skate. is permanent “nail the trick” mode. skate. is an amazing entry into the skateboarding genre by Electronic Arts. Say what you will about EA, their roster change ‘XX series’, Black, or even about the great lonely wife debacle, but they know how to make games that sell and skate. is one of them. In skate. players use the same joystick based game play mechanics that have garnered praise for the Fight Night. The left stick controls the body. You can lean or duck to gain speed, spin while in the air, powerslide or revert. The right stick controls the feet. Holding the stick down or up while standing moves your feet to respective side of the board in preparation for an ollie or nollie. Afterwards the player can rotate and pop the stick in numerous directions, just as you pop the tail or nose to start tricks in real life skate boarding. Yeah, I knew that! I was once practically a pro skater. I once landed a hardflip (trying a kick flip). My friend (had to) let me know how awesome it was. I was surprised a king. I still haven’t landed a kick flip skate to this day.

In skate. nobody needs to tell me how awesome anything is. It can truly be felt. I could write, “This game is truly rewarding,” one hundred times and I doubt it could convey just how much better it feels to land a nollie hardflip or ollie certain gaps. I’ll try it anyways.

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Did it work? I knew it wouldn’t. You leave me no choice other than to use “reason.” I’m shuddering. First, I can’t help but reiterate that this is not Tony Hawk. This is not the difference between Madden and the 2K series. This is not the difference between Tekken and Virtua Fighter. The difference in feel goes beyond simply season veterans. It doesn’t look, play, or feel much like Tony Hawk. Although it’s still a touch too easy t be realistic, it does feel much more so than the Hawk series. You won’t be hitting a combo that can make it around the entire level. Getting down the street takes skill. Which is a major reason the game is rewarding. The game takes more skill. That is, real skill. I’m not talking about stat progression, I’m talking about skill. The game gives you everything from the start. It is up to the player to master the flickit controls. As the commercials say, it’s all about letting your little skater out. That is the way to advance your professional skating career.

That’s right. skate. is a story of an aspiring young skater making his way to stardom. It all begins with a goofy introduction of all the pro skaters in the game which involves you going to the hospital and getting surgery with a buzz saw to Slayer’s Raining Blood. Again, it’s pretty goofy. Anyways, this means that you will be doing the usual. You try to impress the pros, win a few skate competitions, and get some footy in gnarly spots. Some of these challenges are much harder than others. There are some gaps which are hard to clear even with just an ollie (an alley and a 22 set of stairs comes to mind). There are some challenges which will have you pressing retry in fury. In fact, sometimes you don’t realize the way you’re supposed to be doing something and you try upwards of one hundred to a hundred and fifty tries only to realize in your frustration that it was simple to go from an FS 5-0 to an FS Tail. I mean, not like I did that or anything.

Speaking of getting footy in rad spots, this game certainly captures the aspect of coverage right. The whole game is about getting it. Your skating career depends on it. You’re going to be airing some big staircases, gapping over a small wall, even just skating a bench. Pictures and video are taken all across San Vanelona. The game does a very good job of making it feel like you are capturing footage for real. You will have photo sessions and video takes where you feel like you’ve just been trying all day to land a trick or skate a line that shows the camera your skills. A nice little feature to really drive that home is the video editing.

In skate. you can edit a video from the last thirty seconds of play. Really, I could use a little more. Sometimes I want to use so much more than thirty seconds of footage, especially if there is any downtime. The editing itself is pretty neat. Being used to iMovie and Adobe Premiere, it’s amazing to see what they did with just the 360 controller. It is a very simple and intuitive interface with sufficient features. You can pick from different camera angles, slow or speed playback, apply filters, and cut footage from the time-line. It is awesome. It feels great. My only complaints are just a tad nit-picky. I wish more footage was stored for editing. I can only hope that they would double the amount of footage kept on hand next time around. Also, there’s no reason that the playback speed should be limited to increments of 25%. Give us a range and just let us have at it. The videos on skate.EA.com could get that much cooler.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are already cool videos at skate.Reel, the service that allows gamers to upload their videos from skate. to the world wide web. You upload these videos directly from your 360 or PS3 to your profile on skate.ea.com. People watch them online or via their in-game system and can rate them and comment on them. It is a very awesome service and props to EA for such great cross media convergence.

It’s a shame though. As neat as the cameras are during video editing, the camera during game play can cause Holy Hell (that’s different from regular Hell). Sometimes when you’re going up lips or ramps it feels like the camera is just staying too low. It’s easy to mess up because you missed something at the top of the lip. It’s especially easy to run into people on the street that you never saw. Without seeing exactly what our skater is seeing, we need a camera angle that showcases the board AND our surroundings. This game has quite a focus on the former. Don’t get me wrong, when you’re tricking hard, ollieing across cool gaps, and grinding down rails the camera does an amazing job of letting you see the tricks in all their glory. However, sometimes when I’m just pushing down the sidewalk, I’ll be frustrated beyond belief as I crash into people. I get especially frustrated when I am coming from a long grind, I’m looking to hop a curb or I’m lining up to hit my next grind and some person just barely bumps some small corner of my board and I crash into the pavement of defeat.

Fortunately, this game has so much going on that I’d dismiss much larger issues than this. It’s a solid entry into the skating genre, especially just because it doesn’t try to copy the Tony Hawk formula. Dare I say it again, it is truly rewarding. Landing tricks feels good. I enjoyed the hell out of the career. They hit sponsorships so well. I only hope that in the next game they have more. I hope that each sponsor also brings more to the shop. It was awesome customizing my character with the clothes I could. I was rocking an NWA shirt, a Girl hoodie, and various T-shirts. I was pumped once I got the Slayer gear. I really just wanted a pair of Vans Slip-Ons. I mean, come on EA. I know you’ve got that Madden money available. Maybe you could hook us up with some more sponsors. Especially a few more Independent hats so I could dress my character like I do in real life. While we’re at it, let’s get some more music in there. It is so awkward having one or two tracks by so many artists and then a shit-ton of Z-Trip. I commend the variety, and I’ve gotten hooked on the two renditions of Hustlin’ included. Downloadable content, please?

You can check out my stuff on skate.Reel. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go skate.

Just like skating, this loosely physics based skating game has been evolving with the years. It started simply in 1999 and has become the skating game giant played in homes all everywhere. How exactly did it evolve, though?

(Click me)

October of 1999 – Tony Hawk Pro Skater debuts. The game features a loose interpretation of physics for over-the-top skating gameplay. You choose a pro and complete goals in each level. This is the spark that started the flame.

November 8, 2000 – Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 follows up on the success of the first game. This game introduced manuals, more tricks, Create-A-Skater, and Create-A-Park. Now with manuals, the average score increases to hundred of thousands points. Create-A-Park spawns hundred of thousands of skateboarding death traps.

October 30, 2001 – Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 is released as the most critically acclaimed of the series. This game introduced the revert, more tricks, flat landing (with special) and online play. With the revert in place, players start scoring millions of points.

