Review #387: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

 Who'd knew The Force was fond of skating?

 There's no denying that Tony Hawk 3 was the bees knees at the time of its release. It was the culmination of all that was Tony Hawk, and a brave new step into the next generation. And while the game has stood the test of time... Tony Hawk 4 and the other sequels happened.

 You can play either Career, Single Session(2 minutes to score points), Free Skate(No time limit, fool around any level), create your own skate park and a few two player modes. Career has no story, no fat. It's just you, 8 levels, 2 minutes and their goal lists. If you ask me, it's rather... archaic. Mind you, I adore arcade-like games, but you need to finish a certain amount of goals in order to progress to the next level, and considering that about 70% of the goals require you finding something or figuring out how to do it(Because 'Start the Earthquake' totally means grinding 4 rails), and running on 2-minute limits is rather tedious. This was tweaked with Tony Hawk 4's mission based approach, which I think works much better. Regardless, the game's levels are distinct, fun and well crafted, and the goals on each are very varied.

 While some may argue that subsequent games overdid it with mechanics and what not, and would claim that Pro Skater 3's mechanics are all that's needed... I digress. Climbing stairs is a pain in the butt, and if you messed up, you are better off losing time and finding another way up instead of trying to fight gravity and grind a rail upwards. This was fixed with the ability to get off your board. Sticker-Slapping/Wallplanting was another fun mechanic that would be added later that would let you continue combos even when riding straight into a wall. What I mean to say is that, yes, the mechanics present in Tony Hawk 3 work, and work well... but future games added so much more to the game, and mostly fun or useful tools, it's hard to come back to this one.

 If you don't care about unlockables, you can be done with the game in little more than half an hour. In order to unlock every secret skater you'll either have to complete the game 100% with every skater or... use cheat codes. The extras are worth it, what other game lets you skate as Darth Maul or Wolverine!?

 Is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 still a good game? Undoubtedly. Has it aged poorly? Not at all... but as far as I'm concerned, the subsequent games are all much, much more fun to play, and offer a whole lot more than simply 'bells and whistles', they improved and evolved the formula. But, hey, if you still prefer the older format, this one still plays like a dream.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Wild Arms

 Where's my Wild West?

 I thought the Wild Arms games had a western motif... why am I fighting with Swords?! Where's the sand? Where're the desserts!?

 Ah well, first impressions are good. I love the sprites, while they have a quasi-3D feel to them, they also feel very... SNES-y, in how the world looks and characters move. The combat, too, while being polygonal, it still feels very SNES-y.

 I'm liking it a lot!

Review #386: Super Bust-a-Move

 Maybe it's time for a 'Worst Cover of the Year' category?

 Welcome to Super Bust-a-Move, the fifth Playstation release of the long-lived Bust-a-Move series, and it's kinda... it's kinda dated.

 What is Bust-a-Move? It's one of those puzzle games in which you have to clear a screen filled with colorful bubbles by throwing your own colored bubbles at them, from the bottom to the top. Your bubbles will stick against the bubbles at the top, and matching three or more bubbles of the same color will make them pop. You can't waste too much time as the ceiling is constantly lowering, and if a bubble touches your character at the bottom of the screen, it's game over.

 There're three different modes: 1-Player Puzzle mode, which is an arcade ladder of sorts in which you pick your own route, VS CPU and VS 2 Player. Longevity is something this game lacks. Also, for whatever reason, the entire cast of playable characters is new, and they went for a sort of Monster-pop-culture look that is kinda hideous.

 Super Bust-a-Move is relatively good, since the concept is so undeniably good that it's been cloned and ripped off to death, but it's also a victim of time. While the lack of modes was unforgivable even at its time of release, there's no denying that this kind of game has become easy to access, thanks to Facebook or mobile games, and free to play. There's absolutely no reason as to why you'd want to play this version instead, except maybe the original characters, and, if you ask me, there's a lot to be desired in that front.
 4.0 out of 10

Review #385: Star Wars Episode 1 - Jedi Power Battles

 Jedi's lamest battles.

