Review #449: War Gods

 A game that raises a lot of questions. Not good questions, but questions non the less.

 What is an intro? What is a Mode? What is an ending? What is a combo? What is a movelist? Such are the questions that this game raises and doesn't answer. Welcome to War Gods, a fighting game released to test the waters before fully committing to bringing Mortal Kombat into the third dimension. It has blood, it has fatalities and it has terrible pseudo-realistic character designs but it's no Mortal Kombat.

 The game has a set-up involving 10 pieces of an orb that turned 10 humans into gods and blah blah blah, it's not interesting nor does it concern us, for even your reward upon finishing the game is a measly 3-paragraph long ending text. Lame. There're 10 terrible looking characters as well as 2 even worse-looking bosses(Which you can play as by inputting a code) that are the cheapest you'll ever play against. You thought Goro, Shao Kang or even Rugal were bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The game has a grand total of 1 mode, an Arcade Ladder, or 2 if you count pressing the Start button on a second controller to battle against another player, as well as an options screen. Lamer.

 The game's crowning achievement is looking worse than it plays. Character models look terrible, warp and twist weirdly when doing victory poses and having some of the stiffest animations ever. Each character has a decent, albeit a bit small, assortment of special moves as well as a single 10-hit combo. Producing combos in this game is devoid of any freedom of creativity, so don't expect much out of the engine. And if you want to see a movelist, tough luck, even the game's instruction manual refuses to aid you, so it's gonna take a trip to GameFaqs. Lameeeeeeeeeeeeee.

 As for the game's key mechanics, there's a 3D button that let's you move around freely, which is a bit wonky, Left and Right rolls, which come out a bit too slow, as well as a shove move, by double tapping the block button, that breaks guards... but why would you if grabs deal more damage and come out quicker? There's also a single fatality for each combatant, but they are relatively good looking, surprisingly, most fit the character's respective deity theme pretty well.

 War Gods is pretty bad. Like really, really bad. I don't think I've a single positive thing to say about it... except maybe that it's not broken. Everything works as intended, collision detection is fine and... well, it's not broken. But it's devoid of good, fun mechanics, the overall aesthetics are lame, it lacks fluff to make it worth playing the game after you finished the arcade ladder one.... it doesn't have anything that other games don't do better. I still have a rather soft spot for War Gods in my heart due to nostalgia, but if you take the rose-tinted glasses off there's nothing worth looking at in there.
 3.0 out of 10

Now Playing: War Gods

 Not related to God of War, thank god.

 War Gods is a game I've a bit of Nostalgia for. I remember renting it one day, for the N64, and... liking it. Well, I've always enjoyed fighting games and it's not like the N64 had a lot to choose from! This translates into me having undeserved fuzzy feelings for the game, even though it's pretty much terrible!

 You pop in the disc on the tray, go through the mandatory publisher and developer slides an then... you either Start the game or go to options, because a fighting game doesn't need any other modes. Right? Right?.... Anybody? And, you do start the game, and you quickly learn that everything looks as stilted as it feels. The movement is so unnaturally stiff that it makes for an odd looking game. As a whole, everything feels wonky. It's incredible to think that this served as a proving grounds for Mortal Kombat 4, because it feels nothing like it.... which probably makes sense considering how bad War Gods is.

 Oh well, only 9 characters to go....

Review #448: Marvel Ultimate Alliance(PS2)

 Not the marvel I remembered.

 Raven Software had a pretty neat thing going with their Marvel-infused Diablo-clone X-Men Legends franchise, and Legends II took a lot of steps in the right direction, so one would expect that they'd follow the same trend with their next enterprise, the much more ambitious Marvel Ultimate Alliance, right? Well, they took some steps in the right direction alright, but they also took a few backwards.

 Dr. Doom, Loki, the Enchantress, Ultron and Baron Mordo have teamed up, probably due to their affinity with the color green, as the Masters of Evil, and their first order of business was taking down SHIELD. Nick Fury issues a call to arms, and over 20 heroes of the Marvel Universe heed the call, teaming up on a 5-act romp to stop the evil doers. The story is pretty tame and bland, but it's alright as an excuse to gather all these villains and heroes from the Marvel universe. The game has more sidequests than before, but the game, as a whole, is about as long as Legends 2(13-15 hours). And if you intend to play it, the sixth generation home consolse and PC versions are the worst, since they have the least amount of characters. PS3 gets Colossus and Moon Knight, X360 has those two as well as other six(Including Dr. Doom and Hulk), PSP gets Ronin, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel and Black Widow, while the newest PS4/XOne ports get all 8 X360 characters

 Plenty has changed since Legends II, I assume in an attempt to streamline the game, but not everything worked as intended. You still take control of a 4-man unit, going from 'dungeon' to 'dungeon', beating enemies, leveling up, learning new abilities and getting loot, and the controls are more or less the same, but a few key elements have been tweaked or removed entirely. Shops are a thing of the past, what little equipment there is you'll find on chests or dropped from bosses, and you can sell them on the spot while on the equip menu. The equipment variety is very small, I'd say even smaller than Legends I's paltry selection, and now characters can only equip a single item, for whatever reason.

 For whatever reason, Auto-leveling and Auto-equipping is set On by default, so unless you turn it off one by one on every single character the moment you start the game, you'll have to deal with

the CPU distributing all skill points when you switch to a new character, which sucks. A lot. Skill points are gone, kinda, stats still increase upon leveling up, but you no longer get bonus points to spend on each. Probably for the best, since let's be real for a minute, in both Legends 1 and 2, 'Body' and 'Focus' were the only stats worth a damn. Still, I would've liked for them to make melee worth it rather than can the stat distribution entirely. Passive Abilities are now tied to costumes, every character gets 4 different costume and each costume has 3 different passive abilities each, these abilities are upgraded with.... money. And if you want to level up a special move but lack the points(you get one on each level up), fret not, you can spend in-game money to level it up, which is kinda odd.

 I'm not done. Health and Mana Potions have been given the axe, instead, now enemies may drop health and mana orbs upon defeat, which can be picked up to restore either. Melee combo strings have been reduced to strictly 3-hit minicombos which is baffling. You can block attacks now though, for whatever that's worth. Reviving characters no longer costs money, but rather.... Time? What the hell? You have to wait four minutes before you can revive a character, which is a very dumbfounding. Since when is wasting a player's time a good idea? But the cherry on top? QTEs made it into the game, because why not?

