Chrono Trigger - Super Nintendo

What can you say about Chrono Trigger? Phenomenal game, possibly one of the best RPGs for the Super Nintendo. Great gameplay and amazing soundtrack.

Though I don't know if I ever beat it. About five years ago I broke out my Game Genie and decided to essentially give myself God mode to beat some of the games I had never gotten around to finishing. I just don't remember if I did this with Chrono Trigger. As far as I know I didn't.

Either way, it's going to be fun to finally beat this game.

Squid.

Shadow of the Colossus - Review

As I mentioned before one of the reasons I bought a Playstation 2 was to play this game. I couldn't step on to a gaming forum without people talking about how excellent this game is. Hell, even Yahtzee liked this game... and that says a lot. I knew almost nothing about it, and yet wanted to play it. When something has been built up this much you have to wonder though, can it meet those expectations?

In a simple answer: no.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Shadow of the Colossus, I really did. It was a very unique, interesting video game experience. SotC is a game like I've never played before. However, unique does not always equal good.

There's always the possibility that because I didn't play SotC when it was first released I just didn't get the "oomph" that the game properly deserves. I'm a generation late. I came to the party late on this one. I can admit that my gripes about the game can easily be put off because I'm playing this game a half decade after its release.

First off, I hate the horse. With a passion. If 80% of your game is going to be spent riding on one creature and be your only means of transportation besides walking I would hope that perhaps that creature would handle well. Nope. The horse may be one of the most frustrating experiences in recent memory. I don't know how many times my horse just stopped. Not be pressing something, not me doing it... just the horse deciding to stop for no apparent reason. Or run into something... I don't know how many times my controller was telling my horse to do one thing and it would do the complete opposite. If there was a tree with open space for a 100 yards on each side I guarantee my horse was running headfirst into that tree no matter what I did. There were times when the horse riding felt very normal, and there were times when the horse felt like verged on being broken. It's not a good sign when there were times I would get off the horse and just walk because I was tired of wrestling with it.

The way you find the colossi. Bear with me on this one. I know that using your sword to find the next colossi is a somewhat cool idea, but to me it seemed flawed. To me it seemed like if google maps only gave you directions as the crow flies not taking into account obstacles... also it only worked when it was light outside. Listen, I understand that it's what they were trying to do. It's not broken if it's what they were meaning to do, I said it was flawed. Essentially you're supposed explore to find the next colossi using that as a guide. Only problem is... there's no reason to explore. It doesn't matter if I take 30 minutes finding that colossi or 5, at the end of the day the outcome is the same. If I take 30 I'm not going to find some new cool armor, or some new weapon... I'm going to find the colossi. There's no carrot at the end of the stick for exploring... so why would I bother? And frankly there were times when the light was just flat out wrong. It would point me in a direction but what it didn't tell me is that there's a impassable mountain between me and that colossi, sure I can follow the light but if I do there's absolutely no way to reach the colossi. There were times when even though I had explored I still couldn't find the damn colossi because the light had put in the completely wrong area. I don't particularly enjoy being frustrated in games, but there were several times in SotC where I was.

The camera. Honestly, the camera was kind of awful in this game. There were times when I would be using L1 to follow a colossi and the game decided that the best camera angle was below my horse staring at it's junk... which isn't all that helpful when I'm trying to leap onto a fast moving flying behemoth. On the final colossi fight there was a part I had a very difficult time beating it because every time I would get to a certain point the camera angle would go wonky and give me an insiders view of the colissi's arm... when I'm trying to make a jump from three hundred feet off the ground I kind of want to be able to see what I'm doing.

Okay, those are my complaints... but I said I enjoyed the game. So that must mean that there is praise as well.

The fights with the colossi were pretty damn epic. Most games where you fight a bad guy that size you're most likely going to do it with some sort of quick time event. Here you got to feel the satisfaction of taking down a humongous bad guy with nothing but jumping, climbing, and your sword. Some of them felt pretty damn awesome to take down. I want to say that it seems like they could have used something more than weak spots and changed it up a bit, but I'm not really exactly sure how so I'll just go with the flow.

