Wario: Master of Disguise (DS)

Another day, another review. Today is a DS game staring everyone's (or at least someone out there) favorite villain, Wario. Let's see how it goes.

Story: Wario is trying to find ways to get rich when he comes across a brilliant idea. He makes himself a helmet that sends him into the tv. Once there he goes into a show about a thief. Stealing the thief's magic sentient wand, Wario then gains new abilities. He can change his outfit to do different things. Deciding he can now become the greatest thief ever, Wario begins his rampage. 3/5

Audio: The music wasn't much. I can't remember the tracks off hand. 3/5

Graphics: The graphics aren't bad. Very 2D, but it works. The bottom screen is for interaction and gameplay, while the top screen is the map. 3/5

Gameplay: A very stylus heavy game. You use it to move, attack, or change outfits. The outfits are neat with their special abilities, but as you get more you'll be expected to switch between them at a moment's notice, and sometimes the game has trouble distinguishing which outfit design you've just drawn on the screen. As you run around the world, you'll find treasure chests. Sometimes these have treasure for Wario's greedy heart to steal, sometimes these have outfits. Either way, you must complete a puzzle before it will open. Some of these puzzle tasks are more annoying than others, but none are terribly difficult. At the end of each stage is a boss fight, where you must utilize the different outfits to find the weak point and exploit it. Your wand will give hints in the corner as to which outfit you need at the time. The gameplay isn't bad, though it can be annoying having to switch outfits quickly. 3/5

Replay: There's no real point to replay. 2/5

Overall: The game has some neat ideas and it works together well, but it's just not an outstanding game. It's fun if you're bored, so pick it up if you have lots of free time or if you can just rent it. 3/5

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales (DS)

Good morning everyone. Today we'll be reviewing this cute little games that stars this cute little yellow bird. Is everyone ready? Then here we go.

Story: The chocobos all live on this farm with a white mage Shirma and her friend the black mage Croma. One day while Shirma is reading a story Croma comes and insists that his very strange and dark book be read instead. The only one who can open it is a small yellow chocobo, the player. Once the boko is open, it reveals that it is sentient and wants to devour the world, starting with all the chocobos and books in the area. Once done, all that is left is Shirma, Croma, and the little bird. It is now the chocobos job to stop the evil book and rescue his friends. he does this by finding magical storybooks that will alter his world. It's not the greatest, but it's entertaining and has some amusing dialogue. 3/5

Audio: This was my favorite part of the entire game, mostly because all of the music is old final fantasy tracks. Not just recent games, but older ones too. It sounds decent on the DS too. 5/5

Graphics: the graphics aren't the best, but they're not bad. Edges might be at times jagged. The storybook art is given a hand drawn look that is appealing. 4/5

Gameplay: The game is stylus heavy, but it isn't clunky or anything. You use the stylus to move and point and click on objects you want to interact with. The game revolves around three aspect: mini games (the storybooks), microgames (puzzles found in the world that will yield you cards), and popup card duels (necessary to progress the game). Mini games and microgames can my fun or obnoxious depending on what challenge you must overcome. most of the minigames involve both time trials and battle modes, where you have to earn more points than enemy chocobos. Succeeding in the areas of a mini game will provide you with a story ending (which will alter the world around you), yield you a card, or free a chocobo pal. The card games involve finding cards around the world and building your deck around it. There are two types of cards, defenders and attacks. Along the edges of the card will be symbols denoting if they attack or defend or have nothing to do with one of the four elements. your challange is to build your deck that will allow you to anticipate how your opponent will play. The gameplay is fairly simple to handle. 4/5

Replay: There isn't much need to replay. 2/5

Overall: The game is terribly cute, and rather fun. Towards the end, the challanges become much more difficult. It's definitely a good rental, and if you love final fantasy or chocobos, probably nota bad buy. 4/5

Izuna: Legend of the unemployed ninja. (DS)

Hey guys today I bring you a game from my one of my favorite groups, Atlus. Izuna is a classic dungeon crawl with a ninja spin on it. Let's get started.

