)

Reviewed by Kit
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Yay, Mariokart. I’ve loved the series since the SNES, and this one is probably the best of the bunch. It’s a racing game if you didn’t know. So the purpose is to race and win. There are eight cups to play through in four different modes. Also there is battle mode and an adventure mode, which is basically do this thing X in a set amount of time.
So without further ado:

Graphics: It’s on the DS, so you can’t expect total realism. I’d put the graphics on par with the 64 version. 4/5
Story: Story, where? It’s a racing game. Win, win, win, and that is it. 1/5
Audio: About your standard audio soundtrack. Each stage has a track of music. They’re not memorable. 3/5
Gameplay: If you played the GBA version of Mario Kart, you might have some serious doubts about how a hand-held does handling. Have no fear, that’s not a problem in this version. The handling is very much as like the SNES version. It’s somewhat less sensitive than the GC. Also there are 27 karts and 12 characters. Each kart has stats in handling, weight, items, speed, acceleration, and drift. Of course if you know how to play the game you can handle any kart with any character. But everyone has their favorites. I play Luigi in the Streamliner…a favorite I stole from my sister, who now plays Dry Bones. Besides the excellent single player mode, MKDS also has online capabilities using Nintendo Wi-Fi. It’s very very nice this online mode. I can now play with people even when I have no friends around. Of course it would be even nicer if battle mode was available online as well. 5/5
Replay
: After you beat all the single player modes, most of what is left is the online game. That of course is fun, so it’s no problem. 4/5
Overall
: It’s a great Mario kart game. I don’t know what else to say that I haven’t already told you except, if you like Mario Kart, then you must pick this up. 4/5

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Trapt (PS2)

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Yuuki again, here to do my Review of Trapt. A gift from the god that is Tecmo. Ok so the basic outline of the game is your a helpless princess trying to discover the truth behind a murder, a cult, and herself. The game is called Trapt because she seems to always be stuck in a bad situation and has to fight her way out using...*drum roll* Traps!

Gameplay: Alright this is how it works you set traps and once they are charged you try to lure enemies onto them, you can guess what happens next. There are 3 types of traps: Wall which are mostly projectiles like arrows and buzzsaws. Floor which most hold foes for other traps like the vacuum floor and the bear trap. Last are ceiling traps these are the heavy damage but they are hard to aim, these are things like the Iron Ball and the Devil Fist. Each type of trap is activated by one of your buttons Square Triangle and X, Circle opens the setup for the traps. This inventive and orginal even though traps are the only offensive thing you can do. 5/5

Story:
You play the role of Allura a princess framed with murdering her father. She flees the kingdom with her maid Rachael. While its quite obvious that its all the evil step-mother's doing no one believes you and thus you are hunted. Rachael takes you the Royal families Manor which happens to be inhabitted by an evil fiend who possesses your arm and gives you the power of Traps. As the story goes the plot gets thick with vengeance and betrayal. You'll never know whose a friend and who isn't. 4/5

Graphics:
This was done well. Characters important to the story have beautifl costumes while unimportant characters or fodder look a little recycled but are still different enough to be enjoyable. Trap animations are done well and the added bonus of the nice matrix like cutscene everytime an enemy gets caught in one your traps is nice too. If your crafty enough some levels have special giant traps that have nice cutscenes of people being dragged through gears and such. The game is pretty gorey though. 5/5

Sound:
The audio was good, all the voice acting which there is alot of is done in Japanese. Music wasn't very prominent though it also wasn't all that important. SE was good, rattling chains the sounds of bones being shattered and such. Not alot to be said about this department it was kinda just done and done. 3/5

Replay:
The game has 4 ending, 3 of which unlock special bonus traps there is also this nice feature called side story which lets you play a battle before you start each story battle. There is one before every level and there are 2 sets of these which alternate as you beat and rebeat the game. You also can't get all the traps on your first time through and game is honestly enjoyable enough that you well want to play it atleast twice. 4/5

Overall:
Overall this is a really good game that has been overlooked. Its orginal and inventive, don't get turned off by that. The story is pretty good lots of great plot twists and surprises. I've played through it twice now and I am debating a 3rd time. I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes and engaging story and a good violent game. 5/5

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Shadow the hedgehog (PS2, XBox, GC) by Yuuki

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Hail me for I am Yuuki writer of Reviews!!! Squee!!! Today children I have for you a game that’s been discussed a lot recently, Shadow the Hedgehog. Lots of people sad this game would be crap and was nothing like any of the other sonic games. They lied, are dumb, or some combination. It’s basically just like every other sonic game made 3D only with optional weapons and a new hero.