 Not everything's gone down the crapper though, the core of the game remains the same, so it's still a fun game, just not as fun as it could be nor as fun as Legends II could get. There were a few improvements too, abilities such as Flight and Might no longer cost precious ability points and come by default on characters, and the obstacles requiring specific powers are almost entirely gone, save for a very few optional roads. Xtreme Moves(I guess they are 'Extreme' now since it's no longer an X-Men game?) no longer share an energy pool, which makes it so that you'll want all your characters to learn theirs'.

 I know I've been very critical of the game, but I can't stress this enough: The game is fun to play. It is, there's no denying that. But a lot of the streamlining really hurt the game. Customization is too shallow for my taste, it's a shame they gave up on stat distribution rather than making other stats useful, and making equipment so banal was a bad choice. QTEs were a terrible idea, but they are not too pervasive, luckily, but why they reduced melee combo strings is beyond me.

 Marvel Ultimate Alliance could've been a great thing. The concept is pure genius, and the fact that the game is still fun despite how many steps back it took from X-Men Legends II speaks leagues for the potential behind it and how well they executed the core mechanics.

 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Marvel Ultimate Alliance(PS2)

 Some memories are better off left untouched.

 I Loved this game, with capital L. So much so that after I found out it was actually the third game in the franchise I had to delve into the previous games, well, the one with a PC port anyways. And I still liked this one the best, heck, I've been comparing Legends I and II to what I remembered about this game. And I've been reading through forums and was surprised at how much people preferred Legends II to this one. After giving it a try, I can't blame them.

 Let's start with the good, skills such as Flight and Might now come by default and you no longer need to waste ability points in them. The character roster is pretty good, with four costumes for everyone(except the Silver Surfer).

 Then the mixed, there're no more stat points, stats increase automatically when you level up. I kinda dislike having lost the customization, but let's be real here, there pretty much was a 'correct' way to build characters, Strike was almost useless, Speed didn't matter all that much, so you had to decide how much points to invest in Body and Focus. Potions are a thing of the past, enemies drop health orbs an mana orbs when they die.

 As for the bad... holy framerates. At least it got better once I entered the ship, but what a poor first impression. The combo repertoire has been reduced to 3-hit mini-combos exclusively. Passive abilities have been scrapped, but now every costume has an exclusive 3-passive abilities each. Why the **** is everything set on 'auto' by default? I will equip the equipment and I will distribute ability-points.

 Bottom-line is.... The game is not as good as I remembered it to be, and maybe, just maybe... I might like X-Men Legends 2 a bit better than this one.

Review #447: Dead to Rights - Retribution

 Police brutality at its finest.

 And so came the advent of the PS3 and the X360, and with them a whole slew of HD revivals and reboots, so Namco took their mismanaged franchise Dead to Rights and rebooted it into the world of HD. This era had no room for arcade shooters, so it turned into a slower, cover-based over-the-shoulder shooter while retaining some of the things that made Dead to Rights Dead to Rights. And that sentence sounds amazing.

 Being a reboot of the first game, it also follows the same framing narrative: Jack's, Frank dad gets killed and there'll be hell to pay as cop Jack Slate and his faithful canine companion, Shadow, scourge the city to find the culprit. The game touches upon many of the first games plot devices, but it's made up of 80% new story. And it's a better story, we finally have a female who is more than eye candy, and they added depth to Shadow and Jack's relationship, making it very endearing. Jack is still a prick though, but it's not as bad as he was in Dead to Rights II. But as entertaining as I found the story, it's still a very cheesy, predictable action-cop tropefest, but a fun one.

 The town is filled with crime and evildoers, so it's a pretty good thing that Jack's a pretty good shot. Everything you'd expect out of a post-Resident Evil 4 third person shooter is here, an over the shoulder camera and precision shooting. The health system has been removed, in favor of the era's standard regenerating health. Pressing X will make Jack sprint or stick to the closest surface he can find... which is a bit wonky, since X is usually a context-sensitive button, so dashing straight out of cover will result in Jack sticking right back to the surface, or trying to spring after letting go off a NPC will result in Jack picking him or her right back up. After playing for a while you'll learn to make do, and as far as gameplay goes, it was my only concern.

 Now then, it has the name 'Dead to Rights', so a ton of staples of the franchise you'd expect to be in made it into the game. Jack can disarm enemies, but instead of being an autokill, you'll have to time your shot right, else they counterattack or run away... and enemies can disarm you too, so be careful! You can also grab enemies as meatshields, and while the slo-mo dives are gone, you can now use L1 to use Focus in order to slow down time and maximize your damage output. Focus is increased by many different actions, mostly having to do with how you take down enemies.

 Shadow is more than a tool this time around. Dead to Rights II was pretty bad about it since Shadow would just disappear after you called him in, but now he'll stay by Jack's side at all times. Shadow can be called upon an enemy, to kill him or distract him while Jack deals damage, as a matter of fact, some enemies must be defeated by joint efforts between both. And just as before, Shadow can be sent to retrieve weapons from fallen enemies. But do be careful, as Shadow can be wounded and eventually knocked out, in which case you must get close to him and hold X to revive him. You'll also get to control him directly during various, fun, stealth sections. Most enemies will go down in a single bite, and you'll have to drag bodies in order to make your way through. These sections were surprisingly well made and served for amusing breaks from all the shooting.

 But as faithful as Shadow is, retrieving weapons for Jack, our hero can only carry up to two different guns and you'll eventually run out of ammo... but that's fine, because Jack is one tough mo-fo. Square and Triangle perform weak and strong attacks respectively, while Square is used for blocking or dodging, you can even grapple with enemies. The melee system is well integrated into the game, and it's a reliable way to take down enemies, since Jack's a beefcake that can take a lot of punishment before you need to go back behind cover and regenerate your health. Landing punches feels crunchy and hurtful, which makes engaging in fisticuffs rather fun. Dealing a lot of damage in quick succession will allow Jack to perform a brutal takedown, but there's about 8 of them, so they get repetitive rather quickly.

