MadGamer132's GameSpot Friend's Reviews MadGamer132's GameSpot Friend's Reviews MadGamer132's GameSpot Friend's Reviews en-us Copyright (c)1995-2013 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved. http://www.gamespot.com 20 Sun, 19 May 2013 14:22:01 -0700 GameSpot MadGamer132's GameSpot Friend's Reviews http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/shared/promos/misc/gs_logo.gif http://www.gamespot.com 135 40 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:26:37 -0700 kbaily reviewed Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two for the Wii U... http://www.gamespot.com/disney-epic-mickey-2-the-power-of-two/user-reviews/810869/platform/wii-u/ ...and gave it a 5.0.

Ok I'll be honest. I liked the first Epic Mickey. It was an ambitious idea and despite some issues with the clumsy camera and wonky combat, I found the story compelling enough to work through it.

I was really hoping when the sequel was announced that perhaps they'd be able to fix the issues with the first and make a better game. Sadly this is not the case. You know a game is bad when the multiplatform sequel sells LESS than the Wii exclusive first game. I really get the impression that Warren Spector wanted to improve the game but the heads at Disney wanted to rush out a sequel to make money off kids before they forgot or lost interest. So much of this game reeks of that.

Ok the story this time is Wasteland is rebuilding itself now that Mickey destroyed the phantom blot. Suddenly mysterious quakes start occurring and the Mad Doctor shows up and sings about how he's changed and wants to help. Oswald goes with him while Ortensia and Gus the Gremlin wire up a TV to bring Mickey back. The first game's story felt compelling because you wanted to see where Mickey and Oswald's dynamic was going to go but here, they're all friends on an adventure and it's dull. They even have full voice acting and yet I find myself wishing I could go back to the grunts and squeaks of the first.

Gameplay is a mess. First of all they still didn't fix the camera which was the biggest issue many had with the first game. Also Mickey still lacks any sort of lock on for his paint attacks so fighting baddies is a test of patience. To make things worse, this game decided that having 2 player co-op was the way to go and like Resident Evil 5, your AI partner is incompetent. Oswald carries a remote to use on various items as well as he can fly to carry you over gaps but getting him to do stuff tries your patience further. There's no online co-op so if you can get a friend to help you, do so. Otherwise you'll be waiting forever for Oswald's brain to work and he activates the thing you were standing beside for 5 minutes. Despite trying to bring in new elements like magical ink or not focusing quite as much on the good/evil thing, you'll mostly find yourself just trying to move on to the next thing and not even bothering finding all the collectables.

Also this is the first time ever where playing with the Wiimote(or Move) controller is BETTER than a traditional one. Why? Well when using the regular controller, you have to move the brush reticule with the right analog stick so if you have the Wiimote or Move, you're better off with that.

Also the game is glitchy as I'll get out. I'm talking Sonic '06 levels of glitchiness. Load times are long, slow down shows up when too many baddies are on screen and at one point I actually fell through the floor and got stuck. I can't believe how unfinished it feels. Not to mention a lot of areas from the first game have been reused.

This is just disappointing. There was so much potential for this as a series. It could've been a great game for parents and kids to play together exploring a fun Disney world but nope, the corporate heads saw a big pile of cash and said "screw it kids are dumb, just crank out a half assed sequel and we'll make easy money."

What a shame.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two for the Wii U..." was posted by kbaily on Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:26:37 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/disney-epic-mickey-2-the-power-of-two/user-reviews/810869/platform/wii-u/ Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:11:04 -0700 kbaily reviewed Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the 3DS... http://www.gamespot.com/paper-mario-sticker-star/user-reviews/810571/platform/3ds/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

I'll be honest, like most of you, I wasn't thrilled with the choices of this Paper Mario installment. Super Paper Mario tried using the environments and such for a platformer which wasn't bad but not overly endearing and this one sort of returns to the turn based combat and yet doesn't.

As Paper Mario goes, this one has a pretty weak story especially when compared to Thousand Year Door and Super. It's the Mushroom Kingdom Sticker festival celebrating the arrival of the Sticker Comet when Bowser shows up and steals the power of a Royal Crown Sticker that makes him all shiny. He grabs Peach, leaving the festival in ruins. And that's it. Mario of course has to go to the rescue but yeah, no fun new characters to meet, except for a lovably simple Wiggler, no side story with Peach or Bowser and what they were doing while Mario was running around. You're only new friend is Kersti, a bossy silvery crown sticker who will go down in the annuals as one of the worst Mario characters ever. Fi was more useful than her. So yeah where Paper Mario was known for mixing up the tired "Bowser kidnaps Peach formula" this one almost reverts back to the first Paper Mario taking place in the good old Mushroom Kingdom with the usual grass, desert, forest, ice, etc. levels. Though it still tries to have that self-referenial sense of humor.

So this is how the combat works now. It is back to turn based but instead of having a menu of attacks, you collect stickers scattered throughout the levels and purchase in shops then select them in battle. So your book will be full of jump shoes and hammers. Also scattered throughout the land are "things" which are random items like fans, staplers, cats, that can be converted into stickers and these work as suped up attacks, though many times I found myself hoarding these things for boss fights. They also have special functions elsewhere in levels to open new paths or clear out roadblocks giving this more of a Zelda or Metroid feel of gameplay. The nice thing is, once an item is found, you can repurchase it at a store in town as opposed to hunting around for it again.

Kersti's one useful thing she does is "Paperizing" where she lifts you off the page and this is used to place stickers and scraps in places in order to progress.

So since battles no longer increase HP or attack power, why not bypass them, well as you find out later, battling gets you coins and in many cases stickers which you do need. At first having only a couple album pages limits you but towards the end you'll have more pages then coins to buy stickers to fill them. To fill more attack slots Kersti will let you spin for 3 coins to increase your attacks per turn and like with other Paper Marios, learning to time attacks and blocks is crucial to success.