Gameplay : Alright if you played the last Sonic game you’ll know how to lay this with the exception of now you can pick up weapons dropped by enemies and use them. Hurray another sonic.
Racing around at high speeds is still a major part as Shadow has 2 speeds, stopped and warp 9. Rings are still Rings nothing changed there. The only real new feature is the different paths you can take. Though like I said none of this is anything really revolutionary. 3/5

Story: Hurray now you can find out about the little black hedgehogs past and why he says “Maria” all the time. So depending on which of the 5 paths you take you get 1 of 10 endings. I won’t spoil them for you. So yes play this if you’d like to know where little Shadow came from. If you don’t care then get Sonic Adventures for the GC or Dreamcast, cause well its better...its has Chaos. 3/5

Graphics : These look nice. Enemies and cut scenes are done well and your little black hero and his wavy Ferra hair look nice too. Lots of shiny objects, brightly colors beams/lasers/crap flung at you, and expanses areas. Especially the space levels which I hate but, they look really freaking awesome.
4/5

Sound: Voice acting check. Music check. SE check. Hmm...everything in this department is done well. Though nothing particularly stood out it was all very in time and appropriate. 3/5

Replay: This is the games shining grace because, if you want to get all the ending you have to beat the game ten times. I personally am happy with 4 maybe five endings but, I am also personally lazy
Though for someone who wants to se all the aspects of our black friend here beat the game 10 times there’s only like 5 stages per path it doesn’t take long. 4/5

Battlefield 2 (PC)

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Hi Everyone!
This is Urduar, a guest reviewer Kit dragged out from under a rock to review some PC games. My first review will be Battlefield 2, the latest iteration of the Battlefield series of online multiplayer FPS war games.
The first thing to keep in mind is that BF2 requires a powerful computer. A *VERY* powerful computer. In fact, many players of BF2 have been forced to upgrade their computers simply to play this game. The official requirements for the game are listed as a 1.7ghz P4/Athlon XP system, a GeForce FX 5700/Radeon 8500 video card, 512MB of RAM, and a broadband connection. However, if you pick up the game planning on having an amazing experience with your Radeon 8500 video card, you're in for a big disappointment.

My personal machine is an Athlon 3400+ with an AGP GeForce 6800GT video card and 1GB of RAM. With this machine I'm able to run on medium/high settings on the game; however, I'll still get occasional graphics lag, and setting Texture Detail to High causes load times to skyrocket. Perusing the forums it seems like the majority of users have machines matching or exceeding mine, with the occasional player using an older video card complaining about having to use the minimum settings to make the game playable. The game is extremely hard on your video card, and I'd say that the minimum reasonable video card would be a Radeon 9800 Pro or the equivalent for a decent gaming experience. Also, the game requires massive amounts of RAM or you will experience huge lag and loading times, 1GB seems to be about the minimum to keep the game running fairly smoothly.
With that out of the way, I can proceed with the actual review.

Graphics: While the price of admission is very high, BF2 is one of the few games that truly takes advantage of your shiny new x1800/7800gtx video card(s). The graphics on the game approach photorealism, with incredible detail that may tempt you to climb on top of a building and simply take in the view of lazy white clouds meandering across the skies over a sprawling mideast city or towering partially constructed dam. Well, at least take it in until a sniper on a crane nails you in the head with his M24. Everything in the game is rendered in superb detail, from the soldiers themselves, to tanks, to an aircraft carrier that the US uses for its base on some maps. 5/5

Story: Not much of a story here, basically just the US attacking the Middle East and China. This ain't an RPG. 1/5

Gameplay: Now THIS is what this game is about. Your squad (which are new to the Battlefield series) stealthily sneaks up around a break in the wall surrounding a villa housing an important flag. You communicate to each other over VOIP, a squadmate Spec Ops. sneaks closer and reports that there are three enemy troops and an APC guarding the building. He sneaks in closer, planting C4 on the back of the APC and rushing back behind a large plant to avoid detection. The driver of the APC notices him fleeing away and begins peppering the area with explosive cannon fire, causing the enemy troops to rush forward to see what's going on. As the squadmate detonates the C4, killing the driver and leaving the APC as a burning pile of twisted metal, the enemies open up, blasting their automatic weapons in your direction. Your squad rushes forward while two members return fire, running through the hail of bullets towards close-in covered positions. A squadmate shouts a warning as he pitches a grenade forward, bouncing towards the enemy troops before detonating and killing two of them. The last enemy takes one of your squadmates down before finally succumbing to the concentrated gunfire, leaving the flag to be taken. You rush forward and revive the squadmate, leaving your entire squad intact and the flag is yours!

