Review #127: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

 Remember when games didn't take 'emselves too seriously?

 The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series was sort of the golden child of the late 90s, the first entry was released on 1998 on a plethora of different consoles, and it proceeded to spawn 8 different games, from the PS1 to the PS3 era. While some would argue that Activision milked the series to death, THPS4 was sort of a landmark for the series, the first game developed with the next generation of consoles in mind, although it did receive a PS1 port, but that's for another time. Actually, it's not, I don't plan on playing it any time soon!

 The easiest way to explain what this game is about, is to call it a platform game on wheels with a trick mechanic. The game made skating seem easy, X performed an Ollie and gave you more air when you let go of it off platforms, the square button plus different directions performed flips, while circle and directions performed grabs, then you had the triangle button to perform grinds and lip tricks. New to the series, is "vert transfer", by tapping the R2 button you can now reallign yourself while on the air in order to fall on a more favorable angle, skitching cars and now you can perform different tricks while on a Manual.

 Previous games in the series would set you off on a stage, give you a time limit and a list of objectives, which you had to try to complete before time expired. Not anymore, now you are set off on a stage, no time limit, and you must find people that will give you missions. It sounds novel at first, but these people give you the same kind of objectives that the previous games had! Like finding all SKATE letters, or getting all COMBO letters in a combo, achieving certain high scores, however, alongside these rather mundane objectives, the game has a lot of crazy missions, like skitching on a elephant while it defecates on you, setting off bombs by grinding over the detonators, holding a lip trick over a crane while it moves around... there's a lot of off the wall situations that are both amusing and fun to attempt! This game doesn't take itself seriously, and it's all the much better for it.

 The game offers a good amount of different skaters, while all of them have the same basic tricks at their disposal, they do have different SPECIAL tricks, and there's four secret characters that are highly amusing(A Zombie skater, Jango Fett from Star Wars! to name a few). They also have different stats, but as you clear goals in the game and earn stat points, by the end all of them will have the same stats. The game also has a create-a-character mode, while it was awesome back in its day(Believe me, I played it back when it just released!), nowadays it's very limited and lacking, but it's something.

 There's a nice amount of stages with 21 goals on each(14 on the 2 unlockable ones), and most of them being pretty good, with at least two that I'd call classics, then there's also the Shipyard which I'd call the weakest stage in the game, and one of the worst in the series. The game also has unlockable cheats, back when cheats were actually fun to use, you can use Moon Gravity, Disco Lightning, Fire while Grinding, Perfect Grinds and a lot more. There's also a "Create a Park Mode", which, frankly, you'll use once or twice and never touch it again. Finally, the game has a ton of 2-Player modes, including Free Skate, which allows you to just chill around the stage with another player, and other competitive modes in which you must perform better combos than the other player, or earn more points total, they are all pretty fun.

 The game hasn't aged very well when it comes to visuals. It doesn't look particularly bad, but other games that would come later in the series would blow it out of the water. The overall presentation is also a bit dry, it went for realism a bit too much, which means colors lack a bit of punch. Regardless, stage design was pretty swell, with a lot of interesting landmarks on which to skate. Music is, easily, the second best thing the game has going for it(The first being the gameplay!). There's a ton of licensed hip hop, punk and a few rock tracks, they fit the game perfectly, and are great songs on their on right.

 It's a bit unfair to review games when taking into account future entries, it really is, but nowadays, having knowledge about other games in the series does change my outlook on Pro Skater 4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 might be a great game in its own right, back in it's day it was amazing, but knowing how the series evolved, it'd be kinda misguided to ignore it, basically, if I had to get a single Tony Hawk game, I'd get Underground 2.
 8.0 out of 10.

Now Playing: Assassin's Creed III

 HAYTHAM IS AWESOME

 Now THIS feels like a sequel. Brotherhood felt like more of the same, but not as much. Revelations was more of the same, but even in less quantity, if that makes any sense. Now this feels like something completely different, and better. Controls have been streamlined, Haytham moves like a dream, and I'm betting it will be the same for Connor. Combat too is much simpler, but that doesn't make it worse, not that I have fought much mind you!

 Graphics are phenomenal, and so far, the voice acting has been very good. Haytham is SO likable already, and I've only just met him an hour ago! He is suave, deadly and stern when he needs to, his lines are so good, and he has plenty of charisma. I was looking forward to playing with Connor, but I kinda want to keep playing as Haytham, he is so awesome!

