GAME NEWS, REVIEWS AND FEATURES SINCE 2002

Matt Karam

Dark Cloud

January 16, 2006

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

You can call this one a case of having a game on the shelves for years. Unfortunately for me, during those years I missed out on a very incredible gaming experience. [i]Dark Cloud[/i] is undoubtedly the most fun game I have played recently. It follows the tale of a young Toan whose village was destroyed by an evil being known as the Dark Genie. The Fairy King comes to him and tells him that before the village was destroyed completely, everything was sealed away in mysterious orbs called Atla, and he gives Toan the power of the Atlamillia, a gem that can unlock the items in those Atla. Toan’s task then is to go around the world and unlock the Atla, which contain items, homes and people, and rebuild the world. Once that is accomplished, he must defeat the Dark Genie and restore the world to peace once and for all.

The game sounds tough, and at first I was a mite intimidated. But really, it’s the most fun game ever. It’s a mix of dungeon crawler, action RPG, and something like [i]Civilization[/i]. You grab Atla from the dungeons as you defeat enemies, and in the villages or towns you use those Atla to recreate the world the way you want. You’ll learn that some of the citizens have requests as to where or how their place is built, and if you satisfy all of the requests, you get hugely rewarded, so experimentation and talking to every person in the town is key to finishing the reconstruction. While in the dungeons, you run around hacking away at the monsters, going from floor to floor and unlocking Atla. Along the way, there are chests to open and loot to collect from slain monsters. You can also fish in the ponds around town to collect Fishing Points, which can be exchanged for precious items such as gems and status-healing objects. At the end of the road, on the final floor of the dungeon, you must fight a boss to then progress to the next town. In each town, you acquire a new party memberA

Questions Feature: Snackbar Edition

October 7, 2005

Editorial / Features / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

1. How come no matter how much you play a game, no matter how good you are at the game, or no matter how much you know about the game, there will always be someone better than you who obliterates you completely every time because they play it all day, everyday, for their entire life?

2. Why did Pickle ultimately decide, after months of not having an answer, for me to finally buy [i]Neverwinter Nights[/i] so that we can roleplay, only to have him play twice with me and then never play the game again?

3. Why is [i]Savage[/i], for lack of a better description, the absolute worst game I have ever played in my life?

4. How come MMOs that charge for online play are the worst games ever? Dear MMOs, [i]Guild Wars[/i] found a way to make theirs free. You should do the same. Love, Milkdud.

5. Speaking of MMOs, since we have had MMOs based on [i]Final Fantasy[/i], [i]Lord of the Rings[/i], [i]Star Wars[/i], [i]The Matrix[/i], and [i]King Arthur[/i], when will we see an MMO based on the Roman Empire era or the ancient Greek era? That I might actually buy. Especially if one of the NPCs is named Kratos and he gives you experience based on how good you are in bed.

6. How come someone forged fake pictures of the rumored [i]Chrono Break[/i], the sequel to the wonderful [i]Chrono Cross[/i], and those pictures included screenshots of [i]Final Fantasy XI[/i] characters and settings, with one of the pictures having the body of a tonberry and the head of Admiral Ackbar from [i]Star Wars[/i]?

7. How come online gaming is marred by people who hack and upload viruses into peoples’ computers? Dear people, is playing the game not good enough? Must you ruin other peoples’ computers to make your gaming more enjoyable? Love, a recent victim of such attacks.

8. How come, if given the resources and time, I could literally make one of the best video games ever made? And how come other people who have that exact thought only end up creating games like [i]Super Monkey Ball[/i] and [i]Lord of the Rings: The Third Age[/i]?

9. Why do elitists in games decide to either boss other players around; stop playing with people who are of a lesser skill; laugh and taunt those lesser players as they mercilessly beat upon them; or a combination of all three?

10. Finally, the [i]Halo 2[/i] question. How come, when playing matchmaking in [i]Halo 2[/i], does Xbox Live match four level 25+ players against three characters around level 18 and one character that is level 2? Why are those games the absolute best, because my team completely annihilates the lower levels and sends them back to [i]Halo[/i] school, thus making me and my team a bunch of elitists who satisfy questions 1 and 9?