October 23, 2002 – Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 hits shelves. The ratings show a step backwards from the third game, but this game introduced skitching, spine transfers, flat landing (now regular), and a revamped career mode. Spine transfers led to a whole new concept of gaps, as well. As for the career mode, Tony Hawk 4 introduced what would be used throughout the rest of the series. Instead of a simple list of goals, the players now skated about and talked to people to get them. A lot of the same goals existed, but this just added an new interface to allow players the ability to free skate without going back to the main menu.

October 27, 2003 – Tony Hawk’s Underground drops. THUG, as it was deemed, introduces a story to the game, forcing the players to create their own skater. THUG also introduced the Caveman, acid drops, wall pushes and Create-A-Trick. Now the player can get off their skateboard with the caveman move. This allowed the players to reach areas they would never imagine skating, too. It also showed, in online play, that it was now possible to trick until you get too bored for nearly limitless points. Nearly because some day you’ll die.

October 4, 2004 – Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 comes out. It introduced classic mode, the Natas Spin, flips, focus and a bunch of meaningless new things. Classic mode, I guess is a reintroduction. This mode allowed the player to play the levels in the style of the old games, for two minute runs trying to achieve all of the goals in the beginning list. The Natas Spin now allows players to spin on posts, flips allow the player a new mechanic for tricks, and focus mode allowed the player to enter a slow motion method of gameplay to allow them to perform tougher combos with ease. It’s neat. They also introduced things like, throwing items to people, tagging, and a destruction bonus. The player can also freak out by mashing a button after they’ve fallen to start that combo off just right. Online play is still about seeing who can perform the same line ten billion times without flaw or boredom. Two minute runs last ten.

October 18, 2005 – Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland occupies store shelves. This games biggest feature is that there were no levels. The commercials bragged about the lack of loading times. Unfortunately, this didn’t mean a large seamless level. It meant that the loading times were masked with tunnels and truck rides and that levels were all connected to form “one” area.

November 7, 2006 – Tony Hawk’s Project 8 graces the market. The eighth installment of the Tony Hawk series (You see what they did there?) perfects the single level. It also introduces Nail-The-Trick mode and broken bones. Nail-The-Trick mode is an important new feature because it allows the player to control their character in a more realistic fashion. Combos are still endless.

November 14, 2006 – Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam. Enough said.

October 15, 2007 – Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is released. Proving Ground expanded on the last game with a new Nail-The-Grab and Nail-The-Manual modes for better foot control. It also introduces three distinct classes, which in turn also introduced new mechanics. The rigger introduced a mechanic to effectively level edit. The career skater introduces bowl tricks. The hardcore skater introduces the new Aggro skills. Also introduced were the Skate Lounge and video editing.

And that’s how Tony Hawk has evolved. Starting off small and simple, the Tony Hawk series has evolved into something massive. I, like many others, loved these games. I’d take a few days and thoroughly beat the game. Unlock everything. Then play some friends. For some people, it may have gotten old. Some people may still be keeping up with the series. Some people may even be doing the same combo on Tony Hawk 2 they started in the year 200 with the perfect balance cheat on. Either way, you have to credit the series for trying to innovate each year, for maintaining a killer soundtrack, and for not falling into the same path as Army Men and Dynasty Warriors. Keep your fingers crossed, though. How much more can they do?

This holiday season you’ll have a wealth of highly rated games to choose from. The Orange Box, Halo 3, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, BioShock, Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy, surely all of us will be broke by the end of this holiday season. Well theres a problem guys, Assassins Creed has just been added to that list. Not by me… Oh NO! But by many reviewers. This isn’t a how to choose a game or an “official” review of a game but should be a good read regardless.

See I’m here to give you a bit of a different review. Warning I reveal some base level spoilers, if you want to be saved from them don’t read this step by step review.

You see I don’t get to play games in a closed environment where I can lock a room and get lost in a game for hours, no I have about 5-10 people surrounding me anytime I try to play something. So, when I brought out such a highly hyped game such as Assassins Creed out to play, that crowd grew to about 30. “Aw, sh*t dog is that Assassins Creed? Damn let me play that!” Needless to say I don’t surround myself with the most respectable of people. (It helps boost the confidence!)

SKIP THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE MY BRAIN FART!!!

I’ll admit it I’ve been sort of looking forward to this game since Ubisoft did bring me the godly Beyond Good and Evil(NEEDS A SEQUEL!!!) . But I was not nearly as thrilled as the other people around me. I pressed start and the game finally began. Great I’m all alone in a room with some genetic code all around me. Still alone… Ok, finally I think that was the loading screen. This part is really hard to describe, it’s like if you took acid and started running around town with a white blanket over your head, thats what this looks like. It’s a type of motion blur on everything and flashing every 10 secs. Is my system dying? All the characters have blank faces on… And game commands keep flashing on screen, Up + A + LT towards a person for a diving attack. Woops took longer to say than it was actually on screen. Is this a tutorial? Oh wait no… no…

I woke up in some lab in now-a-days/future. Just a bad plot twist. Everyones too loud around me to hear the plot, but damn this is taking forever let me just do something!!! It’s something like your linking in with your ancestors memories? Wow! Thats not cool at all… 15 mins later… Finally, I’m in the real tutorial. Basic movement stuff, basic hud stuff, how to hide, and into the real world! Only took me a few minute.s Now time for some action… Wait, never mind, tutorial part dues. Run up walls, run across shit, scale walls, see in the dark… I’m about 30 minutes into the game I would like to start really playing… Alright I’m in a town now. Hmmm… In a free roaming game , what should I do first? Quick wheres the first hooker and how do I kill her? X for attack, cool. Aww man theres Johnny Law I better take him out. I take damage for blocking, but I get all my health back if I kill everyone so it sort of makes up for that.

Alright so we have to go meet some guy lets do that. We meet him and aw shit another tutorial! This one is for the leap of faith and crossing randomly fallen logs. Pickpocketing and finally horseback riding. And I’m bored…

END OF BRAIN FART!!!

I’ve been playing off and on for about an 2 hours and at this point I’ve got to say that I’m just not feeling it. The style seems to be awesome, which having your own style is one of the most important things to have. You have genetic codes, and code snippets popping up at you when in the Matrix and when you hit someone. I can’t tell whats going on in the story cause everyones load as hell. I can tell though that what they have is a ton of story scenes in the first 2 hours that take up most of my time that could be devoted to free running. Tutorials never seem to end but they seem necessary for the controls which, in at this point, have been sh-hit-ty! Everything’s context sensitive and every button does like 3-4 different things. It might come naturally later but at this point I’m hating it. Some things make sense and for a game thats trying to do this much it makes sense to have complex controls but I haven’t bonded with it yet.

0.0 – (Story) I can’t hear it so I can’t give it anything.

5.0 – (Controls) Probably a high learning curve but I’m only 2 hours into it.

10.0 – (Style) Assassins Creeds Highlight

8.0 – (Graphics) Much better looking stuff out but its good. Only here for people who care.

1.0 – (HorseBack Riding) How can this suck so bad!?!?

When you hit an object to jump over it almost feels like your shot backwards and then put into a default jump animation which doesn’t even sync well into the running animation again. Oh and the controls are even worse for the horse.