At least until a Blackhawk comes and mows everyone down with miniguns just after the flag is neutralized.

This is the type of scenario that is possible if you play BF2 as a team, letting the teamwork aspects truly shine through. However, on public servers teamwork is somewhat rare, with most people generally attempting to gain as many points from killing enemies as possible with no regard for teamwork or cooperation. Still, as far as first person shooters go, BF2 is extremely enjoyable even when teamwork is out to lunch. The vehicles, from jeeps to jets, give the player many options for ways to play the game. Many players find a favorite vehicle to use, and someone that loves being the gunner in an attack helicopter might not enjoy driving a tank at all. All of the vehicles are simplified compared to other games which are dedicated simulators (flying a jet in BF2 is not even comparable to flying one in IL-2 Sturmovik), however no other game includes the range of controllable vehicles which BF2 offers. It makes for a unique and very enjoyable experience. 5/5

Audio: The sounds in BF2 are wonderful, from the deafening explosions of artillery to the shriek of jets flying overhead. They are incredibly immersive, and can be enhanced further with a Creative X-Fi card (note: ONLY the X-Fi Fatal1ty card can use the special "X-Fi" sound settings on BF2). However, even without the X-Fi, the sound effects in BF2 are great. Now if only the game had great music like in BF:Vietnam... 4/5

Replay: Since BF2 has no story and is basically just an endless set of matches on various maps, there's nothing limiting the replay (other than getting tired of of maps or other people). People have logged hundreds of hours on this game (in fact, the stats tracker has a Cents Per Hour number tracking how much it has cost you per hour of play, dividing 50 bucks by the number of hours of play) 5/5

Overall: BF2 isn't a perfect game, if you read forums about it you'll see plenty of people complaining about everything from bunnyhopping noob-tubers (people that hop around shooting a grenade launcher at you for an instant kill) to TKing chopper whores (people that insist on flying the helicopters, and will teamkill anyone else who tries to get in it) to autopunishers (people who will use the "Punish" option when accidentally killed by a teammate, causing them to lose more points and possibly be kicked from the server). Also, there are a few annoying bugs in the game such as the red nametag bug, which gives a teammate a red nametag (teammates are supposed to have blue nametags) causing you to teamkill them. However, in spite of all of that, those same people who are complaining continue playing this game, and there's a reason for that. It's an amazing game experience, and definately worth the money assuming you have a computer up to the task. Highly recommended. 4/5

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (X-box, PS2)

Reviewed by Kit and Yuuki
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Co-op game! Co-op review! Double trouble. We both played it. We both critique it. And now I’m done writing simple sentences. So, let’s get on with the review.
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows is an action/adventure game, or as I like to call it hack-n-slash. It’s another in the series of Gauntlet, but there are distinct differences. The game now lacks unlockable characters, and you are limited to four choices at the beginning…choices that cannot even change clothing colors. Well, that’s enough description, let’s begin.

Gameplay: The gameplay was good. It’s not your average Gauntlet. Instead of your patented super moves, there are now combos. Simple to use, pretty to look at. There are four difficulties in this game. We played on normal and died many times. And we’re good at these kind of games. Bosses are evil. Unless you’re on easy, don’t expect to breeze through. 4/5

Story: Basically the four heroes of gauntlet have been chained to a tree so the king could steal their immortality. The king feels bad and frees them. The catch is that the heroes must now hunt down the six advisors who have become mutated monsters. 3/5

Graphics: The graphics were about on par with other PS2 games. Higher level combos, weapons, and armor looked good. The monsters were also attractive. 3/5

Audio: I don’t remember the songs. They were very average. So were all the sounds in the game. 2/5

Replay: You can beat the game in twelve hours with a friend, and that’s if you take your time. The only purpose to play through is to use any characters that might not have been used yet, or to play with friends. 2/5

Overall: The game is short, the story is thin, and the extras are not there. It’s a decent game for the weekend, but don’t expect to use it for much longer than that. We recommend renting. If you want a good gauntlet experience, go with Dark Legacy for PS2. 3/5

Yuuki's Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

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Yuuki here again to do my review of Shadow of the Colossus. The game is made by SCEA and from what I can tell looks like a prequel to ICO. Basically though the game is Kill Giants!

