Game Reviews

Exactly what they sound like. Eventually I'll expand on my mini-reviews and put full reviews in here, I'll also just slap them in here when they drop off the main page. Until then, there will only be reviews from others.


Animal Crossing (Gamecube)
Malkamar

This is one of the best games I have played in a long time. It has no point at all. You basically do whatever you please. As stupid as it sounds most of what I end up doing is hunting down new wallpaper, carpet and funiture to make my house even cooler then it is now... The other real big seller is that in this game you can collect NES games. I dont mean just stack them in your imaginary home. I mean you can play the games you find as well. To sum things up for those who haven't even seen advertisements, you get an entire village of animals to interact with and talk to. Your village on Animal Crossing can take a lot out of your memory card thou. This game uses a Whopping 57 blocks minimum. Thats is a entire smaller card just about. Thankfully, the makers of the game packaged another memory card with the game. I personally have two villages. I keep track of one and one of my local friends tracks the other one. Having multiple villages to work with is very cool. When you visit another village for example some of your villagers may move to your friends town, and vise versa! To sum up my blatherings, I love this game. I recomend it to anyone who likes games that dont rush you... so you can take a break... and go fishing...


Armored Core 3 (PS2)
WeaverKin

And Agetec sayeth: "There shall be Armored Core 3!" And there was. And it was good. Many graphical improvements and various tweaks, (either having a high defense is much more useful than before, or damage is lower... either way, tanks are now more feasable than before) plus the addition of core-based orbit weapons. ... not much more to say than that, it's pretty much the same game as before. A small disappointment with the continued lack of dual analog control, but by now I've gotten more than used to the setup; it's quite comfortable IMO. If you're a fan of the series or 'mech games in general, you shall pick this up immediately!
[ 9/10: Near perfect ]


Dance Dance Revolution MAX (PS2)
WeaverKin

I can not say enough good things about this game. I've been waiting for quite some time for a US home DDR game even half as good as most of the Japanese releases, and now, we have a superior verion IMO. After the first poor attempt at a US DDR, and the good-but-not-great Konamix, this is a simply great edition. 71 god-damned songs. Midnight Blaze. You Leave Me Alone. Drop the Bomb [System SF Mix]. Ordinary World. My Generation. Dark Black Forest. Sandstorm. There is maybe four songs I don't like. Four. Out of 71. I very well may die, for I have seen DDR heaven. If there is a lack of updates in the near future, it's because I have been playing this game too much and have hospitialized for severe exhaustion. Yes, it is that good. And I'm saying this with 13 songs left to unlock, so, unless most of them suck (and I've heard some of them, they don't), this game is a must-buy.
*ahem* Ok, to stop going on and on about how I love this game, there are some bad points. No Dark mode and no 0.5x speed. Two songs have nearly identical or unecessary remixes. ... That's all. There is nothing else to complain about. Everything else falls under personal taste, and lucky for me, I really like most of the music in this edition. Oni mode will be the death of me.
[ 9.5/10: Masterpiece ]


Gauntlet Dark Legacy (Gamecube)
Malkamar

This is one of the many console ports of this arcade hit. It has a plot despite what many may say about these games. Of course the point of playing a game like this is not to get an in-depth storytelling experience, NO! The point of these types of games is to mindlessly hack and slash though thousands of enemies. It may be slightly changed in th port but all of the modifactions seem to make sence and are good ideas. For example you must gather glowing crystals to be able to unlock levels. They dont exactly hide them either.... All of them for the next world are in plain sight. You would have trouble avoiding some of them. They make it so your level one charactor can't go kill themselves right away in the hardest level of the game. They also made it so that you can tackle part one of a world and then redo it again to level up a little.
Unfortunatly a major downside to this otherwise great game is that in multiplayer you can only use one memorty card.. So you and your friend can't both use your normal charactors. There may be a way around that thou. I just haven't found one yet.. nor have I tried too hard either. (the person I play with normally is using my Gamecube and Memory cards.. isn't a real issue)
In short, if you want a fun multi-player hack-n-slash to relax with between RPGs go for this game. I rate it pretty highly for what it is. It's too much fun not to like, plot or no plot.


MechAssault (XBox)
WeaverKin

To be honest, I picked up this game not knowing what the hell to expect, and I played no demos of it, nor did I rent it before hand, or see a friend play. I saw a single video from IGN. That was it. I have long been a fan of MechWarrior and all things Battletech, so I just kinda picked it up. Whats the point of all that rambling? This is something I NEVER do. I almost always give a game some kind of fairly conclusive preview before I spend my cash on it. I knew it was an action game rather than the usual sim (having more in common with the SNES MechWarrior 3050 then any PC incarnation), and I had high expectations. Good thing that they weren't let down, otherwise it would've gotten returned quickly.
This game has to be looked at from two angles, for XBox Live adds a truly huge amount of replay value, and just plain fun, to this game.
The single player campaign is pretty good, decent story and all, but nothing about it really stands out. Just your average group of religious zealots out to control a planet, and you're the single person available to stop them. Yay. New 'mechs are obtained at a fairly regular rate, giving the player ample variety. The voice acting is quite good, and the graphics are top-notch (mmm... pretty explosions... *drools*). Multiplayer on one XBox is limited, only 2 players per 'Box allowed, so System Link is almost required if you don't have Live, and that's not a good thing.
WITH Xbox Live, however, that all changes. Even with the small selection of levels and gametypes, there is endless variety to be found online. It's kinda hard to describe how it really is, other than to just give the two most basic things about online multiplayer: up to 8 players per map and voice support. Doesn't sound like much, but don't my lack of adequate words throw you, it's great. With the promise of a few new maps, a new gametype, and 4 new 'mechs early next year, this is THE Live game to get.
Without XBL: [ 6.5/10: Good rental ]
With XBL: [ 9/10: Near Perfect ]


Resident Evil (Gamecube)
Malkamar

Now I wasn't a big fan of most of the Resident Evil series, in fact I only liked the original first game, but this game brought back the feeling I first had with with that one great Resident Evil. The main spilt between why this game is better then the others is that it has a constricted but more convincingly real setting. This game has taken resident evil to a much higher level. The first thing that has improved is the shear length of the game. The first game was on one cd. This game is on two mini-dvds... I haven't had a chance to play very far but it has shown its improvments already. First of all once you shoot a zombie enough to "kill" it, it is not dead. Unless you used an explosive weapon (mmmm grenades...) the guy is still sitting their alive but not moving... Well you have a choise here. You can a) ignore the body completely letting it revive as a stronger, faster, increadibly annoying bloodhead as I think they are named. or b) Burn the body with the lighter and kerosene you can find stopping the thing from changing... Now burning bodys is a delicate operation. You DO NOT have enough kerosene to burn every zombie you kill. So in this game conservation is KEY! Another big addition is guest houses up the wazzo.
This game also garners a very high score for sheer cool factor...