7.5 – (Overall)

Its been alright so far but I’ve basically done nothing and had to deal with a crappy control scheme. This is definitely not for casual gamers as it seems you need at least 5 hours just to get used to the game. I’ll be back with more installments as I get a chance to play. I’m going to assume the controls will become more natural to me as I play but I can’t promise anything!

Alright, let me start off with a disclaimer. I like Half Life and anything Valve has put out. Actually, scratch that, I LOVE what they have put out. With the release of the Orange Box, I have once again been sucked into the world of Half Life only to emerge as a more enlightened person. Whether it be from a mind bending battle against a research labs AI, a fast paced team cluster f**k, or just following Alyx Vance deeper into a never fully explained story plot, I just feel better exploring the worlds Valve has created. Yet, one thing has been bothering me throughout my experience in any of these games.

Valve is on it’s third iteration of a wonderful facial animation system, but who really notices? Sure, the 10-15 or so minutes in any Half-Life 2 game where I can actually see the animation system at work is great but a majority of the game I’m fighting things with masks on or without faces. When Alyx speaks to me I want to see the cool facial animation but I can’t cause any time I get close to her she runs backwards to get out of my way. This forces me to push her into a corner just so I can see the animation system. I could use the default Z for zoom Half Life has but then it has more crap on the HUD and just feels wrong. I should be able to walk up to a character and watch their face without having to force them into a corner. SPOILER : Don’t highlight this next part unless you’ve beaten Episode 2 :

The final scene of Half Life 2 Episode 2 has a very emotional scene where someone dies. The PERFECT spot to really show off the facial animation system but no at no point does it get used properly. First you’re thrown against the wall along with Alyx and when you try to see the distraught look on her face YOU CAN’T!!! You can barely see a profile shot of her face, sure your suppose to be focusing on the person dying but for gods sake let me see the emotion in the scene. When she’s finally free does she look towards you so you can see the look on her face? No, another profile shot! It’s not like they have characters tearing up and a profile shot doesn’t really work unless you can see tears!

Valve also uses the facial animation in Team Fortress. Its cool to sometimes see a guys face when hes speaking but it rarely happens unless your looking for it. The technology is really cool but it feels like its going to waste in games like Half Life and Team Fortress 2. Someone needs to make a game or mod using the Source engine that actually uses the tech properly. What could use it better than Half Life 2 you say? A 3D Phoenix Wright game perhaps? Any detective game would be perfect for this system and I think its about time for them to start coming out. Even a Fighting game is better suited for it than Half Life is, you constantly see the characters faces, their always screaming when attacking and you could have them wince when they get hit. I’m not saying theres no point in using it in Half Life just that it could be used much better in tons of other places.

This game sounds perfect right? What’s wrong with it? There are only two ways to play Gunbound Revolution. Ultra high angle shots with Boomer or all people using Aduka using only the second and special shots. It is not a team game. You may only fire upon someone whom another team mate has not fired upon. You cannot use healing items. In fact you’re only allowed to use a dual or dual+ item. When you join a room, you must have clicked ready within a microsecond. If you notice someone who is not ready or if the “master” of the room has not started the game, you are required to spam their name until they rectify this mistake.

Did you notice what I did there? I copied and pasted how the game is played; restating it as what is wrong with the game. The Gunbound community has taken it upon itself to police the game into this metagame. Can’t deal with someone using a heal? Lock them! No heal power-ups for anybody. Wind change power-up? That would seriously ruin all the skill, trial and error, what have you, that have gone into all of the shots thus far. Lock it! Blood, Power, Teleport, Band-Aids, Switching with Allies? No! Only dual and dual+ are the power-ups acceptable for play. Thank goodness that we as a community figured that out. Who knows what Softnyx was thinking putting those in the game, right? That could seriously vary game play and hamper the ease of learning how to deal with the few situations that will arise.

You see, Softnyx has provided the means. If you happen to stroll into a game (that I’m not in) where these items are unlocked, they won’t be for long. Either the creator of the game is slow in turning them off or the Gunbound police will come in to let them know how badly they err. You will see the multitude of word bubbles floating above the head of their avatars. “No heals!” “No healz!” “Turn off the healz!”, or even “Dualz only pls.” Yes, sir. The Gunbound Nazi only allow duals and the sudden death must be set to double death. It’s a hankering for anything that comes in twos. That’s the only way to get massive damage and gain money. That’s the only way to increase your precious, and wholly meaningful rank. Which, honestly, is much better than the spamming of a name. I tried to measure the time it takes for a seasoned Gunbound officer to start spamming names, but it’s almost as if they start yelling at everyone before they get in the room. When it’s as easy as clicking someone and pressing enter, again, Softnyx has enabled them.

There is one thing Softnyx can’t give to the Gunbound SS. They cannot allow them to alter how we actually play the game. Unfortunately for the metagame, this IS a team game. You win the game when the opposing team is no longer on the battlefield or has run out of lives. Would I be wrong in assuming that sometime during this skirmish it might be advantageous to help a friend out and kill the man trying to kill him? Would it then be wrong for him to, in turn, kill the man that is after you? For some reason, yes. It is absolutely despised to “dt” anyone. Any two people who shoot at the same target are hated. Double teamers, or “dters”, are yelled at constantly. That’s right, viable strategy holds no place in Gunbound. In fact, sometimes it feels like everyone is insulting every move you make. You’re either a noob or a pro, both of which are bad. Nice shot (or “ns”) can be both congratulatory or sarcastic.

It’s a terrible affair if you’re not playing with friends, insulting the pros by playing with items, double teaming everyone, and kicking the people who spam names. So how do I play? I play with friends in our own games. We leave all the items on. We double team people when need be. We double team people as soon as they complain about double teaming. We kick people who spam names. Heck, sometimes we play with different sudden death modes just to mix things up. We’re rebels. We’re bad asses. We defiantly say, “Screw the metagame. Learn to play the entire game.”

This game stars Milanor, a fun-loving theif with a sense of righteousness, and his new ally Yggdra, the princess of a fallen empire who reluctantly takes up the sword, in their quest to return their kingdom to peace. I’ve never seen a plot like this before. This game is completely new and original. It is not, however, well written by any stretch. In fact, most of the dialogue reads exactly like it feels; just enough to placate you between battles. Between new locations you get a small scrolling summary of what happened. When there you get there, you get one of three scenarios.

A) Huh? That town is under attack! We should kill the enemy leader.

B) We need to secure that area. Enemies be damned, we’ll stand on that castle / town / bridge / other strategic location.

C) Blah

These scenarios are, of course, acted out by a well rounded cast. Let’s see who we’ve got here. The amazingly skilled young warrior Milanor. He’s always willing to run into battle head first and shed some blood. The hesitant princess who picks up a sword and struggles with the morality of war. The noble knight who’s bravery and chivalry is only superseded by his strength on the battlefield. An odd young undine (read: mermaid) who speaks in the third person. All of the characters dialogue is so well written. Honestly, I don’t know how many writers they paid to turn out something of this caliber. In fact, the one part where you have to defeat the queen of the Undines in order to make her see that she shouldn’t be fighting is a masterpiece. I mean, she had me convinced with lines such as:

“Fate is an eternal sheet of ice.”

