Kit's Rant #4

It's been awhile since I've ranted, so I thought why not? As always I was reading OPM and it made me think. Today though I wasn't thinking about how angry the stupid reviewers were being, not that they are always stupid just occasionally. I was reading the review for Xenosaga 3. I'm not particularly interested in this game, as I have not played 2 and am only partially through 1. The thing I noticed most about the review was that they were exclaiming how amazing it was that the main plotline of the story took a good 40 hours to complete.

Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone else remember a time when RPGs were expected to be at least 40 hours long? Back in the day of FF4, FF6, Chrono Trigger ( oh sure I've heard of people doing speed runs of about 5 hours, but really people that's not playing the game, that's racing it) games took time to beat. It was patience that got you through the large dungeons and castles and towns. And good plotlines pushed you forward so much that you never even noticed how much time you spent playing the game.

Let's take for example the game I've currently got in my PS2. It's a great game from 2001 called Dragon Warrior 7. I highly highly recommend it for RPGers. My point is however, that I am currently clocking in at 30 hours and I know that I am barely at halfway. Sure, I might have spent some time wandering around leveling unnecessarily, but that does not account for all 30 hours. This is a game with so many missions, as it were, that you have to devote a good amount of time to each one. Yet, like any great game, you don't feel like you've been in a time drain.

Well, now that I've praised DW7 (oh sure if you're a die hard you could call it DQ7, but I'm only diehard with the FFs :D) I'll conclude with my little rant/praise/waste of space. I haven't been as pleased with the most recent waves of RPGs, and this moment of thought might be a clue. People aren't spending the time necessary to build a great game. They throw in pretty visuals, an either unique story or generic plot, and enough side quests to last you a few extra hours. When you are done with it all, you have maybe 25 hours of very pretty, standardized RPG.

Let's take a moment folks and appreciate the game that took time. There is a name for game that take 15 hour to kill monsters and finish the plot: survival horrors (and no I'm not saying survival horrors suck, I love watching them myself, and occasionally pick up a camera and hunting ghosts). An RPG is supposed to be a game where you immerse yourself into the lives of the characters and feel like you are part of the story (story is essential in an RPG). While I suppose this is possible in 15-25 hours of gameplay, I think that a good game should take more than this. It takes more than 20 hours to get to know a person, one would assume it's the same for a game.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (All Systems)

Reviewed by Kit

Welcome back, and today's review will be about the greatest thing since sliced bread. Some that combines my love of Legos with my love of videogames, as well as some great Star Wars moments. Well then, here we go.

Story: The basic story follows the three original Star Wars movies. You begin the game in the Mos Eisley cantina, and you must first go into stage 1 of movie IV (A New Hope). After this you can go into any of the movie plots. There are 6 chapters to each movie, and you must complete 1 before 2, which you must complete before 3, etc. After completing story mode in IV: chapter 1, you can do the movies in any order you want. There are some cutscenes that, while they resemble the movie scenes, are generally much more humourous. For example, one scene has the storm troopers comforting each when Darth Vader gets mad at them for not being prepared. The game follows the movie plots well, and if you like Star Wars, you'll probably enjoy these Lego variations. 4/5

Audio: The music is basically taken from the movies, as well as the sound effects. There is no voice acting. Instead the Lego characters mumble incoherent noises that take the places as language. Again, if you liked the sounds of the movies, you'll probably have no problems here. 4/5

Graphics: Everything is made of Legos, with the exception of the backgrounds. Your characters are Legos, the vehicles are Legos, the bushes are Legos. Well, I'm sure you get the idea. This Legofication, as it were, makes destroying things entertaining because when you shoot a storm trooper, it doesn't just disappear, it splits into it's various Lego parts (head, arms, hat, legs). While the graphics might seem a bit childish and cute, one must bare in mind they are Legos, and it is at least something unique. 4/5

