Crystalis - Nintendo

If you asked me my ten favorite games of all time Crystalis would definitely be on the list. It would most likely make it in the top five. Probably my favorite NES game of all time, and certainly the one that I remember the most. I remember this game vividly from my childhood, the graphics, the music, the gameplay, everything about this game brings a rush of nostalgia to me.

Here's the thing though, I've never actually beat Crystalis. I don't know how many times I've played Crystalis before, I would guess at least five, but I've never been able to make it all the way through. One of the reasons I started this blog was because about 85% of the games I played up until about three years ago I've never actually beat. I would start a game, then something new and shiny would come along and I would put down the old to usher in the new. That's why I wanted to go through my old games, to actually beat some of these games that I never made it through.

I hadn't planned on playing Crystalis yet, I was holding off on some of my favorite games. Figured I would go through the ones I hadn't really given a chance to. Then I joined a discussion about Nintendo games that you wish were longer, there were quite a few people saying Crystalis. They were mentioning that it was only about five hours long. This made no sense to me, I guessed it was at least a twenty hour game. I remember spending a ton of time as a kid playing this game. I wondered if it really was a five hour game, had all this time I not finished a game that could probably be done in one sitting?

I sat down with Crystalis and it just made me smile. I knew every note of music, I knew pretty much everything people in the first town would say to me, I knew the map like the back of my hand. I played for a good four hours the first night... and that's when I noticed something weird. In those first four hours I had played through a lot of the game that I remember... and the second night when I played again for about another three hours? I made it through to where I had stopped the last time I played the game. The next time I played the game? Well, I beat the game. This game that I had played at least five time since 1990 that I had never managed to beat was actually about eight hours long. Here's the funny part: Crystalis has two save data slots. I used one and left the old save alone, after I beat the game I loaded up that old save to see where I had quit in the game last time. Turns out on that save I was only about 15 minutes to a half hour away from finishing the game. If I had stuck with it for another half hour it wouldn't have taken me twenty one years to finally beat this game.

Crystalis is a really good game, and I don't think that's nostalgia talking. It's a great action RPG with a decent story. It's one of those underrated gems that if you like these types a games and haven't played it before you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. It's one of those games I wish had become a series, or at least had a sequel. Do yourself a favor and find and play Crystalis.

Squid.

Doom II - Xbox Live Arcade

We all played Doom 2. If you're over the age of about 25 there's a good chance you spent many hours killing demons from hell. The Doom series wasn't the original first person shooter, but it was definitely the game that skyrocketed the series to what it is today. Everyone played Doom. Hell, my dad has beat Doom.

I picked up Doom 2 on XBLA a while back, not really sure what to expect. I hadn't played Doom 2 in quite some time and a lot of computer games from that time have not aged well. Blocky graphics, clunky controls, and you know how in modern games you can aim up and down? Not in Doom 2, bitches. I was very curious to see how a game like that would transfer over to the 360.

The answer? Incredibly well. Shockingly well. The last time I played Doom 2 the one major complaint I had with it was the control scheme. These were the days before WASD, you had to use the arrow keys. As odd as it seems this is incredibly awkward, especially after years of using WASD, but with the controller this is a thing of the past. The controls are great, I couldn't have asked for a better control scheme.

You know what else I found out? Doom 2 is still very fun. The later levels somewhat dragged on a bit, but overall Doom 2 is still a blast. It's nice to go back to a time in FPS games where there was a paper thin plot but a shitload of bad guys for you to kill. That's what Doom 2 is. A game where you can turn your brain off and just kill as many of hell's minions as possible.

If you haven't played Doom 2 before I want to welcome you out from that rock you've been been living under (I'll also accept the excuse of being too young), but you know what? With the great port we have of Doom 2 for XBLA there is absolutely no excuse for not having playing this game. Go out and buy it, it's well worth the 800MS points.

Squid.

Shadow Complex - Xbox Live Arcade

Yep, yet another XBLA game. About a year ago I bought Shadow Complex knowing almost nothing about it. I remember reading a review for it and hearing about its similarities (gameplay wise) to Metroid on NES. I didn't think much about it until a couple months later when I saw it on sale for half off. What the hell, it looked fun so I picked it up... and then proceeded to not play it for a year or so.