Guild Wars

September 14, 2005

PC / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/guildwars/cover.jpg[/floatleft]There is a lot to be said of ArenaNet’s [i]Guild Wars[/i]. What do you get when you combine MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), free online play, and [i]Diablo II[/i]‘s former team? You get a game with all the benefits of an MMO without all of its weaknesses. Those benefits include free play (it costs you nothing except an e-mail account and the cost to purchase the game itself), interacting with tons of people across the world, a long and drawn-out game that never ceases to entertain, and a definite ending-which most MMOs lack. Once you create your character’s (you can have up to four) gender, appearance, and starting class (there are six: Elementalist, Monk, Ranger, Warrior, Mesmer, and Necromancer), you are thrown into the game, and from there the exhilarating ride to the top begins.

[i]Guild Wars[/i] is a game that starts out in a world (known as Pre-Searing Ascalon) where you are aspiring to become a powerful combatant by choosing both a main class and a second class to learn as you progress through the game. Your warrior joins several in a battle against the Charr that literally leaves the world scarred and ashen. However, as you progress, you learn that the world extends far beyond the seared Ascalon, and the world battles vastly exceed that of just the Charr.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/guildwars/ss02_thumb.jpg[/floatright]Typically in [i]Guild Wars[/i] you will find the game progress through missions, which can be accomplished by visiting a town where a mission starts, forming a party, and clicking the ‘Enter Mission’ button. If you fail, you simply return to the town and are able to then start over whenever you want to. If restarting a failed mission doesn’t suit you, you can take your party out to complete quests given to you by various NPCs across the world. If you don’t want to form a party but can’t manage to fight alone, the game provides computer-controlled henchmen to help you balance out the fighting so that you can still play alone but battle with help, or you can just go out hunting for spoils. As you level up, you can assign points to skill sets in which your skills belong-for example, as an Elementalist (the mage), you can either level up fire, earth, air, or water magic. Leveling is not very hard, as you gain experience from both battles and quests/missions. The max character level (for now) is 20, but there is still quite a challenge after level 20 is reached. The level does not affect your character’s classes at all except to allow you those points to assign to your skills and increase your health bar. Other benefits of questing include money, items, and skills (which can also be learned from skill teachers spread around the world).

In a battle system similar to [i]Diablo II[/i]‘s mixed with a little MMO, you run around, click on what you want to attack, and your character enters auto-attack mode. It will continue to do that until you tell it to use one of the eight skills you’ve assigned to your skill bar. Once you defeat a monster, spoils such as gold, salvaging items, or weapons drop to the ground for you to pick up. You can then sell the spoils to merchants, salvage them into crafting materials, or simply use them if you wish. Your henchmen attack whichever enemy you are fighting, employing the strategy that everyone focused on one monster will kill a lot faster. The other cool thing about this game is that when you die, [b]nothing permanent happens to you[/b]. I repeat. [b]Nothing permanent happens to you[/b]. You suffer a temporary reduction in hit points and magic points, but that reduction is cleared when you either enter town or kill enough to boost your morale back up. Dear Blizzard, Square Enix, and every other MMO company. Take notes. That is the way to do it. The game is still very challenging without the tedium of having to re-level over and over if you keep dying and losing experience.

You can buy armor and weapons from crafters, or you can find items in the wild and take them to collectors who have pieces of your armor to offer in return. As you change armaments, your character changes appearance to reflect what it is wearing. Another cool (but rare and kind of annoying) thing is the use of dyes that drop very infrequently in battle. Dyes can be combined to make new colors or simply applied to your outfit as is to alter the colors of your wardrobe, thus further customizing your character.

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/guildwars/ss05_thumb.jpg[/floatleft]If you don’t want to play the roleplaying part of the game, you can construct a level 20 character to jump right into Arena and Guild battles and completely bypass the long roleplaying campaign. The only drawback to that is you have to unlock all skills and items from the roleplaying section before they can be used in the multiplayer section, so if you are not at all interested in playing the game itself, your battle experience will be very limited. Regardless, the battles are fun, taking two teams of four and letting them slaughter each other. As you win Arena battles, you are given faction points that can be used to buy skills and cool items. As you win Guild battles, you are given rank, esteem, and glory. Winners of both battles find themselves the owners of cool items and rewards.