“We are fated to die… as their Queen I shall lead the way.”

I’m convinced that the writer for this game went back in time to when mermaid people did exist. This game was definitely written from first-hand experience. Someone time traveled back to the days of this war and just transcribed what he heard. Oh wait! Everything I’ve said in these last two paragraphs is sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell. This game is poorly written. (Side note: It could just be poorly translated. Either way I don’t forgive anyone.) It ranges from horrid old world to generic anime and even to arduous modern day phrases. I mean honestly, I’m pretty sure I remember reading “cruisin’ for a bruisin’.”

Terrible battle dialogue aside, similar scenarios overlooked, the battle system in this game is something I simply adore. As a fan of strategy role-playing games in general, seeing grids, terrain and movement just gets me more excited than a priest pedophile in a nursery. The battle system here is a mix of strategy, role-playing game, collectible card game, and Ogre Battle. Wait, what? Yes, I see the influence of all of the aforementioned in this game’s combat. It is a collectible strat-rpg with the feel of an Ogre Battle. In this game, you will need to obtain as many high-powered cards as possible. Each turn the player chooses the card of the tactics and skills they want. In the beginning of the game, before all aspects of combat are unlocked, you merely need to pay attention to the move and attack values of the card. In the beginning of the battle you’ll want more move to set up. Then you’ll want to crush your foes with high powered attack cards. It’s interesting in itself. Add on top of that skills, ace types, and leveling. You see, each card also has a skill and ace type associated with it. There are numerous types of skills ranging from simple spell, such as Fire and Blizzard, to attack the enemy to more complex skills like Ace Guard, which only help your allies in the battles to follow. To use these skills, you simply have to attack with a character of the ace type, fill a meter, and then charge / hold the B / A button. Usually. Some times cards require specific people, times of day, conditions in battle, etc; The game play is just adding layers as I THINK about it.

The meter I speak of is the aggression meter. This simple concept throws a level of interaction to battle that is commendable. Instead of simply pitting two warriors against each other watching the outcome, developer, Sting, thought of a clever way to keep people involved in the battle. Left or right. That’s it. You simply hold left or you hold right. Holding left will cause your unit to fight less aggressively, effectively building the meter up for later use or for another unit’s battle in the union. This is important and valid to use when you know that you will defeat this enemy. It helps to build the meter for units to come so that they may overcome harder enemies. It comes at a price; your unit will take more damage. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is the right button. Holding right will cause the unit to fight fiercer. This has the obvious benefit of increased damage at the cost of that meter. This means that using aggression is limited to how much you’ve built up. This meter is usually expelled while using card skills as well, so there exists a great sense of balance when it comes to aggression.

One (other) thing that sets this game apart is the method of attacking. Instead of the average tactics based rpg formula, where each character moves and performs an action, in Yggdra Union, the team as a whole must attack. Only one character may initiate an attack and he is called the Union leader. (Hence the title of the game.) Depending on whether this character is male or female (or monster) the party must move around them in a certain formation in order to join in the fray. At first, especially when you haven’t been taught this, it makes the battles seem slow and boring. In fact, the first few battles before the game started to introduce some of these complexities I was a bit skeptical. I was worried. As soon as I was introduced to unions, however, all of that changed. I saw just how much of a faster pace some battles could now have. Instead of taking the time and making sure each and every character has taken a suitable action, I can move my allies into a formation and calculate just who I want to attack and let loose with just a single attack command. It’s solid, tight, legit, and many other newfangled words for awesome.

I FUCKING LOVE IT!

Is this getting through to you? Honestly, the battle system is done well. After you’ve chosen a card, moved into position and formed a union and choose your victim(s), you are whisked away to the magical land of the battle field, where hope and wonder clash. Visually, this is where the game plays like Advance Wars. You move the units on the top down square grid. You send units into battle and you get the side-by-side split screen battle happening. In this game you have a set number of units each battle. For most characters this is six, although some of the larger units only get three. The two sides then duke it out and the first to lose all their units gets a swift kick in the morale. A person does not actually die until their morale drops to zero.

As with most games, there is a level of strategy as to who fights who. In YU:WNFA (Acronym? No?), they add a second layer to the rock-paper-scissors formula. This isn’t just a fourth contender. This is a whole new rock-paper-scissor upon an existing rock-paper-scissor. There are three melee units: Axe, sword, and lance. Sword types destroy axe types. Axe types crush lance types. Lance types impale sword types. It’s not 100% cut and dry. Crafty use of skills, placement in the order of battle, and use of aggression can help to overcome these handicaps. The melee handicaps, however, form just one piece of the overarching system. Melee units are good against archers. Archers, in turn, do well when fighting mages. Mages, therefore, are more suited to fight melee characters. Do I think this is the opposite order? Yes. Am I getting nit-picky because the battle system rocks harder than a death metal concert? Probably. It’s not my fault it’s solid. It’s just very deep without seeming complex at all. There’s so much to it without even having skill trees for characters, intense micromanagement or confusing, archaic rules of engagement.

Luckily for Sting the game play is what matters most. Or so I still hope. In this day and age of HDR and bloom, I’m not so sure. Some of the other areas in this game suffered a bit. The graphics were could definitely be kicked up a notch. The map has such little detail! Especially with all the monochromatic characters on top. It feels almost odd considering how much more detail each character has when speaking. Even the interface has much more detail for the most part, save for the few items on the interface that are unnecessarily pixelated. Those little things really bug me, though. How hard would it be to make a smooth axe to go along with the other smooth items in the interface? The same goes for battle. It’s all very nice, save for a few animations. Most of the animations are beautiful. Milanor viciously swinging his axe-like blade. Whole armies jumping to strike upon foes. A few animations just look like they have only a few frames. A few of the animations don’t even look like they hurt. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Yggdra swing her sword while thinking, “Wow. I honestly think I could take that to the face.” That one is just SO slow. If there weren’t people all around her fighting so frantically, you’d guess it was in slow motion.

(Honestly, it’s even worse when you’re not holding left.)

In fact, a good portion of the graphics are pretty much a throw-away. It’s easy to tell that they used most of the memory in that cartridge on the character designs themselves. They aren’t anything overly impressive. In fact, a few of them feel a little bland or “inspired.” Milanor, the REAL main character, is pretty nice. Personally, having programmed for the Game Boy Advance, I can bear no ill will towards the graphics. Not to mention I’m not much of a graphics guy myself. I’m not looking for an 8-bit game on the PS3 or 360, but I don’t need blinding “realistic” lighting and high definition parallax occlusion mapped trillion poly models either. If that is your thing, you may be disappointed in this game. Severely.