Gameplay: Gameplay is very simple. You attack with one button, use special abilities with another, jump with yet another (this is of course working from the Xbox premise, I'm sure the system is different on GBA and DS). You can switch to any character who is currently on your team, and you will need to in order to solve various puzzles. The game is also completely multiplayer (again this is the Xbox idea, I'm not sure how this works on the handhelds). If you have a friend, I would highly recommend having them play because companion AI is not very good. Oh, they will attack the enemy, but they don't seem to do any damage. Which means only a player can kill the enemy, and if the player has to build something (you put together piles of Legos sometimes to move on to the next area) then it is difficult to destroy the infinite spawning enemy. There are two types of stages. The first stage type is when you control the Lego people. The other stage type is when you control some sort of ship. You collect studs (money essentially) in the levels for purchasing bonuses in the cantina, but if you die a portion of these studs drop, and you have to try and recollect them after you respawn. There is no game over. Throughout the game you will only have four hearts for your life, but because there is no true death as it were, it's not so bad. Besides story mode, each level has a free mode where you can at will switch into any character you've unlocked in the cantina (and there are lots of characters). Different types of characters have different abilities. Jedis can move things with blue auras, the ewoks can squeeze into small spaces (yes you get to play as an ewok). People with blasters can grapple across or up areas. Droids are needed to use certain machines, and R2-D2 can also fly for short periods of time. Bounty Hunters (yes Boba Fett is unlockable) can throw thermal grenades. Storm troopers are needed to get into restrcted areas (though anyone in the empire can do this). Different characters have different strengths as well. Han Solo is probably the best of the blasters, with fast attacks and great dodging. Leia isn't particularly great, with a small jump and slow blasting skills, but she's fun to play if you do close up attacks (she slaps the enemy to pieces). Chewie has a short range attack where he rips off their Lego arms. Yoda has the best jump, but he's incredibly slow. Luke has the best attacks with the lightsaber. C3PO is slow and cannot jump at all (many puzzles revolve around this). In each stage there are 10 machine pieces and a gold brick to be found. You will have to go in free mode with lots of different character types to be able to find all of there. Collecting all 10 machine parts unlocks some sort of vehicle to rides around the cantina's outside, while finding the gold brick will allow you to buy some upgrade. There is a lot you can do with the game, and while it's not too difficult to figure out, it's also not something you will be able to do immediately. It does take time to find it all. 5/5

Replay: If you want to get 100% acheivement, then you will be playing the levels again and again. If you want to share with your friends the fun of Lego blasters, then you will be replaying it. If you're a Lego nut, you will be replaying it. 4/5

Overall: This is a great game. It looks simple, and maybe even a bit silly, and in some ways it is. However, it is also enjoyable and engrossing. You won't want to put it down. I'd definitely recommend it to almost anyone. 5/5

Super Monkey Ball 2

Yuuki has returned from my long vacation/Crisis center for nintendo employees. So today on my return I bring you Monkey Balls not normal Monkey Balls Super Monkey Balls!! Hurray so let me begin.

Gameplay: Okay this is terribly silly game. Your a monkey in a little ball rolling around crashing and bumping your way to fame in the monkey kingdoms. The game play is simple roll and roll and for the love of god keep rolling. You have 4 characters to choose from but there isn't much difference in them that I found. Basically its a simple game with simple controls and monkeys, oh yes you roll around in a ball hurray. 3/5

Story: You'll take on the role of one of the super monkey ball team and help the monkey king as well as the other monkey people in random tasks and solving the general problems. I can't say its very in depth as typical to a game basically about rolling you solve most issues by rolling. There is the occassional puzzle which requires more skillful rolling but its still rolling. 3/5

Graphics: I must admit the game is quite pretty with lots of little nice shiney graphics and pretty cool setups for your rolling frenzies. The only complaint is the areas aren't exactly giant and there is a crazy about of loading screens. It drags down the nice cute graphics with its stupid loading times. 3/5

Audio: They make cute little monkey sounds to talk yay and the music is cute little monkey music. after about an hour it goes from cute to slow suicide. It's like being at a zoo full of monkeys screaming and freaking out only with less well you know. 1/5

Replay: Okay this game is more for younger people who haven't developed motion sicknesses yet. Everyone else will make it a good hour or two before the lack of plot and rolling gives them cancer. 1/5

Overall: It may have seemed like I was mean, but no I actually liked this game until it got boring which sadly doesn't take long. The multi player is cute and entertaining but the novelty wears off quickly. The weird camera nad insane rolling will make most people sick. Though if you can stand that and are a fan of something sonic like you'll prolly really enjoy this game for a bit. 3/5

Pac-Man World Rally (PS2, GC, PSP, PC)