It was a unique experience... and frankly that's not something you always get in video games. When you start talking about a game and using words like "Doom Clone" or "Diablo Clone" or "Halo Clone" you know that there's not always a lot of uniqueness in the gaming industry. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "Shadow of the Colossus Clone". I applaud them for trying something different even if it may not all work out in the end.

I enjoyed Shadow of the Colossus, even if I have my gripes about it. It was a fun, unique gaming experience and maybe I just showed up a little late to truly appreciate it. If you haven't played it yet, I would honestly say to give it a shot there's really no other game you can compare it to, and that's a compliment.

Squid.

Shadow of the Colossus - Playstation 2

Up next is Shadow of the Colossus, one of the main reasons I actually bought a PS2.

I know absolutely nothing about this game. It flew completely under my radar until Roger Ebert said that video games couldn't be art. All of the sudden everyone was suggesting he play one game: Shadow of the Colossus.

Since then I've constantly heard people proclaim it to be their favorite game, or the best game ever made. It's on every list about must have games for the PS2... and yet still, I know absolutely nothing about it.

It will be interesting to play it, and see if it lives up to this hype.

Squid.

Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II - Review

I know, I know I forgot to put up what I was playing next. I kind of forgot. Sorry about that.

So since I have myself a new Playstation 2 I decided that my next game should be one of the many that came with the system. I started out playing SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals but just couldn't get into it... guess I wasn't in the right mood. So I decided to give Dark Alliance II a shot.

First off, I never played the first Dark Alliance for the PS2. So I kind of went into this game not knowing the lore, or what happened to lead up to the events of Dark Alliance II. Though with as much fun as I had with the second game, you can bet the first is going to be bought sometime soon.

Dark Alliance II is a great game. Switching from a PC gamer to a console gamer there are a couple of genres of games that are somewhat sparse. Dungeon crawling hack 'n slash games are one of those genres.

I loved Diablo II. I don't know how many hours I spent playing it. As well as Sacred, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, and Torchlight. I'm a big fan of those types of games. You don't have to really think. I swing my sword, whats in front of me dies. I pick up loot and I'm my way to the next mob of enemies. I play these kinds of games when I want to just turn off my brain and slaughter groups of enemies. And Dark Alliance II was perfect for that.

I haven't played many console hack 'n slash games but I will say that Dark Alliance is easily the best. It controls beautifully, which is usually my main problem with these types of games. It's hard to emulate the simplicity of clicking a mouse on something to kill it, but Dark Alliance II manages to do it well.

There's a whole host of treasure for you to sort through, and on top of that you can customize your armor in the workshop to tack on special powers. It really added something to the game, sadly I didn't really try it until later in the game... but once I did I saw how truly awesome it was when you're wielding two kick ass, customized swords.

The story is just long enough that you don't get bored, but short enough that you'll want to play through it again. And you can bet that at some point in the future I'll be popping this game in to beat it with another character class (there's five to choose from), or perhaps just using my kick ass barbarian on a higher difficulty level. [Note: most people say that Dark Alliance II is 8-10 hours long. I think this is based off of the in game timer which appears to run rather slow. It says I beat the game in just over 10 hours, but I would guess I played it for 15-20.]

The story... the story is the one part of the game I will admit that's somewhat weak. If you haven't played the first Dark Alliance you're going to be somewhat confused. Not enough that it ruins the game for you, but you'll be wondering what they're talking about. It seems they could have given you a better understanding of the backstory so if you hadn't played the first you wouldn't be as lost. Overall though it's not a huge deal, the story is still pretty good it just can get confusing in part. Also it ends on a somewhat cliffhanger... not a huge problem, but considering Interplay's financial problems there's a good chance we will never see Dark Alliance III.

Over all Dark Alliance II is a very good game, a very good hack 'n slash game, and probably the best hack 'n slash console game I've played. If you own a PS2 or Xbox and are a fan of the genre, do yourself a favor and pick it up.

Squid.

New Kid on the Block

An alternate post title would be "I'm never going to finish."

We have a new addition to the video game family.