 Speaking of graphics... Desmond now looks like Desmond, finally. He has more angular features on his face than ever, which makes sense seeing how rich his blood is, when it comes to lineage. Oh, and his scar is back, about time! However, now Rebecca doesn't look like Rebecca, at all, and for some reason he voice sound as if coming from a microphone... when she was having a conversation with Desmond, I'm guessing it was just an error on those interactions....

 Ah well, so far I'm very impressed, I'm liking it a lot, and I was a bit wary, everyone treats this one as the black sheep of the series, and seeing how the games kept going downhill since AC 2... I was a bit scared, especially since this one was the one I actually wanted to play! Still, there's still time for the game to mess up, Revelations was really good, at the start, but quickly grew tiresome.

Review #126: Assassin's Creed - Revelations

 And thus ends Ezio's Trilogy.

 Right after the events of AC: Brotherhood, Desmond falls into a coma, so his present-day allies decide that the only way to repair his psyche is to... plug him back into the Animus. Once inside the Animus, Desmond finally meets Subject 16, that guy that kept leaving cryptic messages since AC 1! As for Ezio, now he is older and wiser than before, and for the first time, his story is not about revenge, but about knowledge. This time around, Ezio's adventure is on Constantinople, with a cast of entirely new characters. I know I always mentioned how I didn't really like the present-day segments, well, there are almost none in this one, although you do get to hear them every now and then when transitioning through chapters, and frankly, it's a bit of a shame as I grew attached to Shaun and Rebecca! At least the new characters in Ezio's story are fairly interesting, some rather amusing personalities aid him through the game. The story itself is also fairly good, with the addition of five, very short, Altair sections that tell the story of what happened after Assassin's Creed 1 and Altair became a Mentor. And we never get to see Altair wearing "Altair's Armor", but hey, at least every assassin is missing their fingers now! About time!

 Gameplay is basically the same as AC - Brotherhood, with a couple of tweaks and gimmicks. As of Brotherhood, Ezio is now a mentor, and the game does a fantastic job as portraying him as one. Walking near ally assassins in the HQ will result in them paying their respects to Ezio, and just as it was in Brotherhood, you can recruit Assassin's for your Creed and then send them on missions or using them to aid you in battle. One of the coolest aspects is that you can assign them to Assassin's Dens, and then turn them into GrandMaster Assassins, these transformations come in the form of missions in which you can see Ezio actually teaching this Assassins in person, it's a really cool touch that helps drive the point home that Ezio is a mentor now.

 The game introduces a couple of new gimmicks to... varying result. The first new gimmick are bombs. Bombs can be crafted at benches spread throughout the town using the various materials that you find from chests or corpses. The fun comes in the way of the many different effects that you can create, smell bombs, caltrap bombs, explosive bombs, sound bombs and many, many others, they are very useful but at no point are they a requirement, you can get through the game perfectly fine even if you ignore them completely. The other new gimmick is... Tower Defense. Yes. They shoe-horned a turret sequence in the last AC, so they might as well shoehorn a Tower Defense mechanic now. These sequences are played when one of your dens are under attack, and they are obnoxious and feel out of place. They aren't even fun, and sometimes Ezio's position obscures places where you can place assassins, which is really dumb. There's absolutely no reason as to why they felt that this fit in the world of Assassin's Creed, and they didn't even make it fun.

 Speaking of dens.... remember the Borgia towers from Brotherhood? They quickly grew old after the fourth one... and they are back, now going by the name of "Templar Towers". At least, they are not as high in number as before, BUT(of course there had to be a but) they were made more annoying than before. Now you have to find your target using Eagle Vision, and if your target escapes you have to wait a whole in-game day before trying again. Because waiting is so much fun to attempt this annoying sidequest again. It gets better, the "Notoriety system" is now called Templar Awareness, and if they become aware... they might attack one of your dens, so now you must fight to reclaim your den in the tower defense minigame, lose the minigame and... you must claim the tower. Again. Who.... who thought that this would be a good idea? No, really, who thought that it would be fun? The fun doesn't stop here, Templar Awareness now increases while renovating Constantinople again, because having virtual obstacles to prevent me from just spending my earned money is so much fun. Sure, you can renovate to your heart's content as long as you don't mind the risk of having to play that annoying tower minigame again. Oh, and posters are gone, so the only way to reduce the Influence is by completin certain missions, bribing Heralds, or raising the awareness so high that Officers spawn.