Reviewed by Kit

Today's game, a racer starring you're favorite arcade hero, Pac-Man. I'm kinda tired, so let's do this quickly.
Story: No story. Racing game. 1/5

Graphics: There isn't too much to say about the graphics. They aren't amazing, but they're not bad either. Colors are bright. The characters look silly. A mixture of animated and 3-D. 3/5

Audio: With some sounds as throwbacks to the old arcade, there's some nostalgia. Other than that, the music suits the racing stages. Nothing outstanding. 3/5

Gameplay: You race around. You hit switches to turn on umm...whatever it is Pac-Man eats. When you collect enough of these pellets, you can turn into a Pac-Man car and turn your opponents into blue ghosts. You then can eat them. There are also fruit switches. If you pick up a fruit you can use it to go through shortcuts. The courses are not too difficult. A good amount of curves, but nothign too challanging. 3/5

Replay: Like any racing game, you play again and again to beat your friends and unlock more characters and stages. 3/5

Overall: If you like go-kart games with long load times and driving ghosts, then this is the game for you. Otherwise, I'd recommend you pick something else up. 2/5

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (PS2)

Reviewed by Kit

I know I said I'd do reviews on Sunday, but I went out of town and I didn't plan for posting early. Anyhow, today we're reviewing a game that many other sites and magazines have already gotten to. While Yuuki and I do try to play games that are not reviewed by every site out there, there are some things that we need excuses to play. Anyhow, now to the review.

Story: Three years after the events in FFVII, one year after the events in Advent Children, Vincent is sitting, being his usual moody, pensive self, when Kalm is suddenly attacked by a strange army. Despite the fact that he is moody and doesn't want to do anything but pine for Lucrecia, he gets up and starts taking down the baddies. Shortly after Reeve, aka Cait Sith, recruits Vincent into helping with this army led by an elite group of warriors known as the Tsviets (it is possible I mispelled that, but how would you know). These warriors are from an experiment done in Midgar, and now they are chasing Vincent for some reason. The story isn't great, but it is entertaining, and I have heard worse. Certainly the tidbits on Vincent's background make you want to hear more. 4/5

Audio: The music isn't great, but it's not bad either. It suits the mood, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's great. The opening movie, rather the title screen movie, has a nice song with a lovely montage of clips from the game. On the whole though, average. 3/5

Graphics: So here is where no expense was spared. There are three levels of graphics, gameplay, cutscene, and Cutscene. The Cutscenes are those rare moments (though they last a few minutes each) that have as much effort put into them as Advent Children did. The cutscenes and gameplay graphics are at about the same level, thoguh obviously it is easier to see details in the cutscenes when you aren't constantly moving to dodge bullets. The characters look good, though they break some laws of physics. But then again, it's not a true Final Fantasy unless hair and clothing follows their own rules. Lots of effort in the graphics, and if nothing else, the game looks good. 5/5

Gameplay: I don't play a lot of shooters, so I can't give any comparison as to whether it is better or worse than the average shooter. You aim with the right joystick, and when your target is within this aiming circle, a smaller more exact circle will appear and bullets will automatically be sent to this smaller circle (a bit of autoaiming but not quite). You can also use a melee attack (finally a use for Vincent's pointy toed boots). For the doglike monsters, this is by far the superior way to kill. You can attach materia to your guns and cast magic as well. All the guns are customizable: you get a pistol, a shotgun, and a machine gun. You can equip different equipment for each guns too such as long barrel, short barrel, snipe scope, materia floater, etc. These can usually be upgraded too for a fee. At the end of each stage you have the option to either put points into your exp (level up) or exchange the points for money. There is also a shop for equipment at the end of each stage, though vending machines can be found throughout the stage. Overall, the gameplay isn't too difficult to pick up though the aiming scheme isn't the most accurate. 3/5

Replay: These is no real reason to replay besides a different difficulty, or attempting to beat the game using different guns/customization. There is a hidden ending, but you do not necessarily have to wait until a second playthrough to see it. 2/5

Overall: The graphics are beautiful, the music is decent, the story is appealing even if it isn't riveting. The worst drawback of the game is the gameplay, but that isn't a horrible thing, and if you like Final Fantasy VII, this is something that might be worth picking up, or at least renting. The game is fun though, and if the snipers are horribly frusterating, sniping them back has a lot of appeal. 4/5