I was looking for a game last week and nothing was really peaking my interest. So I decided to look through my Arcade games. Shadow Complex, eh, why not.

The first half hour or so started out badly for me. I just couldn't get into the game. The aiming felt off, the controls felt a little awkward, and I wanted to see more of the screen... I wanted a more widescreen feel. A little more left and right.

Thankfully I continued playing because suddenly it all came together. It all made sense to me. Suddenly I was transported back to the fun I was having playing that NES classic so many years ago. I understood why they were often compared to each other. It feels like Metroid. Sure you can draw the obvious conclusion that it's because it has same type of gameplay, but it's more then this. It's the exploring. It's the realization that you can now open a door or enter a new area because of this brand new power up you just got.

Shadow Complex drew me in. I didn't want to just play this game. I wanted to play it and see everything. I wanted to see every secret room, I wanted to open every locked door, I wanted to play all of this game.

I can tell a game is good when I become a completionist. When I want to play all of a game I know it's a good game. There's a lot of games that are very good but that I don't feel like finding and doing everything. When you don't really want a game to end you know that it's a step up from the rest. That's Shadow Complex.

I had this game for a year at least and never bothered to play it. This is a damn shame. I spent twelve hours playing and beating Shadow Complex and I have to say it was an incredibly good time.

Go out and buy Shadow Complex. Especially if you enjoyed Metroid as a kid. Overall it's just a really fun game. It's a game you want to play. A game that you want to find everything. A game that knows you want to explore so it lets you. Seriously, do yourself a favor and don't miss out on this one.

Squid.

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Xbox 360

You would have a harder time getting a bad review of a Call of Duty game out of me then you would the president of Activision. Simply stated, I love the Call of Duty games. Well, the newer ones. Not that I don't enjoy the WW2 CoD games but I absolutely love the modern Call of Duty games. I still rank Call of Duty: Modern Warfare as probably one of, if not the best first person shooters of all time.

So what does Black Ops bring to the table? A lot. New environment, a much different storyline then we are used to, and a whole lot of ass kickery that makes the Call of Duty games so Goddamn great.

Sure, modern times is a great time period with a lot of awesome technology but we're seeing more and more of it now. It's in danger of becoming stale. So Black Ops is set during the beginning of the cold war area. You'll be in places from Russia to Vietnam. You'll drive boats, fly helicopters, and repel off of mountains. From blowing up bad guys, to slitting throats, to zip lining through a window to save a hostage. Call of Duty kicks up the awesomeness notch with Black Ops.

Black Ops is like the other Call of Duty games, short one player campaign but chalk full of so much damn awesome and testosterone (sadly the word "Test-awesome-rone" hasn't been picked up in the common vernacular)that you just don't care. Sure it's seven to ten hours long, but that seven to ten hours is some of the most on the edge of your seat, ass kicking time you can possibly have. It's exactly what you would expect from a Call of Duty game.

Then you have the multiplayer. Say goodbye to your wife and family because you're going to be gone for a while. Remember the multiplayer you loved in CoD 4 and Modern Warfare 2? Well it's back, and in my opinion better than ever. The game may only be seven to ten hours long, but then I played another forty hours(and still counting)of multiplayer. CoD's multiplayer is possibly the most addicting thing I've played in a long time. I don't know how many times I said I would play just one more game only to find myself still playing an hour later. It's fun, it's awesome, it's worth the price of the game alone.

Go out and buy Call of Duty: Black Ops, trust me, you won't regret it.

Squid.

Clive Barker's Jericho - Xbox 360

Woopsie doodle, kind of forgot to review this game when I beat it. Well, here it is:

In my last review for Red Dead Redemption I talked about what makes a good game, not wanting a game to end. Being so engrossed in the story that you just want to keep going. So what's the opposite of that? Pretty much Clive Barker's Jericho. This is a game I wanted to end. A game that I wish would end. How long is the game? I've heard anywhere from five to ten hours. How long did it feel? Like a goddamn eternity.

