Gamer--freakz

Thats it man, enough PS2 games. The PS2 was a beastly system, it was great, but its time to move on.

I will be doing the final PS2 game reviews and thats it, never going to touch on this system again. Here are the final 2 games before I close off the system.

Odin sphere RE
Kingdom hearts 2

Yep, thats all.

Gamespot score:8.3(great)

my score:8.5

(+)Pros:-Good lenghty game with addictive and stragetic combat,-interesting story,-a total of 3 different playable characters add into variety,-some amazing boss fights,-amazingly good visuals during the time of release

(-)Cons:-very hard to play on normal mode,-some story loopholes

gameplay time:10-20 hours




Now time for a game of the past. The onimusha series was one pretty well renowned one. For one, it has 4 running main games, and a few spin offs. Sadly, 3 was the only I played, and dawn of dreams crashed on me. Back on topic, onimusha fans and newcomers alike(me) will love this game for a few reasons, an intruiging story, solid combat, and a bunch of lovable characters. Though the game is one of the hardest I have ever played, I can't say that its unplayable, its just really hard. Well, moving on, it even has characters based on REAL LIFE PEOPLE. While I didnt know these guys back then, this should be enough to spark some interest in some people.



Story goes as samanouske, a honourable samurai, goes to assualt a temple to kill oda nobunaga, the reason for genma appearances. There, during the final battle, he is teleported away, for an unknown reason. He is brought to the future in france, where he finds out that most of his power has been sucked away. At the same time, police detective jaq is facing problems of his own. his squad is wiped from the genma and hes barely surviving killing the monsters with his machine gun. At the most crucial moment he is saved by samanouske, and is teleported away as well. Samanouske, suprised, looks around for a cause, and notices guildinstern, a mad genma scientist, at a faraway tower. Presuming the source of the time travel, samanouske goes to confront him. Jaq on the other hand, is teleported back into samanouskes time and gets powers of his own similar to samanouske after unforseen events, and he fights to get back to his time. 2 fighters, 2 times, this game is just that awesome.





Being a hack and slash game, onimusha 3 is friggin awesome. The gameplay isnt as fast as something like, say, devil may cry, or even god of war, but its still as great as or even better than those. For one, the pacing is pretty great, you cant jump and do air combos and all, but hitting your enemies still require great presicion, especially the big and powerful ones. Slashing blindy will only cause you to die terrible deaths. Almost everything requires some strategy, thats if you're playing the brutally brutal normal mode and not the easy mode. The maps are great, the environments are nice to explore and roam around. The game requires some backtracking, but its nothing serious. Monsters get infinite spawn, but you can ignore them so its not that big of a deal, especially if even the weakest of genma can decipitate you if you are playing blindly. Still, theres such a thing called a FAQ.

For the characters and genma, you are in for quite a treat. You play as 3 characters, samanouske, jaq and that 1 police chick michelle. Samanouske is your run of the mill swordsman with a few cool weapons. Among the 3 he fights the most up close. He has basically swords in his arsenal, be it great swords dual swords or any other blade related crap.Though he is the main character and is used the most, I would say I enjoy using him the least, not that he isnt fun, the other 2 are just better. Jaq is a blast to play. He using whip based weapon, he can hit them from afar, go toward them to dish out pain, or drag them to him. Most of his weapons are whip based so they have quite similar properties. He is personally my favourite character. Michelle on the other hand uses modern day weapons, like machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers etc. Tough you only play her for a small bit, she is suprisingly fun. That 1 zoo level was one of my favourites in the game, due to the sheer fun of shooting genma. Combinging 3 characters with the slaying of some interesting looking genma, this game is just great. Some of the normal genma look really good (that 1 chainball guy and the bear looking dude from the zoo level, even those ninja dudes look cool), and bosses are just a blast to fight.

I overall only found the difficulty in this game to be a major issue. The game is really hard on normal, and since I was just a sore kid back then I played easy after dieing against the 1st robot boss like 20 times. Years later I tried again on normal mode and cleared it.....it was hell. Also, the story has parts where it doesnt make sense, more so, the time switches. When ako time travels to the different heroes, the other hero just sits back in his time, idling and doing nothing, when the world is at stake, wth? You would think the other hero would go off and kill some stuff before ako comes back.

Demon siege is a great game, though hard, its really satisfying once you clear it. For a game that was released such a while back, its really something. Once again, a great game, too bad I didnt get to finish dawn of dreams, also, its a pity samanouske didnt make it into MVC 3, they really needed a samurai character in there.

Happy gaming!

