Sega Superstar Tennis
Genre: Sports
Developer: Sumo Digital
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 03/18/08
Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Genre: FPS/Survival Horror
Developer: Monolith
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 3/11/08
Monolith seems to have something of a hard-on for the horror genre and finding interesting ways to implement it into the FPS genre, like some sort of gun-toting undead version of PB&J. That’s not too shocking, actually; I mean, I thought Blood was pretty horrifying, myself.
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: Rockstar Vancouver, Mad Doc Software
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Release Date: 03/04/08
Bully was one of those weird games that, based on the concept behind it, really had no right being as good as it was. Though the product was besieged by controversy for months prior to its release, some imagined (Columbine simulation) and some […]
I knew going into this that reviewing Dynasty Warriors 6 would be tough. As a fan of the series, it’s hard for someone like me to articulate the game’s strengths and weaknesses to everyday gamers that don’t normally play the game, and avoid falling into the trap of just saying “if you’re a fan, you’ll like it anyway because only faggots like this game”. If anything, reading most reviews of Musou style games - Samurai Warriors and Gundam included - is fun if only because most of them read as if they were written the day the game was announced, as reviewers ignore the specifics of the game itself to rail against Koei’s cash cow, the company itself, and the gamers who will buy the game regardless of what he says, and how dare they! Then of course, they go back to masturbating over Halo.
While I had every intention of playing and reviewing a game that I’ve enjoyed for years, I didn’t know quite what was in store for me, and all of the changes that were made. Character redesigns? Weapons changes? Sun Shang Xiang… with a bow? I wasn’t sure how to take these changes, with the exception of the fact that they did make the very same SSX even more fetching than they did in prior games. But I did know that the deletion of seven characters (Jiang Wei, Xing Cai, Pang De, Da Qiao, Zuo Ci, Meng Huo and Zhu Rong) didn’t sit well with me, as it didn’t with the fanbase in general.
Were these the welcome changes that outsiders had been calling for for years? Or are they going to make a community allergic to change recoil in horror? And how has Koei’s money franchise made the transition to the next generation? Let’s find out…
Genre: Racing
Platform: XBOX 360 (also on PS3)
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
Developer: Criterion
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: 1/22/08
Welcome to Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Well, actually, this Paradise City doesn’t have any girls, and if you are looking at the grass, you’re going too slow.
The newest title in the […]
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore
Genre: Singing/Rhythm game
Developer: Blitz Games
Publisher: Konami
Release Date: 02/05/2008
Y’know, out of all the people who could have produced a game like Rock Band, I always kind of figured Konami would have done it first. I mean, while in America they don’t exactly have a ton of peripheral-based games out on the market, […]
Culdcept Saga
Genre: Board/Card RPG
Developer: Omiya Soft/Jamsworks
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
Release Date: 02/05/2008
The original Culdcept was one of those “niche” titles that has a loyal (but small) fan following, though most gamers have no idea what the holy hell it even is. One part Monopoly and one part Magic: The Gathering, Culdcept was an ambitious title that […]
Devil May Cry 4
Genre: Action
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: 02/05/2008
So, Devil May Cry 4.
It’s not easy to know what to say about this one. The first game was and still is awesome, balls-to-the-wall ass-kicking of the highest order, and the third game was a challenge and a half… but the second game was, well, boring crap. […]
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Genre: Hack and Slash/Action RPG
Developer: Blue Side
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: 01/08/2008
Quick note before we begin: Phantagram is the development house that owns the Kingdom Under Fire franchise, but according to Blue Side’s website, their team consists of all of the core developers responsible for any and all Kingdom Under […]
NFL Tour
Genre: Football
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Big
Release Date: 1.8.08
The history of NFL Street is not a very pretty one. The franchise has toiled for the past four years as sort of an awkward sibling of the far superior (and far more successful) NBA Street franchise. As much as EA’s tried to shove NFL […]
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