Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 = B-

I rented it. it interested me. and it's pleasantly surprising.

In brief, it still has a somewhat battle system, this ultimate leaves little room for a variety of strategies to be employed. The redeeming factor in the gameplay are the sort of microgames that occur within battle (a heads up will tell you how to work the games). One of which is a beam struggle that happens when two opponents fire powershots at the same time. The two pound the buttons as hard as they can in a sort of tug of war, loser gets blasted.

The graphics are really really good. This is some of the better cel-shade application I've seen. It looks remarkably like the DBZ style of drawings.

The atmosphere of DBZ is there and is a really close match to that of the TV series, so that's either a plus or a minus (a general minus in my case). However, this also applies to the battles, IMO this a very good thing. The rediculous waves of energy, transmogifications, and throwing people into cliffs to make the mountains fall down on top of them, it's all there in full force. An that's the major redeeming factor.


So ... yeah. at least worth a rental if you're a fighting game fan. Or if you can at least admit that DBZ has the same over-the-top attitude that makes pro wrestling fun to watch in smaller dosages.

Pokemon Fire Red = B+

basically, if you like the gameplay structure of pokemon, and haven't purchased a copy for a while, you might as well. It also comes with a free wireless connection port ^^. Although, with a new version around the corner, you may wish to wait. Of course, if you can't get past the thick child friendly atmosphere, there's really no reason to check it out (unless you can borrow it from a freind for free, which is somewhat doubtful).

Anyways, it's Pokemon. You'll probably fall into one of 3 categories: Love it (majority of little tykes), it (majority of s who can't get past the overwhelming stench of innocence), or to admit that it's a pretty darn good game (grown men like me).

So, basically, you run around catching animals in different parts of a world map. Each animal can have up to 4 attacks in stock, and being able to learn a good deal more. Plus there's a complex paper/rock/scissors typs system involving 15 or so different ability types.

On the downside: there's basically no plot (which the game fortunately doesn't rely on in the least bit), those of us without a strategy guide will be stumbling in the dark as far as optimal choices in development of the pokemon, there's only 1 save file (understandable because of the vast ammount of info in a save file, but it's still a major downside).

So yeah, you probably already knew all of that stuff anyways. I just felt like reviewing something short and easy today.

Ninja Gaiden - Impressions

Well, due to unwanted circumstances, I was unable to play Ninja Gaiden long enough to be 100% sure on my rating. However, I did come to some conclusions:

1) It is the hardest not-cheap game I've played for some time. It isn't hard because: the enemies use rediculously cheap shots, the difficulty curve jumps to high at once, the controls suck, the camera angle doesn't work. In fact, all of those usually frustrating things that make games difficult are entirely absent from Ninja Gaiden. Nope, it's hard because it's actually hard.

Part of the reason I got an incomplete view of the game is how frickin' hard it is. after about 3 hours of play I only beat the first level. ouch.

2) The graphics are really good, as is the usual to expect from Team Ninja's games. However, there are a couple of errors that are present that are symptomatic of the team. One is the locked emotion face (a comes running in at the end of the first mission to let you know the village is on fire. But since the has a premodeled look it seems like she's happy to see her friends and family burn in the flames.)

3) Sound's pretty good. Music is mostly ambient ninja stuff, but it works.

4) The 's not that great. Team Ninja might have the most blatently ually attractive females on the market, but they apparently can't animate gore worth a darn. (rent RE4 for a great example of how should be handled in a game). Ninja Gaiden's is abundant and silly looking. (lots of nonspecific round splashies for the most part). It does have some decent effects of the slash splashes on the surround walls, too bad it fades after 1 second.


Given the small sampling, I'd actually give it something in the A category.

Just remember though, it definately is VERY FRICKIN' HARD.

progress update

Progress Update:

(actual blog style post)

1) I've been way too y busy being sick, job working, and homeworking this past while. I spent an entire month without drawing anything of value. (the vid game breaks were honestly my only relief in the day)

2) I surprised myself today. I just realized that for the time being I don't care about dating. With my life as hectic as it is there's just no room for the commitment it takes to go on dates. I'm also finding that bringing a rifle butt to the back of some poor sap's head in Halo 2 is a heck of a lot more rewarding. :D

3) reviews on the way, promise!