If you’re a sound guy, however, you may find something in this game. This title includes music by composed by Minako Adachi and Shigeki Hayashi. They worked on Sting’s previous title, Riviera among others. None of the music in the game feels out of place. All of the sound effects fit. I enjoy the fact that the music is dynamic. When in battle, whether you are fighting evasively, normally, or aggressively the music’s tempo changes. I’m a sucker for dynamic background music. Then again, it’s a Game Boy Advance game, so you’re still getting those limited sounds. Funny thing about the original GBA. It has stereo sound, but not stereo speakers. The only way to hear a GBA game and get a full audio experience is to plug a pair of headphones in. Yet, they don’t simply provide a headphone jack. Because I’ve not owned a decent pair of headphones up until recently, I’m interested as to just how many titles have even utilized stereo sound. But I digress. The music seems fine to me. I am not an audiophile when it comes to game soundtracks, though. To me, the punk, rock, hip-hop sound tracks of the Tony Hawk series equate to awesome. If you’ve got an opinion on Yggdra’s, I urge you to leave a comment. Please.

All in all, this is a solid game. Some of the graphics are a little lacking: the backgrounds, some of the icons, and the monochromatic little icons on the map among other things. Also, if you’ve never played the game you just don’t understand how impossibly weak Yggdra’s swing looks. Are we doing ballet or fighting here, honey? Well, I’m told she’s fighting. However, I have my doubts. The story really isn’t revolutionary. Well, I guess in a way it is revolutionary because it literally happens in the game. The story certainly isn’t a main draw, however. Maybe with a better plot and some decent dialogue this game could’ve garnered more praise. Unfortunately, you’ll be parading through the story, one event after the other, about fifty times. If you play through a second time, you’ll definitely want to turn the tutorials off. They are well done, but darn there is a lot of them. They just keep layering on new elements to combat and each time you think that it must be the last tutorial. But they don’t and it’s awesome. The battle system gets intense, crazy props. It manages to innovate the tactical RPG genre in a world full off Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogres. Not that those are bad games. It’s just that they set the definitive model for almost all others. In the end, I’m going to have to give this game 29 out of 32 poorly written lines of dialogue. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s about 5:30 AM here and I’m supposed to get up at 8:30 AM.

Chad: So it’s pretty obvious you found this game just as addicting as I did.

Caciss: Very. 17 hour gaming session. It was kind of ridiculous

Chad: The first one had me for forty hours straight. I beat it in one play through. I guess the only thing that kept me putting down this one was this crazy house I’m now in.

Caciss: Forty hours in one sitting?

Chad: Yeah. I had my brother get me lunch and dinner, ha ha. Though, I paused to go the bathroom.

Caciss: Daamn.

Alright, I’ll touch on the most positive points.

Chad: OK.

Caciss: Probably the most major addictive quality to me is primarily t he characterization. Obsidian hits the mark as high as Bioware at least in having an engaging script. All the characters are interesting and deep. I love how the game doesn’t force this on you. If you don’t want to sit through hours of dialogue, you don’t have to. Really though, there must be at least severals hours alone of extra dialogue that is used solely to develops the characters you spend the game with. Really, something pretty similar to the first KotOR anyways. However, KotORII adds influence which really only deepens the experience.

Anyways, what primarily stood out to you?

Chad: Agreed, agreed, and agreed for the most part. I became a sucker for trying to advance the whole social aspect of this. Except for Kreia. I hated her as soon as she started talking. The game has MOSTLY great character development (save for a few characters who really sufferred) and I think it was well done. Whenever I’d see [Influence: Failed] I’d always talk that character’s ear off to try and gain enough influence to get my question answered.

Another thing for me was battle. I don’t even know why. I thoroughly enjoyed the combat. Being a light side character, it’s not like I had too many battle techniques. I had mostly protective Force powers and those felt almost useless, especially toward the end.

Caciss: Only light sided ability I was jealous of was heal

Chad: I healed like a fiend. And revitalized.

Caciss: Which characters do you think suffered?

Chad: Well, definitely Darth Nihilus. I mean, he’s a pawn and you don’t care for him at all. You know this because the ploy has pretty much been revealed at the point you even meet him. I mean, you only saw him once before chokin’ someone and if you didn’t talk to Visas enough, you didn’t even hear about him again. It’s like, why do I even want to bother killing him? I think at the least, he could have kept contact with Visas. Threatened her from afar. Something as simple as that could have added this small, tickling sense of distrust to Visas and kept our interest in Nihilus. The same goes for Sion.

Caciss: I’d say for the most part, the weakest characters in this game are the villains. Darth Nihilus really isn’t given any development, for what could be an interesting character. Mr. Cracked Skin as well. I think three scenes in the entire game feature him.

Chad: Honestly, why does he hide behind the mask? What makes him so dark? Powerful? ALL of his development takes place during the battle and afterwards.

Caciss: I know absolutely nothing about any of the villains

Chad: Well, you know about yourself! Caciss, was it?

(The face of evil)

Caciss: Yes! I suppose you’re right, ha ha.

About the battle system. It is is pretty addictive or fun for is actually a pretty shallow system. Though I do have to see I felt much more challenged through out KotORII than I ever felt in KotOR. I don’t like how once you obtain your lightsaber, engaging in any other weapon tree is essentially useless outside maybe force powers. And, as a dark sided character, once I got Force Lightening the games challenge was pretty much over. Cast Force Lightening three times and all twelve attachers on the screen are dead.

Chad: Well, for the light side it could be considerably harder. Especially end game when you have 10 or 12 Sith with those double bladed weapons and light sabers. I don’t have that luxury. Although, it still was pretty much a science. Just Force Wave and then attack the people who didn’t get stunned with your best stuff. Rinse, repeat. Heal when necessary.

Caciss: When we describe it sounds like such an utter bore. I guess most RPGs suffer from this, actually.

Chad: I know. Although, maybe that’s why I’m a fan of more tactical RPGs. There are some challenges.

Caciss: Still, the combat never felt boring or a hassle. I was never like, ‘O, combat again?’ Combat really is only like 30% of the game anyways, and it is done right. It’s engaging and somewhat addictive.

Chad: Which really, it’s almost confusing looking back on it now.

Caciss: What do you mean?

Chad: Thinking about it, I used one strategy. I variated but a few times, and mostly because I didn’t have a Jedi in my party at the time. Which, was quite welcome. Even though it used the same system, even though you could use these characters as part of your party, whenever you didn’t have yourself in the party it could feel like a whole different type of combat.

Caciss: I really only recall one segment in the game where you aren’t a party member.

Chad: Yeah, the C-4D4 or whatever he is. That was still pretty neat. Which reminds me of his conversation with the little trash can robot. It’s kind of funny that you never get to know exactly what they’re saying yet you converse with them on multiple occasions.

Caciss: Ha ha, yeah. Picking your responses as T3-M4 when the options are just ‘Dweet… beep beep!” and the like.

Chad: Speaking of which, conversation is definitely a focal point of this game, and it’s honestly gratifying just to garner the responses you want. My persuade was quite high. Wait, how did you develop your character?

Caciss: I started off with high dexterity but eventually ended up having really high wisdom so I could cast force lightening non-stop. I had high persuade, but I’m not sure of the exact amount. I used just a single lightsaber. Yoooou?

Chad: Man, you’re a weak Jedi, er, Sith. I had myself the strength of ten men, the persuasive skills of Adolf Hitler and I carried a regular and short lightsaber. Pretty much I took all of the feats that were required to go along with that, and mastered the healing powers.