Gameplay: The game handles beautifully. Controls are simple and easily learned. The object is to get form point A to point B, B being a giant monster of one form or another. Then climb this giant beast and drive you glow in the dark nail file of a sword into their brains. 5/5

Story:
This is thin at best, your given little backround about the mystic lands where these giant rule other than its cursed. Your backround is unimportant cause you don't even have a name. Your horse has one but not you. Your trying to bring your dead girlfriend back from the dead and you made a pact with the sun god. Uh yeah that's it. Basically its just an excuse to kill giant monsters. 2/5

Graphics:
These are beautiful the map is huge and filled with vivid little details. Your character and horse are done nicely but can be glitchy. Colossi seem to be where all the graphics went, probably because its about them. They look awesome, hair, eyes, fingers, all done magnificently. This game looks great. 4/5

Sound:
The audio is excellent like pretty much everything else. The quick changes from soft easy toned to the suspenseful "wheres this thing gonna appear from and what will it look like", to the "Holy crap look at the blood!" The talking seems to be done in some strange tongue or japanese I don't know. But the only decernable words I ever got was "Argo" which is the horse.
None the less the voice were done well. 5/5

Replay:
Ok the game is kinda short even with 16 colossi the time attack, hard mode, and hard time attack add a little bit. Though I still got 100% in about a week and 30-40 hours of gameplay. 3/5

Overall:
Overall the game rocks my socks. I wouldn't buy it new though. Buy it cheap used or wait for it to cheapen up a bit. It's worth buying or renting once or twice. I'd buy it though because you never know when you'll get the urge to kill a giant monster. So pick it up I really recommend this one it's pretty, fun, and good to watch your friend play afterwards. 5/5

Friday, January 06, 2006

Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2

Reviewed by Kit

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Cel-shading, voice-acting, British slang…things never before seen in a Dragon Quest game. And they work, let me tell you. But enough about the new little aesthetics that have been added to the series. First, I’ll begin with a little bit of plot summary. You begin the game with a hero, an ex-thief, a toad-like creature, a horse, and a carriage. The horse and toad creature are actually a princess and a king, and the hero was a loyal soldier who worked at their castle. The quest begins outside of a town where you are looking for a man who might be able to lift the cruse from the king and his daughter.

There are four major characters, and each character has five ability categories that can receive skill points whenever someone levels up. For example the hero has Sword, Spear, Boomerang, Fisticuffs, and Courage. Enough points in the courage category will reward the player with abilities such as Zap, Tingle, or Zoom (greatest spell ever).

I could probably go into a lot of details about what is involved in this game, but let’s get on with the breakdown and I’ll mention some of my favorite aspects.

Graphics: More than likely you’ll be like everyone else, look at this game, and go, “OMG it looks just like Dragonball Z.” And you wouldn’t be incorrect. As you probably know by now, the art designer was Akira Toriyama, who does DBZ as well as artwork in games such as Chrono Trigger. Still, the graphics are beautiful with cel-shading, and the character animations give a liveliness to monsters and NPCs alike. 4/5

Story: Epic…Deep, beautiful, and full. Still, I wouldn’t consider it the most action-packed, and there are moments where you will just want to bang your head on the table until something picks up. 4/5

Gameplay: The battle interface is simple to use. It’s turn based completely. You pick what you want to do without having any idea how the monsters will treat you that turn. So, if your character has low health, but not life-threatening, you might want to consider healing anyway as you don’t know what creatures might decide to critical on him. The skill system is interesting. 4/5

Audio: Good music, but nothing outstanding. There are some scores that are beautiful or even nostalgic. Still, there is voice-acting done in the cut scenes, and these are well done. The British voices add flavor to the characters, and there are British puns throughout the game, like the characters Bangers and Mash. 4/5

Replay: It is a long game. Once you make it through, I doubt you will want to play it again. But there are things that you can do differently in another run through. Put skills in another category, do more in the monster arena, or ride around on the sabrecat for hours. 3/5

Overall: It’s a good game, a great game even. It’s long, it’s beautiful, it has a plot worth playing. I would recommend this to any hardcore RPG player with a good amount of time on their hands. 4/5

Cubivore (GC) by Yuuki

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Welcome back little children, today I will tell you about a cute little game called Cubivore. So let's begin.