I kept going back and forth on this game. For a while I stopped playing it altogether getting annoyed at Kersti waiting until half way through a boss fight to tell me that if I had "this" item I could beat it easily. Hunting around for additional exits and being forced to fight enemies with no purpose. But I went back and gave it another chance and found myself getting into it. It's not a horrible game especially if you judge it on its own merits instead of trying to compare it to the rest of the Mario RPGs. And I found myself addicted to filling up the sticker museum.

Much like NSMB2, it's perfectly servicable, plays well and can be fun if you let it and don't expect too much but I really hope the next Paper Mario installment steps it up a bit.

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"kbaily reviewed Paper Mario: Sticker Star for the 3DS..." was posted by kbaily on Tue, 23 Apr 2013 01:11:04 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/paper-mario-sticker-star/user-reviews/810571/platform/3ds/ Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:51:24 -0700 kbaily reviewed The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX for the Game Boy Color... http://www.gamespot.com/the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-dx/user-reviews/810570/platform/gbc/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Despite being a Zelda fan, somehow I missed Link's Awakening the first time around. Probably because I was a stupid child who owned a Sega Game Gear instead of a Game Boy so it eluded me for years.

Thankfully the 3DS came along with the Eshop and this was one of my first purchases as this and the two Oracle games are the only Zeldas I haven't played (at least until the new 3DS title comes out).

Much like Majora's Mask, Link's Awakening is more a spirtual, personal journey for Link. Following the "Dead Link" timeline after the Oracle games (according to Nintendo's Zelda timeline), Link is sailing the high seas training for the return of Ganon when a storm leaves him shipwrecked on a strange island. A young girl named Marin finds him on the beach and Link awakens and learns that if he wants to leave this island he must find 8 magical instruments to awaken The Wind Fish, a creature who sleeps in a giant egg on top of the mountain. Ok then. There is no Zelda, no Triforce and no Ganon and unlike MM, no real threat of the world ending.

One of the more unique aspects of this title is the Mario character cameos. One of the first folks you meet is a pudgy mustachoied man named Tarin who's running around the woods looking for mushrooms and turns into a racoon. (Mario be trippin) But also a local resident has a pet Chain Chomp and various dungeon enemies resemble Mario baddies and even Wart, the one time villian of SMB2 makes a cameo as the frog king as well as Kirby and Dr. Wright from the SNES SimCity. Makes for what could almost be an amusing crossover.

Gameplay is pretty standard Zelda fare you've come to know using the template setup by it's predecessor "A Link to the Past." You have eight main dungeons as well as the added "Color Dungeon" for the DX version which allows you to enhance your attack or defense. You have an easier time getting around the island thanks to phone booths placed around where Urial will give you hints as to which way to go. Also you have a few worthwhile side missions like a long trading sequence that will get you a super powerful boomerang and collecting seashells to make your sword more powerful. While Kolohint Island seems small, there's a fair amount of stuff crammed in here but never feels like it drags on too long.

If I had any complaints is that some bosses feel a bit too easy. Many bosses I was able to beat within seconds of them appearing on stage. Of course getting the boomerang really makes the game easy especially the final boss. Also the last two dungeons are somewhat overly complicated in their design. They involve way too much backtracking and doing things in a certain order. I had to take a look at zeldadungeon.net to figure out how to finish them at one point.

But still I got a good sense of satisfaction once I did finish the game and experience the rather bittersweet ending. If you're looking for something to download to your 3DS, this shouldn't be missed.

Get the full article at GameSpot

]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-dx/user-reviews/810570/platform/gbc/ Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:32:20 -0700 kbaily reviewed Skylanders Giants for the Wii... http://www.gamespot.com/skylanders-giants/user-reviews/809122/platform/wii/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Skylanders like Angry Birds, Wii Sports, Facebook games, loves to be hated on by gamers because it's popular with kids and of course it was made by the evil overlords of Activision as a way to get kids to spend their hard earned allowance money on pieces of plastic...say the same gamers who have shelves of gaming action figures doing nothing but collecting dust and ensuring they never get laid, along with a closet of old Guitar Hero/Rock Band instruments. *ahem*

So the first Skylanders came out as sort of a "reimagining" of Spyro who at that point was shell of his PS1 self and was basically slapped into Activision's new toy collecting game for BRAND NAME RECOGNITION! Though Skylanders has almost nothing to do with Spyro and probably why his name was dropped from this one's title. Despite most gamers expecting Skylanders:Spyro's Adventure to fail miserably, it instead made tons of tons of money. So a sequel seemed inevitable.

I came into possession of Skylanders Giants through a friend who won it in a raffle but already has the PS3 so this one was handed off to me. First and foremost you do not need to buy all the figures to beat the story mode. You can beat it with the starter set and if you have the first game, the "Portal Master" set is cheaper containing just the game and Tree Rex. If you want to find all the items in story mode you only need one of each element which is means you'd need 5 figures in addition to the 3 that come with the starter pack. Also all Series 1 figures work with Giants. So in short there's no need to buy every single figure if all you plan to do is play through the story mode.

Anyway the story goes that Kaos aka the love child of Darth Maul and Mini Me as voiced by Invader Zim, was banished to Earth and turned into a toy however, he breaks free and manages to return to Skylands via the in store game display. CURSE YOU ACTIVISION!! Once back, he sets out to find the lost city of Arkus, an ancient place that is said to hold the item that can control an army of giant killer robots. So basically taking ideas from "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army." The NPCs from the first game return Flynn (voiced by Patrick Warburton) and Cali gather the Skylanders along with the newly found Giants and set out to stop Kaos once more. Honestly the story while not the deepest actually has some charm and humor to it and you meet some likeable characters along the way though Flynn will start to get annoying near the end but then again that might be part of his character.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward. There's no jumping, just fighting and exploration. Thankfully the game has hard setting so if you're over the age of 8 playing this, might as well crank it up to hard. Certain types of characters can get to special places. You can just barrel though the stage or take the time to find all the hidden goodies. I do think the devs could've stepped up a bit more. I know it's a kids' game but they don't need to make it so blantantly obivious of what has to be done. I will say on hard setting the game actually does get fairly tough around the 4th level though some enemies feel a bit cheap. The addition of the giants mostly just leads to certain place that require one of the big guys to move something large or smash a wall but their larger size tends to make them slow so it's a trade off.