Let’s briefly talk about Guilds. Similar to [i]Final Fantasy XI[/i]‘s Linkshell system, you can join a Guild in [i]Guild Wars[/i] where you can easily communicate with a segregated community to coordinate missions, quests, or Guild battles. A Guild leader can purchase a cape that all members of the Guild wear; so non-Guild members can be easily identified by those not wearing a cape. They can also purchase a Guild Hall, where Guild members can meet easily to exchange items or just hang back and converse. Other benefits include item, dye, and gold sharing, so that you don’t have to always go to a dye trader, weapon crafter, or rune trader to get something that your Guild may have for you.

Like any other MMO, you have the use of silly commands that make your character act, such as /dance or /guitar, after which your character will either dance or play an air guitar. These are humorous, but commands such as /bow and /sit help the roleplayers out a bit. This game differs from a traditional MMO so much that people refuse to call it one (but let’s face it, this game is MMO straight up). Instead of servers that contain thousands of people, there are town districts which act as different chat servers. There are several servers in the same town, and you can easily change servers with the click of a button. When you go out from town into the world, you (and anyone in your party) enter into your own private ‘copy’ of the game. This removes trying to find enemies to hunt due to server overpopulation or the strain of having too much lag due to too many people connected to the area. In town, there are only dozens of people at a time, not hundreds. The single greatest thing about [i]Guild Wars[/i] is that you can pull up your map, double-click on a town, and you are instantly there. This means, once you have taken the time to travel to a place once, you can now return there at any time, from anywhere, instantly from the map. That was the final indicator to me that this game is just wonderful.

[i]Guild Wars[/i] is the next big thing, like [i]Diablo II[/i] and its expansion. In fact, [i]Guild Wars[/i] has already had one expansion (that was a FREE download, I might add) called [i]Sorrow’s Furnace[/i] that just came out on September 7, 2005. This expansion has two new questing and hunting areas, new quests, and a few tweaks to make the game play a little smoother. I’m telling you, this game is doing everything right and nothing wrong. The tedium is gone from the game, replaced by hours and hours of missions, quests, and battling. No monthly fees. You can play for 15 minutes and actually accomplish something tiny-be it finish up a quest or just slay a few monsters for some loot. Do yourself a favor and buy this game, and when you do, look up Matain Amarai. My level 20 Elementalist/Monk might just be willing to help out some of you new people.

Conker: Live and Reloaded

August 24, 2005

Reviews / Xbox / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/conkerreloaded/cover.jpg[/floatleft]The anticipation for this game was immense. I had played [i]Conker’s Bad Fur Day[/i] on the N64 for hours upon hours, but my only real experience with it was the multiplayer (the Beach level was absolutely amazing). I had played the single-player campaign only for about an hour and decided the game was more fun on the multiplayer end, so I never really finished the campaign. Well, apparently, I missed out on some really fun stuff, and I had plans to eventually play the game and found out my chance would be renewed with [i]Conker: Live and Reloaded[/i] without even having to dust off the N64.

It’s no secret that this game is strictly a multiplayer game. Not only does [i]Conker: Live and Reloaded[/i] not try to hide that fact, but its default option when you turn on the game is Xbox Live. With that being said, let’s first dive into the single-player campaign and the world of Conker, a tiny, furry, loveable, hungover little squirrel. The campaign is again called [i]Conker’s Bad Fur Day[/i], and it is almost an exact port from the N64 version, with a ton of improvements. The first and most noticeable change is the graphics, which are sharper, clearer, and definitely cleaner than the N64 game. Also, because the game is an ‘exact port’ of its N64 counterpart, there are tons of jokes and references. For example, at the very beginning, you use the same exact strategy to defeat the Gargoyle, but it doesn’t work. Conker looks at the screen and says, ‘Hey, they promised me that this would be an exact port!’ Conker also wears different costumes depending on the level he’s in, which is something that the original game did, but to a much lesser extent (and I know this because I used my [i]Bad Fur Day 64[/i] guide to beat [i]Live and Reloaded[/i]). One thing that [i]Live[/i] did was censor all curse words, but since Potty Mouth is one of the unlockable features, I’m not complaining.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews//conkerreloaded/ss03_thumb.jpg[/floatright][i]Bad Fur Day[/i] is one of the most unique games I’ve ever played. Story-wise, it’s utterly ridiculous (in a terribly great, ingenious, and hilarious way). The fabled Panther King is drinking milk from his chalice, and when he puts the chalice down on his throneside table, it topples due to a missing leg, and he gets very angry, threatening his servants with duct tape if they don’t fix the problem. The solution: a red squirrel can fill the gap between the floor and the broken leg. Conker (who is coincidentally a red squirrel), meanwhile, has had too much to drink and wanders home the wrong way, beginning a sequence of horribly odd eventsA