Gameplay: Ok the mechanics of this game aren't hard to master. In fact nothing about this game should be termed hard other than the fact that its all cubes...All in all though its easy to play. 3/5

Story: Uh these weird silvery things came and took all the color from the wilderness. Their leader ate all these things called Raws. He has six and a couple of his minions have some. Basically you hunt, eat, mate, die, and are reborn into one of your offspring slowly getting stronger and such. 2/5

Graphics:
Ok the game is about color for christ sakes. It's bright and vibrant, lots of good cell-shadeyness. It's kinda annoying that everything is square though. I mean everything water ripples, blood splatter...everything...though I must admit it is cute for the length of the game. 3/5

Sound: The music like everything else is really cute and nice...but the horrible sounds of the little creatures as I tore there cubey limbs off was quite amusing. 3/5

Replay:
Ok for one I beat this in 6 hours...I didn't go 100% on getting all the forms and such but yeah the game isn't longer than 10 hours. 1/5

Overall:
It's really entertaining for about 6 hours then...you beat it...then you watch your friend beat it...then you return it and giggle about it for the rest of your life. Though honestly if the game weren't made solely of cubes it would be horribly graphic and much more entertaining. The games fun for a weekend of silliness but that's about it after that give it to your little cousin. 3/5

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

ZOMG Yuuki here to tell you aobut some of my upcoming reviews ^-^ I'll be doing reviews for Shadow of the Colossus, Shadow the Hedgehog, and something without the word shadow in it Magna Carta. Also I will be keeping my eye on a few games as information is released ^-^ see ya later.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Nintendogs for the DS

Reviewed by Kit

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I picked up this game expecting something simple, cute, and overall easy. The plot of Nintendogs is that you go to a kennel, buy yourself a puppy, and train this puppy to be all it can be so that you can buy a better apartment and more puppies. I knew prior to playing this game that Nintendogs makes great use of the DS touch screen, but I had no idea that I would actually make use of the DS microphone.
So that is where we begin, with my picking up a cute puppy and learning that he would actually have to respond to my voice. Let me tell you now…my puppy does not respond to my voice. I’m not sure if this is my own fault or some bad game design, but little Ein, as my puppy is named, learned to sit on command and immediately forgot it in five minutes. This caused me no end to my frustration. In fact, I reset my game data twice in hopes of finding a puppy with a more intelligent disposition. It never worked, but I’ve managed to work past this. I spent my time building up the affection between my puppy and me instead. I take him for walks often, and he has just recently won first place in the championship agility tournament. No mother could be prouder.
Despite my anxiety of teaching Ein tricks, I have found Nintendogs to be very enjoyable. I find myself keeping an eye on the clock to find out when I can next take my puppy on another walk (you can only walk him every thirty minutes). Watching Ein learn how to run the obstacles in the agility training (and you can most definitely watch your dog improve as you practice again and again) was extremely exciting.
So here’s my breakdown:
Graphics: OMG, the dogs look like dogs. They react to how you pet them. Roll Ein over and rub his belly, he wiggles in appreciating. You can distinctly tell what each breed is. It’s beautiful, and very much making use of the DS’s capabilities. 5/5
Sound
: Sound isn’t so important in this game. At least not the listening part of it. There is background noise: cars driving by, birds chirping, Ein barking because he’s not getting enough attention. 3/5
Game play
: The game play is fairly simple. It relies on the stylus heavily, and what isn’t based off the stylus is voice command. The amount of interaction with your puppy is amazing, and it’s fun to sit around and pet your puppy for long periods at a time (and do expect to do this). 4/5
Story
: Ok, there is no story. You buy a puppy and pamper it. It’s fun, it’s cute, it has no plot. 1/5
Replay
: Currently, I am still very much in thrall of Ein. Walking him, bathing him, watching him play with other puppies, and exploiting him to buy me a better house is wonderful. But I understand this will not last. Eventually I will tire of my little corgi and his antics. So I cannot be sure of replay value, but if I would probably pick it up again after some time. 3/5
Overall: Puppies, puppies, puppies! It’s a great game and very cute. Some annoyances in the voice command area, but that can be worked around (my idea, never worry about the obedience competitions). I would recommend it for people who can find 30 minutes to an hour a day to pet, walk, bathe, and pamper a digital puppy. 4/5

Riviera for the GBA

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Yuuki here to give you my review of Riviera: The Promised Land. Here's how this will go. I'll just on the basics of the game: Story, Gameplay, Graphics, Aduio, Replay Value, and then end with a overall rating. So let's get into this.

