Videogame review thread.

Cause we don't have one...and thats a bit silly really.

i said it last time and ill say it again: the what are you playing thread suffices. people tend to review stuff inadvertently as they post what theyre playing anyway.

My balls, suck them.

Pain
Well for £4.99 this is an okay game with far too little content, messing around in the little bit of city you have is nice, but unlocking the few things you don't have to buy is somewhat tedious and pain isn't quite the 2 player game it thinks it is, this wouldn't be so bad if you weren't changed nearly the same amount for new levels, but with a game with so little content at least 1 level should be given free, also the after touch feature feels quite off and the camera moves around making it even more akward.

Pain is a moderatly fun pass time that demand to much of your money (buying all the extras will bring the cost up to that of a full game tbh) that just doesn't give value for money.

4/10

*sucks*

*..but does not condone or constructively participate in your thread*

Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn -
One of the best games ever. If you have the chance to play this then do so, and don't refuse because you're stubborn about PC games and none-Oriental RPGs*

*You're also a faggot, Jason. xx

Wii sports.

Simple but essentially free group of 5 games, tennis is iffy, baseball is fun but often unfair, golf is far too akward, boxing is quite good but feels a bit broke, and then theres bowling....the game that everyone keeps wanting to play, why the hell nintendo aren't working on a mario themed bowling game I don't know, anyway for a free thing its fairly fun, and everyone ever will enjoy bowling.

6/10

Party games aren't real gmaes. Review something else.

Mirrors edge.

Is it this years assasins creed.....yes frankly, a nice idea with potential but flawed execution. Graphically fairly impressive but some what boring, everything so shiney and dull, since when have lift shafts been that clean? However mirrors edge has one cock up above them all, the fighting, you're encourage to try and isolate and disarm enemies, yet they almost always work in pairs, so while you're disarming one, the other is shooting the shit out of you.

On the other hand when it comes together its very satisfying, so flawed but a game you'll want a sequel to.

7.5/10

Little Big Planet.

Within a few seconds of seeing graph paper clouds I knew this game was going to be lovely, and it is. Raw joy and imagination and a great online game, the single player game shows you what you can do, but when playing user created games you often see that people can create even better things.

From undersea level chases involving giant sharks, a huge jack and the beanstalk level, parachuting out of a helicopter or one of the many levels based on other games (Including a surprisingly scary silent hill level, and a bioshock level complete with opening plane crash) its scary what people have managed to make.

The one flaw is that the platforming doesn't feel perfect, a bit too loose and imprecise, but this tends not to be a massive problem is LBP isn't really designed in that way.

All in all a lovely lplatformer that just wants to make you happy, and manages to do it and then some.

10/10

Suikoden.

Some old skool goodness today, famous for being the first RPG on a console that would go on to have a fair few quality RPG's. However in some ways its a mystery as to how suikoden managed to have several sequels.

Graphically the game was poor, barely a step up from the snes days, the battle system was very basic and had a very poor magic system which....unless you knew when every boss was going to appear mean't spell were rarely used outside of the boss battles, and finally there was a promising plot that just sort of...gave up in the final quarter, and tryed to get to the ending as quickly as possible....

Suikoden did however have 1 feature that was very addictive...the home base feature. Early in the game you'd gain your own castle and be tasked with recuriting as many people as possible (from a grand total of 108 possible allies) although some were recurited throughout the game's plot, many were optional and had to be recruited via special means. Whats more many would add new features to your base such as shops or sound tests or the ability to teleport to any towns you'd previously visited.

This addictive aspect helped suiko be fun enough to be a cult hit, and breed sequels which fixed many of the problems (cept for the shite suiko 4).

7/10.....but 5/10 if you don't like rpgs.

Gonna try reviewing home....

Okay home...what is it (at this time).

First up you create your avatar, and this is pretty damn easy and flexable, I created a fairly good likeness of me. To start with clothing options are limited but theres quite a bit of free clothing now which can be gain by various means.

The first place you start is your little habour home, small but nice view...its pretty damn pointless if you don't have many people on your friends list who will use home, but oh well.

Next up theres the square which serves as the main hub, and is pretty damn pretty, theres also chess and checker boards which are done well and more recently a little helicopter game which is a bit fiddly but nice enough.