 It was a great concept: Take a Jedi from the many introduced in Episode 1, and take them through various levels of beat'em up action, heck, take a buddy with you as well! It was a great concept. But why was the end result so bad?

 While Episode 1 dealt with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's adventure, this game is a very, veeeeeery loose retelling of the movie, and in addition to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, you can play as three other Jedi: Plo Koon, Mace Windu and Adi Gallia. There're few but noticeable differences between all Jedi, from the speed and power of their moves down to their force powers. This is a beat'em up game, which means you'll traverse linear stages slicing and dicing your enemies. As you go through all 10 levels, scoring high amount of points will let you earn new combos, more health, more Force power gauge or even new force powers. And heck, you can even unlock a few other playable characters!

 It sounds awesome, doesn't it? But it all goes down the drain as soon as you gain control of your Jedi. You've three attack buttons, Low, Medium and High, and while performing the simple 2 and 3 button combos is easy, using the unlockable combos require some very weird timing. Moving while pressing buttons will perform unwieldy dash attacks, so you have to be staying still before pressing buttons if you want to use the useful attacks, which is kinda annoying, but you can get used to it. The force powers are a decent addition, but you have to unlock them by getting the highest amount of points possible in a stage, which, to be honest, is a drag, as you must search every nook and cranny for collectibles or destructible objects, which also halts the pace of the game.

 Level design is pretty bad as well, chief of its problems being the unnecessary amount of terrible platforming sections that have no place in this game. Your character won't project shadows over certain types of terrain, which is one of the worst sins a 3-D platform game can commit. Then there's also the cheap enemy placement that is sure to shoot at you as you jump towards platforms or push you off stages with their knock-up attacks. The game runs on credits, so hope to god you don't lose all your credits to botomless pits. Or to glitches, like getting stuck on a veranda. Or to poor checkpoint design which respawns every single enemy and might just respawn you in the middle of harms way. It's not an enjoyable game. At least you can bring a buddy along to lessen the tedium.

 Jedi Power Battles falls short of its fantastic concept. There were some great ideas at play, it could've been a great game, but... it's not.
3.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Star Wars Episode 1 - Jedi Power Battles

 Not one with the force.

 So, somehow I made it to level 2, and now I'm presented with platforming sections that have nothing to do in this game, and I'm like... no, this game isn't very good.

 I started the game on Jedi difficulty with Plo Koon, since he looks like a Predator and wields a yellow lightsaber, but pulling off moves is rather dumb. You've to be perfectly still unless you want to do running attacks, which are unwieldy and hard to aim. But why even bother with that, L1 is the button you want to spam in order to kill everything. Everything.

 I think I will start again and lower the difficulty, the game just isn't worth my time, and I'm tired of being sent back 4-5 minutes because I failed the silly platforming segment that shouldn't have been in the game in the first place.

Review #384: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

 A downward spiral course straight to mediocrity.

 What is this game? Thank you for asking! This is a Tony Hawk game based around Pro Skater 1's worst level: Downhill Jam, yes, they built an entire game around the first game's lamest level and the end result is... well, it's better than it deserves to be!

 There's no story mode to this game, you just pop in the game and you'll be received by two different modes: Downhill Challenge and Multiplayer. Multiplayer simply lets you play in a few different modes against another player, but the real meat of the game lies in Downhill Challenge. It's made up of 50ish goals, and as you complete levels you'll unlock more characters, costumes, more boards, more stages and a few other extras. Goals come in different flavors, just as simple races down the different courses against other skaters, slalom challenges through gates, having to smack a certain amount of bystanders as you go down, elimination races and even a few weird ones like having to avoid certain parts of the floor which turned to lava! There's certainly a fair amount of missions, but sadly, the amount of stages just isn't enough, so they will get boring pretty soon.