God of War

May 31, 2005

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/godofwar/cover.jpg[/floatleft]What can I possibly say that can do [i]God of War[/i] any justice? That is a tough question to answer, as I could say nothing and let the game speak for itself, or I could go on for hours and hours. Fortunately for you readers, I won’t do either. I will instead try to give you a brief picture of just how wonderful, exciting, and awe-inspiring this game really is.

Let’s start with the basic story. It’s nothing overly complicated, but it’s based on Greek mythology when the gods ruled the earth’s dominions. As the name implies, the story centers around Ares, the God of War, or rather an individual who has been touched by Ares’s destructive power. Kratos is a man whom, at the outset, we know nothing about, but as we learn more about him, we discover that he led an army into a battle that could not be won and sold his soul to Ares so that he and his men could conquer. This affected him so painfully that the game begins with him jumping off a cliff and plummeting to his death, while the actual gameplay takes place in a flashback. During this flashback, he only has one objective: destroy Ares and reclaim that lost part of his soul as well as his freedom.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/godofwar/ss03_thumb.jpg[/floatright]I will hold none of my praise back. This game is simply fantastic and has replaced [i]Shadow of Rome[/i] as the biggest sleeper of the year. The action is your simple hack-and-slash type, but it tosses several mini-games into the fray to keep it interesting. For example, when Kratos damages a monster badly enough with his incredibly awesome swords attached to chains that are grafted into his arms, a button will appear over the beast’s head (usually the circle button). When you press this button, the game prompts you to perform an action, be it press a button rapidly or press a sequential order of buttons to match the screen’s prompts. As you successfully accomplish this, Kratos performs one or several devastating maneuvers to demolish his unfortunate foe. If you’re sick of hacking, you are given aid from different gods in the form of magic spells. My ultimate favorite: you are given the souls of the Army of Hades to command at your will, and at this point the game becomes totally unfair to your advantage.

To keep the game challenging, it tosses in several puzzles, none of which are too terribly challenging if you are good at remembering things you pass along the way. I was not good at this, but I still had loads of fun figuring out the solutions anyway, even if it took me much longer than it should have. Nonetheless, the graphics were flat-out amazing, and the music was very appropriate for the game. Seeing how fluid the game moves along made my jaw drop the very first time I saw it. The animations are near realistic, and the cutscenes almost look like you’re watching a live-action movie. I had more fun playing this game than I have anything in the last couple of months, [i]Knights of the Old Republic[/i] aside.

I’ll get this out of the way nowA

Final Fantasy XI

March 23, 2005

PC / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/finalfantasyxi/cover.jpg[/floatleft]Let me forewarn everyone by saying that the [i]Final Fantasy[/i] series is my favorite series of all time, so I had a lot of expectations coming into this game. Not a single one of them was met. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the game was certainly entertaining, but the tediousness of the game drove me to quit playing and cancel my subscription after about three quarters of a year, and I honestly don’t miss it. However, where [i]Final Fantasy XI[/i] failed to deliver us the charm of its predecessors, it added new charm that made a lasting impression on meA

Shadow of Rome

March 18, 2005

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/shadowofrome/cover.jpg[/floatleft]The time is 44 B.C., and the Roman Empire is in a state of turmoil. Caesar has been assassinated, and the wrong person has been accused. The general of the Roman army has become a gladiator. He begins fighting in smaller city arenas, but his drive to succeed takes him to the Coliseum for the final matches. Surprisingly enough, I am not talking about the movie [i]Gladiator[/i]. I am referring to [i]Shadow of Rome[/i], which is, from start to finish, an extremely beautiful game. Yes, the premise sounds exactly like [i]Gladiator[/i], and for the most part it basically is (heck, there is even a scene where General Agrippa, said gladiator, yells “Are you not entertained?” to the crowd). But to steal a line from Cone, if you’re going to rip off a movie, at least pick a great movie. And Capcom did just that.