Story: Okay so to start the story seems really good. Gods and Demons were at war and the gods won, but now the gods are gone and the demons are back. So the servants of the gods, the Magi send 2 little soldiers to beat up all the demons and activate some ancient ritual. These 2 are the Grim Angels. This seems good on paper...but then you discover this game makes a desperate attempt to be deep and epic. It fails misserably. 2/5

Gameplay: The gameplay was some attempt to be orginal. Featuring a unique battle and field movement style. Both are interesting at first, but quickly become nothing more than irritating. The fact I need to have technical points to look around an area or the fact I require items to do actions in battle is just plain dumb. OMG I can't throw the switch to stop the water from rising and drowning me because I don't have enough TP...seriously that's just dumb. 2/5

Graphics:
For a GBA game I wouldn't have expected much but this looked like a bad snes nightmare. Trying to borrow the pastel soft line style of Phantom Brave and Disgaea. They could have done alot more. Areas had little to no interactivity and the characters could simply swap hair and you'd never know the difference. 2/5

Audio:
Hurray something not sucky suck suck...The music and battle themes were actually kinda tuney. Special attacks gave nice little voice bites that gave slight depth to the near depthless characters. I guess that's where all the money that should have gone into graphics and beating the people who designed the gameplay went. 4/5

Replay:
I'd rather eat the game then replay it. Playing it the first time is like burning your finger tips with a cigarette bud, so why subject yourself to that. 0/5

Overall:
Okay overall this game isn't worth anything. If you really wanna try it download it. The game is good for those kind of people who liked really messed up odd gameplay and are good at those kinds of things. Being this is a game from Atlus I expected alot more, alas "The Promise was broken" as some would say. All in all its really a bad game that tried very hard to be orginal and pretty. Can't blame it for trying but I will burn it for sucking. 1/5

Introduction

Hello, people of the internet! Welcome to the blog designed for game reviews. My name is Kit; I shall be your host for this ride. Your co-pilot on this flight is Yuuki. Don't worry, he has had his shots. However, don't poke him with sticks, he might become aggressive. Our mission on this blog is to review games for you, the passengers on this flight. We will review games as they come out, and if you would like to have a specific game reviewed, write us, and we will do our best to inform you about these games. Do keep in mind that we can only play so many games at once. Besides reviews on new releases, Yuuki and I will write occasional retro-reviews on some of our all time favorite games. Also, Yuuki will provide comical interpretations of some reviews because some reviews just need it. Feel free to leave comments if you disagree with our reviews, and as always, do keep in mind that these reviews are two people's perspectives and you might find a game more or less to your liking than we did.

Now, as your hosts on this lovely new site, we should tell you about ourselves. Enough to let you know our personal biases, likes, dislikes, and maybe a few insanities.

First, myself. My name is Kit, I'm a college student, and I am really a female gamer.

My preferred genre: RPGs. I've been playing since the days of the NES starting with games like Final Fantasy, Crystalis, and Dragon Warrior.
My least favorite genres: Fighting and Sports
My top five games of all time: 1) Final Fantasy 6, 2) Chrono Trigger, 3) Final Fantasy 4, 4)Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, 5)MarioKart (all systems)
As you can see, I'm an old-school RPG player, but I do enjoy new games as well.

Ok my turn, Hi I'm Yuuki I care little for grammar or spelling errors so expect them ^-^. I'm an unempolyed housemate. I pay rent by providing domestic services. In other words I'm Kit's house keeper. My gender Male.

My preferred genre: Adventure/Rpg. I love a good RPG but honestly I have the attention span of a gerbil of crack. So shorter Adventure RPGs are really my taste.
My least favorite genres: Sports games blow...
My top five games of all time: 1)Final Fantasy Tactics, 2) Harvest Moon 64, 3) Super Smash Bros. Melee, 4)Monster Hunter 5) Digimon World 1
I enjoy alot of odd games most people pass off. I'm a bit more modern then Kit tho...she old school hardcore and I'm a scene kid. WOOTZERS!!!!

Our goal is to put out at least one review a week of a recently released game. Also we will write about gaming news, previews, and anythign else we feel is related. As a disclaimer, while we might be able to provide PC game reviews from our friends, it is highly unlikely that we will have these, and we will not take PC review requests.

Thanks for stopping by, and we hope to see you again soon.