Aside from the story mode the game has a fair amount of content. The hub is Flynn's ship where you can participate in Battle Arenas and Heroic challenges and like Pokemon work on upgrading each Skylander. There's also multiplayer where two figures can be placed on the portal at once but sadly no online gameplay which is a shame because there's potential for a big online community and with other kids toys like Webkins, I think there was a missed opportunity.

If you can get past the whole "game that exists to sell you toys" aspect, it's not a horrible game. Not the deepest game but honestly its nice to see a developer besides Nintendo actually put some effort forth in making a decent game geared at kids.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Skylanders Giants for the Wii..." was posted by kbaily on Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:32:20 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/skylanders-giants/user-reviews/809122/platform/wii/ Sun, 17 Feb 2013 09:50:08 -0800 kbaily reviewed LittleBigPlanet Karting for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/littlebigplanet-karting/user-reviews/807627/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 6.5.

Man what a disappointment. How did this end up being so medicore? You take the developers of the fun Modnation Racers and let them work with the fun, imaginative world of Little Big Planet and you should have a great kart racer right? RIGHT?

Sadly LBP Karting while not awful is just...boring. It's hard to say what went wrong but let's see.

Well part of it is, this game was already made but called Modnation Racers but while it still has the fun creation tool, a lot of the things that made Modnation stick out like upgradeable items and building up a shield are gone.

There's a story in this. This time the greedy grabby horde invaded Craftworld and Sackboy must take to his car and set off to stop them. You go through a storymode playing through races and battle challenges trying to get 3rd or higher to move on. The real problem comes is that instead of just focusing on racing type challenges, it throws in weird mini games, first and person racing challenges. There is the desire to go back to level to collect all the goodies for the creation tools of course.

The creation part is the thing that will decide if LBP Karting is for you. But once again if you already have Modnation Racers why bother? But there is a nice level editor and the charm of the world of LBP is still in tact. Though I don't see why costumes and items from the 2 LBP games couldn't have been carried over to this in some way.

Levels themselves honestly feel really bland. They literally took stages from past LBP games and rearranged them in 3D kart tracks. It tries to have it's own personality like using the grappling hook to swing over pits and using the creatornator to gain items but honestly it was hard to get any sort of adranaline rush from the races.

Now I'll admit that it didn't help that the same time I got this I also got Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed and when you put LBP Karting up against that one, it really seems dull and uninspired.

Sony fans, I'm sorry. If you want a good kart racer to play, you have better options. If you want a creation tool, Modnation does it better and if you want a good answer to MK, Sonic's got better ones.

Better luck next time Sackboy.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed LittleBigPlanet Karting for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Sun, 17 Feb 2013 09:50:08 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/littlebigplanet-karting/user-reviews/807627/platform/ps3/ Sun, 17 Feb 2013 09:35:02 -0800 kbaily reviewed Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-and-all-stars-racing-transformed/user-reviews/807626/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

For years Sonic tried and failed to make a mascot racer to rival Mario. Fans would like to forget Sonic Drift and Sonic R and Riders while interesting wasn't exactly a pick up and play party type of game. Finally Sega made Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing where finally Sega made a competent kart racer to rival Mario and was surprisingly fun.

All too often with Sega I worry when they have a success because all too often they're the case of the guy who wins the lottery, immediately buys a big house and soon after the house falls apart because they don't know how to maintain it and end up worse off than they started. Luckily with Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed, Sega avoided this pitfall and instead is more like the guy who wins the lottery, stays in his house and improves it.

Sega clearly listened to the positive feedback from the first game and set out to improve. First and foremost the roster got a major overhaul. Sonic and friends are still there along with a few returning friends but others have been swapped out for new Sega representatives. Nights, Gillius Thunderhead, Vyse and Meme replaced characters like Ryo, Chu Chus, Big, and fans will be torn on this. While it's nice seeing some characters join in, some of the ones that got dropped were disappointing. Also for some reason Wreck-it-Ralph and Danica Patrick are here. Why? Seriously Sega you have all those great characters, why waste two spots on NASCAR and Disney? Also PC owners get a few exclusive characters from Team Fortress and Metal Sonic and Alex Kidd were special free DLC characters. So you'll have some good and bad when it comes to characters used in this game.

The biggest enhancement to the standard kart racing formula is the ability for your car to transform into a boat and plane mid race. You'll be driving along and when you go through a blue transform gate the car will change into a boat or plane. For the most part this is pretty fluid though the switch to flight can be a bit jarring but it puts MK7 and Diddy Kong Racing to shame of how well it's implemented.

The other improvement is a much more diverse collection of tracks. The first game had 3 tracks with the same theme. 3 beach, 3 Casino, 3 Haunted Mansion and so on. This time around we see a lot more variety. Recurring favorites return as well but now we get to see an HD Starlight Carnival, a trippy Nights dreamworld, a Shinobi Japanese garden, and a great Skies of Arcadia full of awesome airship battles. And on top of that the tracks themselves change in some cases. Such in Rouge's Landing, first you're driving through a village, next thing you know you're flying through the middle of a Sky Pirate air battle. It keeps the action fresh and exciting.

As kart racing gameplay itself goes, the action is fast paced and exciting and unlike Mario Kart there does seem to be greater focus on skill. You do have items but many can be dodged. Like a character can sent a swarm of bees out in front but it's possible to weave through them as well as the glove pickup allows you to catch items and throw them at opponents. There's a lot of focus on boost and drifting as well but sadly no drafting was implemented again which I would've really liked. Also the all Star moves return however they don't have as much flair as they did the first time around. You're car just turns into plane mode and auto pilots though for a bit and you can attack though it likes to pick bad times to end itself like right next to a sharp turn into a bottomless pit.

