Unplayed Impressions - Final Fantasy XIII-2

Alright Alright! So last night I got to thinking, While I was playing Castlevania Symphony of the Night, HEY!!! you should give FF 13-2 a chance, as I wallowed in my own fear watching the download percentage increase. I couldn't help remember the shit storm known as Final Fantasy 13, and it scared me because, I hate to see such a company of Square Enix caliber fail. So I gave the demo a try and....
I enjoyed myself, although I couldn't tell what the hell was going on, in the battle system, am I doing good or am I failing at life. Even though I was quite oblivious to what was going on, I like Final Fantasy XIII-2. It seems like it takes some getting used to, but I just might pick up a co... oh wait gotta pay for the ending. Nevermind.

Still pretty good though.

Splatterhouse Review

A violent retro game, known for it's over the top violence and gore. Splatterhouse is the new reboot to a classic juggernaut on the Sega master system, Sega Genesis, and Arcades. Can this Fresh new look push us to want more Splatterhouse games, or does it push us go to the options menu, to play the original.

You play as Rick Taylor, a college student who somewhat comes off as a smart looking geek, who want to be a metal head. Once you press the start button, the game wastes no time to throw you right into the action. Rick's on the floor laying in a pool of his own blood, in a mansion, only to see his girlfriend Jennifer being pulled away against her will by some, crazy Doctor or Scientist. On the floor next to Rick is a creepy looking mask, that persuades him to put the mask on to grant him the power to rescue his beloved Jennifer. Yes the mask talks, It's a Demon mask known as the Terror Mask, see that explains everything, It's a talking... Demon... Mask.

The gameplay point of the game has it's ups and downs, the fighting and mechanics of the game feel pretty smooth, yet falls short during segments where there are platforming involved. Jumping from place to place feels kinda sluggish, almost as if your trying to do something but the game says, NOPE! can't do that, you got to do it like this. It gets frustrating at times but once you get past it, its like a breath of fresh air. At some points in the game I had some sound problems, almost like they completely forgot to put a sound effect in certain parts of the game, It kinda messes up the believability of the game. The fighting is so satisfying, it uses a formula a lot of third person hack n slash games use, hit your enemy until he glows, issue quick time event. After a while it gets old, seeing the same old brutal finishing moves that Rick can orchestrate, but after coming out of a hard ass kicking with 8 monsters at the same time, you gladly welcome those quick time events. Also your able to build Ricks stats by spilling blood, yea I'm not joking, you get rewarded blood points for beating the crap out of something, Rick has a pretty good arsenal of light and heavy attacks, along with building his health bar and how strong he is with weaponry. Your also able to strengthen the mask so that it turns Rick into some raging Masked-Man beast. What does he look like you ask?, well picture the Hulk and Jason Vorhees having kid that was born on PCP, and tripping balls on Acid. This transformation comes in handy farther into the game.

The Narrative of this game, you would assume it would be horrible, and corny. But it's actually really surprisingly good, the voice acting is hollywood status, and big ups to Jim Cummings who did the voice of the Terror Mask, everything that came out of the actor's mouth was believable. The symbiotic relationship between Rick and The Terror Mask was great, listening to the conversations they have about the future, what's the mask's goals, even diving into Rick's and Jenny's relationship. There is even light comedy in the game, and the funniest character, is the Mask. It's well written with a hint of corny but not too much... cause then... that would kinda suck.

Overall it's a good game, it's just not a great game, It has it's flaws. It doesn't do it's job to be remembered as one of the greats. But it does it's job to be a cult classic amongst a few. Great narrative, awesome cast, pretty good gameplay, and a few tech issues. It's a pretty good buy. At least it's not another shooter.

OVERALL - 7.1 OUT OF 10

Final Fantasy 13-2 : Want the ending? Cough up the Dough!

Now I'm sure a lot of people have touched on this situation, but I figure, hey what they hell? Let me put in my two cents. Now before I continue, let me get this out the way: I like Final Fantasy, but I haven't bought a title since Final Fantasy X became a greatest hit. In my opinion, that's when the games started sucking, every character was sad about something, instead of being motivated, way too much melodrama, and what is up with every fucking character in their games being filled with zippers on top of zippers and belts??? I'm happy to say I haven't bought a Final Fantasy title since. Now that's been seen through, let's get to the matter at hand and eloquently get through this rant with excessive uses of the word "FUCK!"

Now that I've played Final Fantasy 13, by God am I happy I didn't pay for the fucking piece of incomplete shit. It was terrible! Why give me a party of characters if I can only control ONE FUCKING PERSON?! There is so much wrong with this game, from characters to gameplay design, but that's not what the issue is. Two weeks ago Final Fantasy 13-2 was released, oh God!....they made a sequel to an already shitty game. I laughed... then heard people actually bought this shit stain. WHAT!? You mean there are people that didn't learn the first time, now I hear gamers are pissed because SquareEnix announced that you have to buy the ending to the game.