Who did you try to teach to become a Jedi?

Caciss: I tried to get Atton to a Jedi. I had him in my part almost constantly hoping to see “Influence Gained.” Never seemed to get enough. The person I had the highest influence with was Visas who was already a Jedi.

Chad: I tried to get Atton into lightsabers, but I had already gotten him all the close combat feats and he rarely ever switched to it by himself. Did you ever get Handmaiden interested in being a jedi?

Caciss: She eventually wouldn’t talk to me by the end of the game.

Chad: So then did Atris still accuse the handmaiden of betrayal and being a dity jedi?

Caciss: Yeah, was kind of dumb.

Chad: As a dark Jedi, is there anything else that you feel you missed out on, or anything that made you wish you were on the light side?

Caciss: I figure I missed out on some gameplay. I think it’s enough to drive me to replay the game as a light Jedi. Missed out on some possible character development with light sided allies. What about you?

Chad: Well, I had a lot of useless dark Jedi items because even though every Jedi who joins you seems sketchy and evil is actually light. Other than that, I could’ve used the credits. A few times I really just wanted to say mean things to people I didn’t like or didn’t want to help, but I had to resist.That really was the hardest aspect of it.

Caciss: Oh, the pains of being good. I really enjoyed telling Kreia to shut the fuck up.

Chad: I just didn’t talk to her.I hope she felt abandoned and alone in her bitch corner.

Caciss: She sure loved to meditate

Chad: You would too if no one liked you.

Caciss: Yeah, probably.

OH, AND THE BUGS IN THIS GAME. Even with the patch the bugs are still pretty atrocious. Who knows how many times I had to restart becuase the camera wouldn’t stop rotating?

Chad: I got that too. I found that if you just stop fighting it and let it be, it corrected itself. Don’t even get me started on the bugs. You didn’t even have it as bad. I could NOT for the life of me get the patch to install. I reinstalled, restarted, and recycled. Nothing worked. I should have read the bugs beforehand. I got that too. I found that if you just stop fighting it and let it be, it corrected itself.I loved swoop racing in the first one. I forfeited almost right away on the first track trying to remember / learn the controls and mechanics and apparently when you forfeit a race, you can never ever win again.

Caciss: My finger was addicted to F4, since the game likes to crash quite a bit.

Chad: You know, oddly it only crashed twice for me, but both times during the most epic battles.

Caciss: I lost at least an hour of gameplay in one crash. Mostly the reason for my quick save addiction. Losing an hour of gameplay is such a kick in the balls to my drive to play a game. I’ve probably never finished several games because of losing too much game time.

Chad: And yet you still beat it days before me. I hear ya, though. I think the worst bug for me other than the swoop racing was that right after the battle with Darth Nihilus, an old conversation that I’d already had happened again. That was just so annoying to me especially because it was with Visas about not going to fight her master.

Caciss: I don’t get why Visas takes Nihilus’ mask if I can’t wear it?

Also, why such a lack in jedi armor?

Chad: I was riding high in some jedi armor. The jedi robes sucked, but some of the light armors that allowed for Force Powers were pretty nice.

Caciss: I never encountered any of those. I was stuck with some shiesty robes for the entire game.

Chad: Oh man, you seriously missed out. You didn’t see items like the Jal Shey Initiate Armor, et all?

Caciss: I guess not.

Chad: The Jedi Knight Robe? The Norris robe?

Caciss: I think I had Norris. WAS still shiesty

Chad: Yeah, that one was pretty crappy, but at least an upgrade from Generic Jedi Robe.

Caciss: It still sucked I was pissed. Just like the ending. It didn’t feel very fulfilling

Chad: I thought it was pretty good, at least in theory, except the very, very last portion.

Caciss: I didn’t like the ending in pretty much general. It just didn’t feel like like a climax at all. You confront the two overlying villains, both of which are pretty much flat as a board. Kreia turns out to be evil, something I saw coming back at Peragus. You fight her… and it’s over? It’s also really easy to skip over what happens after all this dialogue if you’re evil. I actually had to play the end twice. Also the GO-TO and Remote scene is completely retarded and serves pretty much no purpose. The Ebon Hawk goes falling into oblivion yet as a good character somehow you escape on it?

Chad: And only as a good character, right? Guess I’m just so much better than you. I agree, it ended too quickly, and the villains weren’t satisfying. Hell, it’s WHOLLY retarded between G0-T0 and Remote, especially because they imply that the planet will not blow up and it does. However, I think if you start the ending on Dantooine, it’s at least a good idea. I mean, betrayed by everyone again. You gather the masters. You do ALL the work and they tell you it’s over? They deny you (even fully light side)? Dude, I had beams of light rising up from the ground I was so good and in the end, everyone else just had some plot to manipulate me. The execution is definitely lacking and the closure isn’t there. I mean, who was even in the Ebon Hawk when it left? It’s totally wasted potential. But there’s so much of it!

Caciss: No shit. KotOR II is a game who’s major plot line is overshadowed by all the subplots. Really, the major plot line feels mostly there to just move the game along so you can experience all the little nuances in the worlds.

Also I just realized Canderous Ordo is Mandalore. What’d you feel about the all the KotOR refrences?

Chad: Honestly, it’s an interesting concept. Funny because they have to be ambiguous about Revan’s gender and ultimately whether or not he was evil or misguided. Really, it was interesting to play on Dantooine again. Either it was the long time between the first and the second game, or the fact that it was destroyed, it felt fresh. I enjoyed the references I caught, I’d guess.

Caciss: I think they were done well. Wasn’t necessary to have played Kotor which is the most important thing, but they’re definitely fun to catch. Also I just read this on the wikipedia entry:

Obsidian Entertainment provided the PC version of the game with resources meant to be used for the original ending, such as screenplays and voice files. Pressure from LucasArts to release the game in time for the Christmas season forced Obsidian to abbreviate the ending.

Chad: Screw LucasArts. Hard. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing game. I would gladly purchase a 3rd.

Caciss: Funny, that my major complaint with the game is because LucasArts rushed them. Even an entire planet was cut out. I’m really surprised that LucasArts would rush, especially a franchise that has massive potential to be a flagship series. In their sea of 80000000 star wars games.

Chad: I know. I think Star Wars has their hand in every genre. Imagine if they didn’t rush THIS one. Imagine the bugs that could have been fixed. Imagine the planet. Imagine seeing the whole ending.

Caciss: The game is already near perfection except for some really glaring flaws. Most which I assume are because Lucas Art’s are impatient… twats. I would just think that Kotor a game that won like 90 game of the year awards, the sequel would get a little leeway

Chad: I guess they just don’t have the resources of Blizzard.

Caciss: You would think they would. They must make a shitload pimping out Star Wars games. Even if we don’t get a Kotor 3 anytime soon, Mass Effect basically looks like Kotor except Bioware has a lot more free reign.

Chad: And I’m glad.

Caciss: As am I.

Anyways, what’s your final rating?