The theater is one of the more useless bits, used mainly for film trailers theres not much you can't just see on millions of other websites so this is a bit of a let down currently. I'll quickly explain the way home is loaded, as each area is downloaded when you go into it the first time, not quite sure how it works but it saves space on the PS3 and means the inital download is short.

Next up is the shopping centre...no real surprises, then theres the bowling alley which reveals one of homes dumbest mistakes..as each bowling alley, arcade machine and pool table can only be played by a set number of people...maybe theres an argument for the pool and bowling...but why the arcade machines can only be played by one person is a mystery and sony needs to sort this out.

There are two more aspects to home...the first is areas created by game developers, currently theres a resi 5 area (which has no function if you don't have resi 5) a far cry 2 one which is boring, a red bull one which has an elaborate racing game and brand new....an EA sports area which is pretty damn larga and has an F1 racing game and a poker area.

The final area is a new feature which has made home a bit more worthwhile...XI...a secretish area which is a giant ongoing puzzle game where you ultimately collect scraps of paper and butterflies! via various means.

The whole thing is trying a bit too hard to be trnedy and some of the puzzles are annoying and boring (having to browse an imaginary blog to find a persons favourite band for example) but some are very good and a number of other games are unlocked via XI including a sixaxis controlled bike game, a series of warioware style minigames and a text based rpg..its ongoing and a new aspect of the whole thing become avaliable each day.

In the end though, home is pretty pointless...the XI stuff has made it more worthwhile but its still a bit pointless and really nothing more than a place to play a bunch of pretty minigames...but of course...its free and for a free app its pretty impressive at the end of the day and is worth a dabble every now and then.

6/10

Suikoden 5.

For a game with just a cult following the suikoden series has lasted quite some time, with 5 games and 2 spin offs. The first game in the series had many flaws (basic combat system, plot that gave up towards the end, poor graphics) but showed promise, the sequel was one of the best RPG's on the playstation with a very grown up plot, and the third was supposed to be even better (but was never released over here).

The fourth on PS2 however was a sack of crap, with a stupid island based map, short dull plot an dull characters, plus the stupid idea to take the combat system, which had been slolwy getting better, into something more basic.

So the fifth in the series really needed to step up to sort things out, and thankfully it does.

First of all, after the dull island nation setting of 4, the fifth in the series is set in the much more interesting Queendom of Falena, where you play the prince or the royal family. The royal family of Falena are the owners of the sun rune, a powerful rune that also has the curse of madness on it, the Queen is forced to bear the ruin however so that one of the two families of nobles (the Godwins and the Barrows) cannot use it.

To cut a long story short, things go tits up, the Queen and her hubby Ferid die, Gizel Godwin manages to politically manipulate things so he's the husband of the princess and heir and you and a few other allies are forced to go on the run till you eventually sort your own army out.

After the dull plot of suiko 4 this installment is a vast improvment with its quite political plot (theres alot of optional backstory). The gameplay also improves as the combat is sorted out and goes back to the 6 character parties of previous games, and most importantly of all your base is back to being a castle and not a dull ship.

Gathering up the 108 characters you can recruit (the trademark of the suiko series) is also alot better, but suffers a little as some characters are very hard to get and easy to miss, a few have very short time to recruit them or are just too fiddly.

All in all Suikoden 5 is a vas imporvment but does have flaws which prevent it from getting near suiko 2, for a start the plot starts far far too slowly, the early parts are a drag and its a good 5 hours before a proper enemy even rears its head and about 12-15 hours till you get your base, the difficult, and at times unfair, recruitment is also an issue, you can't be expected to explore the entire game world after every event just in the hopes of stubbling on someone, and the game also suffers from suiko's somewhat basic combat system thats been there from the start.

Its still a good RPG of you can handle the very slow start. A good plot an, interesting cast of characters and some interesting locations (Lunas being especially pretty) makes this a good game for RPG fans, but won't convert those who don't enjoy the genre.

7/10

Wow. Just.... wow.

Thanks.

Tired-Hippo wrote:

However mirrors edge has one cock up above them all

say what?

Don't make me cock up you, ginwai *


*deliberate