Solo players have the option of the World Tour, a sort of career mode where you gain stars to unlock mods for your karts, new tracks and characters. Sadly I preferred the Sega Miles point system in the previous game where you just racked up points to unlock what you wanted. Now you have to grind a lot of races over and over again on a hard rank to get all those stars if you want all your Sega friends to be playable and later World Tour challenges get brutally hard.

The game is abound with various modes both on and offline. You still have Grand Prix, Time Trials, and most importantly a lot of more battle modes now. Online for the most part works well and is fairly lag free. Another neat feature is all tracks have little gold coins scattered about. Collecting these gives you chances at a slot machine to play while waiting for the next Vs. race to load up. This often yeilds starting a race with a special powerup.

If I had one complaint is the game doesn't allow for what I call "Mario Kart" controls. I prefer using the X button to accelerate rather than the right trigger and it would've been nice to have this option.

But honestly even if you're not a big Sega fan, this is easily the first Kart racer to be able to hold a candle to Mario since, maybe Crash Team Racing. Pick it up. It's a blast.

Get the full article at GameSpot

]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-and-all-stars-racing-transformed/user-reviews/807626/platform/ps3/ Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:46:25 -0800 kbaily reviewed PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/playstation-all-stars-battle-royale/user-reviews/807553/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

Of all the games that came out in 2012 none fascinated me more than Playstation All Stars Battle Royale. It wasn't nesscarily my most anticipated game or my favorite game but it was one I just wanted to experience. Some blew it off as a lame Smash Bros. knockoff with less popular, less iconic characters, Sony fans defended it thrilled to have a game of their own. Critic review ranged from "fun" to "boring."

So after a price drop, I finally picked up thanks to Sony putting that lovely online code you need so you can't buy it used.

Now first off I LOVE Smash Bros. as a series. I am not into the arcade like fighters of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat but Smash. Bros. gave us something unique in swapping out a health bar for a damage meter and making the object to knock your opponent out of the ring and you combine that with having Nintendo's iconic characters (and then some) coming together to kick the crap out of each other. It was fun, addictive and easy to pick up and play.

Honestly, I was surprised that as big as SSB is that it didn't have a million knockoffs like Mario Kart did. Sure we had TMNT Smash Up and a few anime ones but honestly I was more surprised companies like Sega didn't jump on this (seriously why does Sega All Stars Brawl NOT exist? Does Sega not want to make tons of money?) So to see Sony attempt to make their own answer to Smash Bros. did not surprise me. I wanted to see how it came out. I'm not opposed to something being a "clone" of something as long as it brings something new to the table.

Well you get a roster of 20 characters, with 2 new ones available for download. The nice thing is they're all available from the start so you don't have to spend hours solo unlocking anyone but at the same time it gives you less incentive to play solo as the only things you unlock are alternate costumes and animations. The roster is decent and Sony, while not as colorful or diverse as Nintendo, has a good amount of variety. Where else can a cartoon racoon and a rag doll go up against a killer clown and a fat princess? But also you have more generic white guys meaning when action gets crowded, it gets hard to see your character as more characters in this one have the same body type and aren't as colorful. Still it's better than what an Xbox mascot fighter roster would be. (Master Chief and...uh...um...) But at the same time I agree with the fans, third party or not the absence of Playstation 1 icons like Spyro, Crash, Cloud and Lara Croft is disapponting. Hell Metal Gear fans got stuck with Raiden on this one. And it's a shame fans got stuck with the "new" Dante instead of the one they wanted. If you're going to do a game like this, give the fans what they want.

Now onto gameplay. Enter South Park Ski Instructor: "If you go into this trying to play like Smash Bros. you're going to have a bad time." I must emphasize you CAN'T play this like SSB. It may look like SSB from screenshots, but plays completely differently. First of all, you can't fall or get thrown out of the stage. Stages are walled in and this forgos health meters as well. What you do is the more hits that connect earns you AP. You build up this power to 3 different levels and only when said level is reach can you do a super attack to KO opponents. This is how you win matches. On one hand, it's a unique strategy making you think if you want to build up to level 3 which almost always guarantees a hit or spam the lvl 1 attack. This though can be frustrating for some. You can spend an entire match punching, kicking, grabbing, hacking away with items but if none of your Supers KO anyone, you'll still lose and I will say this, there are some serious balance issues. Kratos is easily the Meta-Knight of this game. His hits always connect and he builds up AP at a staggering rate. So this is a system you're going to love or hate. But one thing is certain it DOES NOT play like Smash Bros.

The stages are rather nicely done meshing two gameworlds together. For example you start out in Metropolis from Ratchet and Clank but midway through GoW's Hydra shows up to wreak havoc and wrestle with Captain Qwark or my favorite, starting out in the Underworld dodging Hades attacks, when the Patapon show up and start singing and attacking Hades. You'll have that Patapon song stuck in your head for days. It's clever though the stage hazards aren't much of a threat since all they do is knock down AP

While obviously it outshines SSBB in the online department; No friend codes, mostly lag free, and short waiting times, the single player features are soley lacking. You can play through each character's story mode which is made up of some still's of the character's short story that lead them to the fighting realm. There is voice acting but whatever story is given is weak and forgettable. Ratchet's looking for bolts. Jak's looking for Ico. Toro's is rather funny as he's the only one aware he's in a video game. But the story still just bookend the arcade mode with the most amusing thing being when the two characters who have a "rivalry" meet up and talk smack for a second. These range from clever "Sackboy vs. Big Daddy" to WTF "Evil Cole and Fat Princess." The final boss was a clever idea. Polygon Man the early PS1 graphics demo is this game's "Master Hand" sadly he doesn't really do much. He shows up to talk and challenge you then sits in the background sending purple clones of other fighters while yapping in the background. Then he'll try to smash you with his chin, you punch his cheeks a few times. Repeat this and he's done. I did expect this to be a lot more interesting than it was.

But outside of each arcade story mode, there's some practice challenges to hone your skills and that's it. No massive Subspace story mode, no event matches, and as I said before the unlockables are rather "meh."

Maybe I'm being a little too hard on PSAll Stars. I still had fun with it and like SSB it's still fun to break out with friends but to me if Sony was wanting to make their own answer to Smash Bros. They should've have really gone out. Of course SSB64 was small with limited content when it came out so we can keep our fingers crossed that future installments will expand more.