Chad: Well, I don’t want to really give this game a solid, numeric rating. I just have one thing to say to Obsidian and BioWare. Influence Gained: Chad Stewart. [Ok]

Caciss: I however, will give it a solid numerical rating. This game is a lot of freakin’ fun, but, I can’t give it a perfect rating because of some really bad flaws. I give Knights of the Old Republic and 8 out of 10.

Perhaps this game hasn’t aged well, maybe I’ve been spoiled by better RTS’ like Starcraft and Dawn of War. Maybe 60 years ago in the year 2000 these graphics blew your mind, and you could just gaze lovingly upon the battles for hours on end. I’m just gonna say this: game starts slow.

SLOW!!

The tutorial is annoying, but I’ll disregard that since I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a tutorial that hasn’t drove me nuts.

Nevertheless, on the first mission I think I spent about 10 to 15 minutes mostly sitting around waiting for my slow ass ships to reach their destination. I’m really surprised I sta through that. This shit should be unacceptable. This is real time strategy! Not slow… time strategy, man! Still, I have to give this game a chance, so on to the second mission.

This game does have a pretty neato feature, in that all your ships are saved for the next mission. Meaning if you barely win the mission you’re at a disadvantage the next. Or, if you’re an idiot like me and misspent in the first mission — you’re absolutely reamed. Ah, the joys of sitting through that first mission again. GLORIOUS! The second mission does pick up though, but I still mostly feel like I’m just watching my ships fly around and shoot stuff. I could practically nap through this stuff.

I forget what I did in the third mission. Pretty sure there was more sitting around. Seriously, when does this game have some action? When does this game turn up the DESTRUCTION!?

Fourth mission you meet up with some pretty cool alien race. I don’t know but I just really dug everything about them. I want to play as them. Just cruising the galaxy, trading with cool peeps. Anyhow, they sold me some ion cannon technology. Thx dudes!

Okay, I’ve got another complaint about this game. This game fails at providing in game stats or even descriptions for the ships. I’m mostly at a loss figuring out the function for some of these crafts of space. I have no clue what counters what. Even when I’m attacking ships, it doesn’t show their health. I have absolutely zero clue what units are more effective. This can suck my balls. Shit should be a requirement for any half decent RTS.

The plot in the game is relatively interesting. The Kushan find out they aren’t native to their planet, but they discover some hint to their homeworld. So, they build a crazy ass mothership and one scientist lady integrates her very self with the ship. She’s basically the only character in the game, as of yet. So, yeah, it’s a semi-interesting plot — but I’m a character kind of guy. If the characters ain’t tight, I’m not that down with it. The story, like the game, is mostly just a sit and watch kind’a deal.

Still, this game does have some sort of charm about it, and it does handle it’s complete 3D system quite fluidly — something they easily could have fucked all over.

Eh, overall Homeworld has dissed on my personal tastes one too many times. For now, this shit is 6/10 — perhaps I’ll write another updated review if I change my mind.

OH AND ONE MORE THING. This game on it’s damn box brags that it has a Yes song. Goofy.

“What in the crap am I trying to pronounce?” you ask. It’s the first catchy song of the best game you’ve probably never played. It’s called Tecmo Cup – Soccer Game (in America). As the introduction begins the narrative of Robin Field, a soccer player only surpassed by his father before him, the first song gets you pumped up. Personally, I think it starts off with a striking resemblance to “Eye of the Tiger” and continues by sounding similar to pure awesome. It could just be me. Maybe you should listen to the music yourself.

Of course, great music doesn’t make a game great. It can only improve upon an incredibly fun game. Fortunately, that’s what Tecmo Cup – Soccer Game is! It is an amazing game. For a Nintendo game, it provides one of the most accurate soccer simulations available. While other soccer games for the Nintendo are stuck with pass, shoot, and switch player, Tecmo Cup – Soccer Game provides you with a plethora of Soccer moves. You’ll be performing diving headers, bicycle kicks, volley shots, and more all with beautiful animations. It doesn’t even stop at offense. On defense you can mark the player to prevent him from dribbling past, slide tackle to knock the ball away, cut a pass off, or wait to make their move. Even the goalie has the option of attempting to catch the ball so he can throw it to one of his own players or just punching the ball away for an easier save. The possibilities are just so amazing.

I have to say, this game was ahead of it’s time. You may be thinking, “Wow. You can do so much.” Yet, I haven’t even told you about any of the super moves. Each player has endurance in this game measured by guts. Star players in this game can be easily discerned from others because they usually have some sort of powerful move to help them win. Robin Field has a few stellar shots such as the Hyper Shot which are accompanied by a neat visual display. Two brothers from one team have a superior passing ability that make them quite a challenge. All this and it had an announcer on the bottom part of the screen giving you the play by play. “No. 7 passes the ball.” “Brook’s tack got the ball!”

Although, that hardly helps to ease your mind. “How can you do so much with just two measily buttons?” you might ask. “Menus,” I answer. This game does have its share of menus and options. Before a game there is a menu where you can get advice from your team and get your password from a lovely lady. When you have the ball you press the B button to bring up a menu of options. This menu lists all of the actions. The developers managed to make it so this menu doesn’t STOP the action, it IS the action. Whenever a player from the other team gets in range, this menu appears along with a different screen. Whenever your players surround an opponent the menu pops up along with silhouettes of your players. Whenever the ball gets close to your goalie his concerned face adorns the screen with the option to punch or catch. I love it. Then again, it’s easy to see where this might lose some people. Especially nowadays, as it could feel rather dated or slow. I guess this is the point that a gamers enjoyment would hinge on. Call it nostalgia, but I’m so pumped up by the music that I don’t feel like I’m taking a break from the action. Except during half-time.

Oh, and when the other team has the ball. Now this is THE flaw about this game. Honestly, it is the only flaw for me. The only thing to do while the other team has the ball is to tap all the buttons in some superstitious ritual in hopes that your team will stop them. I feel like I have no control over the game at this point, and that is a big no-no. When a game takes the control away from the player, they take away the selling point of games. There are a lot of soccer movies on DVD, I would like to play a game. These quick moments of helplessness, however brief they may be, are one of the biggest turn-offs for this game. I’m glad that in the iterations of this game to follow they fixed this.

Now, one thing that I did not know when I played this as a child was that this game is actually based on an anime. That’s right, the generically titled Tecmo Cup – Soccer Game is actually an American front for the Japanese anime / game Captain Tsubasa. It stars the title character in his quest to prove he’s an awesome soccer player. In this game, they threw Zack Morris in his shoes and changes his name to Robin Field. They also changed other characters to modernize the game such as Brook, the punk with the mohawk and Kevin, the hot-headed player with orange hair. Instead of generic slightly spiky, black haired Asians, the forgettable players are replaced with Aryans. Americanized is an understatement. It explains why some players can shoot Hyper shots and that could cause the ball to rip through the net.

Robin doesn’t start with a laundry list of crazy shots. This game has an experience aspect to it borrowed from the likes of role-playing games. As team members dribble, pass, tackle, and shoot they get more and more experienced. There is no meter or bar to show for this. It is just internally kept track of somehow. At the end of the game, some players will have gotten better while others have not. During the start of the next game the coach will tell you who has gotten better. As some players get better they gain additional shot types. In fact, Robin starts with nothing. You have to earn the Hyper shot! This adds a whole new level of rewarding game play.

