Game #856: Crazy Taxi - Fare Wars

  As crazy as the PSP allowed.

 Y'know what the PSP was missing? Crazy Taxi! With Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars Sega brought the first two games into the tiniest handheld. This is interesting, because this is pretty much the only port of Crazy Taxi 2 outside the Dreamcast original.

 Both games are pretty... humble as far as the graphics go. I wasn't expecting it too look as sharp as the Arcade original, but the visual downgrade does take a bit away from the overall experience. Sometimes, rarely to be honest,  you can even see environment ahead of you pop into existence as you drive forward.

 The game includes a few extra challenges for both games, completing these will nab you a few goodies, such as playing as Crazy Taxi 1's drivers in Crazy Taxi 2's maps.

 The music playlist feels a bit scarce. There might be 10 tracks top divided between both games, and while the music tracks are good, it does get a bit repetitive after a while. CT2 has a song that starts with a lot of silence which isn't a good fit, since you'll be driving with no music for a few seconds. To compensate for this and some of the missing songs(No Offspring!) there's a custom OST feature you can use, which is admittedly a pretty neat addition.

 As much as I enjoy Arcade games in general and Crazy Taxi, these games have an extremely basic gameplay loop: Get a passenger, get them to their destination as fast as possible before the time limit expires. The only difference between both games is that in CT 2 you can jump at will and you can get passenger crowds of up to four people. This means that if you swap games after you get burned out from one of them... boy, do I have bad news for you...

 All four maps are very samey. They have unique locations and what not, but if you told someone that all four maps were identical you could probably get away with it for a while. I think this might have a lot to do with how the visual downgrade makes everything feel more uniform. Kinda like the Metro 2033 collection I played earlier this year, since they remade the first Metro using the engine from the second one it wound up feeling like two parts of the same whole, same deal here.

 Crazy Taxi doesn't have the most long lasting appeal ever, but the game is fun to revisit in bursts, y'know? If you pick it up every now and then for a few sessions then you'll probably have a lot fun every time, however, it's not a game built to be played for hours on end because the premise just can't cut it.

6.5

Game #855: Franklin the Turtle(Advance)

  Good ole activity centers.

 Can't say I was a fan of Franklin the Turtle, but back when I was of school age I loved waking up in the morning to watch the really cool shows(Batman and Superman TAS!), but sometimes I'd wake up even earlier, and as I waited for my shows to start I'd sometimes come across this show. And that's the sole reason I got this game, it's almost like a little piece of my childhood.

 The game reminded me of old PC games that were activity centers, because this is a collection of 19(odd number) mini games. There's a game in which you must paint a picture, a Simon-says mini-game, a memory game, a lot of "collect X" games and the such.

 The minigames are very simple and short, and most have no fail state. I think the games are so boring that even toddlers would have a hard time enjoying it.

 The graphics are a bit ugly, it's as if they digitized animation cells from the show or something, as sprites have a very grainy and stiff look to them.

 It's not good, it's not fun.

1.0

Game #854: Digimon Rumble Arena

 Leeeeeeet's get ready toooooo rrrrrrumbleeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 Pokemon may had had Pokken, but Digimon did it first with their very first Digimon Rumble Arena on PS1.

 It's a very basic 2-D, but with 3-D graphics, one-on-one fighting game. The roster is decent, with a few main characters representing the first three seasons of the show. Since Digimon 03 was pretty much built around three protagonists, they are the only show to get their entire main cast represented! If anything, because it has main characters from the show, the roster is made exclusively out of already popular Digimon, Digimon that are probably way overexposed, while a few weirdos getting a spot in the game could've been neat.

 Gameplay is very rudimentary, with a block and an attack button, as well as two other face buttons to use special moves. Landing attacks and taking hits fills your Digivolution gauge, which you can use to temporarily digivolve into your Mega(Except Wormmon who always gets the short end of the stick) form

 The fighting itself feels very slow paced and kinda dull. While the game plays in 2-D, every level is quite large, usually with multiple floors. In the end, levels are two large for only two combatants, instead of incentivizing players to duke it out, it makes for overly prolonged duels if one of the fighters decides to run around.

