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| Video Game News Reviews |
 Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution, 1/12/2008 | | | Reviewer: admin (, ) |
Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution is a 1 on 1 fighting game. With a selection of 20 characters and up to 4 players, it’s fairly comprehensive. There just isn’t a whole lot to say about it. By now you’ve played your fair share of fighting games. Each character comes starts off with a quick one liner, the round starts and whoever wins gets to move on. Best of three fights wins.
Each character has special moves executed with a flick of the wrist, or with traditional GameCube controllers. You time your moves properly and dodge oncoming attacks, and you’ll win the game.
There’s nothing revolutionary going on here, it seems like a competent game engine that they slapped the Naruto characters on top of. It works, it’s fun, and while folks wait around for Super Smash Bros Brawl, this might be the best fighting game available for the Wii.
My only beef would be that the single player was entirely too easy the first time I played it. I quickly moved through the game and defeated the boss without ever losing a match. Although I think the game is designed more for younger players who haven't built up a chee like reflex and need an easier go at their first fighting game. Plus I didn't really play the game on the hardest level. So that might have helped as well. Overall it's a fun game though and worth the money if you're a Naruto fan or you're just looking for some fighting action.
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| Alpha Prime for PC, 1/3/2008 | | | Reviewer: admin (, ) |
Alpha Prime was one of the better First Person Shooters I played all year. The fact that it’s only $20 on Steam makes it a real bargain for the amount of fun I had playing the title. I figure the reduced cost is due to the older game engine the game is built on. It seems about a generation or two behind, but is more than competent for the content it’s delivering, and allows for lower end machines to get in on the fun. When looking at so many folks complaining about how new titles such-as Crysis bog down their machines, it’s nice to find something affordable and fun that can be played on a slightly older machine.
The back story of Alpha Prime is a little hard to explain without trying to find a synopsis, so forgive me if I get a few of these details wrong. Basically, you play as a mercenary type character who gets asked by his ex-girlfriend to go to Alpha Prime (A planet or a moon, I don’t know which, it’s unimportant) to investigate a situation that is going on there. You aren’t on the best of terms with this ex-girlfriend but you decide to go because, like most men, you don’t know how to say “No.” At least that’s as far as I could figure out why the guy said he’d go do it.
When you arrive, you quickly find that Alpha Prime is a mining colony of sorts, and there are mining robots that have been ordered to protect the installation from a military invasion. This was done to protect a rare artifact that is located somewhere on the sphere. Your job is to try and find this artifact without getting killed by the robots and the military. You do this through your standard FPS controls, or by watching them blow the snot out of each other. Along the way you’ll meet friends, allies, and traitors who will help and hinder your ability to reach the artifact.
Alpha Prime worked for me for two reasons. The first was the dialogue. The story line itself wasn’t anything new or groundbreaking, but the voice acting and banter between you and the various other people you run into is really good. Some of the best work I’ve heard in a long time. These people sound human, and have real human issues, and nobody is speaking from a soap box as though they are here for the right reasons. There don’t appear to be any, and it’s refreshing that the game knows it too. The second reason is the exploration coupled with the ease of advancement. The A.I. can be really good at times, and unforgiving if you’re used to just staying in one place and firing. Yet they built the game world so that if you can get to the next health station you’ll be able to face whatever stands between you and the next one. It’s “Just Enough” to keep the game challenging and not boring. There is also use of some vehicles and mild puzzles to keep your brain working during slower segments.
My only complaints is that the game engine does show some age, and there are points where bugs can creep in and cause problems with the game. Nothing that a quick reload can’t resolve, but once I had an object get stuck in mid air, and I needed it to complete a mission, and there were some exiting crashes when playing under Vista 64 that didn’t cause any problems, but were there all the same.
I was impressed by Alpha Prime. It’s a good game with a lot of single player fun. While some may not be happy with the slightly dated graphics, I think it’s more than enough for $20.
Available on Steam, you can download the Demo and the Soundtrack by clicking here. |
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 Rockstar Games Table Tennis for the Wii, 12/29/2007 | | | Reviewer: admin (, ) | 
When I looked at Rockstar Game’s Table Tennis, I was thinking it would be a lot like Wii Sports Tennis. I was wrong. It was nothing like it. Not just because one is ping pong and the other is tennis, but because the control schemes are completely different and unfortunately for Table Tennis, it’s different in a bad way.
