Now Playing: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2(DS)

 You didn't think I'd skip MUA 2, did ya?

 But there's a small caveat... it's the DS version I'll be looking at. Y'see, I've owned MUA 2 on PS3 for a while now and I don't really need to play it again, and since I already remembered MUA 2 as a step down from the first game, I didn't really want to delve into the subpar PS2 version so, instead, I'll be giving MUA 2 on the DS a look.

 Well, I'm midway throughout the first Doom level, and while I like how it already feels like an adaptation of the console game, since they even kept the prologue, the game's lacking in a few key areas. There's no way to move the camera around, which sucks, and there's no mini-map on a game that desperately need one. The framerate is garbage.

 But, BUT I will give kudos to the developers for managing to port the game into such a tiny, weak console. It's a rather impressive feat, even if the end result is a bit meh.

Review #454: Marvel Ultimate Alliance(Playstation 3)

 Finally the final port of MUA!!

 So you know the drill by now, I've already written about the game, twice in fact, so I'll spare me the trouble and only go by the things that make this port different from the Playstation 2 and PSP ports.

 2 bonus characters, Colossus and Moon Knight and... that's it. There're no bonus modes, no bonus comic mission bosses, only Colossus and Moon Knight. Colossus absolutely terrible, weak powers, uninspired moveset and has 1 less skill than your average character, which is pretty lame. On the other hand, Moon Knight is downright fantastic, he goes down in a few hits, but god oh go, his damage output is through the roof, his Nunchuck skill might be the best skill in the game, and his Staff passive ability is fun to play with, although he gets shortchanged too, being the only character who only gets three costumes instead of four. While Moon Knight is easily among my favorite MUA characters, the PSP had more bonus characters altogether, and none were quite as bad as Colossus, so as far as bonus characters goes, the PSP wins this one.

 The HD graphics are leagues above the PS2 and PSP, it almost looks like an entirely different game. Almost. However, the framerate is still pretty bad and at times it can chug almost as hard as the PSP version. Almost. On the flip side, this version has the shortest loading times which is a huge plus considering how long these could get in the PS2 version.

 So... which version is better? None of the ones I played. Seriously, all of them have their ups and downs, the PSP version might have the most content, but is it really worth it? The brunt of the game remains the same and you can easily live without them. Moon Knight and Ronin are fantastic characters, but do you really need them? If I had to, I'd probably give the edge, and only by a very slight margin, to the PS3 thanks to its shorter loading times. But, if you asked me, the best way to play Marvel Ultimate Alliance is... on PC. PC has, by default, the PS2 character roster, but, BUT you can mod it to get even the X360 characters, heck, you can mod X-Men Legends character into it, HECK, modders have created entirely new characters from scratch! If you want the best possible Ultimate Alliance experience, PC is the way to go.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #453: Bloody Roar

 Finally a good fighting game for a change!

 Bloody Roar's a furry's dream come true, in this 1 on 1 3-D fighting game you play as humans that can morph into animals, anything from wolves to moles. It's a lot simpler than your average fighter, going for the mantra of pressin' them buttons to make flashy stuff happen.

 The game has the usual assortment of modes: An Arcade Ladder, VS CPU or Player, Time Attack, Training and Survival. There're 8 different characters, a few that never returned to the franchise like Mitsuko the Boar, Greg the Gorilla and Fox the, erm, Fox. While it's a relatively small character roster, it's pretty much up to the standards of the era, plus, all 8 characters have two different models, human and animal, as well as a few different costumes.

 There's a single punch button and a single kick button, but filling the Beast gauge lets you temporarily transform into your beast form with the circle button, once in beast mode the circle button turns into a third attack button. Beast mode reverts once the Beast gauge reaches to 0, which decreases as you get hit, and then receiving a hard hit, but how much damage you can take in beast mode depends on how much you charged the Beast gauge before pressing circle. Beast form has a few other perks, besides a third attack button, like regenerating some missing health and better juggling ability.

 Attack strings are relatively smooth for the era, making the combat feel fluid and fast. Being a 3-D game you'd expect a side-step, and there is one, but it's turned off by default. The final mechanic is Beast Rave, by pressing Triangle while in Beast form you'll gain more speed, allowing for more combo opportunities, but at the cost of having the beast gauge constantly decreasing. As previously stated, it's not the deepest of fighters, but it's fun, and the simple and few mechanics make it easy to pick up and play.

 While there're no characters to be unlocked, beating the game with the various characters unlocks a ton of different modifiers. No Walls, No lighting, hidden gauge, large arms, plus, you can play with deformed, big-headed characters from the get-go. It's nothing major, but at least it's something.