 I did some researching, since I didn't understand how this game failed to revive the franchise. The word 'generic' was the one that surfaced the most. And how? What other third-person shooter has a competent melee system? No, seriously, as a fighting game enthusiast I love taking things up close and personal, and few third person shooters offer melee options, and those that do, are often throwaway punches or gun-whips, not a full-blown combat system with different combos, grappling, dodging and guard breakers. This is most definitely not your average third person shooter. Plus, what other third person shooter, outside the franchise, has a loyal dog at your side, chewing on throats and retrieving ammo for the hero?

 Before wrapping up, there was a silly little hiccup, that also affected other players(At least on the PS3) when it came to the game's performance. Y'see, every now and then, the game will have micro-freezes. I don't know what caused them, since the game didn't appear to be loading or saving anything, and they last less than a second, but they are quite noticeable. But don't worry, your PS3 isn't about to explode.

 Dead to Rising - Retribution has a reputation that it doesn't deserve. The game is good. Like really, REALLY good. The fighting is fun, the shooting is fun, even the unnecessary dog stealth missions are fun. And I won't hesitate to call it the best in the franchise.
 8.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Dead to Rights - Retribution

 I'll take that retribution for Dead to Rights II alright.

 I fail to understand why Retribution didn't revive the franchise. I'm three chapters in, and the game is a blast. The melee is satisfying and it's also a viable option in combat, the shooting feels satisfying and it works relatively well. Sure, a few things are a bit less than ideal, like dashing and sticking to surfaces being the same button, so that it's hard to start dashing as soon as you stick out of it, but as a whole it works well.

 The story is already leagues and bounds above the first game, I liked how we got to meet Frank before he is killed, I like how it already feels like a cheesy action cop movie, like the first game! The visual style is also fairly neat, I love how most characters are top-heavy beefcakes.

 I mean, I know I've played 20 percent of the game at most, but it's still pretty darn fun. It's a bit less arcadey than before, but it lives up to the original game's premise

Review #446: X-Men Legends II - Rise of Apocalypse

 I'm cool with Iceman now.

 X-Men Legends married the dungeon-crawling action RPG antics of Diablo with the X-Men franchise with a mostly good execution, albeit a few too many time wasting design choices that took a toll on my enjoyment with the game. Legends 2 is a major improvement on almost every single area.

 Apocalypse has risen and he is kidnapping a few key people for his evil purposes. Now, X-Men and The Brotherhood must team up to take down this new villain that threatens to destroy the world. The narrative is a bit simpler than before, and it doesn't have as many interesting turns, but honestly, story is not really what you play this game for. The new draw for the game is that you can play as Brotherhood mutants, but... there's what, four of them? Magneto, Toad, Juggernaut and... Scarlet Witch? Did she count as a Brotherhood member when the game released? It's a bit of a missed opportunity. There's a bunch of characters missing from the previous game(Magma, Jubilee, Emma Frost, Beast, Psylocke...) so the character count is more or less the same as before. To add insult to injury, the console version gets the least amount of characters, PC gets Sabertooth and Pyro(More Brotherhood mutants! What this game needed.) while the PSP gets Cable(Yay), X-Man(OMGDOWANT), Cannonball(Meh) and Dark Phoenix(Why was she necessary?). It's a bit disappointing considering the PSP is a weaker platform and the PC gets what the console game could've used to bolster its diversity.

 Being a dungeon crawler RPG, two things are a must: XP an Loot. The leveling system has been tweaked a bit, so that Focus and Body are no longer the only go-to stats you want to increase as you level up. Strike enhances your melee attacks and Speed your chances to land an attack or dodge one.... but it's still a bit problematic. My 160+ strike character was still dealing poor damage with his fists, so his special attacks were still the best ways to go, which meant... focusing on Focus. I had him learn passive attack-buffing abilities, and it was still not enough. There're more than four special moves for each character, and while holding the R2 button only grants you quick access to four of them, it's pretty easy to swap them on the fly with the directional pad. Previous game only gave you 1 extreme move, two specials(which usually meant a Single Target and AoE for every character) and a buff, but now there's a wide variety of different buffs, team buffs and special moves for each character, which differentiates them even more and allows for more creativity when devising your four-man teams.

 Defeating enemies or destroying object on the environment will sometimes reward you with loot. Every character can equip three different pieces of equipment, and there's a wide slew of it. They come in different rarity and modifiers so that no two pieces of equipment are the same. And it really helps customization, there're armor pieces that grant you things like radiation damage over time on enemies or brand-equipment that buffs a particular characters special moves. It even extends to cosmetics, characters have a ton of different unlockable costumes, albeit not every character has the same amount of costumes. One tiny gripe I had with the inventory though was that it's too easy to accidentally sell an equipped piece of equipment, since the store menu haphazardly throws equipped and non-equipped items on a list, and failure to see the green frame over the item's symbol means accidentally selling that unique item.

 What ruined the previous game for me were the character-specific obstacles(Which turns out weren't so specific, but still, few alternatives) and they are back... but much better implemented. Y'see, this time around, these obstacles usually lead to optional stuff. The obstacles that do stand in the way of your progress, however, usually feature more than one way to deal with them, like pushing heavy object telepathically... an also be done with Magneto's magnetism or any character that has the Might passive ability. In my case, I just brought Jean Grey along and never had any issue, but I heard Magneto works just as well as your obstacle-slave. And even then, assuming you're missing the critical ability needed to progress, you can now call in 4-minute cooldown Blink portals, which let you go back to the HUB, change your team, and return exactly where you first called the portal, easily alleviating the need to go three maps back just to put friggin' Iceman on your team again.

 The game's structure has changed quite a bit too, mimicking Diablo even more. The game is divided into 5 acts, each with its own HUB, missions and submissions. Different areas have portals(Gates) that let you instantly teleport to any other previously discovered portal, even travelling through acts. Finishing the game unlocks new game plus, so you can take your beefed up characters into even higher difficulties for more loot and more experience points. And while 5 acts sounds like a lot, the game feels a bit shorter than the previous one.