I laughed some more, I don't fucking believe it, Capcom is trying to be dethroned by SquareEnix, not only by selling you an incomplete game, but by also charging devoted lovers of the series for the FUCKING ENDING. That's like going to Burger King and ordering a whopper, only to receive your high calorie goodness without the beef patty, and them telling you come next week to purchase your piece of beef after I've already paid FULL FUCKING PRICE.

The only thing that upsets me is that these fucking devoted fans are actually going to buy into this, just because of the fact they love the series, yet fail to see the damage the fans themselves cause. By buying this, it opens doors for other developers to do the same fucking shit because they see a profit can be made. Just because you're a fan, it doesn't mean you're a fucking retard that walks around with your wallet open, so that companies can nickel and dime your emo j-pop loving ass.
I hate to say it, but hardcore fans of Final Fantasy have low fucking standards, you can put the FF title in front of anything and they'll still fucking buy it. There should be no complaining from these gamers because you're always going to spend your hard earning, minimum wage check to Square CO.

Bionic Commando Review

The Nintendo Capcom classic has a new look, with familiar characters, from the original Bionic Commando, with stunning visuals. But is this classic Commando a next gen bombshell, or does it swing it's way to the dust bins of mediocrity.

You are Bionic Commando, Nathan Spencer, the character from the first Bionic Commando. Ten years has passed since then, and Nathan has been in prison, for disobeying orders and convicted of treason. These events that Nathan has committed, doesn't stop the government from asking him for help. A terrorist group attacked a New York Esque metropolis known as Accesion city, by launching a Nuclear missile into the heart of it, and now the government calls for help, from the very same man they locked away for ten years, wow even in video games the government is a bunch of ... *Ahem* moving on.

The gameplay is solid, you move around with the left thumb stick, and have control of the camera with the right stick, just like any other third person game in the market. You fire Spencer's weapon by pulling the right trigger, shooting is very basic and smooth. when you find Spencer's Arm, yes! I'm not joking, you start the game's story, with one arm. When you find his bionic arm, that's when the game gets tricky, learning to swing has a bit of a learning curve, to swing you hold down the left trigger, sound simple? yea sure! you try it?, you just can't hold down the trigger and hope to swing on something, no, it doesn't work that way, you have to be close enough to the object you want to swing on, and if that's not enough, your camera has to be looking at what ever you want to swing on, and you have to wait for a blue targeting reticule to pop up on screen, It's not hard at first, but it seems like the game is asking you to much just to swing to another part of the level. Speaking of the levels, the game's levels are blocked off by invisible walls of radiation, if you stay in these zones too long Spencer dies. I don't have a problem with these radiation pockets, but when your fighting a boss, and he knocks you half way into one of these your dead. Plain and simple, and this happening repeatedly, becomes frustrating.

The Narrative in this game, is like watching a straight to DVD movie, to be honest, half way through the game, I totally forgot what Nathan's goals were. Yea I knew he was trying to stop the Terrorists, but the game starts throwing all kinds of characters and other plots, I kinda lost sight of what I was fighting for. Somewhere in the game his wife, who's been missing comes up a lot, but that's not until your about 87% through the game. Then when he does figure things out, HOLY S**T!!! I almost died laughing.

Overall Bionic Commando is a pretty good jump, into the next gen, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. Laughable storytelling and throw away characters really digs this game's own grave, the swing mechanics you can adjust to, but you can't adjust to lousy writing. I enjoyed it, but it won't survive against competition of the gaming market.

OVERALL - 7.3 OUT OF 10

Castlevania Lord of Shadows Review

Castlevania is a visually stunning action-adventure title developed by Mercurysteam, it takes plenty of ideas from other games, and embellishes on those ideas. Compared to Sony's God of War series in gameplay style, Castlevania Lord of shadows has a good chance at becoming a block buster hit in a field all in it's own.

You play as Gabriel Belmont, who is on a quest to find an ancient relic known as the Devil Mask, It has the ability to bring the dead back to life, apparently his wife was murdered, and doesn't want god to have her just yet. Gabriel is a very motivated man, throughout the whole game, Gabe is so focused, just when you think he's lost all social skills, he meets a new character and is quite the gentleman. Finally! A character who has what he loves, taken away from him, but he doesn't go around yelling, being angry at the world and kills everything in sight (*cough cough* Kratos). No! he goes out and tries to fix it. I almost felt sorry for the monsters that got in his way, it's almost as if Gabriel doesn't want to fight, but lays a can of whoop ass if you get in his way. 