Gameplay: They game handles pretty easily just run around the town till your ready to go to whatever dungeon you need to. Then in the dungeon run around more whomping monsters and finding treasure. Dugeons are made up of randomly generated floors with monsters of different type and level. On the last floor of each dungeon you'll find a boss which can usually be quite nasty if you are unprepared. Luckily you have a a nice selection of weapons and items from sword and claws to ninja arts and shurikens. 4/5

Story: The mai nstory is that after the wars are settled and a time of peace occurs ninjas have nothing to do. So they move to this little village where our hero Izuna gets everyone into trouble by stealing a sacred stone belonging to the gods of the village. She must then go out and find the gods and get them to reverse their curses. Each god will give you an orb that will uncurse all the people they cursed if you show it to them. 4/5

Graphics: Graphically the game is cute though at times looks a little squished. But the characters a bright and the landscape is mostly well designed. Though it doesn't really draw you in like it could. 3/5

Audio: The music if very typical of these games if you've ever played a game involving a small japanese village then you know this music. I could be better a lot better honestly. 2/5

Replay: After you beat the game there's not a lot left to it. I can't say I'd have a strong desire to play the game twice and I don't think you will either: 2/5

Overall: Okay the game's story is pretty engaging and the characters are humorous and lovable. The gameplay if simple and fun and even though you'll often get maimed in the dungeon by a horde of monsters its not really that disheartening. The game lacks where it seems most games today focus all their time. The musical and graphical aspects. So if you want a game that's engaging because its pretty and shiney this is not the game for you. If you want a game that is fun at the gameplay core and not to time consuming this is the game for you. 3/5

God of War 2 (PS2)

We've finally decided to give each of our names separate accounts into the blog, so from this post on, just see who the poster is to see the reviewer. That said, let's begin the review.

Story: You play as Kratos, who after having killed Ares is now the god of war. He's managed to piss off the other gods of Olympus, which makes Zeus decide to betray Kratos. Seekign revenge for this injustice, Kratos receives the aid of Gaia, and goes about gaining the powers of the fates to change history. The game incorporates a lot of Greek mythology, some of it even accurate. Kratos isn't a warm and fuzzy loveable character, but he is what he is. 4/5

Audio: The characters have voice overs at parts, which sound good. The music itself is mediocre. I can't really remember it that well other, though I seem to have some recollection of it sounded intense during battle scenes. 3/5

Graphics: The cutscenes have very nice looking FMV, while the game itself is pretty too. The stages aren't horribly detailed, but they look decent. The camera is fixed, which annoyed me some, but it's not bad, and it does suit the genre. 4/5

Gameplay: The gameplay is rather simple. You attack with square and triangle, grab people with circle, and jump with X. R1 lets you interact with the world, L1 blocks, L2 casts magic, and R2 switches weapons. There are three main areas of focus in the game: fighting, puzzle solving, and boss fights. The fighting isn't terribly complicated, hit monsters with attacks. The puzzle solving usually involves interacting with the world so you can move on. Kick a block here, hit a pendulem there. The boss fights involve a little of both. Obviously there's attacking, but there is also solving puzzles to figure out the best way to attack. Occasionally you'll also get prompts to hit certain buttons. Successfully doing this allows you to be successful in a special move, failure means the monster will probably hurt you. Defeating enemies will give you red orbs which you can use to upgrade your weapons and magic. It's nothign too difficult to handle, and you'll usually get prompts when you're supposed to do a particular action. 5/5

Replay: You could replay to try the game at a harder difficulty, but it's not necessary for any reason. 2/5

Overall: The game is a good action play. If you like runnign around killing things while jumpign around and climbing walls, this is for you. 4/5

delayed review

Don't expect the next review until Wednesday

Lumines Plus (PS2)

Reviewed by Kit

Another day where I don't feel like writing out a long review. Luckily this game isn't deeply in depth, so we should be okay.

Story: It's a puzzle game, so there is no story. Nor does it need it. 1/5

Audio: The music isn't great, but it keeps up upbeat as you play the game. 3/5

Graphics: The graphics aren't that impressive, but again, it's a puzzle game. you get the general idea of what you need to do and the background graphics fill the background. 3/5

Gameplay: The purpose of the game is to drop multicolor squares in hopes to make squares of the same color. It is much more difficult than it sounds. There is standard mode, multiplayer mode, and puzzle mode. In puzzle mode you are given a shape that you have to make using colors. The game is simple to do, and difficult master. 4/5

Replay: It's a game designed for replay. Whether you want to increase your top score or unlock more backgrounds and music, there is always more reason to play. 5/5

Overall: It's a good game with good replay value. I'd recommend it for peopel who like tetris and similar shape forming games. 4/5