 One thing I noticed in the previous game was that AI characters wouldn't use their buff special moves. I didn't care too much, since I only learned Magma's and didn't care much about it... but this game is an entirely different beast, allowing characters to be built exclusively as support, if you so will it, but not once did I notice Scarlet Witch casting her support spells, which kinda sucks since that means that support characters must be played by the player if you want to get the most of them. And a word of warning, apparently there's a nasty no-drop glitch that can happen if you forget to pick up a boss' dropped loot, and another one that causes your game to crash if you over-encumber your stash on the HUB. I didn't come across either, but still.

 While there's a bit more work left before the formula reaches its full potential, X-Men Legends II is a large step-up from the first game. It's a much more enjoyable game since, this time around, it respected the player's time.
 7.5 out of 10

Now Playing: X-Men Legends II - Rise of Apocalypse

 Much better.

 Now this, THIS is what I'm talkin' about! Thanks to the addition of Villains, the character roster has seen some much needed variety, and there're also three bonus characters, one of them being an Avenger cameo. Since I've beaten the game already, I just used the unlock all cheat and had the party I wanted from the get-go. That said, it's a bit sad seeing some characters go, specially since this game could've used more females and Magma was particularly fun to play as.

 About 80% of the game remains the same, except that now it's even more of a Diablo clone, with 5 different acts, savepoints that let you teleport to previously accessed locations and loot with different stats. Characters have more than four abilities, and the specific-character-obstacle-'puzzles' seem, SEEM to be optional now, which is a HUGE plus.

 Bottom line: I've played about an hour already and I'm pretty sure it's a better game. They knew what worked and what didn't, and seem to have souped up what worked and tweaked what didn't.

Review #445: X-Men Legends

 The game that made me hate Iceman.

 So, over 10 years ago someone came up with a brilliant idea: Mix X-men with Diablo. Why someone hadn't come up with said idea is beyond, but it worked, it received three sequels and even DC jumped on the same ship with Justice League Heroes. But as much as I love the franchise, I never had the opportunity to play the first game, the one that started the franchise... and I think I was lucky.

 The story pits Xavier's mutants, the X-Men, against Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. The X-men fighting for peace between Humans and Mutants, the Brotherhood of Mutants fighting for dominance over the Homo-sapiens. But it's not all that simple, Kinkaid's brewing a new plan involving the mutant-slayers, the Sentinels. It's an alright story that's faithful to the source material. In between missions you'll be able to explore the X-Mansion, and interestingly, all this is done through the eyes of Magma. While she's not a mandatory character on missions, and the game doesn't revolve around her, it was a brilliant idea to frame the story through the eyes of a not very popular character, so she's as new to the X-Men as most are new to her character.

 X-Men Legends is a Diablo clone, which makes it a dungeon-crawler RPG. You take a team of 4 mutants from a total of 15(Or so the game claims. You can only play as Professor X twice, and it's more of a must rather than a choice). Each character has three special moves(Usually a single target move, a area-of-effect move and a temporary boost) as well as an 'Extreme Attack' that borrows energy from a shared pool of energy rather than Mana. The usual staples of the genre are in too, you will carry Health and Mana potions, enemies drop equipment and cash too. The loot is a bit limited though, there're no modifiers and the variety is fairly small. It can be played simultaneously with another player, which is kinda cool, and the AI takes control of the other 3 or 2 mutants, albeit you can switch characters at the tap of a button. Said AI can be customized a bit, how aggressive you want it to use, when and if you want it to use health potions and which special move you want them to use if you press L2 to have the AI attack your target.

 Every time a character levels up, he earns 1 stat point and 1 ability point(twice for levels ending in 5), stat points can be spent in: Strike(Melee), Agility(Defense), Body(Health) or Focus(Mana)... but you'll soon find out that Melee will never do much damage, and Agility is negligible if you spend your points on body, so even physical fighters are better off spending points in Body and Focus to be able to tank hits and spam their special moves. As for abilities, they can level up their three basic special moves as well as a few passive abilities. The Extreme Move must be earned with these Ability points as well, but since the energy pool is shared... I just had one character learn his and had the rest of the characters spend their ability points on other things.

 While it's a Diablo clone, the combat feels more like a beat'em up. Characters have various attack strings made up of weak and strong hits. You can grab enemies and throw them, or even pick up objects and throw them, and not every character has enough strength to pick up every object! There're also a few puzzles.... that require specific characters. This, THIS absolutely ruined the game for me. When you least expect it, which is more often than not, the game will require you to bring Iceman to build bridges. Or put out fires. See? I was running Cyclops, Wolverine, Magma and Psylocke/Rogue, so I was completely boned. The second Morlock stage is particularly bad, since the save-point, the place where you can swap team members, was three maps away. THREE maps away. Do you know how much time I wasted because I didn't have goddamn Iceman on my team? And the best part about it? After finishing the game I found out that Magma can build bridges.... with her second skill. Would've been nice to know, since you always have to use primary skills to do these 'puzzles'(Which are more like stupid obstacles). And Jean Grey can build bridges too, but I TRIED using her on the first stage and it wouldn't work... though it doesn't surprise me, since even with Iceman, sometimes, if I didn't hit the target just right, the bridge wouldn't be built. Fun.

 There's another map in which you have to use both Jean Grey and Cyclops to finish the 'puzzle', so if you don't fancy either, have fun going back to a save point and losing two character slots. And Cyclops is used to weld doors. Do you even X-men? Cyclops shoots CONCUSSIVE energy, not Heat. This would've been acceptable with broader limitations, like having characters that can lift heavy objects to clear obstacles, or having ANY psychic(Psylocke, Emma) be able to build bridges. But nope, you have very limited choices when it comes to dealing with these stupid excuses for puzzles. Where's the fun in making a team if I can't play as the characters I like?

 The game should last you between 12-20 hours depending on how thorough you are. There's no backtracking and no game plus(Although you can unlock costumes for future playthroughs), which kinda sucks. Take Psylocke, she's unlocked 2/3 into the game, so unless you like replaying Danger Room missions, she'll only see about 5 dungeons worth of gameplay. And since I'm talking about gripes, the AI loves to get in your way. Say, you open a door and there're enemies behind it, they will dash right in-front of you, not letting you go through since now they're stuck getting damaged by enemies. And pray you don't get yourself surrounded by objects, since the AI won't move out of its place to let you through. Don't even let me get started on CPUs you must escort, they may get stuck on doors, or you'll have to go around the place you have to take them over and over again until they realize they have to get INTO the van. Fun.

