Game Revolution - Member Reviews

Battle Fantasia - Xbox360 - LinksOcarina

A while ago, I came across a game that I never saw in the stores before. Called “Battle Fantasia” and produced by Aksys games and developed by Arc system works, I got excited by the prospects of what I uncovered. A 3-D fighting game on a 2-D plane, with great influence in fantasy and steampunk elements, makes for an interesting experience to say the least, so I took a gamble on something new.

When the dust was settled, and I exhausted my time with it, I was torn though, by how I felt about the game. “Battle Fantasia” feels like an incomplete experience, one that has a lot of potential, but only if it was given times to reach it through some tweaks in the gameplay.

While versus fighter games always have piss poor plot points, “Battle Fantasia” actually has a really fleshed out world, and the characters you control actually grow and offer great adventures this time. It also helps that a lot of the storylines are individual to the current character you’re playing as, something Arc system works built upon with “BlazBlue.” Here though, the stories are not only coherent, but some of them are downright touching. Sure others serve as comic foils to fill out their respected characters, but overall, I was actually impressed with the tales yarned here.

Sadly, the storylines could not save the game from a few problems that detriment the experience. The controls are extremely sluggish, especially on a normal 360 controller, which leads to a lot of slowdown when fighting opponents. This also leads to leaving yourself open to attacks as you try to perform limited combos with the characters move sets. There is a blocking system , but it seems hit ...

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger - Xbox360 - LinksOcarina

Versus fighters seem to come in few flavors now a days. Most have adopted into a 3-D landscape, yet few have been able to achieve the success of Soul Calibur in that regard. Others have gone 3-D in graphics but 2-D in playing field, similar to Street Fighter IV. Thankfully, Arc System Works, the developers behind great games like “Guilty Gear, “ have added a new member into the genre, known as “BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.”

“Blazblue” is one of the rare 2-D fighting games to into full H-D graphics and not become redundant or poor in it’s quality, as other, more fabled franchises such as “King of Fighters” have attempted, and failed to do. Featuring crisp animation oozing with style and showcasing some adequate substance, “Blazblue” is not a genre- reviver, but it definitely keeps 2-D fighting games alive and well against their 3-D counterparts.

One of the reasons is thanks to a well developed fighting system. Emulated off of “Guilty Gear” in many respects, the fast paced action thanks to hard hitting combos and unique special attacks lead to great strategies when using one of the twelve fighters featured in the game. And surprisingly, all of the fighters are remarkably balanced. Take for example, the character Iron Tager. He is the typical “hulk” character, slow but powerful. He also has moves that magnetize opponents to him, which can be used to not only draw enemies close, but to keep them close so he can pummel them to the dust. Conversely, Taokakka, the small, absent-minded feline like character, is fast and furious, offering high flying combos and great duck maneuvers that allow her to get under, or over, characters special moves if done ...

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - PS3 - demondayzzz

The Good:
+ Has combat effects spot on (gunfire noise/bullet effects when they hit the target/shooting through enemies' cover/etc.)
+ Immersive story, despite being incredibly far-fetched is still fairly well written, dramatic moments, a good dose of morality (or lack of), a good deal of variety in the missions- a sneaking sniper mission in Chernobyl, a night-time mission from an AC Gunship, hostage rescue, defending a town etc. and the usual squad combat.
+ Levels are quite well made and realistic
+ One of the best FPS ever, I don't think Call of Duty should ever make WW2 games any more.

The Bad (or not so good):
- No real control over the squad
- The story is way too short
- Death from grenades is far too excessive, these terrorists must have been cricket pros or something before
- Perhaps too many bad guys who just take up the same spot their buddy died in and wait for their turn
- Besides the special missions, there isn't that much replay value in the campaign (for me anyway)
- Inexcusable cruelty to dogs
- Perhaps too immersive, I felt rushed and for example didn't really get a chance to try out all the guns because trading the default weapon for it didn't seem worth it because of lack of ammo availabe etc.
- (spoilers*) Your squad is useless, they make you do everything from taking on tanks to stopping nuke countdowns and tons of stuff you'd expect some help with in real life. Also when your idiot Lt. or Captain or whatever breaks his leg in the Chernobyl level you'd expect him to say something like, "you go on, leave me behind," and heroically cover for you while you escape but instead he says something like "I guess you'll have to carry me." And you do and you fight ...