Get the full article at GameSpot

]]> http://www.gamespot.com/playstation-all-stars-battle-royale/user-reviews/807553/platform/ps3/ Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:37:51 -0800 kbaily reviewed Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS... http://www.gamespot.com/super-mario-3d-land/user-reviews/807061/platform/3ds/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

So let's look at something. 3D Mario games and 2D Mario games play very differently. I'm not saying 3D Mario is bad. I'm saying it's different. In a 3D Mario it's very exploratory and puzzle based where 2D Mario is all about bouncing to the finish and this may explain why 2D Marios sell better. Look at the figures. More people bought NSMBWii than Mario Galaxy and it sucks but what can you do when the masses prove time and time again that they just want the same thing over and over again?

Super Mario 3D Land tries to implement 2D gameplay aspects into a 3D game and does it fairly well. Storywise we learn that Tanooki leaves blossom once every 20 years (lol) and Tanooki leaves have been spread across the land and this time not only can Mario and Luigi use them but also Bowser and his minions start using them as well. You have goombas as well as Bowser sporting tails as well.

As level design goes, it's still creative though familiar. While the level no longer rely on collecting stars, there's still a lot of puzzle solving and rooms to explore to find the Star coins and the levels do have a degree of challenge to them especially when you get the S levels once you beat the main game.

The Tanooki suit returns but Mario can't fly with it. It just allows him to hover and float slowly which helps given the game in order to be more like old 2D games removed stuff like grabbing ledges or an extra mid air move which is fine early on but those later, tougher levels I found myself needlessly dying because I couldn't grab a ledge or misjudged my jump. The 3D somewhat helps but seriously there's a reason most 3D platforming stars have either a double jump or a hover decsent. Also the first Tanooki suit doesn't turn Mario into a statue. A later version you find that's gray does allow for this though which is nice. The other new item is the boomerang bro costume which is neat for long range attacks and grabbing coins and such.

As with previous titles, if you die too many times you get the option to use a White Tanooki suit which grants invincibility as well as the magic P Wing which auto warps you to the goal. While some scoff at this. There were times when I got fed up and just used it. Plus you're more likely to die from falling which the white suit doesn't protect you from.

Once you beat the main game, a series of Special Worlds are unlocked and these are much more challenging. You get the option to play as Luigi who jumps higher but is also more slippery to control. This is where the statue Tanooki suit resides and the White suit and the P Wings don't exist here and I will say these levels were nearly frustrating at times. Many times I died because I couldn't grab a ledge or misjudged a jump or Luigi slid off the edge but if you think Mario games are too easy, give these a whirl.

Also it uses street pass where other players can give you Star Coins and powerups in Toad houses.

Overall the game is great. Not the most revolutionary game but more "new" than the "New" series. It uses the 3D fairly well and looks great and still an enjoyable title and easily one of the reasons to get a 3DS.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS..." was posted by kbaily on Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:37:51 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/super-mario-3d-land/user-reviews/807061/platform/3ds/ Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:15:48 -0800 kbaily reviewed Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition for the Wii... http://www.gamespot.com/kirbys-dream-collection-special-edition/user-reviews/807060/platform/wii/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Kirby had his 20th anniversary and in a rare surprise Nintendo released an anniversary collection and it's a pretty sweet deal and if you love the pink puffball, then it's worth owning.

First off, this collection contains 6 classic games. Kirby's Dreamland 1-3, Kirby's Adventure, Kirby Superstar, and Kirby 64 Crystal Shards which can all be played with the Wiimote held sideways, classic or GC controller. I will admit that I would've liked to have seen the GB games added to this as well as the GB port of Adventure was a much better version of the game. But the games look great though it would've been nice to see them reformatted for widescreen or perhaps the GB games with the Super Gameboy color palette but it was probably not possible.

Along with the collection of old games you get a timeline, a history book and a CD of Kirby music. Sadly unlike the CD that came with Skyward Sword, this is just the in game music, not a symphonic remix. Also contained on this is 3 episodes of Kirby's anime "Right Back at Ya." Though it is one of the better Nintendo based cartoons (better than Mario's or Link's and more true to it's source material), I would've gladly dropped these for a few more games.

Also included on the disc are a series of new challenges using the "Return to Dreamland" graphics. Magalor after apologizing for turning evil and trying to kill you and all, brings you to his ship to engage in some very addictive time trials though I get the impression had the Wii supported this, these would've been DLC for "Return to Dreamland" still they were some of the most fun I had with this and highly addictive especially if you're after that gold medal.

With this generation dealing out a lot of "collections" and myself owning 3 HD PS3 collections, Kirby's Dream Collection is one of the nicest compilations I've seen and had a lot of care put into this package and if you're a fan at $40 it's not a bad thing to have for your collection.

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"kbaily reviewed Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition for the Wii..." was posted by kbaily on Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:15:48 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/kirbys-dream-collection-special-edition/user-reviews/807060/platform/wii/ Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:58:26 -0800 kbaily reviewed Journey for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/journey/user-reviews/805788/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

I stand alone in the desert looking off into the distance. Where am I? How did I get here? I do not know. Around me the sand glistens...the haze surrounds me. Slowly I make my way up to the top of a nearby sand dune, around me are tons of graves and off in the distance...a mountain. For some reason I am drawn to it. I am not sure why but I know that this is where my journey begins.

I make my way through the rows of gravestones, the sand is thick and slows me down. When I divert too far from my path, the wind seems to blow me back. I come to what appears to be ruins of a building and dancing in the wind are a group of small red pieces of fabric. I sing a tune I know all too well and the pieces bind to me creating a beautiful scarf. Suddenly I can float and even fly for a short time. I never felt anything like this, as I drift down I realize that this is only good for a short amount of time, luckily I find more of these magic scarf pieces and as my scarf grows, so does my ability to sustain flight.