I’ll explain the story in a little more detail. Agrippa, the Roman general, has led his armies to victory against the Germanic tribes and is on his way back home. What the general does not know, however, is that back home, Julius Caesar has been assassinated, his last words being “Et tu, Brute?”, and his father Vipsanius is being accused of the murder. As Agrippa returns home, his friend Octavianus warns him that his mother is on trial for a public execution. Agrippa tries to stop them, but he falls short and sees his mother die right in front of him at the hands of Decius, the new Emperor’s right-hand man. A girl of unknown origin named Claudia helps Agrippa and Octavianus escape, then together the three hatch a plan to save Vipsanius. Claudia suggests that Agrippa become a gladiator (her brother Sextus owns a gladiator stable), as the winner of the Coliseum games gets to slay Vipsanius, leaving a chance for Agrippa to save him if he himself wins. Agrippa agrees, and meanwhile Octavianus sneaks around the Roman Senate searching for clues to the true killer’s identity. I say that the game is like [i]Gladiator[/i], and fundamentally yes it is, but the game is more like an imaginative take on Shakespeare’s [i]Julius Caesar[/i]. The events of the story pan out very nicely, and the battle that is the culmination of all events at the end of the game is fantastic.

Naturally, with two stories going on at once (that of Agrippa and that of Octavianus), you can expect the game to split into two partsA

Viewtiful Joe 2

February 14, 2005

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/viewtifuljoe2/cover.jpg[/floatleft]If you thought things were done after Joe rescued Silvia from Movieland in the first [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i], you were sadly mistaken! Joe has now become an action hero for good, only this time he’s not alone. Sylvia, the damsel in distress from the first title, has begged Captain Blue for a V-Watch and is now a superheroine alongside her fearless boyfriend. They are out to stop the Black Emperor from stealing Rainbow Oscars in Movieworld, which contain the power of happy endings. This journey sends them through different representations of movies (such as the Samurai film reel) to stop the Emperor’s henchmen, of which there are hordes and hordes. Sound like a horrible story? Well, it is. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone, as the story isn’t meant to be mind-boggling. It’s supposed to be cheesy, and that’s what makes this series so fun.

[i]Viewtiful Joe 2[/i] is more of a new series of levels than it is a separate game. The fact that Joe travels around through different movie eras gives me the same distinct feeling that I had while playing [i]Turtles in Time[/i] for the SNES, which is easily in my top five favorite SNES games of all time. But I digress. The reason why this doesn’t feel like a totally new game is because it looks, feels, sounds (except the bosses were given better voiceovers, minus the [b]horribly[/b] annoying chameleon), and plays the exact same way as its predecessor. This means that if you excelled in the first game, this one will be a cakewalk because it’s generally easier. Each level (called a movie reel in this one) has several different acts-each having its own save point upon completion, making saves more frequent than in [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i]. Another cool edition to the game is that Joe’s father, Jet, changes the movie reels in the Real World, thus controlling where Joe travels to next, and the two exchange witty banter occasionally, adding to the game’s thick layer of cheese that already exists because of Joe and Sylvia’s interactions.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/viewtifuljoe2/ss03_thumb.jpg[/floatright]As I mentioned before, fundamentally the game did not at all change except for one addition. In the last game, Sylvia was one of several unlockable characters as which you could play the game. In this installment, both Sylvia and Joe are playable, and the use of the “Viewtiful Touch” allows you to switch between the two instantly while playing. This opens the door for two-person combos, but it also means that there are some areas where Joe (my favored character) can’t do everything and must call on Sylvia to get past a certain area. You still have to run through several 2-D side-scrolling levels, solving puzzles and smashing your way through torrents of enemies that keep popping up out of nowhere. You’re still trying to collect Viewtiful Points to buy powerups, and you’re still collecting Viewtiful Canisters to increase the size of your VFX (Viewtiful Effects) meter. And yes, you’re still using your VFX powers.