 There are stage hazards as well as a few power ups you can pick up, further rewarding players who'd rather run away and waste your time.

 Most of the unlockable characters are Mega level 'mons, including the ability to play as your digivolved Digimon from the get go, although the latter can only be used in VS and no on the Single Player arcade run. This is a bit unfair, because these 'mons build the Digivolve gauge in order to use their super moves, while rookies NEED their digivolution in order to compete on equal grounds... for a short while until they revert back to their base forms.

 Very basic, very simple and a bit boring, but if you like Digimon it's not bad, but the sequel is a bit better since it executes the concept much better, as this sort of game and large stages would benefit from more combatants at the same time.

 5.0

Game #853: Dino Crisis 2

  And people thought Resident Evil changed....

 Boy, oh boy, Dino Crisis 2 must've been a bit controversial at the time, because this is a complete genre shift. This is an action game that plays like a survival horror game, and it's really good.

 You could think of this as a Mercenaries Mode for Dino Crisis, except made as a full game, kinda like the unfairly, and I'm to blame as well, criticized  Resident Evil Mercenaries but with a bit more depth. You have a fully visible health bar, you get combo points for murdering dinosaurs without getting hit and the such. With the circle button you can quickly use your subweapon, and you can use the triangle button to dodge on any direction, which is a bit wonky because when using tank controls and fixed camera angles it's anyone's guess where your character will jump to. Oh, and characters default to a run, there's no way to walk in this game.

 And yeah, I said characters, Regina is forced to share the limelight with series' newcomer Dylan. Dylan looks like a surfer bro in armor, and I didn't really like him, I kinda hated the fact that Dylan is the new focus. Heck, you could remove Regina from the plot and nothing would change, not so without Dylan. To be honest, Regina was the original heroine and I really liked her, I don't care about the new guy. You'll start the game as Dylan, but the game will switch your playable character back and forth as the story progresses.

 The game did away with 3-D environments, it's back to pre-rendered backgrounds. It was probably done in order to fit more enemies into the screen at the same time, and even then you might come across a few moments of slowdown every now and then.

 Every zone has a seemingly endless amount of constantly respawning enemies, but after you defeat 20-25 dinosaurs they'll stop respawning until you exit the zone. I don't mind being assaulted by an onslaught of enemies, but enemies spawn every time the fixed-camera angle changes, and sometimes they'll respawn right behind you, even if what was behind you was a dead end, which is just ridiculous.

 The game is an Arcade shooter all the way through. Every time you defeat a dinosaur you earn points, when you defeat them in quick succession without taking damage you earn small bonuses and if you can get from one area to another without getting touched(But killing at least 4 dinosaurs or so) you'll get a huge untouched point bonus. Points can be used at any Save Point to purchase small bonuses, like Armor that stops bleeding, new weapons, ammo, increase your maximum ammo stock and even healing items. It's a fun system that constantly rewards you for murdering dinosaurs and trying your best not to get hurt.

 Regina and Dylan share their inventory, somewhat. Healing items, Key items and points are shared between both, but each character has different weapons they can use and purchase. This is also really neat because each character feels different due to their different weapons.

 There are a few very basic puzzles here and there, but nothing too complicated. That said, you might discover, after using the ship for the very first time, that you're missing a key. In which case, you have to go back to the island you where before. So, where is this keycard? You have to inspect a waterfall a couple of times, until a green thing pops up and guides you to the keycard. Obscure much?

 Beating the game unlocks Extra Crisis, which is but a small diversion. It's you and a pre-set loadout against 5 waves of enemies on a very basic and boring black-and-green arena. The novelty here is that you can use any leftover Points to purchase other characters, like a tank or even Rick and Gail from the first game. You can even unlock dinosaurs, which will then allow you to play a very basic 2-player dinosaur fighting minigame.

 This might get me in hot water with Survival Horror enthusiasts... but I loved this game. It's pure, arcade-shooter fun. And I love how tank controls worked in this game, it made it quite interesting.

 8.5

Game #852: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

 Speaking of horror games...

