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The Video Game Review Thread!
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Messaggio di
cheezedood21
Hello, fellow Wowheaders!
I had a wonderful idea for a thread: A video game review thread! Here you can post your overall opinions of past and present video games you have played! In-depth or to-the-point, any and all reviews are welcome and appreciated. :)
And as a bonus, I'll edit the below post to add in your reviews! I'll list them in order by system, and type in the link to your review!
Simply mention the game you are reviewing and which video game system it belongs to, and I'll make sure to note it in. Just to start us off, I'll write my own little review here:
Messaggio di
cheezedood21
PC
Prototype
*^ - by Hyperspacerebel
Dungeons and Dragons Online: Ebberon Unlimited
- by Kris
Xbox360
Mass Effect 1
" - by Fathios
Mass Effect 2
" - by Fathios
Dragon Age: Origins
^" - by Hivolt
Playstation 2
Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
- by Heckler
Nintendo DS
Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time
- by Interest
Nintendo Gamecube
Animal Crossing
- by cheezedood21
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
- by cheezedood21
Game Boy Advance
Fire Emblem (Rekka no Ken)
- by Hunger
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
- by Hunger
Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga
- by Interest
SNES
Earthworm Jim
- by Baconman
Earthworm Jim 2
- by Baconman
Key
* Available for Xbox360
^ Available for PS3
" Available for PC
(I'll add more later, I pwomise.)
Messaggio di
cheezedood21
Nintendo Gamecube
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
:
When people mention 'Mario,' some don't think of the franchise on an RPG level. But Nintendo really put a lot of work into this game, and I think it's fantastic.
The game begins in a town called 'Rogueport,' where Mario is searching for the Princess who beckoned him. Soon after arriving he helps a female goomba escape from a mysterious organization known as the 'X-Nauts.' After escaping from the X-Nauts, Mario discovers that Peach has been kidnapped once again (Who would've guessed?). Later, Mario uncovers a mystical, thousand-year door and its connection to 7 'crystal stars.' There is a legend that a great treasure lies behind the door, and the crystal stars are the key to opening it. He sets out on his journey, to rescue Peach and collect the crystal stars, gaining new friends and abilities along the way. But the X-Nauts aren't going to make it easy for them...
The gameplay can be regarded as the best part of the game. A somewhat-short summary: Mario and a partner (of whom you choose) fight in a turn-based style of fighting upon a stage with a crowd. You encounter an enemy in the real world, and once you engage him, you'll be taken to the stage to fight him (and his friends, most of the time). You'll get different statistical options once you're upon it. To properly execute regular attack moves effectively, you have to follow the Action Commands. These commands are usually along the lines of tapping a button quickly or at a precise moment, for example. On the screen, there are important types of 'points' or 'powers' that you'll see.
The first is your HP (Health points). One they hit 0, you'll get a game over. If your partner dies, you'll lose the ability to switch them out until after battle.
The second are FP (Flower points). Using these points allows you to use special moves with Mario's 'Jump' and 'Hammer' commands. It also allows Mario's party members to use special moves according to their method of attack.
These types of moves can be learned by equipping 'badges.' You can purchase mostly all badges, or you can find them on your adventures! They require BP (Badge points) to equip, and you can only gain BP by leveling.
The next is called 'Star power.' These points allow Mario alone to use amazing attacks, using the power of the crystal stars. The gauge to fill up star power grows when the crowd watching the stage become amused. There are only a few ways to do this, but the most noticeable way is to properly execute the Action Commands.
After defeating foes, Mario gains the last one:
'Star Points.' These basically function as 'experience points.' Once Mario accumulates 100 of them, he levels and can choose to increase his HP, FP, or BP.
And that's basically the gist of it.
Traveling from world to world, searching for the crystal stars, you'll run into enemies and solve simple puzzles. Though the world of Paper Mario is... well... paper, The world itself is 3D (just paper). The areas of the game are designed wonderfully, with definite distinction from level to level. I always found this game incredibly enjoyable due to its re-playability. Before you enter the last part of the game, you can run around adventuring. How many star pieces and shine sprites scattered throughout the game have you collected? Have you found out what lies at the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials? Trying to scope out a 100% complete in this game was less grinding and more
fun
for me.
Overall, this game has little to no flaws whatsoever, easily some of the best and most entertaining levels I've ever played through, and all mixed together with eye-opening boss fights. I would have to say that the game's only major flaw, may be the profound amount of text you'll have to read. Seriously, there is a lot
to read since Nintendo isn't a big fan of voice actors for its widely-popular Mario franchise. This may prove annoying for some players, but it really didn't bother me at all.