 X-Men Legends certainly set up the basics for great future games... but as it stands, this game is very, very flawed. I'm sure some design choices sounded good on paper, but they just get in the way of the player's entertainment. I know it's tempting to play as characters that never made it beyond this game, like Jubilee, Emma Frost or Magma... but if you haven't played it before, it's not worth it... unless you like a particular team set-up that doesn't require you going back to a savepoint to sort a stupid obstacle. And that's the sad part, I'm sure that if I had liked Iceman, and thus had had him on my team 24/7, I wouldn't have hated the game so much sometimes. And that's the thing, depending on how you play will change how much enjoyment you'll get out of it.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: X-Men Legends

 Legendary ripoff.

 I don't know who had the brightest idea to rip off Diablo but with X-men characters, but that guy was a genius! And the one who decided to bring the entire Marvel universe into the mix? Give him a raise! But I'm getting ahead of myself, two games ahead as a matter of fact.

 While I played both X-Men Legends 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the PC, as well as Ultimate Alliance 2 on the PS3, Legends 1 always eluded me since, by that time I was more of a PC gamer(I know) and my PS2 was kinda dead, so I was stuck with the PC ports of Legends 2 and MUA. But no more!

 I played a teeny tiny little bit, joined up with Cyke and defeated The Blob and... it feels pretty much like every other game in the franchise, which is a good thing... I think.

Review #444: Dead to Rights - Reckoning

 The follow-up we deserved.

 Dead to Rights II was disappointing to say the least, but Namco wasn't done with with Dead to Rights, not yet, and thus, Reckoning made it into the PSP. It brings fast-paced, arcade shooting action at the palm of your hand, and despite the weaker hardware, proves to be the real sequel(Prequel?) to Dead to Rights 1.

 Reckoning is a prequel to the prequel, which means chronologically it takes place before Dead to Rights II. Not that it really matters, these games never cared too much about story, and this is no exception. You only get a few lines of text before the game starts, concerning a hostage. And it seems like the took the piss with this one, as one too many times Jack Slate chases a lead, kills the lead and then complains about the lead being dead. And while Dead to Rights 1 was very cheesy, I think having the kidnapee be a fetished highscool-uniform wearing babe is a bit too much. The entire game is finished in under an hour, which is kinda sad, but it has a multiplayer component... in case you know someone else with a PSP.

 As with previous games, this is an arcade-shooter, meaning that it's nonstop, fast-paced third-person shooting all the way through. Jack retains most abilities from the console games, he can dive and dive in slo-mo, crouch, instakill disarm an enemy or send Shadow to instakill them. It all works better than II since it feels more like Dead to Rights 1. Shadow has his own gauge and cool-down, and well called down upon an enemy initiates a cutscene, thus making him useful again, disarms can be performed at any time, and you can switch to punches at the tap of a button, not that you'll run out of ammo in this game anyways. Fisticuffs are kinda useless to be honest, every single enemy comes armed with guns, so there's absolutely no scenario in which going melee is useful. But hey, at least the option's there, unlike II!

 In DTRII, having to redo entire segments was kinda annoying, but this time around there're checkpoints!... which are useless, since, at least on the normal difficulty setting, the game is rather easy, and loading screens don't last more than 2 seconds either. It's probably this easy to make up for the fact that it's running on a handheld with a single analog stick. I know that they made the most of the hardware, but having to quickly tap R to switch between targets can be rather imprecise at times. Movement is a bit floaty as well, but in a game like this, it doesn't get in your way. At all.

 It seems like I'm not crazy believing that this is the True Dead to Rights II since Reckoning reuses a ton of assets from Dead to Rights II. Entire stages, most enemy models, weapons and even Jack himself come straight out of Dead to Rights II, albeit with a lower polygon count. And, y'know what, it kinda redeems it in my eyes. This is the game it should've been, a fast-paced shooter that doesn't require you to think, but rather, kill as many enemies as you can in as little time as possible while looking as badass as you can.

 This is the game I wanted. This is what I expected out of a sequel(Prequel?) to Dead to Rights. This is a brainless, but highly entertaining, action game on the PSP, probably among the best. It also serves as an apology for botching Dead to Rights II!
 8.0 out of 10

Review #443: Mortal Kombat 4

 'This isn't brutality... it's fatality!', that's a classic!

 Mortal Kombat's case is a strange one. If you ask me, the first game was shallow garbage that only made a name for itself thanks to violence. One needs only look at Mortal Kombat VS DC, probably the worst of the bunch, which took away the violence... and people hated it for it, and not for its glitchy, ugly nature. And thus, I created a mindset that thought all Mortal Kombat games before 9 had been horrible. I was wrong.

 In Mortal Kombat 4 Shao Khan lies defeated, and how long did that last!?, but a new threat comes to Earth, the fallen god Shinnok, so the forces of Earth band together to stop him. The game features 15 characters, 8 returning and 7 new ones, alongside two hidden characters(Goro and Noob Saibot). And you could argue that Quan-chi, Shinnok and Fujin debuted a few days earlier in Mythologies. This game usually gets a lot of flak on the art design, citing Reptile's beginning on his descent towards a more bestial form and how Jarek sucks. But I disagree! I adore the art-style. Every character looks as if built with similar pieces, just look at how many characters have leg protectors or fabric between their legs, but I really like it. Reiko is a pseudo-Ninja clone, but with spikes on his legs and throws Shuriken, this gave us the first 'Frozen Sub-Zero' costume(Which is really cool!), a grey skull-headed Scorpion, and Liu Kang looks badass with a tank-top. I loved the new pseudo-femme Ninja Tanya with her yellow costume, Fujin is among the best new designs, and while I'm not much of a fan of Kai, I love how he is supposed to be another version of Liu-Kang, with vertical fireballs instead of horizontal. As for Jarek, while his moveset is uninspired(It's Kano's!) I love the armored pieces on his legs and arms, as well as the color design. He ain't that bad.