If you added up all of the hours I've spent playing the Playstation 2 I would assume it's under 20 hours. Last generation I bought an Xbox... which I barely played. Certainly not enough to warrant the purchase of a PS2. Later I did buy a Gamecube but only because it was a screaming good deal and I got the Legend of Zelda Collection with it. Overall I didn't have much playtime with the PS2, my brother had one and I would occasionally play it for a couple of minutes when I went over to his house.

Recently though I've very much wanted to try out a few Playstation 2 games, Shadow of the Colossus being a one. Problem being is that I didn't really want to shell out a ton of money for one. I really figured you could pick one up for $25 or $30... boy was I wrong. Looked like the price for a used PS2 was about $50 and that didn't include any games.

I kind of looked around, occasionally checked Gamestop, Amazon, and eBay but couldn't find any really good deals.

The other day my brother sent me a local ad for someone selling a PS2 and ton of games for $50. The ad had been up for almost two weeks, but still I emailed them hoping it was still available. Luckily it was.

So now I'm the proud owner of a PS2, 2 memory cards, 2 controllers, and 11 games and all for $50. So along with the huge list of games I need to play we have some new additions:

Devil May Cry, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2006 Fifa World Cup, Athens 2004, SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Dark Alliance II, Champions of Norath, Prince of Persia The Two Thrones, Grand Theft Auto III, and Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

Edit: And with a trip to FYE I added Mafia, XIII, Max Payne, Max Payne 2, Deus Ex, Rogue Galaxy and Final Fantasy X to the list.

Some of the games look good and the two Grand Theft Auto games are my favorites of the series. All and all very pleased, plus I can borrow some of my brothers games, and there will be many Gamefly games to play in the future.

I'm never going to finish beating every game I own.

Squid.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Review

I love Star Wars. LOVE Star Wars. Ever since I was a kid I've had a fascination with Star Wars and everything related to Star Wars. I have a rather large Star Wars collectibles collection, I've seen the movies countless of times, I've read some of the extended universe books, hell I loved Star Wars Galaxies. I saw the "special edition" original trilogy when it was in the theater even though it was awful. I saw The Phantom Menace opening night and seven more times while it was in the theater. What I'm getting at is that I love Star Wars. So having me review a Star Wars game reminds me kind of this Penny Arcade comic.

I greatly enjoyed The Force Unleashed. Does it have it's flaws? Yes, certainly... but other then a few minor things it is in my opinion what a Star Wars game should be. When I harness the force in a video game I want to feel powerful. I want to be able to force throw people across the screen, I want to be able force lightning stormtroopers and then throw my lightsaber at their electrocuting lifeless bodies. In The Force Unleashed, I can do that... and so much more.

This playthrough of The Force Unleashed will be my fourth, why is that? Well one because it's an awesome game and two because it's an extremely short game. Short but sweet. You're looking at about six to seven hours of gameplay. After you're done though you're most likely going to want to pick it up and beat it again. I kid you not. The first time I played it I beat it to get a certain ending, I then immediately started over and beat it for the other ending. After that? Well I turned on all of the cheats and beat it as a God. Let me tell you how awesome it is to be able to pull a TIE Fighter out of the air and throw it at someone. The best thing about that? That wasn't some cheat code I had to enter... you can do that normally in the game. That's right, you can toss a goddamn TIE fighter at someone.

The Force Unleashed is set in the time between the prequels and the original trilogy. Order 66 has been executed and you're Darth Vader's new secret Padawan, in charge of hunting down Jedi as well as a plot to kill the emperor and rule side by side with Darth Vader.

When I play almost any game that has a morality choice I almost always go with the good side. I'm not sure why, I always have. Fable? Good guy. Fallout 3? Choir boy. Star Wars Galaxies? Fighting the dirty imperials with my rebel friends. I always choose the good side. Well with The Force Unleashed I got to play from the other point of view... and let me tell you, it felt good. There's something interesting playing as a complete psychopath of a Jedi. There's something very enjoyable about force lifting a jawa to the top of the screen and just letting go, thus solving the eternal question of "Can jawas fly?" (Hint: they can't.) I couldn't get enough of throwing a stormtrooper through a spaceships window and watching as him and all of his buddies get sucked out into the vacuum of space.