Dead Space Extraction - Wii - Ivory_Soul

The Good: Creepy immersive atmosphere, lots of weapons, great story telling

The Bad: Repetitive, very hard, may turn Dead Space fans off

Dead Space is a surprising new gaming franchise from EA that was actually original, in depth, a just really amazing. The whole story behind Dead Space is just so surreal thanks to all the different forms of media from movies to books to comic books. Dead Space is about an alien artifact that somehow unleashed a deadly race of aliens onto a planet colony and found its way to the Ishimura which is a planetcracking ship.

Dead Space: Extraction sets itself between the comic books and the first Dead Space game. Think of this as what happened before Isaac Clarke entered the Ishimura. Extraction may intially throw you off guard since it's an "on rails" FPS kind of like old arcade games. This may turn Dead Space fans completely off since you don't have control of exploration. While this does hamper the score a lot there is so much fun and fright to be had in Extraction.

The main focus in Extraction is getting the hell off the Ishimura and finding a shuttle. You play as several characters throughout the game, but your main guy is Nate. He is a P-SEC officer who is working with his sergeant to get as many people to safety as possible. You really only see your reticle to the main focus is to point and shoot. The controls are really great and laid out for both regular use and the Wii Zapper (or any other gun attachment you may have) so I will be reviewing this game off of the Zapper control scheme. You have a lot at your hands besides weapons and this includes your Stasis (slows down objects), and your telekinesis which will pull objects towards you. You also have a swipe attack for melee and cutting ...

Wet - Xbox360 - Ivory_Soul

The Good: Amazing gritty art style, superb voice acting, great characters, involved story, fun gun play, a variety of events

The Bad: Repetitive after awhile, cramped environments, shallow sword play

WET is one of those gritty trying-to-be-bad-ass-but-doesn't-concentrate-on-other-aspects type games. The feeling of the game is it's strongest point, and ironically, not the acrobatics that the game boasts about. The developers tried to nail the 70's Quintin Tarintino/Wild West feeling and did it perfectly. Everything from buildings to clothing have a bad ass brown dirty scheme to it. There is even an old 70's film reel filter over the screen that adds to the atmosphere. The music is also a big helper in this thanks to its classic indie feeling to it.

But atmosphere isn't anything if the game has bad game play and this game does not. What it does have is unfinished game play that seems rushed. There is a lot of thought behind it, but it seemed quickly tossed together, but also is really shallow. The whole idea of the game play is based on slow motion combat. Yeah I know, we've seen this before in countless game (Max Payne started it all), but to be fair they add a little twist. Whenever your feet leave the ground and you start shooting you enter slow mo mode. In this mode you have a red circle that auto locks onto an enemy then you am your reticle at another. This was executed brilliantly so you don't have to worry about aiming both weapons. You can go into slow mo when you slide on your shins, jump whichever way in the air, shoot from zip lines, poles, ledges; you name it.

Another addition to combat that really felt shallow was the sword play. A simple one, two, three combo and that's it. There could have been so ...

Borderlands - Xbox360 - TheDiesel

Borderlands Review [PC Version]
TheDiesel

Over three years in development, a complete overhaul in graphics, and a slogan of 87 Bazillion guns:

Borderlands is sure making a name for itself across the board. Dubbed a "Role Playing Shooter", how will this unique hybrid play against the bigger titles in this Fall lineup?

Right when you jump in the game, you'll be given a backstory of the plot of Borderlands: on the planet of

Pandora, a vault with unlimited power, riches, and awesomeness is opened once every 200 years; and you are on this miserable looking planet to open that Vault and obtain those riches. With this they have created an over 20+ hour experience, but it doesn't total the fact that plot is pretty paper thin. Sure the fact that the reason you're on the planet to get to the Vault does not help the fact you're going to forget about the plot about halfway through. You'll do main missions pertaining to the Vault, but most of the time you're going around doing random quests to continue the story. Much to blame is the fact they couldn't keep the story in check, the other reason is the game is so much fun, you'll probably not care about the story whatsoever.