Let’s talk about said powers, of which there are four. Joe has all of his abilities back this time around, and they are still used in exactly the same way as before. VFX Slow slows down the screen so that Joe can unleash massive combos to gain tons of Viewtiful Points, and it can still be used to throw a super punch when the enemy is dizzy. VFX Mach Speed makes everything insanely fast, and as you purchase upgrades, you get multiple Joes running around, smashing boxes in the background that are otherwise unreachable. VFX Zoom In does just that, and this can be used to spin kick, spin jump, make a hard dive, or unleash my favorite move in the [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i] series: the Slow Zoom Red Hot One Hundred. One more power has been added to the fray, but Joe doesn’t get to use it. You must switch to Sylvia, and while she cannot use Mach Speed, she does have the ever-useful VFX Replay, which, as you can probably guess, takes a recording of a move and plays it twice more. So for scoring one hit, Sylvia does three times the damage. The only drawback is that if you use Replay and get hit, you lose three times the life.

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/viewtifuljoe2/ss07_thumb.jpg[/floatleft]Following in the footsteps of the first installment, [i]Viewtiful Joe 2[/i] has several items to unlock as you progress through its difficulties (and I have not found any cheat code thus far to do this the easy way). As you progress through the game, you’ll notice several chamber numbers popping up on your screen. That is a message telling you that you’ve unlocked one of 37 chambers, which serve as bonus levels. The trick is to perform an exact feat while playing, thus unlocking a different chamber. For example, you might have to progress through an area without grabbing one film canister, or you might have to let yourself be killed by a certain enemy. There is also the obligatory unlocking of harder difficulties as you continually beat them, but to be honest, for me playing any game once through is enough unless it offers some cool incentive (and unlocking a harder difficulty is not the way to do this). The game fell short on the secrets department.

Overall, I would say that [i]Viewtiful Joe 2[/i] is pretty fun considering it is more of the same stuff given to us by the first game. I wouldn’t recommend playing this one if you haven’t yet played the original, and if you have played it, don’t expect any new groundbreaking features in the sequel. If 2-D side-scrolling with very cheesy dialogue is your thing, then [i]Viewtiful Joe 2[/i] is your game. I’m surprised to say that even though I hate cheesy and am not a fan of side-scrollers, I found this game humorous and enjoyable. When I heard Joe say, “Henshin-A-Go-Go, Baby!” for the very first time in [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i], I rolled my eyes and nearly shut the game off right there. Now I can honestly say that, as I played through the sequel, I chuckled every time I heard it. In closing, [i]Viewtiful Joe 2[/i] may be the same game with a different name, but I enjoyed that game, and I think it’s worth checking out.

Viewtiful Joe

February 4, 2005

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/viewtifuljoeps2/cover.jpg[/floatleft]I was idly standing by the GameCube section when I noticed an interesting game on the screen. I didn’t know what it was called, but I saw a side-scrolling game with comic-style graphics. Some kid was intensely pounding away at the controls, and the dude in the red bodysuit with the pink cape was performing all sorts of animated antics that made stuff fly all over the place. After watching the action in awe for a few moments, I continued with my shopping. By the time I arrived at home, that game never entered my mind again. Months later, the game resurfaced on the PS2, and again I was mildly intrigued by this [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i].

I finally had the chance to check this game out, having read the great reviews for it both online and in magazines. I turned it on and set my difficulty to “Adults” (the other choices are “Sweet”, the easiest setting, and “Kids”, the default setting) and anticipated creating carnage as that little kid did in the store those months ago. Once I got started, I was hugely let down. My character wasn’t doing any of the actions that I knew he was capable of performing. On top of that, I kept dying, and it took me hours just to get to Level 2. I was fed up. How did that kid have it so easy, and I couldn’t do a thing? I sadly established that I wasn’t good enough to play on the “Adults” setting-perhaps I wasn’t good enough to play the game at all.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/viewtifuljoeps2/ss03_thumb.jpg[/floatright]I decided to lessen the difficulty to “Kids” and see if I couldn’t learn how to play that way. I wasn’t looking forward to trying this, being low in spirit for finally finding a game I wasn’t good at. With a larger life bar and therefore more confidence, I began the game the right way. And let me tell you, I finally learned how to play [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i]. If you approach the game by just punching and kicking, you will not succeed on many levels. [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i] is virtually impossible to play without using Joe’s three major powers. His powers not only aid in helping you through the game, but if you use them correctly, you will gain a ton of Viewtiful Points, which act as Joe’s currency to purchase power-ups and abilities at save spots (which are few and far between). You are rated based on how well you played a certain section, and the higher the rating, the more Viewtiful Points you are awarded at the end of the level.