 The game offers an Arcade mode, with CG endings for all 15 basic characters, 2 on 2 fights, Team Battles, Tournament and Endurance(Think Survival) and Practice modes. Arcade features a few variations, you can pick different sized ladders and change the roster of opponents of each by tapping Start up to four times. Practice mode is a bit weird, since you can only change the settings before entering the practice battle, but it's the only place in the game that has a movelist... which is actually a plus since most games of the era forwent movesets entirely.

 Mortal Kombat 4 did away with dial-up combos, and has a more uniform combo system more akin to 2... which means that every single character has the same exact moveset bar special moves. And even then, many characters have similar movesets, so you can probably find analogues to combos, for instance, you could easily replace Tanya's spiral kick with Quan-chi's sliding kick, thus having access to the same combos that required said moves. It's shallow, it's simple and for people looking for depth it's a disappointment.... but I liked it. Landing hits feels really nice, and combos are pretty easy to land, making for a relatively good entry-level fighter.

 Another new addition is weapon combat: each character has a semi unique weapon(A few might look different, but they behave the same. Kinda like a bunch o' characters in the game!) and can pull it out with different button combinations. If hit, the fighter will drop his weapon, and then any fighter can pick it up! A few stages even have a few objects, like decapitated heads or rocks, that can be picked up and thrown for big damage. Side-stepping is a thing now, but it's a bit slow and awkward, so you probably won't be using it much. The rest of Mortal Kombat staples remain, two punches and two kicks, a block button and a run button.

 The game also implements a 'Maximum Damage' mechanic meant to make infinite combos impossible. Basically, if your combo reaches 50% damage, you'll be pushed far from your opponent. This is a bit wonky, since sometimes, if you deal a ton of damage, quickly without stop(Even if it doesn't look like a combo), the game will push you back anyways. Can't say I'm a fan. As for the CD-based version of the game, there's a bit more loading than I would've liked, included micro-loading seconds before a new round begins, which is kinda ridiculous.

 Lastly, running this on a PS2 caused some problems. A few negligible minor audio glitches as well as joystick issues if I turned on vibration. These resolved themselves when playing on a PS3 though. At least, unlike Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the PS2, this won't freeze at the end!

 I liked Mortal Kombat 4, that said, you gotta take it like it is: Style over substance. It's shallow, everything, from character design to gameplay, is very samey, characters can be freely interchanged between each other and you won't have trouble adapting... but I kinda liked it. I mean, it is an oldschool Mortal Kombat game, so of course most characters feel somewhat the same. So, for what it is, it's rather fun.
 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Mortal Kombat 4

 I might have to retract previous statements...

 I've said previously that Mortal Kombat didn't have any good games until 9. And I was talking from memory and personal experience, having played almost every numbered game since I was younger. Mortal Kombat 4 was probably my favorite, having spent countless hours playing it on the N64, and even then, I remembered it as a shallow, worthless affair.

 But I've spent a few hours playing it now... and it's really fun. OK, so every character is kinda samey, both in moveset and look(Fancy how almost everyone's got fabric hanging between their legs!), and the combo system is kinda simple... but it's fun. And I love the graphic style and art direction they went with for this game. It's probably a good entry-level fighting game, no frills no thrills.

 I came across a few audio glitches, and every now and then it won't detect my joystick for a spell and pause the game... but I think it's how the PS2 runs the game, since I gave it a whirl on the PS3 and it was just fine.

 I'm sorry Mortal Kombat, maybe you weren't as bad as I remembered you to be. Mortal Kombat Trilogy should be arriving shortly, so that should be interesting.

Review #442: Dead to Rights II

 The disappointing return of Jack Slate.

 Earlier this year I played Dead to Rights II, and boy was it good. Dead to Rights II is a prequel to Dead to Rights, and not only did it go back in time, it also took a ton of step backs while fixing very little. It was hard to prevent my disappointment from seeping over how the game was, because it's not terrible... but it doesn't reach Dead to Rights 1's heels.

 The game abandons all premise for story, while Dead to Rights 1 was a cheesy action-cop movie trope-fest, this has about 6 different cut-scenes with a poor excuse of a story thread tying them all together. I can't complain, this game went straight to business: Shooting down waves after waves after waves of thugs. It's a bit more mindless too, Shadow, Jack's canine partner, is but a a tool, and enemy bosses lack any sort of personality, you're in it for the arcade shooter action, not to be distracted with anything else.

 The previous game mixed hand-to-hand combat with run-and-gun-and-sometimes-take-cover shooting action, but this game separates both. There's about 4, very short, melee combat segments in the entire game, and the latter half of the game since to have forgotten about it, since there's no more hand to hand combat by then. It's quite alright, as these segments are rather bland: just mindlessly mash punch and kick, grab the occasional weapon and keep punching and kicking. The animations are a bit smoother than before, but it lacks some of the gratifying feedback from landing blows, so it's a bit duller.

  As for the shooting, it's more restrictive this time around. You still rely on R1 to auto-target your enemies, you can still dive and dive in slow motion by using stamina, take cover behind objects, grab enemies as meat shields, instakill disarms and use Shadow to kill enemies, and now you can also duck too. But while everything returns... it's been nerfed. Shadow will either distract or kill enemies depending on how much Stamina you've got left, so no stamina = no Shadow. Instakill disarms now have a cooldown, although landing one fills your stamina completely, and using meatshields is tied to the very same stamina gauge as Shadow and slow-mo dives. And Shadow is almost useless unless you use him to cheese the game, he no longer inititates a cut-scene when he attacks, so why use him if he takes longer to get to an enemy and maul him than simply shooting at said enemy?

 Look, if this was the first game in the series, I probably wouldn't have minded the restrictive mechanics that make the game a bit more strategic with your stamina consumption. If. But the fact is: Dead to Rights 1 came out first, and the way that game worked was beautiful. This? This is restrictive, and the game gets quite hard too. You will run out of ammo frequently, and you can't switch to fists, so you're completely boned unless you've stamina to call Shadow. Enemy Placement is also particularly annoying, they come out of corners, guns ablazing, so they will probably get a few hits in before you can react, heck, even when you open a door they're already shooting at you before you can react. It's a challenging game, and not necessarily for the right reasons.