 The game is also rather light on content, there are less sidequests than previous Assassin's Creed games, and even the main story is short. They tried to compensate it by having a ton of "Guild Challenges", that actually unlock worthwhile rewards, but it doesn't help much. As for collectibles, there's chests, books(Instead of paintings), 100 Memory Fragments(The worthwhile unlockables stop at 40 anyways) and 10 Ishak pages(To unlock the Ultimate Armor, one of  two anyways). Constantinople is also rather small, and not as beautiful as Rome, at least the new architecture is a breath of fresh air. Speaking of new, there are five very weird unlockable first-person platforming levels as Desmond, just as with the Tower Defense minigame, this feels a bit out of place and aren't very fun. It also retcons Desmond's past, turns out he was trained as an assassin since he was young, funny how he didn't recognize the word "Assassin" during AC 1.

 Combat received further polishing, and it's probably the best it has been yet. You can equip projectile weapons to the Triangle button, which allows to mix ranged weapons during your fights much more easily. Guards now possess different weakness, which they always did to be fair, but now there are a couple that can only be hit by countering their hits, so mashing isn't the answer to everything anymore. Regardless, if you play the way I did, you'll have the best armor and the best weapons by chapter 3, making battles a trivial affair. The game also introduces the Hookblade, a nice tool attached to the right Hidden Blade that extends Ezio's reach and allows for some rather fun new mechanics, but hardly game changers, besides sliding through ziplines, you probably won't use them unless you are required to.

 Revelations is easily the best looking AC game so far, not only do character models, particularly their faces, look better than before, they also fixed a lot of the pop-in and clipping issues that the previous entries had, it's not perfect, but it's much better than any other AC game. They also removed Desmond's scar for some reason. The new soundtrack is fairly good, although sometimes it doesn't really fit the environment. Voice acting is also the most consistent AC has ever had, the most lackluster voice acting being passable at their worst. As good as the audiovisual presentation was, this was the buggiest AC game I've played, I had to restart at least three missions since the "counter" wasn't, well, counting what I was doing.

 Assassin's Creed Revelations is irritating at it's worst, it's shorter than other AC games and lacks as many activities as previous entries. The Main Story missions, however, are some of the best AC has ever had. When the game is at it's best, it really shines, it's a shame these moments aren't enough to carry the game by themselves. It's also very showing that Ubisoft worked on this even less than on AC Brotherhood, in many ways it feels like a step back from that game, and as far as the basic gameplay mechanics go, this is almost the same game.
 6.5 out of 10.

Now Playing: Zenonia

 Eeeeeeeehhhh....

 I needed a new "pass the time game", since Crimson Gem Saga bored me to tears. and I picked this one. I hate it. Actually, I don't, but collision detection is spotty, movement is spotty and it looks really lame, its mobile roots are undeniable.

 Was the DSi store filled with this kind of ports of mobile games? The last DSDownload game I played(Soul of Darkness) was also mediocre at best. Ah well, not like I'm gonna be focusing much on this one.

Now Playing: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

 How I missed thee.

 Wow, just wow. It's been ages since I last played a Tony Hawk game, and I decided to start with 4, the one I hold the most memories of(Next time it'll be Underground 2!) and... wow. This is what bliss was like, arcadey gameplay, sublime soundtrack, point-based scoring, it's a game about having fun.

 Well, there's not much else I have to say about it, it's every bit as good as I remember it, and since I'm a bit burned out from the Assassin's Creed series, this'll be a neat timewaster in between Revelation sessions.

Review #125: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

 Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda!!

 Long before we were graced with the great JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle, western JoJo fans only had one game to play, Capcom's fighter JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Playing this game, it's easy to tell just how much it inspired All Star Battle mechanics, but does the new game by CyberConnect2 make this one obsolete?

 When you first boot up the game you'll be greeted by Super Story Mode, Arcade Mode, VS Human and Training Modes. Arcade Mode, Vs and Training are pretty much self-explanatory, so I'll delve deeper into the story mode. Incredibly, for a fighting game of its era, "Super Story" is where the main meat of the Single Player content lies. This mode consists of 39 stages, each one depicting each and every battle in the manga. Not only is it a very lengthy mode, there's also a nice amount of variety, y'see, not every stage is a 1 on 1 fight, sometimes you'll get a "press the right direction in time" sequences, there's also a shooter minigame, you might have to fight with a boss as it summons clay dolls or other various conditions. While it does a great job at summing up everything that happens in the story, if you haven't read the manga you might need some further context to piece everything together or understand the situation, the translation itself is rather good, but some lines are a bit off, regardless, when I first played this mode, with no prior knowledge of the series, I got the gist of it pretty well. This mode is also the where you unlock the 4 hidden characters and all the gallery extras, as you'll get graded after each fight. The good news is that after you beat the mode you can replay any stage, and it always keeps you highest rating on every thing that is graded, so maxing out the points per stage is not as hard as it sounds.