Just what might those powers be? Well, your first power is VFX (Viewtiful Effects) Slow, which slows down everything on the screen. This is the power that will be used most often, as you can perform a huge combo with tons of hits for loads of Viewtiful Points as well as dizzy up opponents so that you can completely obliterate them with an attack in Slow-Motion. You can also deflect bullets this way. The second power is VFX Mach Speed, which, as you guessed, is basically [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i] in fast-forward. If used properly, Joe will start to glow on Fire, which you can then use to light bombs or candles. Finally, you gain access to VFX Zoom In, which is useful for performing special attacks that aren’t available otherwise. The neatest part about VFX is the ability to combine them to create powerful attacks. Ultimately, my favorite one is the “Slow Zoom Red Hot One Hundred”, which combines the use of VFX Slow, Zoom, and holding down the punch button. Bosses don’t stand a chance against this.

The graphics are very unique. It looks and feels like a comic book, and Joe is believable as a superhero. Photographs of this game give it no justice, as the game moves a lot smoother than anyone would expect a 2-D side-scrolling game to do. The sound effects are cool, too, giving this game an arcade feel. Sounds of cracking and smacking never get old, and this game brings them to you in full throttle here. My only complaint on the sounds is that the voiceovers for some of the bosses you fight are completely horrible, as their voices are gross and their English is incomprehensible (the shark boss is just awful). You can easily bypass the scenes if you don’t care about what is going on and just want to pound some noses.

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/viewtifuljoeps2/ss06_thumb.jpg[/floatleft]The story kind of threw me off-guard, and because of this I don’t rate the game any higher than maybe a 7.5 out of 10. I won’t say it’s horrible, but it’s definitely not the type of fantasy that appeals to me. Joe is a normal guy watching his favorite action star, Captain Blue, with his girlfriend Sylvia. Suddenly, Sylvia gets kidnapped and taken into the movie, and Joe gets sucked into the movie to rescue her (sound like a familiar Schwarzenegger movie to anyone?). He obtains superhero powers from Captain Blue, and then it’s off to the rescue. Meanwhile there’s a plot going on where the baddies in Movieland are planning to take over the real world, so in addition to saving Sylvia, Joe must stop the hostile takeover.

What is a game nowadays without lots of secret content? Not [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i], that’s for sure. There are tons of unlockable characters and difficulties that can either be done legitimately or by entering in a cheat code on the start menu (which I won’t tell you-you must find it yourself). I won’t spoil any of the secret content, either, because then it wouldn’t be much of a secret, now, would it? But if cheat codes are your thing, look them up-they won’t be hard to find. I don’t think the secret items, however, add much to the replay value. Essentially, you’re just playing the same game over and over.

[i]Viewtiful Joe[/i] is not the greatest game I have ever played, but it is an enjoyable one. I don’t have much experience with 2-D side-scrollers, but this was a nice change of pace from the hugely-involved questing RPGs. I am looking forward to starting the sequel, so keep checking for the review on that as well. The only thing I can say about [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i] is that it is cheesy, but who ever said that cheesy can’t be fun?

Oh, and on a final note, when you’re playing [i]Viewtiful Joe[/i] and your VFX meter has completely drained, making you a normal human being and more vulnerable, just remember the words that will restore all of your hope…

[b][i]“Henshin A-Go-Go, Baby!”[/i][/b]

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

January 20, 2005

Playstation 2 / Reviews / by Matt Karam 0 comments / Tweet

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/lotrthethirdage/cover.jpg[/floatleft]Let me start by saying that I am an avid fan of the [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] trilogy. Until The Fellowship of the Ring movie came out, I had not read the books and knew nothing about the story. I had only read a few chapters of The Hobbit when I was young. So needless to say, after I viewed the first movie, I read the trilogy twice, watched every movie as it came out multiple times, and viewed the extended sets. I own everything that I mentioned above. Sadly, [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] video gaming, before the movies, had not even been an afterthought. Once the movies were released, the onslaught of games poured into stores and homes nationwide, and of course, I own every single one of them. The latest (and far from the greatest) is [i]Lord of the Rings: The Third Age[/i].