 While future games in the franchise left this one far behind, Bloody Roar 1 has all the basic elements that made the franchise what it is. Which means that while future games would add a lot of welcome mechanics, this one doesn't feel all that obsolete, add to that the fact that this game features three characters that never made into future games, so there's something of interest for fans of the franchise.
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Marvel Ultimate Alliance(PS3)

 One final time....

 I really overestimated how much I would like the game based on my nostalgia for the game, so here we are, with the third almost identical version of the same game. And I'd lie if I didn't say the game is wearing out on my, I can only take so much of the same punching and mashing game I've been playing since Legends 1, 'cause let's be honest here, the franchise hasn't changed much.

 As for this version, now we get Colossus, Moon Knight and HD graphics. That's pretty much it. By the by, the new HD graphics are pretty nice, particularly the lighting, but man, oh man, is the framerate still pretty bad. Seeing how this isn't a particularly intensive game, partly due to the fact that it's a multigenerational game, I was expecting a smooth 60 fps, but it runs sub 30 most of the time. At least it's got the shortest loading times among all the version I tried.

 As far as Moon Knight and Colossus go, Moon Knight's been proving rather fun, I love his boost which changes his moveset to use the staff. Pretty original and fun to use. Colossus is.... is a surprise as to why he is here. Probably because it was easier to port pre-existing assets. I mean, they did the same thing with the X360's DLC characters: Cyclops and Magneto are understandable, since they're a big part of the X-Men mythos, but Nightcrawler and Sabertooth? Just reusing X-Men Legends II assets. Anyways, Colossus didn't stand out much, but maybe once I get his full moveset my opinion on him will change.

Review #452: Dragon Ball GT - Final Bout

 What is a videogame?

 Dragon Ball GT Final Bout sucks. It's as bad as the show that spawned it, and it just might be the worst game I've ever played since I started the blog. And it has no excuse, Final Bout was the latest in a long string of fighting games based on Dragon Ball, but it's terrible, worse than anything that had come before or after it. And its sole saving grace, the gorgeous, epic intro? The animation's the same, but  the badass Japanese song from the original release was lost in translation, the American localization substituting it with a lame, boring tune.

 Booting up the game presents you with the barest of modes: Battle(CPU or Player), Tournament, Build up and a Training mode hidden inside the options menu. The only mode that beats an explanation is build up, in which you can take a character and fight various fights to level him or her up. If, and only IF this was a good game, this addition would've been brilliant, but this game is as far from being good as it can. The roster selection is pretty bad too, for a game bearing the GT brand it sure loves Z, featuring the likes of Cell, Kid Buu, Frieza, Piccolo, Vegeto, Z Gohan and Z Vegeta, with only Pan, Trunks and Kid Goku representing GT. It went a bit overboard with Gokus too, there're two Kid Gokus(Normal and Super Saiyan), 3 Gokus(Normal(GT), Super Saiyan(GT) and Super Saiyan(Z)) as well as Super Saiyan 4 Goku, and all 4 adult Gokus play the same. There're also three seemingly identical Trunks: Trunks(GT), Super Saiyan Trunks(GT) and Future Trunks. Oh, about half of the cast is hidden behind a code that must be re-entered every single time you boot up the game. Brilliant.

 But a poor roster selection would be salvageable with top-notch gameplay, something this game lacks. Let's start with the simplest of things: Movement, which they managed to ruin. Moving around feels very stiff and slow. You can hold R1 to dash, but characters take about half a second before they start dashing, and if both fighters end up back-to-back, it takes about a second for them to turn around. You know you messed up when moving around, on a flippin' 2-D fighting game feels wrong in every single way. And as far as I could tell, there's absolutely no way to block attacks, because why the hell follow tried and true conventions? I tried to do some research, and X is supposed to be the guard button, but I'll be damned if it worked for me.

 Alright, so the movement is crap, what about the fisticuffs? Square punches, Triangle kicks and circle shoots ki blasts. And combos don't exist. Seriously, landing any sort of attack feels awkward as hell, since any kind of attack makes enemies stagger backwards, with no window of opportunity to link another attack. What's their excuse? it's not like there had been hundreds upon hundreds of fighting games released before it, so what's their goddamned excuse? There're special moves, performed by tapping certain directions and attack buttons, as well as ki-consuming super moves. Super moves can be defended on countered depending on what combination of buttons you press when the opponent performs theirs. Good luck remembering every button combination, because Meteor Combos have their own set.