 I'm sure Robomodo didn't set out to make the worst Tony Hawk game on a home console, and I'm sure that Activision didn't give them a fair amount of time to complete it, but boy, every horror story you've heard about Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is true, this game is hot garbage.

 I didn't buy the game right away because I hate digital-physical hybrids, but luckily(???) the game released on PS3 and X360 in a more complete state, kind of, the PS4 and XOne versions would end up getting a few extra levels and characters for free. Still, this version doesn't require a 7GB download, so it's still the winner among losers.

 I don't even know where to start with how Robomodo screwed the pooch. Let's start with the fact that moving around feels stiff and floaty at the same time. It's hard to describe, but it doesn't feel as good as the older games. It's easy to get stuck in corners and have a hard time getting out of them, because your hitbox when starting a run is horribly large. In order to help you move and interact with objectives you can start a run with R2 and break with L2. These two are actually good additions, since sometimes I'd accidentally start a manual when I was trying to talk to an NPC in classic Tony Hawk. That said, it's not perfect and it's kinda slippery, so stopping right where you want to stop is still a bit of a challenge. Sometimes even if you press R2 your character will take a running step but you won't move from where you are.

 The trick repertoire has been gimped so hard. Manual and Grind tricks are completely gone, so no mashing buttons for extra point multipliers, which is lame. Double tap flips are gone, in a way, since now they are your super moves. The Special gauge is very different in this game, after it's full you have to press L1 to enter Special mode. This is dumb because L1 is also used to spin in the air, so you'll accidentally turn Special on until you get used to it. Once you enter special mode all your grabs and flips turn into alternate moves, which is where the double-tap flips from previous games are, but this is a bit annoying because special moves require more air, and now your comboing is gimped. Now then, I don't think this was an awful idea, buuuuuut the way it used to work was much better.

 Robomodo actually tried adding a new mechanic, which, fair enough, they wanted to add something to the franchise, but the Slam was such a bad addition. Pressing triangle while on the air will make your skater quickly slam down into the ground. Most of the time you wish to use it it won't come out right, the rest of the time you'll be trying to grind onto a rail or skate the wall, but instead get forced down into the ground and losing your combo. To be fair, Robomodo listened and added the ability to turn off the slam from the menu, and this is on the PS3's disc by default, but I wanted to play the proper Tony Hawk 5 experience.

 Missions in the game are triggered by interacting with some dull and boring objective markers... or just press Select and pick any mission from the list. The missions are pretty repetitive, most of them are:
A highscore challenge.
'Break X amount of Y', 'Collect C-O-M-B-O letters', 'Collect S-K-A-T-E Letters'.
Grind/Manual/Collect X while having a high combo multiplier.
'Do tricks so that your head doesn't explode'
Collect X amount of Y and take them somewhere.
Run through the rings(VERY annoying because you don't know where the next ring will pop up.)
Use flip tricks to shoot something and break targets(Or just touch the targets).
Clear the pool of stuff.
And a few other variety objectives.
 If they did anything right, they took the AM/Pro/Sick challenge system from the final Tony Hawk games, which was a fantastic way of letting the player challenge themselves as much as they wanted without the rest of the game from them.

 The game has 7 stages and they are pretty mediocre. The second level looks kinda nice, but some of the stage-limits aren't very clearly defined. There's a school level, which is actually part of Tony Hawk 2's school level, but they managed to make it feel lifeless. Rooftops is one of the worst stages in the entire series, it's so bad that they had to give you a double-jump/ollie power up in order to traverse it, which is so dumb. In order to go to another level you have to pause the game, pick 'exit game' and then select 'Play' from the main menu all over again. What the hell? Oh, and the 'retry' option for challenges isn't immediate, which is ridiculous, you have to wait a few seconds after picking the option before the game prompts the window to ask you if you really want to retry the challenge.

 Character customization is a joke. You can't create a new character, instead, you have to customize pre-existing skaters, but it doesn't work very well, because a customized skater can only be made up of customizable parts, so you actually have to pick between 'Pro', how the character looks, and 'Custom', which is the random mish-mash of seemingly random heads and bodies. Do stat upgrades mean anything in the game? On one hand, you starting stats feel already pretty high, as I was doing massive jumps from the get-go, but on the other hand, every stat point I added to my stats felt like it changed nothing.