The game is nothing like this video pretends it to be like.
Here’s the thing. When I looked at the box, I was thinking that when I swing the controller the player that I was controlling would mimic my swing, but I was wrong. Instead, you just give your player a command with the Wii Remote and the player executes that command or doesn’t. So, for instance, let’s say you want to hit the ball to the right and apply spin. You simply turn the controller to the right and press one of the spin buttons. A moment or two later the guy you are playing attempts to execute your command, or not, it’s all up in the air what they decide they will or won’t do.
This lack of control that I’ve just described makes the game dumb. You don’t feel as though you are in control of anything that is really going on and powerless to stop things from happening.
Sure, it’s not like watching someone else play, since you do get some strategic commands to issue and they are generally followed. But that’s not really why someone buys Table Tennis is it? To play a strategy game? No, folks bought table tennis because they thought they’d be hitting the ball back and forth in real time and it simply doesn’t deliver on that experience.
I just think the game sucks. It’s not broken or anything, but it’s not fun at all. Not even multiplayer could save it from being a terrible waste of time. If the game can’t be better than Wii Sports Tennis than why even release it? Oh wait, I know, because people will be fooled into buying it thinking it is something it isn’t.
I like Rockstar Games other titles, and I think your money would be better spent on something else they produce. Table Tennis on the Wii is dismal. They could have done a much better job with it. Seriously, in this case, you're much better off playing the real game. It's probably cheaper too.
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 Naruto: Path of the Ninja for DS, 12/27/2007 | | | Reviewer: admin (, ) |  
I don't have a lot of time in my day to watch cartoons, so I admit I've never seen Naruto except in its video game form. I do know it's a popular manga cartoon about Ninjas in training, and Naruto is a character that is often conflicted about his training and social responsibilities. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you anything about it. Historically, however, games based on cartoon TV shows are typically bad, with very few redeeming qualities. So I wasn't really looking forward to playing Path of the Ninja. If you're like me, you probably imagine a simple side scroller or assorted minigames and no replay value past the first fifteen minutes. Surprisingly, I was wrong, and Naruto: Path of the Ninja is a fairly competent RPG on the DS.
By fairly competent, I mean that Path of the Ninja will remind some folks of the old 16bit RPG titles they played growing up. You play as many different characters who can all level up, acquire items and skills, and perform turn based combat. It all works rather well, except the dialog tree is ridiculously long. This is where the "Naruto fans only" warning comes into play. The first thirty minutes of the game involves a massive amount of in-game text with a sprinkling of combat that is designed to train you, but does turn out to be a bit boring. (Remember to save your game as soon as you can, death comes often to your characters and restarting from the beginning through the dialog is enough to warrant suicide.) Although it's possible that fans of the series will embrace the conversational flow and be overjoyed with its exhaustive narration, I tend to believe that won't be the case, and the game could have used some literary brevity to make it more acessible to those not familiar with the Naruto show.
As far as the DS features are concerned, Path of the Ninja looks to be another title that could have been released on the Game Boy Advance minus some small bits that you use the stylus for. It's simple to see that it wasn't designed with the DS in-mind but that shouldn't take away from the fact that its a decent RPG with some original themes not found in other like titles.
Overall, it's a game designed for fans of the show. It could have used a little less conversation and more dynamic elements to the game play to warrant a higher rating. However, when compared to the mass of other games that are tied to TV shows, Path of the Ninja is a good value for the money, but folks who don't follow the series should stay away until they watch a few episodes.
3 out of 5 |
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 Hellgate London for Windows PC, 12/27/2007 | | | Reviewer: admin (, ) | 
Hellgate London is notable because it’s from the same folks who brought us Diablo. Diablo was a Mexican holiday game where you would try and bowl pumpkins down a bowling alley while trying to knock over bottles of Tequila. No it wasn’t. Actually Diablo was a top-down-perspective dungeon crawl that was very popular. Why was it so popular? I’m not sure anyone sent out a survey to find out, but if I were to guess it would be that the game had low system requirements, online multiplayer, and unique items. The later being attractive to players since their characters could be fairly well customized and interesting. Somehow this combination made the game a huge success. I’m sure everyone has their own reasons why they liked the game as well, but I just wanted to hit on those basics to give you an understanding of why Hellgate: London doesn’t work like Diablo did so many years ago.