So, if the text isn't a big problem for you, I
desperately
beg you to pick up this wonderful game and give it a try.
If u dun liek 2 reed, I still suggest you pick it up. :P
Messaggio di
Interest
Shame. This thread kinda died fast =(.
(Btw I was gonna review that. Haha)
Messaggio di
Jensai
Good review and good game, got close to end but never actually finished.
(Oh well back to stalking interest.)
Messaggio di
Interest
Hey btw, you might as well do a review on Paper Mario 1.
Messaggio di
Jensai
Never did play that one. And while you're at it. Do a review of every Mario RPG, also including ones exclusive to Japan.
Messaggio di
Interest
Never did play that one. And while you're at it. Do a review of every Mario RPG, also including ones exclusive to Japan.
I'm doing the 3 for the handhelds. Those are reserved.
Messaggio di
364076
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Messaggio di
Jensai
You mean Mario and Luigi superstar sagas and such?
Messaggio di
Interest
You mean Mario and Luigi superstar sagas and such?
You are correct.
Messaggio di
Jensai
Good games. My review is are done.
Messaggio di
Hyperspacerebel
Prototype
PC, PS3, XBox
Played PC version
Plot
7/10
Intriguing, but all too short. The majority of the game is a flashback, narrated by the main character. It's a bit on the predictable side, but fun nonetheless. As great as the plot is, the majority of your time will be spent doing side missions. This is one of the ways that this game is much like Assassin's Creed; however, instead of doing missions to set up escape routes, in Prototype you will be doing them to gain EP, which is used to level your skills. So in the end, the side missions are much more important, so be ready to spend most of your game time on them. In and of themselves they are not bad, but after a while they can get boring.
Gameplay
9/10
Fun, epic, and never gets old. And you can fly. Awesome. Essentially the main character is the boss monster of New York City. Over the course of the game you'll kill thousands of soldiers, thousands of civilians, and probably close to ten thousand infected. Combat revolves around morphing your body parts into different weapons depending on the situation. Each set of weapons offers a completely different playstyle. Combat involves running around like a madman, slamming everything in your way. You can zip around the battlefield at insane speeds, jump upwards of 30 feet in the air, and fly. Did I mention you can fly? Well glide, technically, but it's still awesome. The main character's parkour skills are so fun to use, that you'll spend most of your travel time along New York's skyline. This the the other way it's a lot like Assassin's creed, but in this area is far surpasses it.
The one problem I have is the targeting system. It was obviously made with consoles in mind, and I imagine it works well in those. But on PC, it a huge hassle to deal with. But you still get to fly!
Graphics
8/10
The graphics are roughly comparable to GTA-IV's graphics: not amazing, but good enough considering you have an entire city. The best part has to be the main character's attack animations. So. Much. Blood.
Voice Acting
3/10
Pretty bad. There's not an insane amount of it, but the lack of emotion in a lot of the scenes in a real turn off.
Overall
8/10
Great game. Well worth the investment; and with the thrilling game-play, it's easily going to last a couple playthroughs.
Messaggio di
364076
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Messaggio di
Jensai
Oh man I loved Prototype...
QFT
Messaggio di
GoGoGodzilla
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Messaggio di
cheezedood21
I'm so glad this thread didn't die!
Excuse me a sec...
(>^_^)> <(^_^<) <(^_^)>
Okay, I'm done.
This thread pleases me greatly.
Is it required that only modern games be reviewed, or might we also select older games?:D
If you've got a review for an older game, go right ahead.
Messaggio di
Hunger
Game
: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (released as just Fire Emblem in the US)
Platform
: GameBoy Advance (I don’t really know any other platforms very well, so...)
Fire Emblem is probably one of my favorite games of all time. I love the gameplay and the fact that you really get to know most of the characters. Beware of permanent death - don’t let your characters get killed!
You start out, for the first ten chapters, playing with Lyn, a girl from the plains of Sacae. You are a wandering tactician, and give orders to different units on the battlefield. The first chapter, you fight assorted bandits. Lyn, being a sword user, is powerful against axe-wielding bandits.
The next chapter, two cavaliers named Sain and Kent come to join your party. It is revealed that Lord Hausen, Lyn’s grandfather, is sick, and Sain and Kent have come to fetch her.
During this quest, you’ll encounter two strange children - Ninian and Nils. They are being pursued by a group of mysterious bandits called the Black Fang.