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-Great song selection,-vareity of different charts and playstyles ,-good replay value with different characters and song difficulties,- costume unlocks provide more initiative to play,- overall cute visuals,-great co-op play features

(-)cons:-only 19 songs,-no particularly very challenging songs

gameplay time:20-30 hours(average)






K-on! is a popular japanese anime that speaks about 5 girls that attend a light music club and do nothing all day long. Fans waited for a game, since k-on had quite a collection of songs. The fans waited and waited, and finally, late last year,k-on! houkago-live!! was released. Published by sega, which also published the well known project diva games, its more of a rock-band based game unlike project diva, which was just a flat out music game. Sharing many similarities with rock band, guitar hero and many other music games, the concept is there. Rather than using instruments of course its the PSP controls. Equiped with a co-op feature too, houkago life is ready to take the fans for a ride, and it sure succeeds in that area.




Im still no good wif jap( bear with me, I'll probably learn it next semester), but the story is easy to guess. It follows the events of the anime, after azusa joins the group. Basically its just the band playing songs over and over for practise, and later the game introduces the several different characters. Some of these include ui, yui's sister, sawa-sensei, the club teacher in charge and nodoka, yui's childhood friend. Needless to say, in a music game like this, the story plays little role, in the end, if you want to know more its much btr to jus watch the anime.


Houkago live is a pretty solid game for the music genre, especially for the fans. For one, there are 19 well known songs all in this game, each with normal and hard mode and 5 playcharts, one for each of the characters, yui,mio,ritsu,mugi and azusa. Each of the playcharts are different, and the one that differs the most is mio's, since its all arrows(shes left handed). That kinda adds variety, since you can play a song 10 times to fully finish it (5x 2 difficulties). The song selection is kinda solid, though sadly its missing season 2 songs. Still, we get songs like fuwa fuwa time, sweet bitter beauty song, heart goes boom, and the signature openings and endings, cagayake girls and dont be lazy. Most of these 19 songs are a blast to play, and playing them with different characters will still feel different.


Of course theres more to that. Now I shall explain the gameplay, though its kinda simple since its concept its kinda same as many other music games. Its kinda like djmax, but slower, and instead of the vertical notes its horizontal. You will see a bunch on notes appear on the horizontal bar, and there will be a moving slider. Every time the slider comes in contact with a note, hit the corressponding button to clear it. Kinda easy, though sometimes there are pretty crazy moments ( mass jack hammers, etc). Also, you get only a couple of songs in the beginning, and continue to unlock more as you play. The visuals you see during songs are the models of the girls, which if you ask me are pretty well done. The mode selection character chibi models are so damn cute to boot! Theres co-op, which you can join up to 5 friends to play as any of the girls, kinda like rock band, it works, and its pretty good. Finally, as an incentive, you unlock costumes for your girls each time you get great grades for your songs with them. Keep playing to unlock those swimsuits boys!


With only 19 songs, the song amoung is pretty inferior to many other games of the music genre. Sure most of them are great, but 19 is still too little, even with the different charts and all, its better to play new songs rather than play the same song with just a different character. And since theres only 19 songs, its really hard to find an extremely difficult song, like disappearance from project diva or nightmare from djmax. Hope if they release another game, it'll have more songs and particularly some hard ones.
.
Houkago live does the k-on series justice, its a great game, and it boots up some really good songs. Though more songs would have been better, houkago is still a good impression on the all so popular k-on anime. Maybe they'll do another one for the season 2 songs, who knows? Lets just hope they do.






Happy gaming!

Gamespot score:8.5(great)

my score:9.0

(+)Pros:-Is pretty damn long for a shooter,- intense atmosphere makes for an incredibly breath taking journey,-great shock and scare moments keep you on your toes,-manages to be shocking and challenging both at the same time,-interesting array of weapons,-big variety of monsters keep things interesting.

(-)Cons:-You probably wont be making use of all weapons given to you and only use a few that you are accustomed to.

Gameplay time:20-30 hours(average)





Godamnit marvel vs capcom 3 is eating my life away. Anyway, today Im finally doing a post, sorry about my negligence during the previous week.
Doom 3 is a very old game now, roughly about 7 years old, since it was released way back in 2004. I only got the previlage to play this awesome game last year, and man, I tell you, even though the graphics are rather dated, this game took me by storm. Its probably the very 1st shooter to impress me so much, as to giving it a 9( bioshock 1 and 2 come pretty damn close).