 Luckily the AI is relatively stupid, once they see you they will freeze in place waiting for you to come to them. They might sometimes throw grenades, but they'll shout at you, so it's easy to dodge. Point is, if you're low on health, which you will be frequently, you can just sit idly by behind a wall, waiting for your Stamina to recharge and send Shadow over and over again, turning this arcade shooter into a waiting game. And it's not like I wanted to, but the game is so cheap that it turned into a viable strategy when I was short on health, since I didn't want to replay the entire segment again or go through the exceedingly long loading screens again either.

 The game's got a few poor design choices too. Every single enemy boss has a few invincibility periods just to annoy the player. Level design can be rather spotty some times, Chapter 6 is particularly bad, making you go through the same segments over and over again, you don't even know why, since the game is so thin on story and explanations, so you mindlessly go through countless foes as you retread old ground. And the last chapter? The game expects you to figure out that you have to shoot at a machine, something that you've never had to do before and have no reason to suspect that you have to shoot at something to activate it, in order to... send electricity back to an elevator? The hell????

 At least no more infinite enemies or stupid mini-games, right? Right??? Sigh, Dead to Rights II is a disappointing follow up to a great game and a mediocre game on its own right. To be fair to the game, when it's at its best, it's a rather fun arcade shooter, but those moments are rare and far in-between. It's hard to understand what the developers where going for with this game, as most changes feel so misguided or poor... The best way to experience this game is, probably, by not playing the first game first, that way you'll be able to enjoy this game the most... probably.
 6.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Dead to Rights II & Dead to Rights Reckoning

 One's really good and one's really disappointing.

 Oh boy, where do I start with this one? Shoot-outs and fisticuffs have been separated into different segments. Which sucks, since it's easy to run out of ammo. And all your fancy disarms and Shadow? Nerfed. Disarms now have a cooldown tied to Stamina, and how effective Shadow is depends on your Stamina, oh, and it no longer initiates a cutscene, so Shadow does what you could do but in a slower, less useful way. It feels so limiting... which is a shame, because when the game is at its best, it's a blast. 

 Because it's not a bad game, it's not horrible, but it doesn't measure up to the standards left by the first game.

 And then I took a bite out of reckoning. I was a bit worried, the menus looked exactly like the ones from II, even Jack has a lower-poly version of his DtRII model. But it's much better. Shadow has his own gauge, separate from Stamina, and initiates a cutscene when he mauls an enemy, making him as useful as he was in 1. Disarms are unlimited, just get close to an enemy and tap circle. And you can trade your guns for knuckles at any time, not that I needed to since I haven't run out of ammo yet, but I like knowing that I have possibility.
 I've played but two levels and I know that this is what Dead to Rights II should've been. An expanding and not limiting, that's the way to go... although I think the cover function is gone, but who needs it, this is an arcade shooter not a cover-based shooter!

Month Overview: July 2017

 Tally:
Spider-man 2(PS2) 7.0
Shadow Hearts - From the New World 8.0
Ultimate Spider-man(GBA) 8.0
Ultimate Spider-man(DS) 5.5
Ultimate Spider-man(PS2) 8.0
Spider-man - Battle for New York(GBA) 5.5
Tekken 4 8.0
Spider-man - Battle for New York(DS) 2.0
Spider-man 3(GBA) 8.0
Spider-man 3(DS) 3.0
Spider-man 3(PS2) 6.0
Spider-man 3(PS3) 5.0
Spider-man Friend or Foe(DS) 4.5
Spider-man Friend or Foe(PS2) 6.0
Spider-man Web of Shadows Amazing Allies Edition(PS2) 6.0
Spider-man Web of Shadows(PS3) 8.5
Spider-man Web of Shadows(DS) 7.0
Spider-man Shattered Dimensions(PS3) 7.0
Spider-man Shattered Dimensions(DS) 7.5
Spider-man Edge of Time(DS) 2.0
Spider-man Edge of Time(PS3) 6.0
The Amazing Spider-man(DS) 4.5
The Amazing Spider-man 2(3DS) 5.5
The Amazing Spider-man(PS3) 6.0
Spider-man 2(PSP) 6.5
Spider-man 3(PC) 3.5
The Amazing Spider-man 2(PS3) 5.0
Spider-man Web of Shadows(Wii) 7.0
Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures 5.0

 That's a LOT of Spider-man games! Sadly, the Spider-man videogame franchise has a lot of terrible, terrible games. But I got through the bad, the mediocre, the good and the great. I can't understand how I played SO many games in one month, but it's probably due to the fact that these were pretty short games, most of them anyways.

 Game of July:

 The best Spider-man game of the bunch. It's so good it's not even funny. It's a shame that it had so many QTEs which really put a dent into how much I enjoyed the game. With Web of Shadows, Treyarch finally perfected both swinging and combat mechanics and thanks to that, it just doesn't get old. This is the golden standard for Spider-man games, forget about Spider-man 2.

 Runner-up:

 Outdated? Completely. But I've still got a soft spot for the black ship of the series, the Tekken that dared to be different. I still enjoy the character and level designs from this game, although the now-shortened movesets do hurt my muscle memory from future games a bit.

Review #441: Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures

 Fell short of Edspectations.

 Ed, Edd n Eddy was one of Cartoon Network's final great cartoons before falling into its dark age. It had an original wavy hand-drawn look that made it stand out from the rest. Lo and behold, Midway went ahead and published a game based on the franchise.

 True to the series itself, what the Eds want are jawbreakers, and thus they set out on six different chapters(Called scams in the game) to get them. Each Scam features two animated scenes, one before you start it and another one after finishing it. These are true to the series' artstyle, but are crudely animated in what looks to be Flash, which is a bit disappointing. I'm pretty sure every voice actor from the series is in the game, but I can't confirm since I've only watched the Latin American dub. That said, every primary and secondary character from the show made it into the game, which is rather neat, and the graphics do a good job of bringing these characters into the 3-D realm. There're six short levels, as well as 2 unlockable bonus stages, but you'll be done with the game in a few hours.

 The game plays like an adventure-puzzle hybrid, you control one Ed at a time, but the other will follow close behind, and can swap Eds at will. Each Ed has unique abilities and a formation: Ed can lift and throw stuff and his formation makes all Eds frantically run forwards in order to break obstacles, Edd can shoot from afar with his slingshot and activate switches, his formation makes the other Eds give him a boost in order to jump higher. As for Eddy, he can shoot stink bombs(Pretty much useless) and has the Tower of Ed formation, in which all Eds climb atop each other, allowing you to grab stuff above you or cross through thin bridges.