First of all, I didn’t utterly despise this game. I honestly didn’t. I might even say that I liked it. However, there is so much that is wrong with it that I can’t help but cringe and ask myself what EA Games was thinking. Riding on the wake of two very successful games ([i]The Two Towers[/i] and [i]The Return of the King[/i]), they thought they would cash in on that success to make a game based on the entire trilogy. Again I say, although I enjoyed the game for what it was, it fell very short.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/lotrthethirdage/ss14_thumb.jpg[/floatright]For starters, the story is very cheap, and I stopped caring about it after ten minutes into it. EA thought they would introduce some new characters that were completely made up (and not by anyone bearing the name Tolkien). I was excited, thinking I would be getting an RPG set in Middle Earth that was a story in its own. Wow, was I wrong. Basically, you’re creating a second-string Fellowship, complete with a bickering Dwarf and Elf, a Gondorian warrior, a healing Ranger, a Rohirrim guard, and a shieldmaiden of Rohan (all that is missing is hobbits). Your mission objectives are, to my chagrin, to follow the Fellowship around and clean up the garbage they left behind. There is very little character interaction, and there is NO explanation to why the characters are doing anything among themselves. Just why didn’t Idrial accept Berethor’s love? What exactly was the main reason why these people were even traveling together? No one will ever know.

The only thing that progresses the game’s story are narrations by Ian McKellan. I was really annoyed by this because any good RPG has the characters interact and decide what to do for themselves. EA got horribly lazy here. The pace of the game slowed down tremendously when you had to stop whatever you were doing to view an “Epic scene” so that Gandalf could tell you where to go next and what you must do. After about the tenth scene (there are 109 of these terrible things), my patience dwindled to an all-time low. And placing this ragtag group in the heat of battles such as the Balrog, Helm’s Deep, and Sauron was more laughable than the fact that this game is even called [i]Lord of the Rings[/i]. When you beat the game, you are awarded with…another Ian McKellan narration! That was the final straw for me.

The graphics are very pixilated. I didn’t notice it after a while, but maybe that is because I got so accustomed to it that I stopped caring. Graphics aren’t usually a big part of why I play games, but…let’s face it, a game should be made using current technology. Something else that irked me was the lack of secrets and side quests. From start to finish, this is the most linear game I have ever played. The option to travel back to other lands is given to you, and I still don’t understand why in the world they thought that would be cool. Unless there are items waiting for you (which, when I experimented, I found nothing), there is no point to traveling. There is no secret equipment that takes something challenging to acquire. You simply pluck your things from chests, battle spoils, and maybe a steal from an enemy. I feel like EA just got lazy about midway through writing the game’s outline and just started making what they had, filling in gaps with useless garbage.

Is there anything salvageable in this utter mess of an RPG? Of course there is, or else I wouldn’t have played it for 45 hours. The main thing that drew me was the return of the turn-based battle system, as I admit I’m a sucker for [i]Final Fantasy[/i] games and anything that tries to be a spin-off. Without paying attention to the (horrible) story, I focused instead on building my characters, which was kind of fun.

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/lotrthethirdage/ss04_thumb.jpg[/floatleft]Each character has three skill trees that they can learn abilities from, and in addition, there are three pearls (called Elfstones) that each fighter can learn from. With a total of six skill trees, I had a lot of work ahead of me in learning everything for every fighter (that Item Craft Elfstone took ages to master). Eventually I did, and by that time everyone was level 99. The game was a no-contest from there (I always seem to play my games this way).

The magic spells aren’t very impressive, and I knew-oh, I just KNEW-that one of the Elven girl’s spells would be the water stallions. The Dwarf’s magic was better, calling on erupting volcanoes and fire dragons to inflict massive damage. The melee abilities were cool too, especially when I could perform five- and six-hit strikes. The Rohirrim spearman was boring. The addition of “real” Fellowship members as guests in your battles was cool, but most of the time my fighters were better than the guest. A

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