 Fighting is very fast-paced, quite like Darkstalkers(A game with which it shares many similarities). Core gameplay is fairly simple, three attack buttons and a "Stand" button. The Stand button, for most of the cast, summons a character's Stand, modifying their normal moveset and sometimes which special moves they have access to as well. If you dig deeper you'll find Rolling through attacks, Tandem attacks with your Stand, programmed attacks(Once again, with your stand) or even separating the Stand from the character. In the hands of competitive players, the game is incredibly fast paced, and unbalanced, but for casual play, it's fairly entertaining and thanks to the easy motions for special and super moves, easy to grasp. The game isn't Arcade Perfect, most Capcom Fighters on the PS1 aren't, but unlike the others, JoJo was made on the CPS III plaque(The very same Street Fighter 3 is on), so it's probably the port that suffered the most. From a gameplay standpoint, the scaling on the sprites is gone, which also makes the distance that you can put between yourself and the opponent smaller. As good as the game looks in motion, a lot of frames got lost in the transition as well, and Stands now only display two colors at most(While in the Arcade they were as colorful as the characters themselves).

 While the game is, technically, a port of the first game, it features all the characters from the second, but to be honest, most of them are simple sprite clones, even if they play differently. You get two Polnareffs(Base and Anubis), three Kakyoins(Kakyoin, New Kakyoin(Wears glasses, and different properties on some of their moves) and... Rubber Soul as Kakyoin), two Dios(Base and Shadow Dio) and two Hol Horses(J.Geil combo and Voing combo). There's plenty of image-based unlockables, and a lot of them seem fairly interesting, but you can't zoom on them, making a couple of the most interesting ones(The design book!) useless. Well, at least each character has its own unique prologue and ending for their Arcade modes!

 While it looks half as good as its Arcade, Dreamcast and HD counterparts, it's still a beautiful game. Sprites are gorgeous, faithfully capturing Araki's knack for poses. The stages are very colorful, with a wide variety of places from the manga. As for the music, while I'm not sure if the tracks featured are suited for a JoJo game, they are really, really good! Voice acting bears a special mentioning, Capcom nailed the voices for each character, something the older OVAs failed to do(But I'm not getting into that).

 As good as the game is by itself, as much fun as I had with it... there's no denying that the PS1 version is the worst port of the game. Sure, Story Mode is really, really nice, but this being a fighting game, you will spend most of your time fighting in Vs mode, and the other versions are just gorgeous, some even featuring other extras to make up for the lack of Story Mode(Like Kid Mode!). As for how it stands against All Star Battle... I think I'd go with ASB. I like the mechanics of this game a little bit more, but if I wanted to play a JoJo game, I'd go straight to ASB, double the amount of characters, a ton of attention to detail, poses are much more faithful, and it's even easier to pick up and play. Despite everything I've said, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure on the PS1 is a great choice... if you don't have access to any of the other ports.
 8.0 out of 10.

Month Overview: June

Games completed in June:
 Samurai Warriors Chronicles                                                                           8.0
 Dark Cloud 2                                                                                                  9.0
 Bleach - Heat the Soul 7                                                                                 7.5
 Vanquish                                                                                                         8.0
 Assassin's Creed                                                                                             6.5
 Assassin's Creed 2                                                                                          9.0
 Assassin's Creed Brotherhood                                                                         7.5

 Taking into account the amount of free time I had this month... it's kinda impressive how much I managed to play, and the latter three were kinda long games. It was a fairly good month, many good and great games, I can't complain!

 Game of June:

 It was a huge game and a huge improvement from Assassin's Creed 1. It was better than Brotherhood, and at the moment, even better than Revelations! I spent a lot of time playing AC II, I found myself trying to find the time to play this one, I loved AC II, that I did, it was a no brainer that it was gonna make it here.

 Runner-up:

 It's sad how Dark Cloud 2 was so easily forgotten by people, you never see it pop up in PS2 "Top X" lists or what have you. Dark Cloud 2 was phenomenal and deserves better, it's surprising how it never made the jump to HD, either in a sequel or a HD Port.