Review The Last Game You Beat

(Gaming discussion not related to Shenmue)

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Sat Jul 05, 2014 11:24 pm

Crash Bandicoot Trilogy.

Anything after WARPED doesn't exist, of course. Enjoyed them all. I still like the first one the best but it's been a blast playing through them.

Kenny has received a thanks from: OL
User avatar
Kenny
is Gwenpool™
Shenmue III
 
Joined: November 2004
Location: Somewhere
PSN: JamesTeeZappa
XBL: KennyNOL
Nintendo FC: FUCK THE WII-U
Steam: kenny_nol
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: Contest of Champions iOS

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Jokatech19 » Sun Jul 06, 2014 3:42 am

Legend of Dragoon
Image


I remember an age of golden video games, and a time that was still innocent. This game is one of the games that takes me back to that time. In fact, it's probably the only demo I've every played over and over back when it came out. LOD was a game that I initially didn't know much about. My best friend at the time got a copy on his PS and I went over to his house as usual to play games when he decided to show it off to me. I got my hands on a demo for my PS around that time and played it alot. When he was almost done with the game, he tried to get me to come over and see the ending. I went to his house, but instinctively didn't pay much attention to the last part of the game he was playing. I'm glad I did that. He would have spoiled it for me.
Image



I'm glad to have played this game now after all these years and completed it, because I actually appreciate it more. Years ago, to have a game of this scope even on 4 Cd's was impressive. To have such a treat downloadable on PSN is amazing. I downloaded it for the PSP some time ago and enjoyed the last parts of the game with headphones and a quiet room. Hearing the surround sound brings me right back to that golden era of gaming.

Production wise, this game, to me, has not lost a single step over all these years. It's robust, and complete in it's execution. Alot of attention is paid to detail even in this old game, that modern games sometimes miss. I tend to shy from turn based RPG's these days, as they feel very rigid and predictable, but this is one of the rare exceptions. It has a decent enough story that is told very well. It feels good to master the combat system as it utilized a reflex based combo system that you have to master to enjoy the benefits of. The music in the game was incredible and worthy of a soundtrack purchase. That holds up as well today. It's one of those games I would play again. I spent 82 hours on this playthrough, and I missed some key things that I couldn't go back to.

Image

One thing I pride the PSP and Vita for are being the handheld systems that I used to dream about as a kid. I always envisioned a system that would bring breathtaking gaming experiences to a portable platform. Certain games take advantage of that well. It is impressive for a PS classic to achieve that after all these years. I definitely like this game alot. If anything left a sour taste in my mouth, it was the voice acting at the very end of the game. It was beyond atrocious. To me, it feels like underpaid voice actors doing their best to sabatoge the developers' efforts. No one, let alone an entire group of people, is that damn emotionless an monotone. It's clearly forced and exaggerated. It almost deflates the experience, and if I were the lead developer on that team, I would have had the actors jumped for what they did. Other than that, it was an amazing experience. As I said, I'm more partial to real time RPG's as the challenge is more consistent. This game, like many traditional rpg's, to a seasoned gamer will become a movie fest after the first playthrough. That just comes down to your preference.

Image



Score: 8.9/10

Jokatech19 has received 2 thanks from: Kenny, OL
User avatar
Jokatech19
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: March 2009
Location: Gotham City, NY
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: AC: Revelations

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby OL » Sun Jul 06, 2014 8:23 am

Kenny wrote: Crash Bandicoot Trilogy.

Anything after WARPED doesn't exist, of course.


If you've never tried it, Twinsanity was actually pretty damn fun. At least, what little I played of it. It was like a Crash game mixed with the fully-3D gameplay of a Jak game, plus just the right personality and one of the most unique and quirky soundtracks I've heard (it's mainly a capella).
It's less derivative than Wrath of Cortex, but unlike Mind Over Mutant or Crash of the Titans, it still feels like a genuine Crash game.
So yeah, if you haven't tried it, I'd recommend giving Twinsanity a try. It's the only post-PS1 game that actually "gets" Crash while being different enough to be worth playing. And it should be super cheap anywhere you can find it.

OL has received 2 thanks from: Jokatech19, Kenny
User avatar
OL
Yo jes hummilated yoursef
Shenmue III
 
Joined: May 2003

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:19 pm

I'll keep an eye out for it, I might've played the demo at one point. I'm just iffy on any Crash game that isn't developed by the Jason Rubin/Andy Gavin era Naughty Dog.