 The music is actually great, but I'm not sure if many of the tracks actually fit the game. The graphics are a huge disappointment. I think a cellshaded look would've worked great, but everything looks very basic. The game has an awful time loading textures, sometimes even loading a cloth's texture in customize-character can take upwards of ten friggin' seconds. Oh, and the framerate.... it can drop into the single digits for a couple of seconds every now and then. It's rather uncommon, but it happens.

 Robomodo had a very silly sense of humor, which I can respect, but I'm not sure if it fits the punkier tone of Tony Hawk. Inflating heads, pushing balls out of a pool, a 'Giant' power up on the fourth stage.. it's all very silly, and it adds its own flavor into the game, but I don't think it's a good fit for the series.

 Well... it's every bit as bad as they say. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about this one. I'd rather play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 over this one, because even though the gameplay is a bit more limited, at least everything it did, it did right. Still, I don't blame Robomodo, I blame Activision putting them under such a short deadline to milk every last nickel they could out of Tony Hawk.

2.0

Game #851: Dino Crisis

 Survival Horror devolved.

 Well, it's September, and Halloween is better enjoyed with a two-month celebration, so I'll ease into Horroctober with Dino Crisis. I've always said that Resident Evil was more Action than Survival Horror, at least since Resident Evil 2, but this game? Oh boy, this game...

 Ammo is incredibly scarce and most of your guns are incredibly weak, it takes about 10-12 bullets to down a velociraptor, this game's basic zombie, and while Regina can walk while aiming, it's slow and the raptors are barely fazed by your shots. That said, healing items are overly plentiful, so it's kind of like a reversed Resident Evil, which gave you more ammo than health pick ups.

 Not only are raptors way deadlier than REvil's zombies, they also pack more means to hurt you and can chase you down faster. The game takes place in a research facility, an excuse to let you trigger laser walls inside a few corridors in order to gate enemies away from you. It really feels like a real survival horror game, because I quickly learned that guns were worthless and learning to evade enemies was the name of the game.

 To add to the feeling of helplessness, raptors can jump over a few gates as well as smash through some doors, so unlike Resident Evil you aren't completely safe when entering a different room. As a matter of fact, Regina can lose her grip on her gun when attacked, which means you have to retrieve it from the floor, hardcore! To make matters worse, there's the bleeding status effect that may trigger when harmed, when bleeding you'll gradually take damage as you move. You need to use health packs to recover your health, but only Hemostats can fix a bleeding wound

 There's an awful 'Danger' mechanic that isn't explained in game, so I had to resort to my instruction booklet. Sometimes, during cutscenes, a Danger sign will appear below the screen, you must then mash buttons if you don't want to take damage. I thought it was dumb.

 You can save an unlimited amount of times but only when exiting specific rooms, labeled with an S on the map. These rooms are incredibly sparse, which makes it tougher than REvil. The Storage boxes also function differently, you need Plugs, key items, to open them, and they only connect between other boxes of the same color. On the flip side, while your inventory is rather small, key items don't take up these precious slots.

 While this game has tank controls and fixed camera angles, the entire game, meaning characters and environments, are fully 3-D. It's one of the best looking games on the system, easily. There's no slowdown either, and they pulled some sneaky moves to make the T-Rex look really scary with the PS1's weak hardware.

 There are 4 points in the game in which you can select from two different routes, adding some replay value to the game. There are also 3 different endings. Overall, the game took me little more than four hours to complete, and I unlocked a minigame in which you must hunt down a number of dinosaurs under a set amount of time.

 The game is a bit too vague and sometimes figuring out what to do can be tough. I had to consult a FAQ at least twice because I had no idea where to go or what I had missed. There's this one time in which you can't advance any further until you try to interact with a other you can't open yet because you are missing the N disc key. That's dumb, because I had checked the door earlier and I knew that I was missing the key item necessary to open the door, but I was just desperate going in circles not knowing what to do. Oh, and you don't keep memos you read, so any code or password you find? Write it down.