 Puzzles are pretty easy to figure out, assuming the game doesn't tell you exactly what to do. Movement is pretty loose, but it works for the game. Each level has plenty of stuff to find: Easter Eggs(That allows for three mods(Big heads, Small heads or Astronaut costumes) and three unlockable short shorts.), Jawbreakers(Collect them all to earn cheats!) and costume pieces(Which doesn't actually grant you costumes but rather the two extra levels). Still, the game feels rather bland, there's the occasional stand-out segment, like a race against one of the kids, but the rest of the time you'll be repeating the same exact puzzles, albeit slightly reskinned. The thin-bridge being the worse, since the Tower of Ed collision detection is terrible.

 While I applauded the graphical presentation, the music is hideous to the ears, it gets really old, really fast. And a rather minor gripe, there's an overworld, the Cul-de-sac, but you can't tell which entrance leads to which level, so hopefully you can remember where you've been.

 Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventure is strictly for fans only. It's not horrible, but it's rather bland and somewhat uninspired. I can tell that there were good ideas implemented into the game, but they didn't make the most of them, instead resorting to the same puzzles over and over again. A few more polishing could've been appreciated, things like Edd's trampoline jump not always working quite right. Still, for what it is, it's passable.
 5.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Ed, Edd n Eddy - The Mis-Edventures

 And now, for something completely different...

 I didn't know about this game 'till recently when I somehow came across a 3-second gameplay clip, and I thought it looked kinda neat, so I bought it on impulse. I'm not the biggest Ed, Edd n Eddy fan, but something about the game's artstyle caught my eye, and here I am, two levels into the game.

 It's a mediocre puzzle-adventure game. It doesn't do anything particularly well, but it's not terrible either... well, except the music, that kinda stinks. I enjoy collecting actual Easter eggs though!

Review #440: Spider-man - Web of Shadows(Wii)

 Wii of Shadows. 'Cause this version falls beneath the PS3 version's shadow!

 First of all, this game is almost exactly the same as the PS3 version I wrote about a few weeks ago, so here I'll focus mostly on what is different, what is better and what is worse about the Wii version. Web of Shadows was the best Spider-man game in the entire Spider-manathon, and as great as it was, it had a few flaws that kept it from excellence. The Wii version, naturally, adds tacked-on motion controls(No Classic Controller alternative!) and, obviously, has downgraded graphics. It also adds costumes.

 First things first, the controls are a step down from the PS3 version. I understand that the Wii remote+Nunchuck combo can be a bit awkward, and you end up missing a few buttons, so having to resort to motion controls is understandable, and to be frank, it works pretty well: You flick the nunchuck side-ways to switch between red and black Spider-man, or you flick it upwards to target enemies. As for the Wii remote, you flick it sideways to perform the web-strike or upwards to swing. Web zipping is done by holding C and shaking the Wii Remote upwards. Most of the time the controls work well, but there's a ton of button combos to remember, so it'll take a bit of time for you to really get comfortable with Spider-man's entire moveset. The nunchuck is a bit too sensitive, so expect to be accidentally switching costumes all the time, either when trying to toggle targeting or simply because you had to scratch your head. This also extends to swinging, sometimes Spider-man will throw kicks in the air because the game thinks you want the web-strike. Basically, I think they did the best they could, but it's still a huge downgrade from the PS3 version, you simply can't trust the game to read all your inputs correctly, but it's quite tolerable because the game is so much fun, the combat is still really good, and the swinging, when you get it going right, is still a dream.

 The ally system is gone entirely, while moral choices are still there to be made, and the Black/Red points system still exists, you won't be calling in assistance from other characters. Instead, there're 6 unlockable costumes, 5 for Spider-man(Iron Spider, Spider-Armor, Ben Reily Spider-man, Spider-man 2099 and Captain Universe Spider-man) while Black Spider-man gets Spider-Carnage. You can't mix and match, so you can only equip one costume and one costume only, so it's either Red Spider-man/Spider-Carnage or (Other costume)/Black suit. It's a bit disappointing, having extra outfits for Spider-man shouldn't be too hard since most of them are simply different textures, and not being able to have Spider-Carnage and another suit on Red Spider-man seems like a missed opportunity. Look, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Ally system, and I'll always enjoy bonus content, but the tradeoff is.. meh, I don't think we lost something of value, but what we gained doesn't have much value either.

 The thing I hated the most about Web of Shadows were its QTEs, and boy, is the problem exacerbated when they require motion input! They were bad before, they are slightly worse now. And the framerate will suffer, a lot. It's not unplayable by any means, and luckily it's not much of an issue when battling, but rather when you reach high speeds while swinging. I also had the game freeze on me a couple of times, and I did some research and it seems I was not the only one. There were also a few silly glitches, like Spider-man crawling a wall on his back, which were quite common but don't really ruin the game.

 If for whatever reason you don't have access to the X360 or PS3 version of the game, the Wii version is just fine as a substitute, but do know that it's a gimped game. Most of the game's problems stem from the fact that its running on weaker hardware, and this port's main gimmick, the alternate outfits, are little more than an afterthought. Still, I don't need to play the other Wii ports of Spider-man games to know that this is the best Spider-man game available on the system, just as it is on the other consoles.
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man - Web of Shadows(Wii)

 To conclude the Spider-manathon, we've got...

 It's been over 30 games already, and we're not done, not until Web of Shadows on the Wii. I was gonna play it right after going through the PS3 version, but I figured that it would burn me out to play almost the same exact game twice in a row, so, seeing how I liked it SO much, I decided to close the Spider-manathon with it. And it's true, I did leave out most downgraded ports because I figured they weren't worth the time, but, but this one has something the PS3 version doesn't have: Costumes, and I love me some costumes.

 I just played about 2 hours, collecting Spider-symbols(Up to 450 already!) and... for a downgraded port, it's pretty good. The motion controls  are decent, but I'm finding that every now and then it won't correctly register my swing inputs, or even my web-zip inputs. Also, controls are rather awkward, there're a lot of functions and different button combinations

 The good news is that the game is still Web of Shadows, and that's always a good thing.