Story wise doom 3 is pretty good, but nothing very phenomal. The story goes as an unamed marine(you) goes to the mars base for a mission. As soon as the marine gets to know the place by moving around and familiarising himself, he notices how the people are acting strange and saying how being in the base itself is a mistake. After awhile, the whole base goes haywire, normal humans start becoming zombies, demons start popping out of nowhere. In a struggle for survival, the marine starts moving about the base hoping to find some help. Basically the whole story is about the marine struggling for survival and finding a way out of hellhole.



Doom 3 is a survival horror game shooter, something like that. But unlike most survival horrors like dead space or, doom 3 manages to stay a very fast paced shooter and enjoyable shooter. While you still get many scares such as monsters popping out behind doors, bodies floating out of nowhere and hearing monster cries while navigating empty hallways, the gameplay is still fast and challenging. The areas you will roam are mostly a hi-tech science base on mars, and its very intenese. Everywhere you go you will see blood splatters and piles of bodies scattered like seeds. Also, almost every room you go to has monsters spawning, so being on your toes is natural. There are practically scares everywhere, everytime you open a door and get jumped by an imp, you are sure to jump, for the 1st few times at least. Monsters appear behind you and attack without warning, and when those little spiders crawl out of unsuspecting vents to kill you, you know you are in deep shit.

Doom 3's battle system is like all other shooters. You get a variety of weapons, which you will get throughout the game. These include machine guns, mini guns, shotguns, pistols and even RPGs. It also has its own share of futuristic guns like the BFG and the plasma gun. Oh yeah, theres a chainsaw too. For your health you get a basic HP amount and armor. You cant carry any medicine or bandages with you, so basically its take what you get. Any med kids on the flloor must be picked up on the spot, same for armor shards. This is awesome since it makes the game mighty challenging, when you get hit, you dont recover your state until you are back to normal, you health stays. The variety of enemies you will fight are pretty awesome as well. Though at the start of the game you are limited to battling mindless zombies and imps that toss fireballs, you will encounter alot more perplexing and deadly enemies. There are spiders which come in masses, a skeleton which is able to fire missles at you, a giant gerbil, a great lurking hell knight and many more. Following this, there are no shops to buy ammo, so as with your health, you take what you have, so its a good idea to spend as little ammo as possible to kill these critters.Oh yeah, bosses, they're here as well, but they're kinda touch and go since you will have bigger problems killing normal monsters than the bosses.

Theres really nothing too bad about doom 3, other than perhaps the weapons. Though you get so many, its very rare that you will find a situation where you require to use all of them. You will probably just stick with the shotgun the whole game, with rare situations where you will use the machine gun, and later in the game, the plasma gun. The rest are kinda...just there. Even for the bosses, using the big hitters like the RPG and BFG arent really necesarry. My opinion? I just think they should make some enemies that can only be defeated by certain kinds of weapons. Again, its only my opinion.

Doom 3 is a very impressive shooter, I really enjoyed playing it. Good thing I played it even though it was an old game, glad I didnt overlook it. Im not really a shooter person, but I'll say it, doom 3 is a shooter that no one should miss, though I think already half the world have already played it, since its already 7 years old -.-.

Happy gaming!

5 days missing huh?

Well this week has been pretty shitty for me. I started my school's studio project, and even in all that chaso and havoc, I took the time to get MVC 3.

Heres the shit, I have been working my ASS OFF to get mvc 3 more than doing my project. While it was supposed to arrive on 15 feb, tuesday, it was delayed. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-. It was a massive rage induce that day. I searched the web for any store which had it in stock, but to no avail. So I sucked my thumb and slept at 2am (I searched for a damn long time mind you).

Wednesday, 16th. I had my friend check the same store if it had any stock. Nope. Pissed, I went to other stores, still no stock.Damn.

Finally, on thursday, I called the store to ask about stock. AND YES, IT CAME IN. I reserved a copy, and after my school activities, I went to pick it up in a hurry. And since then, I have been knocking myself out playing it. ITS AWESOME.

So yeah, was too busy playing it to post anything. Today Im here to say Im gonna continue enjoying myself with mahvel 3, so now reviews and shit. Tomorrow Im going out, so maybe sunday I'll post something. MAHVEL 3 IS THE SHIT.

If you havent bought it, do it now, seriously.

Gamespot score:7.5(Good)

my score:7.6

(+)Pros:-Kinda 2 games in one,- tons of different navi usage adds in variety,- liberation missions make the game much more interesting,-lots of new DS exclusive features,-great old battle network gameplay.