Like Diablo, Hellgate: London is multiplayer and contains unique items. Except now it’s a first person shooter, takes place in a near future London instead of a dungeon, and has much higher system requirements. It also has unique dungeon areas, and a plethora of extra customization options for your weapons and a form of crafting that lets you augment items.
Most of this is done well, and none of it is in anyway bad. Unfortunately that’s not all there is, Hellgate: London does feel a bit MMORPG like, when the game itself is not an MMORPG. For instance, you receive missions to travel to an area that is a number of levels away. (Imagine moving from area to area and each area has a different theme with different monsters. And you have to go through 3 or 4 of them to reach your end mission. ) Each level contains a number of critters that you fight. Usually in batches of 30 or 40 that are mostly the same. You move slowly from one end to another while holding down the attack button until they die, loot, heal, and repeat. If this sounds like most MMORPG titles you’ve played, you’ll feel right at home here. And just like those titles it’s all a bit dull. Combat involves shooting or swinging a sword in close combat. You do this by holding down either mouse button until the creature is dead. You then move on to the next creature while also holding down a key to retrieve all the items that were dropped by the dead creature. You progress in this way until you face a tougher creature, and then you might only change up your tactics by using some health stims or casting a spell.
And this lack of interesting game play is one of Hellgate’s main sticking points. I believe the majority of the audience that loved to play Diablo have moved on to titles like World of Warcraft that do most of the things Diablo did and more. The years have caused gaming to evolve, and Hellgate: London feels as though it should have come out 5 years ago, or it should have elevated the game play elements to give us something new. That’s not what we have here. Instead, Hellgate feels like it wants to be Diablo’s older brother, but forgot how to be fun along the way.
I want you to know, I’m going on like this because I wanted to like Hellgate: London. I was willing to overlook some of the bugs (Like you can’t progress because the way out is blocked off because the random level generator sometimes doesn’t leave you with an exit) like the ones where the system just crashes out to the desktop, and the patches aren’t even given a proper version number. (As of this review, they are on patch 0.6) Even through all this, I wanted to walk away with a satisfying Diablo like experience. It just didn’t happen though, and I felt as though even with more patches to address the bug issues, nothing can save Hellgate’s boring and repetitious game play.
We should all face another fact, that piracy greatly helped Diablo succeed. Gamers would copy the game and distribute it to friends to allow them to all play together. While no one has any idea what the ratio of bought vs stolen copies were, anyone can guess that the majority of owners probably copied it from a friend or downloaded it from a warez source. This lack of copy protection allowed first adopters to share the game with friends who weren’t likely to drop $50 for it. This community aspect probably helped the game succeed, but now Hellgate London and other games are locked down in such a way to make it impossible to successfully play online and freely copy it. That’s not to say the developers should have opened up the game for rampant piracy, but one can look at this as one more reason for Diablo’s success vs why Hellgate doesn’t work. I really think Hellgate could have used a more open license where one could buy the game and share it with two friends. This would create the community aspect that the game needs. Hellgate: London and Diablo style games are more fun among friends than anonymous strangers (Like regular MMORPG titles). But trying to convince your friends to buy a lackluster single player game like Hellgate is not going to go over well. And that leaves you with playing among strangers and kids. It just doesn’t feel the same and simply doesn’t work out as being a fun gaming experience.
There are a number of things about Hellgate: London that work. It has a competent inventory and customization system. It has good graphics and an interesting world behind it. But the fact that the game remains dull, and there are rampant bugs makes it a title that is best left until the next version is released. Maybe when they release an expansion pack or significant patch that cleans up the game’s weak points and includes some other play mechanic besides simply fighting, moving, fighting, moving, fighting, moving, etc that would be the time to buy this game. For now, considering all the other great titles that have come out this year, I suggest spending your money elsewhere. In my opinion, Hellgate: London was released too early. |
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