As I continue, I come to a large area where I learn that the magic red fabric pieces can be manipulated to make a bridge and at the top of this bridge I created by singing to the red scarf pieces, I find a large stone with etchings. As I sit to meditate on my findings, I am visited by a mysterious white cloaked figure who shows me images of a time long past....a great civiliation once dwelled where I now stand...they used the magic fabric to create their civilzation...but then...what happened? Some horrible cataclysm? Am I all that remains. My journey is long.

I continue and to my surprise I meet another pilgrim like myself with a red cloak and magic scarf. Not a word is uttered between us and yet we both know what we have to do and both of us desire to reach the mountain in the distance.

I slide down a large sand dune and my feat glide through the sand with the backdrop of the setting sun in the distance. I feel so free and alive, like nothing I ever felt before.

My elated feeling ceases as I head into the dark ruins of great buildings. It's dark and...my God, what sort of terrible creatures are these. They're like robotic dragons with giant eyes searching for me. Were these the things that destroyed the land of my ancestors. I am afraid but I have to continue.

The journey contines....

(seriously I couldn't think of any other way to review this)

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"kbaily reviewed Journey for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:58:26 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/journey/user-reviews/805788/platform/ps3/ Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:32:28 -0800 kbaily reviewed Pac-Man Championship Edition DX for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/pac-man-championship-edition-dx/user-reviews/803389/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

Back in the arcade days, Pac-Man was king. Besides Mario, it's hard to think of a more iconic video game character, in fact he was the first true video game "character" his predecessors were nameless ships or blips. But after the original arcade classic, it seemed as Pac-Man's subsequent sequels failed to capture the same magic and at one point he started trying to be like Mario with platformers, kart racers and party games and most of these....well..sucked.

Then came Pac-Man Championship edition DX. Now I'll admit that I simply thought this was just the arcade original with leaderboards and an HD coat of paint. I was wrong. This is not just a port of Pac-Man. This is Pac-Man on steroids.

Instead of simply clearing out the dots in the maze, you'll eat a string of dots followed bya fruit, then another string of dots appears and you'll eat that, eat the fruit and repeat. Each time, Pacy gets faster and more ghosts spawn. Many ghosts will be asleep and when you pass them, they wake up and start chasing you and next thing you know a rainbow army is on your tail, then you get a power pellet and chomp through the string of buggers for maximum points which is oh so satisfying.

On top of this, you get a variety of time modes and challenges and online leaderboards to compete for high scores.

And for extra flair you can choose from a variety of character models, background designs and music. You can even use the ugly Atari design.

Seriously, any old school gamer needs to play this. It is an adrenaline rush that will leave your fingers sore in a good way. And it's free for Playstation Plus users so you have no excuse.

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"kbaily reviewed Pac-Man Championship Edition DX for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:32:28 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/pac-man-championship-edition-dx/user-reviews/803389/platform/ps3/ Sun, 30 Sep 2012 08:12:07 -0700 kbaily reviewed Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS... http://www.gamespot.com/kid-icarus-uprising/user-reviews/800678/platform/3ds/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

I am old school. I remember playing the original Kid Icarus on the NES. It was my babysitter's copy because the actual game was pretty hard to come by in the days before the internet and used games. Now old Pit had a GB second game but no one remembered it (though you can download it on the DS shop now) and then he disappeared. One of those Nintendo franchises lost to time while Mario, Link and Pokemon rose to prominence.

But with the reveal of SSBB and seeing an updated look of our old angel friend, some hoped for a new game. Well finally we got it and so far this is my favorite 3DS game.

First off this has to be the first true first party Nintendo game with competent voice acting. Happy now? Not the "so bad it's funny" of the Starfox series or the "OMG WILL YOU SHUT UP!!" of Metroid: Other M. The banter between Pit and Palutena is actually pretty funny. While they do babble on too much at times, it's rather amusing at the fact they are very self aware and don't take themselves too seriously. The baddies have their share of funny quips like the 3 headed Headraw arguing with itself (reminds me of the 3 headed giant from Holy Grail) and Dark Pit is a ton of fun when he shows up.

Also despite the addition of voice work, this game doesn't bog you down with boring cutscenes. The story is told through dialouge during gameplay and atmosphere of the levels. No sooner do you start but Pit is flying, Medusa is back after 25 years to wreak havoc on the land again and the game is like "Bad guys here. Kill they ass!!

Gameplay stages are broken up in 2 parts. The first part is flying. Pit can fly now or rather Palutena is making him fly and the first half is flying and shooting similar to Starfox. You're on a set path blasting foes and dodging obstacles. The second half lands Pit on the ground fighting in a sort of Devil May Cry type combat of shooting and melee attacks. It even throws in some vehicle sections for good measure. You fight enemies, collect treasures and weapons until you reach the boss. Rinse. Repeat. The levels are smooth and tight and never feel too long or drawn out.

Now to the controls. Now I don't relfexively hate any non traditional control scheme and I figured out the set up within five minutes. You hold down the left trigger to shoot, move with the Dpad and use the stylus to aim. It can be a little wonky on the ground using the stylus to turn the camera but it never felt like a deal breaker for me. It came with this stand I guess to help hold it steady but I've never removed it from the box.

While the gameplay feels like an arcade shooter, it has a lot of depth. You can go back to previous stages and turn up the difficulty to earn more hearts and treasure. You can fuse weapons together for more powerful items, unlock music tracks and character models as well as there's a decent online mulitplayer aspect to keep you busy.

Visually the game is one of the prettiest on the 3DS. The levels have a lot of variety from deserts to mountains to cities to Pandora's Labyrinth which looks like something from the SNES Starfox. Pit's design is taken from his SSBB model along with Dark Pit and Palutena but it's also neat seeing all the old NES baddies reimagined in today's graphics. The 3D effect does fit the game well especially for the flying but for me, my eyes get tired and if you move the 3DS slightly it can get blurry.