As I mentioned before The Force Unleashed does have its flaws.

Like I said, it's short. If I had paid $60 for it this might have mattered, but I picked it up for $20 and have played it four times now. So even though it's a very short game it appears to have a rather high replayability factor.

Quicktime Events. If there was something I could banish from the gaming world forever it would probably be quick time events. That being said, I didn't mind them all that much in The Force Unleashed. They only appeared when you were about to kill really large enemies or bosses. Taking down a huge rancor with some awesome moves, but having to do it through a QTE? I can deal with that.

Combat can be kind of difficult at times. Occasionally my targeting was kind of wonky. Instead of using force lighting on the guy in front of you it might go just to the side of him, or a guy behind him. If you pay attention and try not to do things to quickly this usually isn't a problem, you just have to pay attention to what you're targeting. Overall it's a very small gripe about the game.

The Force Unleashed is probably one of my favorite Star Wars games. As I said, to me it's what a Star Wars game should feel like. If you're a fan of Star Wars (and how could you not be?) I would highly suggest it. Here's a tip though, if you play it through once and aren't a huge fan? Play it a second time, preferably with cheat codes. Having all of the force powers and being all powerful in this game is one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had.

Squid.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Xbox360

I'm a huge Star Wars geek, shocking I know, I love everything about Star Wars. I recently sat down and in two days watched Star Wars Episodes I through VI and loved every minute of it. I then remembered that The Force Unleashed tied the two trilogies together... but I couldn't remember how.

So now it's time to sit down and get my geek on and force push everything in my way... hopefully through windows and into outer space.

Squid.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Review

Okay, I have a geeky confession to make. I never beat Halo. I've owned it for years, and yet I've never managed to finish it. Every time I tried to I made it about halfway through and then just stopped.

You see, I didn't actually like Halo. Never really enjoyed it. I kept hearing how great it was and how it was the best first person shooter ever... and yet I just didn't like it.

I was about twenty when Halo came out. I had heard very good things about it, but at the time I didn't have an Xbox. Well that year was my grandpa's 80th birthday, and my dad and I were going to drive out to Illinois to surprise him (great idea, surprising an 80 year old man), well there's not a whole lot to do at my grandparents house so my dad said that he would buy me an Xbox to bring out and play. It was great, I would finally get to play this amazing game I had heard so much about.

We went to CompUSA and bought an Xbox, the first games I got were Halo: Combat Evolved, Silent Hill 2, and Amped. I immediately went home to play some Halo.

It was somewhat fun at first. I had a good time... it wasn't great, but it was fun. The more I played it though, the more I found it kind of mediocre.

I had one main problem... at this point in time I was still pretty much a PC gamer. The controller felt so odd, I had a very difficult time getting used to. It just felt so foreign in my hands. It was fine for other games, but I just couldn't get used to controlling an FPS without a mouse and keyboard. I think this very much effected how I felt about the game. My other problems were with how the vehicles handled and how the levels were designed.

Several times in the last couple years I've tried to make it through the game. I usually get about halfway through before getting frustrated and giving up.

Nine years later I'm now a console gamer almost exclusively. All of the sudden the game I couldn't grasp the controls of felt much, much more natural. And something else, I was enjoying it a whole lot more.

Don't get me wrong, the warthog still handles like absolute crap... I constantly feel like I'm driving on ice. It's like the warthog's driving physics were coded by someone who had never been in an actual vehicle before and doesn't know what friction is. The level design is still atrocious as well. I don't know how many times I though "Wait, am I walking in circles? This corridor looks exactly like ever other corridor." You also have to love when the level you're in now is just the same level you recently played but it's nighttime now.

Okay, those are really my only gripes. Besides the level design and the warthog the game is good. I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon and say it's the best first person shooter, however I will say that it was a very good console first person shooter... especially at the time when it was released.