As much as I hate to admit it, the gameplay is so similar to God of War. You have your basic light attacks, then you have your wide area clearing heavy attacks, which can get linked into a numerous amount of combos. You still have sub weapons, although you don't have the classics like the throwing axe, or the stop time clock, but the knife and holy water make their addition to the game, as well as two new ones. You also have the Fairies which distract your enemies so you can take some cheap shots, and you have the Dark Crystal, which summons a demon to eliminate enemies on screen, these are all helpful, although hardcore fans would have loved to see more of the classic sub weapons. Next is the magic abilities you now have, which is light and dark. Light magic, when activated allows you to regain health when you attack an enemy, and dark magic boosts your fighting capability, both of these play a good role in some of puzzles you have to complete later in the game. Where the game takes a little bump is in the platforming, there are some points where you have jump from cliff to cliff, but because of where the camera is you could be pointing your joystick in a direction where it could mean death, platforming is not this game's strong point, just wait until you get to the clock tower, oh! God!

Castlevania does a great job of immersing you in it's world, the only thing is, you never really get a chance to drink in it's beauty in some parts, because your constantly moving forward and you see something new to marvel at. All of its characters are interesting and believable, and the voice acting brings the characters a few extra steps forward, but you never really get a chance to know these characters and what they stand for because they either die by Gabe's hands, of course, or they explain that they have other things to do elsewhere, but constantly show up see how Gabe is doing. You get a lot of these characters back story in a book from the pause menu.

In all, Castlevania is a great game, it doesn't have a lick of originality, but it takes ideas from other games such as God of War and Prince of Persia, and pushes it farther. Visuals to Storytelling to voice acting and gameplay, Castlevania does things so well you can forgive it's short comings, oh yea you will not believe what happens at the end. AWESOME!!!!!!!

RATING - 8 OUT OF 10

Indigo Prophecy Review

I forgot I even owned a copy of this game, I decided to pop it in a couple of days ago, and I just now finished it.

On the surface, Indigo Prophecy seems like a great game, and you know what! it is, for it's time. You almost have a full package with this game, great graphics, awesome soundtrack, and whoa!!! what a story. It just falls a little short on the game play end.
 Indigo Prophecy reminds me of Heavy Rain, seeing as Indigo Prophecy came out first it's the other way around, this game is full of (QTE) quick time events and button mashing, but the game's story keeps you so drawn in, you forgot that your fingers were hurting from quickly mashing on the shoulder buttons.

Now Indigo Prophecy is a supernatural, science fiction, action, mystery, noir, yeah I know that was a mouth full. It's all of these in one and it tells it's story so well, it's hard to put the controller down after the first 5 minutes of the game.

You actually see the story from five different perspectives, the main focus is on a character by the name of Lucas Kane, you start the game as Lucas who has just brutally murdered a Stranger in the a Diner's Restroom, the catch is, He doesn't remember doing it.
Next is two New York City Detectives by the names of Carla Valenti, and her Partner Tyler Miles, after the murder you play as these two, who are sent to investigate the murder. Carla has a great eye and follows her gut, she seems to be a conspiracy theorist who has a phobia of close tight spaces. Tyler is a workaholic who loves his job, but has problems with his lover, cause she doesn't want him to be a cop on the dangerous streets of NYC.
Next is Markus Kane, Lucas's brother, he also plays a big role in the present story, and Lucas's back story. I don't want to spoil who the fifth character is, just know when you get to select him, WHOA!!!

The game play is solid, the controls are clunky at times though, because of some areas in the game has a Resident Evil style fixed camera angles, but you just simply walk up to any object that the game reads if you can interact with it or not, flick the right joystick up, and an in-game cut scene pops up where the character interacts with the object and furthers the story. Then there is the action scenario, where there is a ton of button mashing and QTE. These can get rather tire-some and your not watching the great scenes because your waiting for another event to pop up. The QTE usually involves you moving the right and left joysticks in the direction the game tells you to, it would have been nice to actually play these parts of the game.

The game's graphic and narrative really make the game that much better, who ever wrote this story needs a medal, the game grabs you right from the start. A little bit towards the middle, it gets a little weird, but that just makes you want to keep on going, the mystery of wanting to know why Lucas killed someone and doesn't remember, drives you to the bitter sweet end. The design of the city really grabs that grittiness of New York City streets, there are even some points in the game where it looks so good it's a little creepy.

Indigo Prophecy is the prime example of great Narrative, and Design, It does things so right within it's story and convincing Characters, that you could easily over look the clunky controls. If your looking for a great psychological Thriller, give this game a test drive.

RATING - 8 OUT OF 10

Games I didn't know I Owned.

I have quite the amount of video games, hell I play them, I collect them. I never trade games anymore, unless they really suck, like Brink. Anyway I was cleaning out and organizing my collection when I notice there was a lot of games that I haven't even fucking played or opened. I got so caught in playing online games that neglected the other games that I had purchased.