In case you can't read between the lines, I absolutely hated Clive Barker's Jericho. I paid $7 for it new, and frankly I wish I could have my $7 back.

I remember putting the game in and the first thing I thought was "Oh, this must have been a launch title." The graphics weren't horrible, but occasionally I noticed that the characters limbs looked like they were made out of 2x4s. They were occasionally incredibly blocky... but it's understandable, being released in 2005... wait, this game was released in late 2007? If this game had been released in 2005 I would say it had decent-ish graphic. In 2007? Some of the graphics are absolutely shittacular. Like I said, not all, but some. It's a here and there problem, not an overall problem.

The AI on the other hand? That's an overall problem. My biggest complaint about the game is probably the AI. Little back story before I get into it.

You're a member of a paranormal team in charge of keeping the firstborn in line. What's the firstborn? It's a long story. Basically the antagonist. You're team consists of six members, all who have different paranormal skills. You can switch between each of these members and use their skills to fight various bad guys.

Each one of these skills comes in handy during different battles, also despite the fact that you have enough guns to take on a small army your skills are almost always superior... and that's where the AI problems start.

A lot of times they're using their guns, even if their powers are charged. I don't know how often every single one of my teammates was going full out with their guns... that is when they weren't getting absolutely slaughtered. My teammates were essentially cannon fodder. You can revive your teammates as long as you are alive, and for the most part anytime their was a firefight I spent a good portion trying to revive most if not all of my team. They would just run towards anything shooting them. There are bad guys who blow up after they're dead, several times all of my teammates would die because they would rush these enemies. The AI was absolutely awful. I can't say that enough.

There were so many things wrong with this game. The AI, the graphics, the voice acting, and frustratingly difficult parts, the awful ending, the fact that it's billed as a horror game but really lacked on the whole "horror" part, and I could go on and on... It's just a bad game. I honestly can't think of one redeeming quality. How do you review a game like that?

At the end of the day I beat the game and thought "I hope I never have to play this game again." That's a bad sign for any video game. Clive Barker's Jericho wasn't enjoyable to me, from the start to the end felt like a chore. I don't think I ever really enjoyed it. I played it to beat it, and I didn't really have much if any fun. If they're handing this game out for free I would say skip it, it's not even worth free. Skip it.

Squid.

Red Dead Redemption - Xbox 360

You want to know the hallmark of a truly great game? You don't want it to end. That's how I felt about Red Dead Redemption. I knew the ending was coming, but I didn't want it to. I wanted more, I wanted it to continue. I wanted to keep playing.

In case you haven't already guessed, Red Dead Redemption was an amazing game. From start to finish I enjoyed every minute of it.

Much like movie westerns there haven't been a lot of good video game westerns in the past couple years. Sure, there's been several western themed games released but overall they've been somewhat mediocre. When I first heard about Red Dead Redemption I looked at the track record of western games and figured it would be one more in a line of average games. Boy did I turn out to be wrong.

Red Dead Redemption pulled me in from the very start. Rarely does a game come along that hooks me so quickly and with such ferocity. It wasn't "Oh, I should really play some Red Dead Redemption!" It was "Oh, I should really do something besides play Red Dead Redemption... I've been playing for five hours straight."

Everything about this game just struck me as great.

The story was incredibly well crafted, you felt attached to the characters, you wanted to know their stories. You wanted to learn more. All while the main storyline kept you gripped and sucked in. Everything felt like it should be there, none of the side characters had me bored or not wanting to finish their part of the story. It was one of those games that I actually wanted to achieve 100% in.

The music was phenomenal. Amazingly well done, some of the best music I've heard in a video game in a long, long time. I was amazed at how well it flowed in the game. Red Dead Redemption did something I'm not sure I've seen in a game before, some of its music actually had lyrics. It was very interesting, it was sparsely used but when it was it very much had a very movie like feel to it. It made things feel very epic. I was very impressed with the music in this game, and I don't get to say that often.