Overall, I had some reservations about this game going in. Worried that I wouldn't get the controls or get annoyed with the voices but instead I got an awesome, fast paced adventure and I'm glad to have Pit back.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Kid Icarus: Uprising for the 3DS..." was posted by kbaily on Sun, 30 Sep 2012 08:12:07 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/kid-icarus-uprising/user-reviews/800678/platform/3ds/ Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:28:45 -0700 kbaily reviewed Sonic Generations for the 3DS... http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-generations/user-reviews/799549/platform/3ds/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Sonic really has come back from near obscurity. In 2010 we had Sonic Colors, Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing and Sonic 4, which were all good. then Sonic Generations came out and everyone loved Sonic again.

What was ironic was for years it seemed like Sonic's best game's were handhelds like Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush but with the 3DS version of Sonic Generations it seems we have a 180 degree shift. This really feels like something Sega quickly cobbled together because they wanted something for the 3DS for Christmas. My friends on the Sonicspot board often refer to this as "Sonic Rush Space Time Continum Adventure."

Storywise, it's the same plot as it's console big brother but more watered down only featuring the 2 Sonics, Eggman and Tails. Metal Sonic, Shadow and Silver show up for the rival battles still but the story is told with static text cutscenes with copy/pasted images from the console cutscenes. If like me you played through the console version, you'll more than likely skip over these.

Gameplay the classic stages are not that different from it's big brother accept Dimps wanted to give retro Sonic a homing attack. This didn't bother me but if you were one of those who had a fit over it in Sonic 4 then you'll hate it. Modern Sonic is basically just Sonic Rush again and if you played both Rushes and the DS Colors, don't expect anything different. Also after beating both acts, you play a special stage based on the tube from Sonic Heroes where you chase the emerald collecting bubbles to speed up. This is clearly to show off the 3D effect. Though in fairness they're way easier here than in Heroes and you can restart when you mess up.
Then you have the afformentioned rival battles with Metal Sonic, Shadow and Silver and these are basically taken from Sonic Rivals (remember those games? Neither do I?) Then the boss fights and getting all seven emeralds unlocks the fight with the Time Eater.

If there was one reason to play the 3DS Generations if you already played the console versions it's that it does feature stages different from the other version and different era bosses. Green Hill, Casino Night and Mushroom Hill from the Genesis era. Emerald Coast and Radical Highway (which if you recall was a stage played by Shadow not Sonic) from the Dreamcast era but the Modern era only features Water Temple from Sonic Rush and Tropical Resort from Colors. Seriously no representation from the Sonic Advances or Sonic Rush Adventure? Making this game shorter as well.

The game also has missions but they're totally optional and are only there for you to unlock the character art and music and of course you can compete for high scores via Street Pass.

While the game is not bad, it's very forgettable especially after playing Generations on the PS3/360. Once I beat it, I didn't have a desire to return to it much.

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"kbaily reviewed Sonic Generations for the 3DS..." was posted by kbaily on Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:28:45 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-generations/user-reviews/799549/platform/3ds/ Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:10:54 -0700 kbaily reviewed New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS... http://www.gamespot.com/new-super-mario-bros-2/user-reviews/799546/platform/3ds/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

This game has sort of come under fire. Mario taking a bit of flack for "going through the motions" and the reason this game exists is because the previous two 2D Marios both for the DS and Wii respectively made butt tons of money outselling their 3D counterparts because the masses prove time and time again they want the same stuff over and over again. Look at Call of Duty and Madden.

The thing is NSMB2 is not a bad game by any means and while I wished it had experimented a bit more, I still had fun playing it. If you watched the Game Overthinker's recent episode about Mario, I share most of the same feelings. I'd rather Mario play it safe and be good then wallow in crap like Sonic, Crash and Spyro did (yes Sonic's improved recently).

So the premise of this one brings back the Koopalings. Clearly realizing that no one liked Bowser Jr. The koopalings tie him up and lock him in the closet, steal the keys to their dad's Clown Car and go to kidnap Peach and wreak havoc (well the locking BJ in the closet was my personal fantasy there.)

The gameplay is what you expect from Mario. Run, jump, use items, etc. The racoon leaf is brought back for nostalgia and for some reason this manifests itself with Luigi having a fox tail instead of the same racoon tail as Mario (is this a reference to Tails?) What's a tad disappointing is the game didn't carry over some of the things that NSMBWii introduced such as Yoshi, the penguin suit or the helicopter hat. Though Racoon tail > heli hat.

The other big addition is the accumulation of coins in that the game does a grand total of all coins collected. Coins come out of pipes. There are gold rings that turn everything to gold and the one new item is a gold flower that not only destroys everything but turns it into coins. A feature that is available is "Coin Rush" where you basically play 4 stages with a shorter time limit with the goal to collect as many coins as possible. This you can use the Street Pass feature and compete with others for high scores. And truly I had fun with this. In NSMBWii I had this urge to collect as many coins as I can just because I could and now it actually means something. Though with such a focus on coin collecting, it renders the life system useless. Seriously why not get rid of lives altogether or at least eliminate the 100 coins= extra life. Sonic Colors did that. Has anyone seen the game over screen in the main story?

Though unlike the first DS game collecting all those star coins feels more worthwhile. Star coins unlock paths on the map as well as 90 will get you to the final world. The main game is only 6 worlds long but bonus Mushroom, Flower and Star worlds are unlockable as well trying to find all hidden paths.

Is this a ground breaking Mario title? No. Is it a solid 2D platformer. Yes. Don't set ridiculously high standards and you'll have a good time.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS..." was posted by kbaily on Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:10:54 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/new-super-mario-bros-2/user-reviews/799546/platform/3ds/ Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:32:02 -0700 kbaily reviewed Jak and Daxter Collection for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/jak-and-daxter-collection/user-reviews/798814/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

I didn't own a PS2 so I missed the great platforming series that graced it. After the Sly collection and looking forward to the Ratchet and Clank collection so in between is the Jak and Daxter series. Now this is a series I was a bit hesitant of. Mainly because the series went through a major tonal shift between the first and second games. I usually get annoyed when a game goes "grim and gritty" because for me it seems like a way to shamless pander to the 15-35 male demographic who won't play anything without guns and swearing because they have insecurites about their percieved masculinity. However despite the series tonal shift, it definitely didn't feel like the shameless pandering that something like "Bomberman:Act Zero" and "Shadow the Hedgehog" did but let's get to the review.