I know I've said this before, but bear with me. By 2001 I had been playing Half Life, Deus Ex, Alien Vs. Predator 2, Strife, Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and to a lesser extent Doom, Doom 2, and Wolfenstein as well as a host of other PC first person shooters. The PC had tons of great first person shooters while consoles had... Goldeneye and Halo. And despite the fact that these were the best of their genre on the console, they really couldn't compare to what we had on the PC. In today's world a game is more likely to be released to a console then it is to the PC, and almost certainly if it gets a PC release it's getting a console release. Back then? That didn't happen as much. So console gamers missed out on a lot of very good games that PC players had.

I'm glad that I finally beat Halo, it was a good game that I didn't really give a fair shot. The story was good, and overall I enjoyed the game a lot despite it's flaws. I've never really wanted to play the Halo series, but now I'm looking forward to picking up Halo 2 & 3 somewhere down the line.

Is it the greatest FPS ever made? No, not in my opinion. It's a good game and a great console FPS, and we certainly have to give it a lot of thanks. Without Halo you probably wouldn't have a lot of the first person shooters being released now, and frankly without Halo you might not be playing your Xbox 360. So go ahead and give it a shot if you've never played it before, it's certainly worth a try.

Squid.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Xbox

Wasn't sure what I wanted to play next, then I saw Halo on the list. Figured what the hell. It also has the added bonus of seeing how well backwards compatibility works on the Xbox 360. I have a lot of Xbox games that I want to play but my Xbox is kind of on the fritz. Would be nice if I could just pop them into my 360 and play them.

I've played Halo many times before and have had my gripes about it. It will be interesting to see how I feel now that I'm more used to controllers as well as controlling FPS with controllers.

Either way a game with this many fans and followers has to be good, right?

Squid.

Borderlands - Review

When I first got Borderlands from Gamefly I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I only knew one other person who had played it and he didn't have great things to say about it. But reviews were generally favorable so I figured I'd give it a go.

I'm glad I did, let me just say that Borderlands is a hell of a fun time and a great game. Plus you get to shoot midgets in the face with a shotgun. Name me one other game where you get to do that.

Borderlands is set on Pandora, a barren wasteland of a planet with small settlements scattered around it. You can choose between four separate characters, each with a different skill set. I decided on the sniper character because that's what I usually play as... but Borderlands did something that I didn't expect but greatly appreciated.

Snipers aren't the most robust of characters. Sure we're good at long range but what happens when you have a bad guy standing right next to you? Or two or three? In borderlands you can be proficient with any weapon. As a sniper I could use machine guns or even rocket launchers. Sure I didn't get the upgrade perks that say the soldier did, but I could still use them. Trust me, when you have four huge bad guys barreling down on you the ability to switch from a sniper rife to a machine gun is greatly appreciated.

I've been sitting here staring at this screen for about an hour now. I'm not exactly sure how to review Borderlands. I could tell you that it reminds me of several other great games rolled into one. I could tell you about how quirky the humor is or how cool the art direction is... but at the end of the day I'm not sure that matters at all.

Sure it, reminds me of other really great games that I liked. It reminds me a lot of a much more linear Fallout 3... but if you didn't like Fallout 3 that doesn't really sell it for you.

I find the humor funny, but that doesn't mean you'll enjoy Scooter talking about his "mama's girly parts" as much as I did. I thought the humor in it was very funny, but that's really subjective.

The art direction is kind of fun, and has a bit of a different feel then a lot of other recent first person shooters... but it's not like it's the first time we've seen it before.

Borderlands is a really fun game, that's what I'll tell you. I enjoyed it and founds myself wanting to play it for hours at a time. I would highly suggest it to anyone who is a fan of the FPS/RPGish type genre.

Will you like it? Hard to say, as I started this review off I said that the only person who I knew that played it ended up not really enjoying it. On the other hand I had a hell of a fun time playing it and once it drops a little more in price will probably end up buying it so that I can play it again.

Sure Borderlands had some flaws, I think enemies reappeared a little too quickly and the ending was somewhat sudden, but overall Borderlands was an awesome game that you should really give a shot.

Squid.