You’ll journey through more levels of bandits and stuff before reaching the castle and doing battle with Lord Lundgren, Hausen’s evil brother. Your party is of considerable size now, and Lundgren shouldn’t be too difficult.
Next in the story, you’ll be playing as Eliwood, a noble of Pherae. His father, Lord Elbert, has gone missing, and Eliwood would like to find him.
Soon, you meet Eliwood’s friend Hector (my favorite character), a noble from Ostia. He joins Eliwood on their quest.
Your party journeys on and finds some Black Fang associated with Darin, the marquess of Laus. Eliwood believes Darin knows what happened to his father and follows. They are reunited with Lyn, and learn from the power-crazed Darin to take a pirate ship to the dangerous Dread Isle. On their way there, they encounter Ninian, lost in a rowboat.
On the Dread Isle, they find a spy for Ostia, dead. After fighting a nomad, Uhai, you’ll find Nergal, the Black Fang’s leader, and Lord Elbert. Elbert is dying, but he says Nergal is trying to summon dragons using Ninian and Nils.
Nergal manages to escape, and Eliwood’s party leaves the Dread Isle. They encounter Archsage Athos, a legendary hero, in the desert, and ask his help to defeat Nergal.
After fighting many Black Fang generals and Nergal’s strange “morphs”, Eliwood recovers a legendary blade, Durandal. (It sucks, though. Don’t use it.) With this new power, he and his large party journey back to the Dread Isle. On the Dread Isle, they encounter a dragon, and Eliwood slays the beast with Durandal. However, Nergal appears, gloating over the fact that the dragon is really Ninian.
Eliwood is devastated, knowing that Ninian loved him. However, he journeys on with new resolve and reaches the final confrontation with Nergal.
In the last chapter, you get to use Archsage Athos. He’s ridiculously powerful and can use all types of magic.
Hector also gets a legendary axe, Armads, and Lyn gets the awesome Sol Katti. These weapons do 3x damage against Nergal and the dragon he summons after you kill him.
Anyway, enough with the story. Here’s something about gameplay.
Weapons Triangle:
Axes are strong against lances
Lances are strong against swords
Swords are strong against axes
Magic Trinity
Light is strong against Dark
Dark is strong against Elemental
Elemental is strong against Light
Weapons have limited durability and will break if used too much.
Critical hits hit for 3x damage. Swordmasters and Berserkers have increased chances to critically hit.
Characters can become more powerful by getting a special item and promoting.
Skill affects your chance to hit
Luck increases dodge chance (and other things)
Speed affects dodge and hit
Strength/Magic increases damage
Defense reduces physical damage
Resistance reduces magical damage
Flying units are weak against bows
Armored units are weak against armorslayers
Mounted units are weak against horseslayers
Thieves and assassins can open chests
Make sure to try and talk to most named people (not including bosses). They could join your side.
Units can move a certain amount of squares per turn, and different terrains may slow you down or offer greater defense.
Things I Liked
Support conversations, in which you make units more powerful when near each other, and learn more about what the characters are like.
The storyline. I thought it was really cool.
The abundance of characters, so you aren't forced into using the same character every time.
The music's pretty good, although other Fire Emblem games have better.
Things I Disliked
It's really hard to get your weaker units (e.g., pegasus knights, thieves, mages) leveled up. You just end up abandoning them.
Messaggio di
Heckler
Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
(2001)
PS2
Summary:
I got this game for Christmas from a relative who literally picked it off the shelf at random. I wasn't too excited to play it, I'd never even heard of it. Eventually I got bored enough to actually unwrap it and started playing... this was one of the best games I'd ever played. It is an Arcade-style Flight 'Simulator.'
Gameplay
9/10
I've played plenty of Flight Sims before, with wide-eyed dreams of duplicating all of the awesomeness I'd seen in the movies (does my love of Top Gun reveal much about my age?). Most of them are very disappointing from this standpoint. You have to spend 20 minutes learning the flight controls, you constantly have to worry about stalls and air speed and flaps and all sorts of junk. Ace Combat is different, it's very much an Arcade flight sim. It allows you to grab the controls and immediately start playing Maverick. It's not perfectly realistic, but it's a whole lot of fun.
You don't have to take off, you don't have to land (although you can if you want to). You don't have to worry about fuel, you don't have to skimp on the afterburners. You can fly through cityscapes, under bridges, along massive highways (inverted if you're a real pro). You don't have to worry (much) about ammunition -- your plane comes loaded with enough missiles to make you wonder about the integrity of the time-space fabric of your fuselage (guns and 'special weapons' are a bit more restrictive).