I thought the writing was done very well too. Like I said, the story kept me interested until the very end and not once did I find myself bored or thought something was tedious. Often while playing video games I watch a movie or TV, with Red Dead Redemption I tried this and couldn't. I got so sucked into the game and what everyone was saying I would just stop paying attention to everything else entirely.

At the end of the day this is pretty much Grand Theft Auto set 100 years in the past... but Red Dead Redemption pulled me in far more then probably any GTA game ever has. Everything in this game just clicked for me. I finished it and just thought "Wow!"

Sure, Red Dead Redemption had a few minor flaws here and there, but nothing major. There were so many great things about this game that a few minor things couldn't stop it from being absolutely amazing.

If you're a fan of Grand Theft Auto games, if you've just been been waiting for a great western game, or if you just want a phenomenal game, Red Dead Redemption is a game that you need to play.

Squid.

Mafia - PS2

Mafia. Ahhhh, memories.

I played Mafia on the PC when it was released back in 2002. At that time I absolutely loved it, I had a great time playing it... up until the race mission. As much as I tried I simply couldn't beat that damn mission. I must have tried thirty times to no avail. About the only advice people had was to beat it using a controller... which I didn't have. So I got stuck and finally gave up on the entire game.

When I first got my PS2 and was looking for games I noticed Mafia for $5. I immediately picked it up. I remembered how much fun I had with it on my PC and now with a controller I could finally beat that damn racetrack mission.

I was excited when I finally got around to playing it, but that excitement quickly turned to frustration several hours in.

The first thing I noticed is that this game is dark. Not since Doom3 have a played a game so hampered by it's lighting. Driving at night quickly get annoying when you slam into cars that you can barely see ten feet in front of you. Occasionally there would be a shootout and the only way I could see where the person was is by the muzzle flash. Nothing I did worked, with no in game brightness setting I had to rely on my TVs, and even then it was still too dark.

I remember the driving in Mafia being very different, you couldn't really go speeding through town, you were driving '30s era cars. So high speed anything was really out of the question. What I don't remember is the cars handling poorly. It had nothing to do with them being older cars, or them not being able to go fast. They just handled incredibly poorly. It wouldn't have been such a problem if so many of the missions hadn't involved driving.

Timed missions. I know I've talked about how much I hate timed missions before, but Mafia brought it too a whole new level. A lot of the missions are timed, drive here before this amount of time passes. Get this person to this place in this amount of time. These missions would suck on their own, but pair it with the fact that the cars handle so poorly and you have a recipe for disaster.

The AI. I'm not sure if I have the right to complain about the AI in a game that's seven years old. A lot has changed since then. The AI was utter crap though. There were a few times when I hit a person who was just standing in the middle of the road. Not walking across it, just standing in it. Usually at night when I couldn't see them until it was way too late. Cars will turn left from the far right lane, people will get out of cars and step right into oncoming traffic. I'm all for hitting people, but in this game there are ramifications for it... the only problem being is that these people seem to WANT to be hit.

Gunfights in the game were incredibly difficult as well. I turned the sensitivity all of the way down and still had problems targeting people. Up and down was okay, but side to side I would completely overshoot the target. Killing people in a game about the mafia should not be problematic.

The load times. Dear God the load times. The load times were excruciating. I actually timed some of them, and they ranged between 30 and 40 seconds. 30 seconds doesn't seem like a long time, but it is when you're chasing someone and cross a bridge and all the sudden you have to wait 30 seconds to get back to the action. I did one mission where to load the mission would take 30 seconds, you would drive down the road and hit another loading screen... another 30 seconds. Problem being I had to retry this mission six or seven times. So it was 30 seconds of loading, drive for 10 seconds, load for 30 seconds and then the mission timer would run out 3 minutes later and I would have to do it all over again. So even though the mission took three minutes I had a minute plus of loading time. Not fun.

Either I remember this game a lot differently, or the PS2 version is just horrible. I remember a very fun game, a game that I wanted to play. Instead I got a game that about halfway through was just frustrating. Too many missions I had to retry, too many time I was frustrated... too many times I just wasn't having fun. About halfway through the game I just wanted to put on God mode so I could make it through the other half.