 Meteor Combos are initiated by pressing R2 towards an opponent, successfully landing the blow will let you follow up with different button combinations. The enemy must guess what attack is coming next and press the appropriate button combination. Either way, Meteor combos don't feel very responsive to button inputs, so get ready to drop them a plenty! Assuming you remember what button combination does what, assuming that, for whatever reason, you care about learning how to play this poor excuse of a 'game'.

 Dragon Ball GT - Final Bout is the worst kind of garbage. Not only is it absolute garbage as a game, not only is it irredeemable with nary a positive quality about it.... It's also rather rare, which makes it rather expensive. It's an expensive piece of garbage, not even worth the price of admission as a curiosity. This is the worst game I've ever played since I started the blog, and it's so bad I hesitate calling it a 'game'.
 0.5 out of 10

Review #451: Marvel Ultimate Alliance(PSP)

 What is this, a game for Ant-man?

 Seeing how this is pretty much the same exact game as the PS2 version, I will simply go over what was added to this version.

 First and foremost, four new characters: Hawkeye, which looks cool, has cool looking moves but is kinda weak. Captain Marvel, who isn't very appealing to look at but has powerful moves, Black Widow, whom I didn't care about, but has a few strong moves an Ronin, which looks badass and has some of the best moves in the game. Is it worth it purchasing the game just for the new characters? Well, Ronin is pretty good and I'd put her on my team... but nope, they're all that worth it, you can do just fine with the other versions of the game. There're also 5 new sub-missions, if you're into that, one of them housing a new boss. Once again, not worth it. Oh, and unlocking Hawkeye is incredibly stupid, forcing you to register online, so just pop the character unlock code and have fun.

 Beating the game unlocks 3 bonus modes: Hardcore, in which once a character dies he is gone for good, Hardcore Squad, in which you're limited to only four characters and once any of them dies they are gone for good and UberHero, in which you can only play as a single character, but a overpowered one. The Hardcore modes might be appealing, but once again, not worth a separate purchase if you already own another version.

 As for the overall game, it's a pretty neat little conversion. The controls have been tweaked and are a bit awkward at first, due to having less buttons than a joystick, but once you get the hang of it you'll be just fine. They did the best they could with the reduced button amount. For instance, since there's no analog stick, moving the camera around consists of holding the L button and pressing Square or Circle, and swapping characters consists of holding L and pressing a direction on the directional pad, while holding R and L lets you block. It's cumbersome in comparison to the home console setup, but it's understandable.

 The game runs pretty well on the PSP, while the overall polygon count is lower, I think the lighting effects are better than on the PS2. The Framerate at its best is smoother than on the PS2, but at its worst it gets a bit choppier. There were a few kinks related to movement, sometimes upon landing from a jump a character would get stuck on the jumping position for a few seconds, this happened every time I had to climb down a rock wall as well. Annoying, yes, but it's not a dealbreaker.

 While I wouldn't suggest getting this version over the others, in spite of the added content, it's a fantastic port of the game that performs almost as well. And truth be told, if you don't mind having to go through hoops for local multiplayer or deal with less optimal controls... it just might be your version of choice!
 7.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Marvel Ultimate Alliance(PSP)

 Yeah... this might've been a mistake.

 I was so enamored by my Marvel Ultimate Alliance memories that I thought I would love the game all over again, so it mad sense to get the handheld version as well. I mean, a Diablo-clone with Marvel characters and even MORE characters? Count me in. I remembered it like a 8-9/10 game, not a 7.

 Oh well, I just inputted the codes and got meself all four bonus characters, the costumes and the abilities, which I'll be taking all the way through to the end of the game.

 Hawkeye: All his cotumes are decent, but I specially liked the 'Street Clothes', the one I'm using. His skills are fun to use.

 Ronin: All her costumes are fantastic, but I'm going with the second one since I loved the abilities, and her skills are top-notch, they look devastating and feel fun to use.

 Captain Marvel: I didn't care for his appearance, any of them, so I went with the default look. His abilities are alright but nothing caught my eye.

 Black Widow: I actually thought her default appearance was the Winter Soldier('What? A fifth bonus character?! Oh, it's Black Widow....'). Can't say I care about the character either, but I went with the Yelena costumes since it struck my fancy the most. Her skillset is alright, but I'm particularly fond of her first skill, since it feels powerful.

 All in all, as much as I'm liking Roning... the rest of the cast are alright, but nothing to write home about. Even if you love the game you can do without these extra characters. Or you could download the PC mods and add Ronin to your roster.