(-)cons:-A little bit "not-up-to-date" visual wise,-very unfitting scenarios,-its just BN 5 on the DS

Gameplay time:30-40 hours(above average)






Megaman battle network, that series brings back so many memories, sometimes it just makes me think why they stopped making those games to bring in starforce. While this game is old, I still remember the story very clearly (due to finishing it 4 times, twice on GBA and twice more on the DS). It kinda makes me wonder why they didnt do one for battle network 6, that would certainly be pretty good. Now then, HUZZAH!



Battle network's 5 story is pretty okay. 1st time I played the game it struck to me that the story was kinda...good. That was for colonel, then I played protoman, story was the same, but its still okay as a second time. Now on the DS another 2 playthroughs make me find the story pretty damn boring. Anyway, it talks about the re-rise of a network syndicate, nebula, which makes the evil evil dark chips. Back in BN 4 nebula's leader regal and hias navi laserman got creamed big time by lan and megaman, so in BN 5 his back with a vengance. He kidnaps lan's father and throws the whole cybernet into chaos. To liberate the new free of regal's reign, a team was formed (depending on which version you play), either team protoman or team colonel, and they go recruiting other navis to help in thier cause of liberating the net.



Battle network 5 was pretty great back then in the GBA days, possibly my favourite battle network alongside battle network 6. Battle network games are all almost the same. You play as both lan and megaman. In the real world you play as lan, and move around. When you jack into a PC or any device with a port, you switch to megaman, who moves around in the cyberworld. In the cyberworld, its almost the same, you move around as megaman, going from areas to areas, picking up mystery datas, interacting with other navis and battling viruses. Theres not only the net mind you, the cyberworld can be anywhere. You can jack into anything ridiculous, an ice cream machine, a drill machine or a gargolye machine, and still end up in some map, each with its own mystery data and viruses.

Battle in battle network is very special and unique, unlike most RPGs. You move around in a 3x3 grid, and so do your opponents. You go into battle with a folder of battle chips, which shuffle themselves before you do battle. You are given 5 chips at the start of a battle, you pick them based on chip similarities and letter assignments. Chips are mostly for doing damage, but in different styles, such as bomb lobbing or wave firing. There are other chips of course, summon chips where you summon a defeated navi to do thier signature attack, or chips that boost damage and heal your HP. Enemies of course also attack in thier own ways, as do bosses. Luckily, bosses and enemies have quite some vareity, but there are repeats, in which they are stronger. There is an exclusive mode in BN 5 however, and its damn awesome. Its the liberation missions, its like a turn by turn grid moving strategy game like final fantasy tactics, but done in BN style! Its also ridiculously hard, but you can use other navis in this mode, which is effing amazing, since they all fight differently from ol'megaman.

Gamespot score:8.0(great)

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-Constant evolutions provide tons of new stuff,-extra challenge missions after finishing the game,-incredibly fast paced shooting keeps you on your toes,-high variety of boss types,- looks alot more advanced than you think it would be,-3D perspectives are kinda cool,- lots of user variety with the big selection of ships.

(-)Cons:-lots of cheap deaths,-the fun ends too soon

gameplay time:Below 10 hours( short)






Old school gamers should have played space invaders back in the day. Newer gamers should have at least HEARD of it. But luckily, its very safe to say, infinity gene is the shit, old and newer gamers alike will find this game awesome. Regardless of not wheter you played space invaders before, infinity gene will trigger your lust for space shooters ever more than ever. Its just too bad that this is one of the shortest games I have ever played, still, its just tons of fun.

Space invaders was never one to have a story, infinity gene is no different. You just play through 5 levels of chaotic shooting, with the inclusion of a level 0. Each level is filled with up to 6 stages. Multiply that its about over 30 stages. The theme in infinity gene is evolution, and thats pretty much all that the game ever promotes, thats pretty awesome, and the game impliments it very well.



Being a space shooter, most will expect space invaders to be like some of the old school arcade plane games. You'd be wrong though. Sure it starts very slow and old school, playing as it did back is the super nintendo days, but then the word EVOLUTION pops up and the whole things revamps into a much more advanced look. Compared to lots of space ship shooters, infinity gene looks amazing. The layout is perfect, the presentation is superb, and there sure are lots of different kinds of enemies, big and small alike. Adding on to the extremely fast paced gameplay, you've got one extremely exciting game ahead.

In infinity gene, there are lots of different kinds of ships for you to use to battle the endless waves of enemies coming at you at each of the different levels. Though you start off with a straightfoward firing pattern ship, you later unlock alot more ships with bizarre attack styles. Theres a ship that fires homing lasers, one that fires wave type patterns, one that generates damaging forcefields upon impact, and even one that generates sabers for melee. There are quite alot of ships, and you unlock them upon clearing levels and gaining evolution points to evolve. You unlock various things while evolving, ranging from BGMs to secret redo and challenge missions. Also, this game has tons of bosses. Since there will be roughly like 30 levels or so, there are around 20 or so bosses. No I am not exagerrating, thats how many bosses this game has. While the early ones were easier, they will be popping up at later levels as normal enemies. Crazy right? But thats what makes the game all the more intruiging.