I wanted Mafia to be the game that I remembered, unfortunately it just wasn't.

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.

The Ren & Stimpy Show Presents: Stimpy's Invention - Review

I love Ren & Stimpy. I used to watch the show all the time growing up. I still have a Stimpy doll that farts and tongue comes out when you squeeze its stomach... and yet I remember almost nothing about the show. I remember a few of the characters and the general feel of the show, but I couldn't tell you the plot of even one episode. So when it came time to give this game a whirl I was kind of excited to play it, perhaps it would bring back some of those long lost memories.

First off, let me say this: This game is incredibly short. Not Contra short, but getting there. It took me about an hour to beat the entire game. Not that it wasn't a fun hour, but I kind of expected my game to last longer then three episodes of the TV show it's based off of.

Overall Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention was enjoyable. It captured the wackiness and fun of the TV show. I enjoyed how you controlled one of the characters with the other being AI controlled. Sure the character you weren't controlling usually fell off of things and overall was kind of dumb but Powdered Toast Man always brought them back fairly quickly, plus you constantly used the other character for "special moves". Need to get up somewhere high? Ren would squeeze Stimpy and you'd shoot up like a rocket. Need to hit a far away target? Stimpy can pick up and throw Ren like a boomerang. There's tons of special moves that you'll use throughout the game. Most of them being very quirky and fun.

Now on to the bad. One of the special moves I had a very hard time with. It was when you pressed UP + C which is supposed to make you do a special move to get to higher points. I had a difficult time getting it to work, I would say it only worked about a third of the time. The only problem being, it could possibly have been my controller. I only have one Genesis controller and who knows how well it works. But let's just say that it's not my controller, even if this is the case while it was annoying, it certainly wasn't game breakingly annoying.

Also I would have liked to have seen different special moves for the characters. While they technically have different moves, those moves do the exact same thing. So pressing UP + C as Ren would make you squeeze air out of Stimpy and shoot you up like a rocket, with Stimpy it would make you turn Ren into a helicopter.. both of these just you to higher places. I would have liked to have used separate characters for separate things, you can beat the entire game as just one character. I would have liked to have NEEDED to use both characters to beat the game.

Also, I would have liked the game to be a longer.

Sure there are cons to this game, but other than the the length of this game I would say they're rather insignificant. This was a fun game and really did well in preserving the entire feel of the TV show. If you're a fan of Ren & Stimpy and want a fun but short game, this is for you. I'm also guessing this game would be pretty fun playing two player mode. If you can pick this game up for $5 or $6 I would say to give it a go.

Squid.

Goldeneye - Review

Take off the rose colored glasses people.

If you read about Goldeneye on the internet long enough you'll find that the majority of people agree that God came down to Mount Sinai and handed the game to Moses.

Artists rendition.

Everyone loves this game. Everyone agrees that this is one of the best games ever made. Everyone thinks this games STILL holds up to modern day games. Everyone but me.

Goldeneye was a great game. Goldeneye is not still a great game. Goldeneye is still an okay game.

I was very excited to replay Goldeneye, I enjoyed this game very much when it was released. I always enjoyed first person shooters and they were probably my favorite genre back in the day... but first person shooters rarely translated well to the consoles. Before Goldeneye the only FPS that I remember enjoying at all on the console was a Sega Genesis game called Zero Tolerance. I was pretty much raised as a PC gamer, until recently I would say that I was almost exclusively a PC gamer. So I had a wealth of great first person shooter games to choose from. So when I first heard about Goldeneye I was very intrigued about how good everyone seemed to think it was. And it was! Goldeneye was a very good console FPS, and was probably a lot of peoples introduction to the genre.

For it's time. Going back to it now I really started to notice Goldeneye's many flaws. The problem I have is that I'm not sure if the flaws are the games problem or if it's a technology problem. I could go on about how the graphics seems absolutely archaic now, but I know that it's not the games problem it's a technology problem. So I don't know if that's something I can legitimately complain about.

But there are things in it that turned what could have been a fun game from the past into a frustrating mess.