Kenny has received a thanks from: OL
User avatar
Kenny
is Gwenpool™
Shenmue III
 
Joined: November 2004
Location: Somewhere
PSN: JamesTeeZappa
XBL: KennyNOL
Nintendo FC: FUCK THE WII-U
Steam: kenny_nol
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: Contest of Champions iOS

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Ash » Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:47 pm

Ace Attorney Investigations 2:

Just finished this after the release of the full English fan-translation patch.

I'll preface this by saying that many people that have played the game are saying that they would rank it as one of the better AA games, and that my issues with the game are not related to the quality of the translation.

I commented once that Ace Attorney Investigations 1 was my least favourite game in the series, to the extent that I actually lost some of my enthusiasm for the series. Ace Attorney Investigations 2 did not improve on any of the issues I had with the first Investigations.

Gameplay wise, AA2 is almost identical to AA1 - you gather clues by moving Edgeworth around a map, use "Logic" to make connections, and "cross-examine" witnesses and suspects. Little Thief, a machine that can simulate scenes of the past also returns. The new gameplay mechanic in AAI2 is "Logic Chess" - when Edgeworth doesn't have the evidence to interrogate someone, he now plays a mental chess battle with them. Logic Chess sections are timed, and consist of Edgeworth throwing questions and statements from a list of choices at the opponent. Edgeworth can pick up "clues" from statements made by his opponent, and use them to ask additional questions. If you try to pursue a line of enquiry that is "locked" before getting the clue, you'll lose time since you aren't told straight away that you don't have the clues needed to proceed, but rather the questioning will proceed (with the timer going down) until you reach the exact moment that the clue is needed to proceed, and then Edgeworth will mention that he can't proceed. When you do get the clue needed to open the locked line of questioning, it starts from the beginning again. Also, the opponents in Logic Chess will often become emotional, and you'll have to decide when to question the opponent, or to wait until they've calmed down. Selecting an incorrect question/statement, or waiting/questioning at the wrong time will lead to a penalty to the time bar. Luckily, the time bar is quite long.

The Environments in AAI2 feel even smaller and claustrophobic than those in AAI1 - you are constantly limited to one area, and can only move to the next area as the plot demands. As an example, in case 2 of AAI1, at times, you could move around to different parts of the plane. In AAI2, the second case takes place in a building that has a workroom and a corridor. You start off in the workroom, and the game won't let you move into the corridor until you have found everything in the workroom. Once you've done that, the plot moves you to the corridor, and then won't let you go back into the workroom, even though there's nothing plot wise that prevents you from doing so. This does help streamline investigations though.

The Storyline honestly seemed a little mediocre as well. I think a part of it is the characters. They aren't unlikable so much, but there was only one character that I actually sort of had any emotional feeling for.

Edgeworth is, my opinion, a poor choice for the main character (I recall reading somewhere that Ema was originally going to be the main character.) His internal struggles, both in AA1 and AA2, really feel like it's just rehashing his development from the original trilogy. It's hard not to start feeling a little impatient when he starts contemplating how the truth is the most important thing in a court of law after the amount of times it's already been done. Without trying to spoil anything, I think going deeper into the theme of how even those that are the most fervent believers in the truth will lie to protect those they love would have been more interesting, and could have made for a more emotional story.

Kay honestly feels a little "tacked-on", and also doesn't really seem to get much development.

The main rival was, for me, the most bland of all the main rivals so far. I thought Simon Blackquill was a little too normal for the series, which is known for it's quirky characters, (though I did think he was a good prosecutor) but even he had his moments. As an opponent, the rival isn't the worst, but there's never really a feeling of victory when you disprove their arguments.

This is a trend that I felt followed with the culprits. The culprits of cases three and four didn't really put up that much of a fight, and the case five culprit didn't last that much longer. The culprits of cases one and two seemed to last longer and be more intense, but that may be more due to the length of these cases. Long cases themselves aren't a problem, but there's part in case one especially that just comes across as padding.

One thing that I feel this game did improve upon at least as far as AAI1 goes - the culprits are considerably more fleshed out.

This review is entirely critical, but AAI2 in itself isn't a bad game, it's just when put up against the other games in the series (even AAI1), it's lacking.

One thing that I did like that I feel hasn't really been done in the AA series so far:

Case Five spoilers:

The Case Five culprit being portrayed as being reprehensible and sympathetic at the same time. The flashbacks to his lonely childhood, contrasted with his gloating as an adult was quite effective, I thought. Usually the focus is on how terrible the culprit is, or on how tragic their back story is. I think Edgeworth's understanding of the culprit and his circumstances goes deeper than Phoenix, Apollo or Athena's would have as well, with his own past as the "Demon Prosecutor" - this is the one exception to my issues with Edgeworth as a main character.
User avatar
Ash
Man Mo Acolyte
Man Mo Acolyte
 
Joined: April 2003

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Jokatech19 » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:06 pm

What has happened to our standards? I'm not criticizing any one person, but there's just been a noticeable shift in the perception of a good quality over the last decade or so. I remember when it was difficult for games to get perfect scores or even high marks in the main critic articles. In fact, I remember when there were elite entities involved with the reviewing of games like GamePro. Back then, you could trust a review, and games had to work for their merit. I remember as kids, we saw very few games achieve the coveted and very esteemed perfect 10 mark. Ocarina of time was one of them, and I believe Soul Calibur 1 as well. As the years went by, standards have dropped, and perfect scores are handed out like candy now.

When Doom 3 came out, it was this huge awaited title that most were creaming over. I remember reading the review in Game Informer where the only redeeming thing about it was said to be its graphics. Difficulty sucked, gameplay sucked, control sucked, replayability sucked etc. Not only did it get a near perfect score, but also Game of the Month honors. I sat scratching my head, wondering wtf the idiot reviewer could have been smoking. But that's apparently where we're at. Laziness and nostalgia have made us overly tolerant of sub-par media. Sorry, just a vent. No offense to anyone. lol
User avatar
Jokatech19
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: March 2009
Location: Gotham City, NY
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: AC: Revelations

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Kenny » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:18 pm

Guessing it has to do with the current landscape. Games are too dependent on good sales because of the rising dev costs and with these stories of publishers trying to buy out reviewers now, it all just hurts the integrity of the whole review system.

Kenny has received a thanks from: Jokatech19
User avatar
Kenny
is Gwenpool™
Shenmue III
 
Joined: November 2004
Location: Somewhere
PSN: JamesTeeZappa
XBL: KennyNOL
Nintendo FC: FUCK THE WII-U
Steam: kenny_nol
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: Contest of Champions iOS

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:54 pm

When gaming went main stream is when I started losing interest in it. I dont play half the games i used to, and half the genres i loved dont get as much exposure, also the price went up on games, dlc happened, and paying for in game items. But on more on topic note, the reviews starting being more important because of their direct impact on sales, and opinions started being bought in order to maximize profits, remember the kane and lynch gamestop fiasco? Now a days we are TOLD what is good, and which ever dev has the deepest pockets gets the best scores, but they still atleast have to make a decent game. Everything in this industry has gotten too big and thus corruption, there is the rare legitimately good game that slips through the cracks and gets a good score that it deserves because everyone knows its a legitimately good game, but its like after that game alot of devs think they can half ass it and i wouldnt doubt if paying people off for good reviews is even in the marketing budget now days. Sad, but atleast its not completely horrible where we dont want to play anything, and there are plenty of smaller reviewers that give good honest opinions, you just cant trust the big names mags and gaming sites anymore...
User avatar
AnimeGamer183
Shenmue III
Shenmue III
 
Joined: April 2003

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Henry Spencer » Sun Jul 13, 2014 7:15 am

Another problem is Mid-tier games are just dead in the water (which is all thanks to these "reviews"/hype machines helping to kill any interest in anything other than the mainstream, which then in turn helps to close down these developers of the mid-tier type of games - the most recent example would be Murdered: Soul Suspect and Dark Void developer Airtight Games recently closing down). The only experiences that give me those sorts of games anymore are really on handhelds and since a lot of devs are now flocking to mobile and even Sony are saying they've given up with Vita now...so yeah, not good.

PS4 just isn't selling in Japan either, since Japanese publishers aren't willing to make games for the system yet at all (they're clinging to the PS3 for dear life, otherwise, they're all making phone games [iOS, Android etc]), so I'd imagine with Japanese games in general there are going to be far less of with this gen going forward. You'd have to be blind not to see that already, really. That'll pretty much cripple most of my own interest in games, personally speaking. I'm not interested in these Free2Play games, MMOs, most online multiplayer games, modern-day war settings FPS, generic zombie games, MOBAs or any of the other popular Western genres that are now so dominant, so...very little for me there, at the moment.

Henry Spencer has received a thanks from: AnimeGamer183
User avatar
Henry Spencer
Let's go Catherine!
Shenmue III
 
Joined: July 2003
Location: The Office
PSN: harryangel666
XBL: Magiking
Favorite title: Shenmue
Currently playing: Yakuza Kiwami/Zelda: BOTW

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Jokatech19 » Sun Jul 13, 2014 9:45 am

That makes a lot of sense now that I look back. I noticed that over the last few years, there have been reviews for mid-tier games and indie developed games that I've read and found to contain flat out lies in them in an attempt to sway any interest from them. That's some serious corruption. In fact, I'm going to touch on that in a blog post or something maybe later today, as that's a deep discussion in itself.
User avatar
Jokatech19
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: March 2009
Location: Gotham City, NY
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: AC: Revelations

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Sun Jul 13, 2014 1:33 pm

yep, I am in the same boat henry. Alot of the japanese developers dont seem to want to spend the time and money to do things like make decent character animations, high quality environments, they have good ideas an concepts, it just seems like it falls short in the areas that matter to a "western" audience, and thus it makes it harder to figure out which japanese games will do well here, and we end up with less of them. I can understand they dont wanna work on the PS4 because they can still barely make a decent PS3 game with todays standards of the areas I mentioned before, and that stuff is important, we want realistic looking environments (or if not "realistic" some form of high polygonal ones), we want the character models manner and demeanor and body language to look realistic, and not like a stick figure or a puppet on strings, the immersion level goes up so high when those kinds of things are done right. The PS3 is almost dead, and I have about half the collection of games as I have on the PS2! and the PS3 was relevant for ALOT longer period of time. I just want this gen to straighten everything out, these new consoles are easier to develop for, the hardware is great. Japan still just doesnt seem to have figured everything out, I mainly play japanese games, and I just feel left in the dust...
User avatar
AnimeGamer183
Shenmue III
Shenmue III
 
Joined: April 2003

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Jokatech19 » Sun Jul 13, 2014 10:05 pm

What this discussion recalls to mind is in particular, the PSN and PS Minis category of games that they had going for a while. Originally when PSN launched, there was an uproar due to the fact that Sony refused to add key titles to the downloadable list and even went about removing key games. Every game they did that with, just happened to be a cult hit with a huge following, or very solid titles that would have rounded out the library. Games from Crisis Core to Bounty Hounds, Kingdom Hearts, Coded Arms 2, Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection (which may be the best Tekken game ever made), and several others were pulled or ommitted from the library on PSN. None of Sony's excuses made sense. They claimed fear of piracy, and also claimed to want to support UMD's further. Neither made any sense. Fans put up petitions to include these games, especially Crisis Core, while Sony and the developers just smiled and refused. When they started the Minis on PSN, there were restriction allowing only 100MB size for games, and for the games to be approved for distribution, there was criteria they set. People, being that they could speak to and connect with the indie developers, began petitioning for them to work on projects that would fill the void left in the PSN library. There were some ambitious projects, some of which were very good. I noticed that the reviews were very misleading. One game that was noted for taking advantage of the limits of a mini was NOVA. This is a FPS similar to Halo. All the reviews made it sound like trash. Upon playing, I found that it is actually very good, and I plan to review it when finished. I also noticed that alot of indie developers were dropped from being allowed to produce minis. Now, at this point, the entire mini market is just about dead. It makes me feel like they just wanted to stifle attempts at getting ambitious and high quality indie projects to the patrons of PSN.
User avatar
Jokatech19
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: March 2009
Location: Gotham City, NY
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: AC: Revelations

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby Jokatech19 » Tue Jul 15, 2014 6:06 pm

N.O.V.A -Near Orbital Vanguard Alliance
Image



This is my proud review of an ambitious title named NOVA by a developement team known as Gameloft. Many of you may have seen this series, which I believe is on its second part, on tablets. The company has actually made it a mission to fill in voids in the mobile market game libraries as well as for the Sony network, including the handheld systems and Playstation Mobile.

Image

This game is a mobile answer to microsofts's Halo series. Now, there is a review out there that does a fair job reviewing this game, but I think that when it was written, the game was overly criticized and weighed against incongruent competition. The game starts off with the marine force kidnapping a you- a former marine, for a dire mission to save mankind. Aliens have launched an all out attack after a human disturbance of their maid citadel. The story is actually pretty intruiging and makes you think of the possiblities of a sequel as the game plays out. Your name is Kal Hardin, and you will travel across some surprisingly lush landscapes in a quest to find out information and stop the alien threat. Cutscene-wise, there aren't many movies to see, but there are a good amount of visuals to behold.
Image

This game is a PSP mini that is just about the limit of 100mb in size. It is a title I thought they hampered with some bad reviews as it drew attention from the main market, to the cheaper mini market. I talked with indie developers for a while on the pspmini site trying to see if we could get more ambitious projects like this underway before the minis were shut down. I had some ideas, but unfortunately was unable to get them materialized.


The control scheme follows suit of Syphon Filter and other base FPS's on the PSP, which is serviceable. You use the analog to move and the face buttons to aim. alot of people complained about this when the system launched, yet we all enjoyed quite a few excellent games on the system using this setup. That's another area where comparisons blight the judgment. You have a nice array of weapons including a handgun, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle, grenades, and later a rocket launcher and an alien plasma rifle. Complaint-wise, I must say that the handgun is a bit weak, and the grenades have poor physics and do far too little damage within far too small a radius. It's ridiculous really. You character also has a power which allows him to freeze an enemy with a blast for a short time at the cost of some shield. You're shield and health are one. They regenerate, but when depleted, you are dead.

Later in the game, you face some very touch enemies. Some of them are humans that have been turned into aliens, and these huge bomb-dropping ogre-statues. Both of those enemies can be very annoying. The game is a bit like Halo in length having about 13 levels. The few bosses that it has are pretty interesting and epic, calling for alot of action and movement, which I like.
Image

The thing is that the game has an unlockable hard difficulty, which is nice, but other than that only has a trophy system that, once maxed out leaves nothing else to do. There is an extra mode called levels which allows you to play any level that you have beaten, but in my opinion, that mode should have been scrapped for a small arena mode that let's you fight enemies from the game in a survival mode. That's a tried and true formula that people still don't seem to get! Those adjustments would have made this a classic in my eyes. I still believe they did what they set out to do in this one, and the execution is very good for a mini. It's games like this that makes you mad at the bigtime dev's knowing the great games they could have been giving us all along. I wish the minis lasted long enough for us to have seen the sequel on PSP, but oh well. I give this game the same score as the other reviewer did, but with a different reason. It really is a solid experience. 8.0/10

Jokatech19 has received a thanks from: OL
User avatar
Jokatech19
"After Burner...Great!"
"After Burner...Great!"
 
Joined: March 2009
Location: Gotham City, NY
Favorite title: What's Shenmue
Currently playing: AC: Revelations

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby OL » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:53 pm

Jokatech19 wrote: The control scheme follows suit of Syphon Filter and other base FPS's on the PSP, which is serviceable. You use the analog to move and the face buttons to aim. alot of people complained about this when the system launched, yet we all enjoyed quite a few excellent games on the system using this setup.


I'm actually glad I got introduced to that setup with Syphon Filter on PSP, as it's now what I use when playing the older Armored Core games that still hadn't moved to full-analog. It actually feels much more natural to play like that as opposed to the default settings, which stuck the y-axis viewing controls to the shoulder buttons (really awkward to get used to that).

OL has received a thanks from: Jokatech19
User avatar
OL
Yo jes hummilated yoursef
Shenmue III
 
Joined: May 2003

Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Postby mue 26 » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:49 am

Henry Spencer wrote: Another problem is Mid-tier games are just dead in the water (which is all thanks to these "reviews"/hype machines helping to kill any interest in anything other than the mainstream, which then in turn helps to close down these developers of the mid-tier type of games - the most recent example would be Murdered: Soul Suspect and Dark Void developer Airtight Games recently closing down). The only experiences that give me those sorts of games anymore are really on handhelds and since a lot of devs are now flocking to mobile and even Sony are saying they've given up with Vita now...so yeah, not good.

PS4 just isn't selling in Japan either, since Japanese publishers aren't willing to make games for the system yet at all (they're clinging to the PS3 for dear life, otherwise, they're all making phone games [iOS, Android etc]), so I'd imagine with Japanese games in general there are going to be far less of with this gen going forward. You'd have to be blind not to see that already, really. That'll pretty much cripple most of my own interest in games, personally speaking. I'm not interested in these Free2Play games, MMOs, most online multiplayer games, modern-day war settings FPS, generic zombie games, MOBAs or any of the other popular Western genres that are now so dominant, so...very little for me there, at the moment.


:sad: The reality of where the Japanese game industry is headed/already gone (mobile phones ect) is so depressing for me. Like you, my interest in games in general is almost completely bound to the kind of Japanese games we grew up playing, the kind of games that as you say, are coming out in increasingly smaller quantities. I don't expect the golden era of those games to come back around or anything, I know things have changed a great deal over the last 10 or 12 years in Japan, but things are looking so grim right now. I mean, when it all went to handhelds that wasn't so bad, but I cannot abide by mobile gaming. Do we have any hope?
User avatar
mue 26
Machine Gun Fist
Machine Gun Fist
 
Joined: December 2009

PreviousNext

Return to General Gaming

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Majestic-12 [Bot] and 1 guest

Powered by phpBB © 2000-
ShenmueDojo.net