 I'll grant it this, the game is scarier than Resident Evil... at first. Raptors are quick and have various different attacks, you have to contend with the possibility of bleeding to death and you can have your gun knocked out of your hands... but then you'll notice that you'll be swamped with healing supplies. What the game lacks in ammo you get in health packs. Heck, there's a moment in the game in which Regina is parted from her gun by a Dinosaur. I picked it up, but didn't equip it again, because guns were useless. Thus, I spent the next two hours running around, unarmed, avoiding dinos like a pro. And by the end of the game, all three supply boxes were filled to the brim with healing items.

 There are no true bosses in the game. A Tyranosaurs Rex hunts you down every now and then, but most of the time you can just escape the room or 'defeating' it means running around for a set amount of time. After realizing how useless the gun was, I finished the game with healing items to spare and I only killed 3 dinosaurs, the first one was the one that made me realize it was a waste of time, and the other two were in my way, so I used the Lethal Poison Dart, which is an instant kill. I had three of those darts, but missed the third one, so I just reverted to evasive maneuvers. 

 Honestly? I prefer the REvil approach of having more ammo than health pick ups, but I still enjoyed Dino Crisis. Funnily enough, I think the REvil approach would've worked better in this game, since dinosaurs are far deadlier than zombies, so a more guns ablazing approach would fit the game. I don't think it's quite as good as say REvil 2, but it's a fun time if you enjoy the genre.

7.0

Game #850: Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS - MaxiBoost ON

 It's been a long, long, long wait.

 It's been over four years since Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost first release, and I know I'm not the only one who was begging for a port of Mobile Suit Gundam Ectreme VS MaxiBoost ON, and somehow, someone up there in Bandai-Namco's offices listened, and it's finally here. We had to sit through the awfully misguided Extreme VS Force, and the weird consolation prize that was Gundam Versus, but right now, it doesn't matter, because MaxiBoost is here and it's everything I wanted and hoped for.

 I've already written at length about why I love this game so much, and at its core it hasn't really changed, so... yeah, it's still amazing. On the other hand, I LOVE finally getting to play the game with English menus, this is everything I've ever wanted since Gundam VS Zeta Gundam on PS2.

 The Burst has system yet again, now it's divided into three kinds: Shooting, Defensive and Physical offense. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care too much about this change, and I don't think it really changes how you approach the game, but it does make it so that now you know how to play your defensive game when the opponent engages its burst.

 At first I was gonna complain that I missed vanilla Extreme's Single Player bosses... but they are still here. If you beat a route without using continues and reaching 600.000 points you can then fight a boss from the original or from Full Boost, which is pretty neat. That said, MaxiBoost's new boss(Singular, since it's the same for all routes) is rather lame in comparison!

 The 1000 cost units got bumped to 1500, which is an interesting change, and I welcome it. The single player Mission Mode is pretty much on par with what came before, but instead of upgrading your Mobile Suits you can equip them with passive abilities to enhance their performance.

 The game has over 183 mobile suits to play as, you simply can't top this. Full Boost introduces the lame clones, such as Lunamaria's Impulse for Shinn's Impulse, and most of these clones are pretty much identical but with lower or higher stats, which is really lame. That said, I welcome the ones that at least look different, like the orange Destiny, Kamille's Gundam MK II(which is black and lacks the Super mode) or even the orange Gaia which lacks the ability to change into the dog form at will, but suits like Lacus' Infinite Justice and Lunamaria's Impulse are just lazy and boring. That said, there are like 20 clone suits at most, and even less of the worthless type, so there are at least 150 unique suits.

 This is a Playstation 3 game and it shows. I didn't give Gundam Versus enough credit last year, because that game looked quite better than this one. That said, the PS3 versions of Extreme VS had some slowdown here and there, but this version runs at a smooth 60 FPS, even split-screen multiplayer maintains a steady 60fps. And while Extreme Versus looks 'better' as far as the quality of the 3-D models, I prefer this pseudo cell-shaded look. It's a more colorful game, and I think it suits it better.

 Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS - MaxiBoost ON is the culmination of the Extreme VS series, and the wait was worth it, painful, but worth it. This might very well be my favorite game on the console.

 10