The AI is hit or miss in this game, I understand that this is most likely a technology problem, but there's times in the game where it feels more like a game issue. Mostly because there is times where the AI is spot on, in fact I will say throughout the game the AI is good for it time... but at other points it absolutely awful. There were times that I could stand five feet in front of a bad guy and he wouldn't even notice me... however there were also times when I'd be getting shot and had no idea where it was coming from because the guy was so far away the N64 couldn't even render out to that distance.

I thanked God for auto-aim in this game, that actual aiming in this game was just too non-responsive for it to be very helpful. The auto-aim really helped. Sometimes. It was hit or miss... quite literally. There were times where the auto-aim was spot on and worked wonderfully, but there where other times when I pointed my gun at the person and managed to shoot an entire magazine without even hitting the person.

This game also loved two of my most hated things in video games. Escort missions and timed missions. There weren't a lot of timed missions, but the few that there were turned out kind of annoying. There were however quite a few escort missions. I'm not sure who's genius idea it was to invent a mission in a game that paired you up with a horribly underpowered person that had a tendency to be killed, but I hate them. I hate them with all my heart. If Natalia got killed one more time in the control room mission I swear I was going to throw my controller through the TV set.

The objectives. Each mission you had certain objectives that you needed to complete before you would successfully finish that mission. The problem being that the objectives weren't always all that clear. There were times when you had to talk to a certain person, but unfortunately a lot of the people looked alike. There were several occasions where I would walk into a room and shoot the person I was supposed to talk to because he looked like a bad guy, hell occasionally the person I was supposed to talk to had a gun. You could also finish the missions without completing the objective, which would cause you to fail that mission. This wouldn't have been a problem except that occasionally to finish a mission all you needed to do was walk through a door. So if you hadn't finished all the objectives and you just happen to see a door that looks like all the other doors, that might be where the mission ends. It doesn't give you any warning about not finishing the objectives, it just lets you fail the mission making you start again from the very beginning. Which leads me to my next point...

Normally I hate save points, but ANYTHING would have been a nice. A save point, a checkpoint, something to save my progress in a level. There's nothing more frustrating than dying at the end of a mission and realizing you have to start all the way over from the first. There were levels that I had to play several times to beat, you know what's not all that awesome? Having to start at the beginning each time.

At the end of the day Goldeneye was fun and still holds a bit of nostalgia for me, but people really need to see it for what it is. Occasionally I'll hear people talk about how kids today should really play classic games before they start into games nowadays. We need to get over that. You know what? Some older games still are good, but for the most part the reason they're good is because you remember them being good. For someone who has never played them there's no sentimental value to them. To these people they're just old games that can't compete with new ones. Sure new games owe a lot to old games, if there wasn't Wolfenstein there might not have been Doom and without Doom they're might not have been Half Life, but that doesn't need you need to play Doom to appreciate Half Life. Was Goldeneye a great game in its time? Very much so, up until Halo was made it was probably one of the best console first person shooters. Is it still a great game that everyone should have to play? No. It just doesn't hold up to the test of time. Now it's a good game that is surrounded by way too much nostalgia.

Let the hate mail begin.

Squid.

Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat - Review

I remember a few things about Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat when I originally played it. I remember enjoying it, I remember thinking it was very fun, and I remember getting fairly far in the game. This time around things were a bit different. First off, as far as I can tell I didn't get far in the game at all. My original save was maybe three to four hours into the game. And as for the liking and enjoying it? Boy how times have changed.

Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat isn't a bad game per se, but it does have a ton of little things that all added up to me not really enjoying myself while playing it. It was the little things here and there that turned what could have been a very fun game into something that was frustrating and annoying.

First things first, the targeting. There is none. Before I go off about this I just want to say that I'm not sure there was targeting in games on the Xbox, it might not have been capable of it... but good god does this game need it. What I'm talking about is locking on to one target. If I want to throw a keg of black powder at a bad guy, I want it to hit. In this game I don't know how many times my hits were off to the side because I wasn't looking directly at my target. This goes for the land battles as well as the sea battles.

The camera. The camera wasn't awful on land, but at sea it occasionally would get very annoying. By the end of the game I had pretty much figured it out, but camera angles should be something very intuitive and natural. Not something I have to "figure out."

The voice acting. The voice acting ranged from awful to decent. I've heard worse, but I've also certainly heard better.

The goddamn fetch quests. Hey! Katrina! I need you to find these stars for me. Hey! Katrina! Would you see if you can also find these headhunter masks? There's several of these in the game. You have to find some trinkets for some person. And of course they're scattered all over the many lands. Now granted only one of these types of quests is mandatory to do to finish the game but it was still annoying as hell. Especially when you considered that they gave you no real clues as to where some of these items were. Not even a "Hey, this item is on this island." You were supposed to go exploring and find them for yourself, or have found them in the past. I finally had to get a walkthrough to find some of the items because I had no clue as to where they were. It ruined the pace of the game completely for me. I didn't want to have to wander from island to island trying to find a treasure chest. Especially when I had to go a loading screen every new island I went to, and loading screens is where I tended to get dirty disc errors.

I'm not saying that all of Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat was bad. Exploring the different islands was kind of fun, the story was decent, and the different islands where very well themed and each had their own feel to them. The bad guys were interesting and the bosses were fun, though some where incredibly difficult. I think the thing that disappoints me the most is that it seems with a little polishing the game could have been so much better. It had a lot of appeal and could have potentially been a very good game, but the things it had working against it just turned it into a mediocre game.

Squid.

Paladin's Quest - Review

I have a soft spot in my heart for SNES games, especially SNES RPGs. The Super Nintendo was really when I got into role playing games, it started with Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I think I was old enough that the games and their stories really clicked. Sure, I played RPGs on the NES but I don't think I truly understood and enjoyed them until I was a bit older. So anytime I pick up an SNES RPG I get a tad bit nostalgic.

Paladin's Quest doesn't offer you anything new and exciting that you won't find in other RPG of that era, but it does do old RPG standards well and does offer up a few little things here and there that certainly keep things interesting.

The first thing you'll notice is that despite the fact that you'll be using magic you have no MP meter. Whenever you use a magic spell it drains directly from your health meter. At first I wasn't a big fan of this, but the further I got into the game the more I understood and came to like it. Some of the spells can use up to 200 HP, when you only have 1300 and the bad guys are also damaging you? You have to know when and when not to use your magic. It does certainly make some battles interesting, especially the end battle.

The way your spells gain power is also kind of interesting: the more you use the spell the more powerful it gets. This is a blessing and curse. Some of your spells will kick ass while other lesser used ones will be horribly underpowered. So it's best to kind of use magic throughout the game, unfortunately I wasn't really aware of this had some really crappy spells at the end. The way you learn spells is also kind of interesting, instead of learning individual spells you learn spirits. Learning a spirit will give you all of the spells related to that spirit. So say you learn the Lightning spirit you'll learn several lightning related spells.

Another interesting thing that Paladin's Quest does is the party system. You can have four members in your party like most RPGs, but you only have two party members who are consistent. The other members are various mercenaries that you will hire throughout the game. Each mercenary has their own set of unique weapons and spells at your disposal, and there's a lot of them speckled throughout the game for you to choose from.

Now on to the bad, though really it's only two minor complaints. There's a lot of level grinding, though there was level grinding in all RPGs of that era. It's been a while since I've played an SNES RPG so I can't really say if there's more or less in this game then there was in other games. The other thing was inventory. EVERYTHING is written in shorthand form. A paralyzing knife is a Para kn, a boomerang is a Bmg, and a photon cannon is a Pht cn. It will get very confusing and you probably wont know what a lot of things are, I highly suggest this website it will tell you what all of the weapons/armor/items are as well as a ton of other helpful information. It certainly helped me out while playing.

Overall Paladin's Quest is a fun game but nothing really mindblowing. It's certainly worth playing and will easily give you fourty to sixty hours of gameplay. You can pick it up fairly cheaply on eBay, and it would definitely be worth the fifteen or so bucks it will cost you, especially if you like SNES era RPGs.

Squid.