All in all, the game is pretty stellar. Most of the graphics are pretty, aside from the jagged pixels that are forgiven in any 8-bit title. Surely the announcer could have taken up less space. He had an important job, but not half-the-screen important. His announcing did let me know when I was about to be completely destroyed by something like a Running-Ferocious-Tiger-That-Hasn’t-Eaten-in-Five-Days Shot. I’m always astounded by the complexities of this game. It was a soccer simulation with RPG elements that caught me in just the right way. Speaking of being caught, the music is all catchy. It’s just amazing how much this music can put you in the mood for soccer. In fact, check out the bottom of this post and hear it for yourself. I give this game 7.3 out of 8.1 decibels.

Tecmo Cup – Soccer Game in wave form, as captured during game play.

Introduction [Mirror]

Player Theme [Mirror]

Enemy Theme [Mirror]

Also, be sure to play the game and form your own opinions!

“Oh well,” I thought. It’s a Guitar Hero game, right? I’ll play it over and over again. I’m a Guitar Pro, I’d say. I can beat all of the songs on expert, four if not five star them, but I cannot perfect some of the solos. So I got home and I popped the game in. My jaw immediately dropped not in amazement, but in vast disappointment. The loading screen is exactly the same. Well, it’s not exactly the same. It reads a little better on Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s. It’s just the memory card loading screen, so who cares right?

I continue on. My eyes widen as the screen flickers in The introduction movie was precisely the same except for an 80s recoloring. Hmph. I guess they were a little too pressed on time to create an entirely new intro movie.

First order of business is to go into career mode. We want to see how sweet all the returning characters look in their new 80s outfit. Wait, did I see ALL the returning characters? I meant the FEW returning characters. Looks like we’re missing Eddie Knox (who will forever be King Kendall in my heart), Casey Lynch, and Lars Ümlaüt. There’s only space for one bonus character and obviously they kept the Grim Ripper. So looks like we’re missing five out of eleven characters. Math tells me that’s close to half of the characters who won’t be rocking in the 80s. Well, we’re certainly not expanding on much here. I’ll say that everyone has some pretty cool outfits save for one character, The Grim Ripper. Now, I know that we’re in the 80s. I know that we want to cash in on everything that made the 80s so “memorable.” But why, is this Grim Ripper dressed like Flava Flav? Did he have some solo career out of Public Enemy, notorious rap group, where he shredded the guitar?

Yeah boyeeee!

I checked the store. That was a disappointment. Not only are we missing bonus tracks, but we’re missing alternate costumes. No new guitars or finishes either. At least there will be a solid 40 career mode tracks in the career mode. I’m not expecting the amazing 56 song career mode that the 360 version of Guitar Hero II got upgraded to. Time to start rocking.

Author’s Note: As of this time around, I’ll be playing with a regular controller. I am playing on the PS3 and I’m going through getting screen shots. My PS2 is not working and I just need to play through a few songs to get these screen shots. That’s not to say I haven’t played the game with a controller. I did. I got the whole experience.

The first song starts to play. The venue is pretty cool looking. The high school is decked out in some of those lovely neons. Everyone is dressed and ready to go. WAIT A SECOND. Everyone is not dressed and ready to go. The singer is wearing the same clothes as he is in Guitar Hero II. He’s from the future! Wait, the drummer and bassist, too. The bassist still looks like the dude from This is Spinal Tapp. What a rip-off. Now more than 50% of the models from Guitar Hero II have not been designed for the 80s. I’m starting to feel ripped off.

In a fit of rage, I beat one song after the another. Without challenge. (Author’s Note: I was really beating songs on expert for my first time playing with a controller. That’s honestly shameful.) In terms of difficulty, this game is by far easier than it’s predecessors. Now, it’s still pretty fun. This game was designed to be extremely rewarding when you’re doing well. Fire shoots up from the notes as you hit them. A rock meter builds up. The audience gets pumped when you do well enough. Of course, the song plays. As you’re hitting notes, those notes from the song play and it gives you the illusion that you’re playing the guitar. That is the most important part of this game, and understandably, they made sure they did it well. As you progress in difficulty, this feeling steepens. You begin to play more and more of the notes. When you miss these notes, however, the guitar makes funny noises. The crowd gets angry. It’s a miracle that they even let you play the song. I don’t remember the last concert I went to where the band only hit 90% of the notes.

So this game has the killer Guitar Hero formula behind it. It should be fun. It should be established. It should be a sure thing. It isn’t. These songs are just not as challenging, as I said earlier. For the first half of the game, it feels like the designers just threw in as many three key chords as they could to try and add challenge. For those unfamiliar with the game, you play the guitar realistically. Sometimes you only have to hold one key and strum. Sometimes you have to hold multiple keys and strum, to simulate chords. This time around, there are lots of the latter. The first few songs you play where you’re switching the placement of your fingers up it feels almost awkward and harder, but by the time you reach the second tier of songs it’s second nature. It’s easy. It’s fun, but it’s just so much easier.

Asia – Heat of the Moment	A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran (So Far Away)
Eddie Money – Shakin’	The Go-Go’s We Got the Beat

Not to say this game is without it’s more challenging tracks. A few of the songs, Electric Eye and Play With Me, may take a few tries. They have some fun solos to get into, but that’s pretty much it. The song list should be strong on this one. I mean, that’s the selling point of this game. Unfortunately, it falls a little flat. It’s got the hair metal genre covered, but really it completely dominates the track list. They have some New Wave / Punk with Oingo Boingo, X, Dead Kennedys; a few Pop tracks with The Go-Gos, but that’s it. Not to say that I don’t like hair metal, I mean that pretty much dominated the 80s, but variety is the spice of life right? With 40 tracks they could have done so much more.

Oh wait, did I say 40 tracks? I meant 30 tracks. As I finish up Play With Me, I finish up the game. I sat through the same stage shows at dressed up venues, with the same little driving transition from set list to set list, and I only get 30 tracks? So there isn’t even the same amount of venues to play at as GHII? They had the opportunity to recreate some of the glamorous LA night clubs or an east coast club like CBGB, and they took venues out? Hold up, I want my money back. A partial refund at least, please. How can they get away with this whole “more is less” thing they got going on?

Honestly, this game is not worth $50.00. It’s still a fun, rewarding game. It’s the same formula. It’s got the same game modes. You can challenge or play with a buddy. In fact, one of the greatest points of this game is that you can pick it up and play it for a few minutes with some friends on a short break. The only problem with this installment to the series is that it just screams exploitation in every aspect. The track list is short and there aren’t any bonus songs to buy. There aren’t any new guitars. There aren’t any alternate outfits. There aren’t any new characters or venues. In fact, there are less than the previous game. There’s just too much missing from this game considering what they already had to work with. Don’t get me wrong, you can enjoy the experience. Just not when you know you’ve paid this much. Maybe when it drops down to $25.00 or so it will be a decent value. For now, just give it a rental until that happens. I rate this game 25 out of 49.99 ESRP.

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago.

Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions.