Category: Review

Rocky Balboa (+)

The sixth movie in the Rocky series. Do we really need to see an old man fight?

There’s a lot to be said for a movie which no one believed in. After both the critical and financial disappointment that is Rocky V, how could Rocky VI be any better? There’s no other phrase to say except Sylvester Stallone punched this movie till it bled.

Rocky Balboa represents the reason why old people are crazy! No one in their right mind would fight in a boxing match that could potentially end their life.

Rocky Balboa is a great movie because it’s like seeing an old friend that you haven’t seen in over 10 years. You catch up with them and still feel an emotional connection for the person after all these years.

Now it definitely doesn’t hurt that Rocky is in the same slump that he was in during the first film. As with the first film, the environment is a character in itself. Rocky Balboa talks a lot about the situation that today’s society is in, focusing on its materialism. Seeing the new champion fighter in comparison to Rocky is just depressing. The new champion fighter, which Rocky eventually boxes in a Pay Per View match, has everything that money can buy, while Rocky has barely anything.

Much like the previous films, Rocky Balboa places little emphasis on the fight itself and focuses mainly on morals and values. There are many moments in this film when you’re on the verge of tearing up. When all is said and done it’s amazing that this film was done for a mere $24 million.

There’s something about Rocky that will never get old. This was the first Rocky movie that I saw in theaters and it was an amazing experience. This is the type of movie that makes people want to applaud throughout the entire film. The kind of energy that this film brought out was simply amazing.

Somehow Stallone made a great film about the old vs. the young (ok it wasn’t solely about that). Now all I want to see in Rocky VII is Rocky fighting someone when he is 90 years old. That would be interesting…

Vigil: Blood Bitterness (-)

The first episode in this gothic horror puzzle indie series.

There’s a lot to say about indie games. For the most part the word indie games may make you think of a puzzle game, or something lacking commercial quality thereof. Vigil: Blood Bitterness crosses the boundary of indie game and tries to reach commercial status, but ultimately fails in doing so.

Vigil itself is an interesting game right off the bat thanks to its visuals and demon story. For the most part the graphics are in a black and white tone, with other colors, such as yellow and blue, used on specific objects. This visual style is reminiscent of the movie Sin City and as it did in the movie, the game looks great!

The gameplay consists of opening and closing doors, running around, and solving puzzles. Due to these watered-down gameplay mechanics there is a lack of interaction with the environments themselves, not that the environments are filled with many objects to toy around with in the first place. Moving the character consists of pointing the mouse and clicking. The camera is third person and is usually placed at odd angles to “scare” the player, after all this is a horror game.

Being an indie horror game, Vigil pretty much has no other games to compare itself too. It stands out above the rest of the crowd, but even so it isn’t that fun to play or even scary for that matter. Its story sounds like a good premise, well actually it’s really hard to understand what Vigil is about. This game was made by a French studio called Free Gamer and some of the translations aren’t that clear. Calling a ‘bed’, a ‘couch’ seems a little weird. The story is simple – you play as a demon called Dehon and you want to kill other demons.

Overall there isn’t anything truly wrong with Vigil: Blood Bitterness. It’s simply just not fun. If there is something that Vigil did right, it’s that it didn’t try to be the average indie game. Breaking the mold is always something hard to do and Free Gamer did it.

New Super Mario Bros. (+)

Mario is definitely back in his old-school goodness form! Of course he still has to save Princess Peach – what else is new?

If the DS is trying to be a handheld gaming system that bridges the market between hardcore and casual gamers, New Super Mario Bros. is the game is a game that not only old and new Mario fans will enjoy but also hardcore and casual gamers. There’s just something about this game that screams play me! Whether its the cutesy graphics or the extremely well-rounded gameplay, this is a game that competes for best Mario game ever.

While Super Mario 64 brought Mario into the realm of 3D, New Super Mario Bros. takes the series back down a notch into 2D gameplay mixed with 3D sprites. The world of Mario has never looked so good! From its vibrant colors to its well-animated characters, this Mario game stands out above all DS games.

As one of the main features of the DS is the touch screen, New Super Mario Bros. does use it to a good extent. While for the most part the game uses the touch screen as a score counter, there are tons of side mini-games that use the touch screen. A good amount of these mini-games were featured in Super Mario 64 DS, but now feature some distinct upgrade such as improved graphics.

The sound in this game is superb. This is one of the few handheld games where you want to blast the music so that everyone around you wants to see what you’re playing!

New Super Mario Bros. takes its roots mostly from the NES and SNES versions of Mario. If there is one Mario game that you have to play on the DS it’s New Super Mario Bros. There’s just no competition to it. It takes old-school gameplay and revamps so that the game does not feel like a rehash.

Stronghold 2 (-)

Stronghold 2 is a disappointing sequel to an amazing castle building game. I was excited to finally get a chance to try it out, but don’t bother.

The graphics are okay, but they’re nothing especially different from what you can find elsewhere. There are thousands of bugs, which you can try to avoid by picking up quite a few patches. The graphics would be a lot better though if the audio quality were better. The music, though maybe it’s appropriate maybe, It just doesn’t really do justice to the game. I shut it off and played my own music instead. The music does the game justice when you play the game, and the music immerses you in the world that you ONLY experience when you’re listening to THAT music. That was WAY off here.

There are a few different gameplay types. Firstly, you can either choose the path of peace, or path of war. Peace is okay, especially the free build mode that is offered. With no interference, you can choose from a few maps to just build on by yourself, and well, free build. In the war mode, you can do a skirmish with up to 7 AI players (don’t, they are terrible.) or follow the campaign.

The campaign is just bad. The characters are bad, the levels are bad (the first level is basically a point-click movement tutorial to get your guys across the map, kill a few guys, and then get on a boat.), and it is not very fulfilling. In the skirmish type, Kingmaker, you play on a large map with different regions, much like Lords of the Realm II, but of course it’s in real time. Building up a castle is kind of fun, but it can be difficult to learn how to do it effectively so that the computers will not destroy you in moments, or so that they won’t continuously destroy your mines.

Economics are handled really well. The city-simulation features are really great. They include everything from the chain-of-industry type of work, where the wheat farmers take wheat to the mill, where the millers will take the flour to the baker, etc. There is a new torture feature that is surprisingly necessary in order to keep your villagers in line, from thieving to being caught by guards, to the court, and eventual public torture on a stretching rack, or a flogging post, for example. There is also a birds eye view feature which helps greatly in planning and building, especially walls. The graphics, which are mediocre 3D, but greatly improved since the original Stronghold, make it fun to sometimes just people-watch as your peasants go about their routine.

The combat really is the issue. The game’s learning curve is pretty quick, but militarily, unless you play ‘Seige Mode’ is pretty difficult to actually start from scratch. Also, the tutorial is very very limited, but learning on your own is kind of intuitive. Regardless, this game definitely receives a stern MINUS.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (+)

Ever raced with a real sense of speed and drifting? Ok it has been done before, but PGR3 is the most enjoyable simulation racing game around the block.

As history has taught us, launch titles can either make or break a system. Thankfully Project Gotham Racing 3 does not do the latter. With its stylistic gameplay and gorgeous graphics Bizarre Creations, the developer, has proven why the Xbox 360 can stand strong.

What makes PGR3 stand out among the crowd is its drifting system. In previous versions players had to work their way up to receive the powerful cars, but thankfully PGR3 starts the player off with a great lineup of cars – we’re talking Class A! Each car presents is own challenges in mastering the way it steers. This actually might be where gamers either like or dislike the game. Choosing the right car to use and learning how to control it takes time.

There is no ‘pimp my ride’ gameplay, which considering the beautiful cars that are pre-packaged in the game – it doesn’t matter! The game does feature both 2 player multiplayer and online play with up to 8 players total. While sometimes the online play lags, it’s overall a great experience. Online play is definitely great for those who do not want to play against AI opponents whom usually tend to be either too easy or too difficult. Of course with the online play there are plenty of trash-talkers and cheaters.

The visuals in the game are breathtaking. With its high-definition graphics, screen blur techniques, and overall high-polygon and well textured models PGR3 is a treat to look at. Racing through cities such as London, New York, and Tokyo is stunning every time.

The music is a mixture of random genres such as classical, punk, rock, etc. Thankfully there is the option of playing music off of the Xbox 360 harddrive.

All in all PGR3 is a fantastic game that greatly improves upon its predecessors. While its single-player can get a little boring, experiencing the game online makes this game a racer that arcade and simulation fans will love!

X3: Reunion (-)

There was this game that you saw in stores, and you thought it was a video game for X-men 3. You either ignored it straight up, because you didn’t want to play an X-men video game, or you picked it up and were sourly disappointed that it wasn’t. Either way, it’s probably okay that you skipped out on this one.

X3 is a space simulator that is mainly from the first or third person views of your spaceship, and the player can choose to fight, trade, pirate, protect, all sorts of stuff. You can do practically anything; even follow the story, if you feel like it.

The graphics are pretty amazing, and the universe that is created I definitely enjoyed. I not only love hard sci-fi settings, but the expanse and area of exploration you pretty much can’t argue with. Unless you have other things to do, or a very short attention span: the loading times I definitely give a minus. Even on my high-end PC, I experienced horrendous wait times, on my 2006 PC on a 2005 game. I can’t imagine playing it on something else.

Okay, so the graphics are great but load really slowly; so what? I enjoy great settings and usually will sacrifice loading screens for beautiful graphics, something I value greatly. Problem is, the loading screens only magnify the already slow game play. This is a game I got excited about, because, in theory, with enough time and effort, concentration and talent, one could build an expansive commercial trade empire, defended by a considerable private militia while making side trips to pirate goods from competing traders and at the same time find contracts with local authorities to hunt down enemies. Or just look at stuff.

Problem is there is a lot of looking and not quite enough stuff, because even with the time compression feature, it takes so long to start up, to get enough funds to even BEGIN to start making more money.

Straight up: the game is hard. It has a pretty steep learning curve. This game is pretty much right up my alley, but maybe a little bit too far. I love customizable exportable settings, and component features on spaceships and the patient economic maneuvers in video games; this was just a tad too slow.