 While this is first and foremost a racing game, it retains the same controls from Tony Hawk's main games. Circle and Square do tricks, hold X to speed up and perform Ollies, triangle Grinds and... and you can use cheats to enable manuals as well. A new addition is L2 to boost when the gauge is full, which is filled by earning points as you trick around. You can also pummel your sides by tapping L1 or R1, which earns you points if you smack passerbys or knocks other racers off their boards. It kinda works, but be ready, the physics feel fairly different from the other Tony Hawk games, so it might take a while to adapt.

 The game's highpoint are the different courses: They are big, they are pretty, they are fun to skate down from top to bottom and they also offer various different routes. There're no pros besides Tony Hawk, but the new cartoony skaters are alright and they fit the tone of the game.

 As good as the controls are, as good as the level design is, the game falls apart on a technical levels. There're a dozen different graphical glitches, I came across multiple invisible grounds. Some collisions also felt kinda wonky, and don't even let me get started on the unacceptable slew of framerate issues that rear their head more often than I would've liked. Don't be surprised if the framerate issues throw you off your grove. The game froze on me once, and after clearing the tutorial I had to restart the game since it wouldn't read my button inputs. Yeah, it's a bit of a mess.

 But the cherry on top is the rubberband AI. You'll easily catch up to CPU opponents, but don't worry, it doesn't matter how well you skate, they will magically catch up to you. Dear developers: Rubberband AI isn't fun, it's annoying, please do away with it. Thank you.

 Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam isn't a total stinker, racing down these fantastic levels can be fun... when you aren't dealing with glitches or framerate issues. To be honest, it would've been easy to build upon this engine and make a better sequel, but it won't ever happen.
 4.5 out of 10

Archile's Grab-bag: Ebay Edition

  It's been a while since I've done one of this, and boy, is this one a doozy!

 Darkstone: Filler game. There was a 'Buy 3 get 10% off' deal, and Darkstone was very cheap, so I purchased it. I played it a bit on PC, but the game failed to really grip me. Guess I'll be giving it another go. I never did figure what 'Age' did to your characters!

 Wild Arms: There're three videogame RPG sagas I want to play ASAP: Suikoden, Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts. I don't know why I waited so long on Wild Arms 1, considering I love Wild Arms 2 and Wild Arms 3 is one of my favorite JRPGs ever. Ever!!

 Star Wars Episode 1 - Jedi Power Battles: While I never finished it, I remember having played this game a fair amount back when I was younger, so I wanted to give it another go.

 Castlevania - Curse of Darkness: The only Castlevania I've easy access to but hadn't played yet. To be honest, the Pokemon-type gameplay doesn't really appeal to me, but apparently it's supposed to be a better game than Lament of Innocence, which I thought was great, so I'm willing to give it a chance.

 Dead to Rights: I remember having read that this game was hard as balls, yet when I finally played it... I got through it without much hassle. It was a fun third person shooter, but this genre hasn't aged well, so I hope the game's still fun.

 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3: I used to play this one on PS1, and apparently, it's a different game! But regardless, my quest to play all Tony Hawk games marches on.

 Suikoden IV: The only cheap Suikoden game, it was as good a time as any to grab it. I probably won't be playing this one anytime soon, at least until I can secure the rest of this rather expensive series.

 Super Bust-a-Move: Back in my Nintendo 64 days, I remember reading about the Bust a Move games, and while I was mildly interested, I never got to rent them, since no local Blockbuster carried them! Ah well, it was a good chance to add more variety to my PS2 library.

 Final Fantasy XII: The beginning of the end? For some reason I had put off playing this game. Maybe because they did away with turn based combat for this MMO hybrid weird thing... but having played Xenoblade, I will give it a chance. At least it doesn't play itself.

 Wild Arms 5: The final game in the Wild Arms franchise, it'll be a while till I tackle this one, since I mean to play 1, Alter Code F and 4 before it. Honestly, I forsook the franchise after they went with the HEX battle system, since why break what isn't broken... but I realized that it was pretty close minded of me to hate the changes without trying them, so here I am.