Infinity gene is TOO SHORT. Yes there are 30 levels and all, and you will be dieing and retrying in most of the stages, but still, with a game this fun, you would'nt expect the game to end so soon. Plus the redo missions and unlocking of new stuff via evolutions, I would say this game gives you 10 hours tops, maybe a little bit more. Following that are the small issues of cheap deaths. Though these arent particularly bad and promote more trial and error, it gets annoying later on. You die by ramming into buildings cause the game moves you too fast, or die from enemies which you thought were part of the background. It can get old.

As a PS3 game, I'd say space invaders:infinity gene is worth your money, though its a fairly short experience overall. If you enjoyed space invaders back in the day, this may be your chance to experience space invaders in a whole new perspective. If you are one of the newer generation gamers such as myself, you will find this to be a refreshing new experience, one that we missed when the old space invaders launched.

Happy gaming.

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:7.5

(+)Pros:-Solid combat,-very beginner friendly,-good long play for just one token,-giant characters are a good concept

(-)Cons:-Limited character choices,-battle is relatively too slow paced at times,-Ai is too simple

Gameplay cost:1 token(Worth)





Oh ho it has been awhile people. Chinese new year this year was pretty meh-ish and I only earned like 200+bucks compared to last year's overwhelming 350. Still, can't really complain with relatives passing away, its common practice to not give red packets when that happens. Anyways, been a long time since I have done an arcade game review, simply cause I havent been going to arcades lately and that the one near my area is pretty sucky, hasnt been updated for a looong time. Well TVC was found at an arcade further from my place, played it a few times, and heres my verdict.

Token wise this game only costs one. Altough this is the basic price for most fighting games in arcades, tatsunoko vs capcom takes this one as worthy. The game is pretty long, though its not blazblue's standard of long, it still is at least 7-8 stages long, and has a cheap ass last boss. The fightning is rather slow paced, so matches willl take quite awhile. All in all, it should last you about 5-10 mins per playthrough, provided you dont screw up.

The gameplay is Tatsunoko vs capcom, is easy yet fun. Its kinda like marvel vs capcom, but more slow paced and instead of 3 characters, you can only pick 2. With the 2, you can tag in and out, as for the reserve character, you call him or her out for assists. Its alot like marvel is a way but sometimes its also not, the fighting is alot more slow paced, and alot less hectic. Assists cant be spammed the way the could be in MVC. I guess this is kinda a good thing, since tier whoring fags loved that is MVC2.

Tatsunoko is an anime company I dont know much about, the only show I watched from them would be casshen sins, which I only watched till episode 3. Im not too familiar with the tatsunoko cast but the capcom cast I know pretty much most of them. Theres ryu ,chunners,alex from street fighter, morrigan from darkstalkers, soki from onimusha, megaman volnut, roll and quite a few more. The game controls arent too hard, you get 3 attack buttons and 1 assist button. Its a fairly simple control scheme so you can pretty much win with any character if you know a move or two. I personally use Ryu and morrigan, for all of my plays of this games (which so far exceed 10). From what I can see the game is at least balanced, more balanced than MVC2. The last boss was well....typical. All last bosses were supposed to be OP.

While the console version of TVC was superior and had quite alot of fighters, the arcade ones had suprisingly little fighters. I placed my coin into the machine wanting to use zero, but to my suprise such a tiny character select screen poped up, revealing only about 15 or so characters. For a game where you have to pick 2 guys thats pretty little. The fighting is rather slow paced, too slow paced for me. I'd rather a more fast paced game like soul calibur or something. FInally its the AI, its so easy that even spammers can win. Damn, the only stage where people will seriously die at is the boss.

.

TVC is fun, I can see why the console version conquered. The arcade version is simply inferior, it has too little fighters, and without the accessibility to change difficulties, you will have too easy of a time here. If you have a wii, its highly suggested you get TVC, but if you dont, you dont really have a choice but to settle with the arcade version at hand, which is good at its own way, but lacking in characters.

Happy gaming.

Well Im pretty sure I had one of these last year. Chinese new year is coming and money i be collecting, so these few days I will be off grabbing some cash.

Will resume as per usual saturday onwards.

Enjoy your chinese new year!