Armed and Dangerous
Ninja Gaiden
SSX 3
Street Fighter 3
You Don't Know Jack
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay
Hitch-hicker's guide (Preview)
Constantine


Soo .....

ciao

Capcom vs. SNK 2 = C+

Well, there's a few good things, and a number of bad things. But it's a decent game if you like fighters. However, I only played the PS2 version. reasons explained later.


This is a pretty straight forward review, so here it goes:

Good: wealth of characters. very deep set-up strategies, 6 different grooves (super meter systems), custom color maker.

Bad: ammount of not-solid characters (especially from the SNK side), bigness is very intimidating to newbies, single player mode.

More on the single player mode: it's pretty much pointless. Thing is that they have a super-over-powered boss (Akuma or Rugal on steroids). Problem is that this uber boss usually attacks you at the end of a normal bout of play. i.e. first time I played the single player arcade I breezed through the fighters that were about a 3 of difficulty from 1 to 10, then I come accross the boss that's like a 15. I mean, if you're going to have a rediculously overpowered boss of that magnitude, by all means do so; just do it as an uber unlockable and not as the normal boss of the game. So, after playing the boss for a half-hour just to up my own degree of skill to adjust to this hoser I beat him. The reward sucks: 90 second noncharacter specific ending, with 4-5 lines of text for your chosen characters. Apparently there's a better reward (unlockable modes) after you do it a couple times, but there's no reason to want to do it for the character endings.

I probably would have given it a better score had I played it on XBox, there's online play there. And multiplayer is really the main redeeming value on this game.

Ron Burgandy Uncalled For = A+ or D-

I saw the unedited version of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy.

The added stuff in the movie proper was the whole of about 4 minutes total. The rest of the extras is also available on the regular version (which is only available in full screen for some queer reason).

I don't know, but if there's so much hype over it being and extended unedited version, I was expecting something a bit more. But then, I guess New Line has just spoiled me rotten with the LOTR EE.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is still as funny as hell (that's the part that got the A+). I just think the "Unedited, , and uncalled for" was a bit overhype (that's the part that got the D-).

Resident Evil 4 = Very Yes.

Well, I rented Resident Evil 4 a couple weeks ago. Logged in about 7 hours. And, here's my verdict:

Resident Evil 4 = VERY YES. (which means game of the year material)

The short of it is that they fixed the minor-moderate grieviences of the previous games, as well as completely maxing out on a few of the specific production values. To make things easier, I'll just run it down by category.


Dialogue: This is my biggest complaint about the earlier games in the series. The dialogue sounded like it came out of a B-movie. (mind you, I love Evil , but it doesn't scare me in the least bit since I'm laughing AT the dialogue.) The dialogue in RE4 is really natural and it's free for the most part from tired cliches. On a side comment, I did question Leon's intelligence a couple of times when he pointed out something that was painfully obvious for the sake of the game play; but that doesn't even really constitute a complaint.

Controls: This is a marked improvement. The controls are still the same, but it makes more intuitive sense now that the camera is behind the player. With the worlds being fully 3d (and remarkably rendered at that) it also works very well to draw you deeper into the game.

Music: YES! There is music this time around! And it's very appropriate scary type music at that! The music is very good at getting your adreniline pumping in the classic horror sense.

Animation: This really wasn't too much of a gripe aforehand, but they really topped themselves with this. For one the body movement animation is VERY natural and believable. But the other big thing is that the facial animation expression stuff is top notch. I mean, Leon's facial character isn't locked to a certain set of expressions, it's flexible to the point where the character can smile, grimace, scream, and pretty much do anything (which is EXTREMELY rare in video games, let alone computer animation in general).

Voice Work: On par with the dialogue. There really isn't any stinkers in the cast.

Story: As you're probably aware, the first villian you run across is a not zombie. The story (from what I saw) is pretty fresh and original for the genre. Good stuff.

AI : Very impressive. The enemies attack in swarms and attack in team tactics, meaning that if your back isn't up against the wall in the end of the ally the enemies will come from behind to beat the crap out of you.

Gameplay: Just a couple miscelaneous notes. One is that the villains will drop supplies for you when you kill them (which is very nice given the sheer number of them). The other thing is that there's a store in the form of a psychotic stranger with a pirate accent. The guy is one of my favorite characters. Anyways, it's cool.