The missions are pretty linear, but they feel very free-form because each 'zone' is so massive and the objectives are so spread out (some are optional as well). It takes a full five minutes to cross some of these massive maps. The mission objectives range from Air and Ground target destruction, escort missions, reconnaissance, Rocket-launch defense (!), etc. You have to choose which plane suits each mission best, which sadly sometimes means you have to pick the wrong plane and fail once. Every mission has a goals system where you are given a score and a letter grade based on your performance. If you can achieve the highest letter grade ('S') on the maps, it unlocks new planes and content.
Plot
10/10
I know what you're thinking... Plot? It's a flight sim, you just blow sh*t up -- you don't need a plot to do that. But AC04 does indeed have a plot, and it's one of the better ones around. It's cryptic at first: between missions, there is a narrated slide show of still art which tells a story. The music is calm and serene, and really sucks you into the atmosphere. The story seems completely disconnected from the missions you're currently flying however, and as I said, it's a little confusing at first. Nonetheless, it's interesting and engaging, and I found myself finishing missions as fast as possible just to see the next chapter of the storyline.
As the game progresses, you begin to see how the two stories (the one in the cut-scenes and the one of the pilot you are playing) are related to each other. This makes an already engaging story doubly engaging, because you slowly realize you (as the pilot) have something to do with it! It's one of the more immersive plot lines I can remember, right up there with Half-Life (except in a more abstract way, since you don't realize your role as a character in the story immediately).
In addition to this story line, the mission-by-mission interaction with your wing-mates and the people briefing you is also very satisfying. You really feel as though you're a pilot involved in a complex geo-political struggle. The radio chatter feels right, your wing-mates say things that make sense at times that make sense. The AWACS operator is constantly updating you on the status of your mission, and it really feels... 'right.'
Both of these plot lines slowly weave and intersperse and it leads to a final level which almost puts a lump in your throat as you play it, and that you cannot wait to finish. I don't know of any other flight sims that can claim that.
Graphics
8/10
Considering the age of this game, the graphics are absolutely mind-blowing. The first time I played it, I couldn't help but watch the Replay-Mode over and over again. It reminded me of Gran-Turismo in this regard. Watching the cinematic-quality replay of your own piloting is almost as fun as the piloting itself.
The aircraft are rendered beautifully, and are very true to their real-life counterparts. The effects on the planes during flight are really amazing -- afterburner nozzling and vectoring on the more advanced craft, rudders and flaps that actually move, condensation '
clouds
' as you approach Mach 1 (which varies accurately with your altitude) or pull a high-G maneuver, etc).
The environment looks absolutely incredible (from sufficient height) and considering the immense size of the maps, it's impresive that you can't see any obvious duplications in the landscaping.Admittedly, the ground gets pretty blocky if you're really close, but it's excusable since it looks so damned pretty from the air.
Music
10/10
The soundtrack for this game is a classical-style orchestra score. It seems like it shouldn't 'work' with a high-action flight simulator, but it works wonderfully. The story, graphics, and music all work together to create a very convincing and immersive environment.
A.I.
4/10
This is the only thing I didn't like about the game. Even on the hardest setting, it's a challenge to get shot down in anything less than a 10 vs. 1 situation. The enemy aircraft are just not challenging enough in a dogfight. In order to increase the difficulty, the game just throws massive amounts of enemies at you at once (which is still quite fun). Even the enemy ace squadron who shows up every now and again isn't all that impressive (although they do seem to use tactics like baiting you to chase one of them so his wingman can tuck in behind you).
Enemy missiles are easy to avoid, and unless you're just not paying attention because there's too many targets to watch, getting shot down almost never happens.
Your wing-mates also show little-to-no AI. I'm half convinced they're not capable of dealing damage, and that they're just for show. It never detracts form the game-play, it just feels a bit 'empty' to watch two AI pilots fly around each other in circles and never do anything.
As a side-note, the game also includes a two-player mode. This is a lot of fun because when you combine everything I said above, it's almost impossible to shoot down an actual human player. The very few times I played 2-player split-screen mode were pretty fun.
Overall
9/10
I know it's probably too old for anyone to consider playing, but if you happen to see this in a bargain-bin for 2 bucks, and you have a working PS2 -- it's worth the ~20 hours it will take to complete it 100%. It's one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've had.
Messaggio di
cheezedood21
Very nice, well thought out reviews guys. :)
Also, does anyone find it awfully suspicious that our first three reviewers here all have a name that starts with "H?"
Gogo conspiracy theory.
HHH.
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