Jak and Daxter: The first game in the series is very similar to Banjo-Kazooie and for me, that's not a bad thing. The story goes a young pointy eared kid named Jak travels to a mysterious island with his annoying friend, Daxter. Daxter trips and falls into a vat of black goo called Dark Ico which turns him into an Otsell, a small weasel like creature. The two of them set out to find a way to change Daxter back. Much like Banjo Kazooie the duo traverses a variety of colorful levels collecting orbs (notes), Scout Flies (Jinjos) and Power Cells (Jiggys). The flies and orbs can be exchanged for the power cells which open new areas. As with the Mario Stars or Jiggys collecting all Power cells will unlock a final ending. You run, jump, attack foes, solve puzzles and fight bosses using ico energy as well as a few vehicle sections to mix up things. Daxter doesn't do much other than mug the camera and talk for Jak. But I had a blast with this and sometimes I wish the series had stuck to this format but that's just me.

Jak II: This was when the series decided to go towards a more "edgy" tone. The story begins where Jak and his friends find a giant Precursor portal and blast through it only to end up in a place called Haven City which turns out is their land many years in the future. Jak is captured, imprisioned and tortured for 2 years before Daxter finds him. His 2 year imprisionment gives Jak the ability to speak as well as all the Dark Ico experiments done to him gives him the ability to transform into a sort of purple rage monster. Where the first game was borrowing from Banjo Kazooie, this one goes for a GTA feel. This annoys me. Jak has to drive all over a crowded city full of hover cars that have wonky steering and if you so much as tap a city guard you'll get chased and shot at when all you want to do is get to the next mission level. The levels themselves are the best. It's full of platforming and the implementation of weapons adds something new and despite the darker tone, Daxter's wisecracking and the use of primary colors keeps it somewhat lighthearted still. My biggest gripe with Jak II is that it is insanely hard at times. I don't mind a challenge but the game is extremely stingy with health and checkpoints. I would spent longer than needed in a mission because I died due to little to no health packs and no mid stage checkpoint. It's worse if you have a driving/shooting mission in the city where there is no health and guards bum rush you at every moment. Dark Jak would be great if it worked when you needed it but guards don't drop dark ico juice so all you can do is shoot and hope you don't run out of ammo.

Jak III: Jak 3 finds the happy medium. It's challenging without being frustrating and makes better use of Dark Jak. After defeating Evil Barron Praxis in Jak II, Jak is banished to the wasteland because of fear of his dark form. He wanders into a desert village in what could be described as "Pixar Presents Mad Max" Instead of driving through a cluttered city with cops constantly chasing you get a big open desert with cars that can shoot and the city area gives you fun leaper (giant lizards) creatures to ride around. Much like #2 it's a mix of driving, platforming and shooting missions and it much more balanced. The game is easier being more generous with the health, allowing you to turn Dark Jak on and off as well as a new light form.

Overall it's a good collection redone in HD complete with trophies though it would've been nice to include Daxter's PSP solo outing. I also wish Naughty Dog would've considered toning down #2's difficulty or at least tossed a few more health packs but these are good platformers with a lot of variety and great visuals that hold up well. Looking at the 2nd and 3rd installments I can't help but wonder if that was what Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts aspired to be but wasn't.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Jak and Daxter Collection for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:32:02 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/jak-and-daxter-collection/user-reviews/798814/platform/ps3/ Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:07:49 -0700 kbaily reviewed Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/ratchet-and-clank-all-4-one/user-reviews/798445/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

It happens to every series, after making a series of great, innovative games, the series faces the point where it either must innovate or stagnate. Ratchet had reached that after his 2 PS3 outings (2 1/2 if we count "Quest for Booty"), Unlike Jak which chose to end itself before it got too old and Sly which had a good gap between #3 and upcoming #4, Ratchet's put out a new game roughly every 2 years or so. Four games on the PS2, 2 PSP and on it's third full length PS3 outing and it is sadly the weakest.

All 4 One jumps on the co-op multiplayer bandwagon that Little Big Planet, New Super Mario Bros Wii and Rayman Legends except Rachet does it in 3D. That's the big draw of this one. Players can take control of Ratchet, Clank, Captain Qwark and Dr. Nefarious in this adventure.

The story goes was after the weighy last adventure, Ratchet is tired. He wants to take a break from adventuring. Stay home, play hologames, tinker with ships but first he has to escort President Qwark (just go with it) to Luminopolis to accept the "Intergalatic Tool of Justice Award" but they no sooner arrive but then Dr. Nefarious shows up and unleashed a giant Zegrute monster on them but after the big first stage fight the the four heroes are captured by a mysterious ship and taken to a bizzarre planet and get caught up in the plight of the planet's residents.

It does play like your typical Ratchet and Clank game but slightly watered down. You still have the great platforming and fun weapons but it suffers from a fixed camera that makes it hard to get into nooks and corners. Also the levels are much more tight and linear compared to its predecessors without a ton of branching paths to explore. Also as this game takes place on one planet there's no spaceship flying levels. Playing alone will feel lacking and repetitve. You can collect bolts and critters to unlock costumes and parts to a mech suit but after that there's little reason to return to the stages.

Where is does shine is multiplayer and if you can get friends off or online to play then do it. The online works well, rarely lags and players can drop in and out with little issue. Lag only occured when things got a bit too busy on screen. Competing for bolts, combining attacks and using team moves for maximum damage and this is the fun of that.

But overall, though it is free to download for PSN Plus users, it's ok, you'll play it once, maybe play it for the multiplayer which can be fun but it is time for Insomniac to step back, give this series a break before bringing out the next main R&C game.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:07:49 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/ratchet-and-clank-all-4-one/user-reviews/798445/platform/ps3/ Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:17:21 -0700 hockeydude29 reviewed Saints Row: The Third for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/saints-row-the-third/user-reviews/797728/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

The main idea about this game is, fun. Not if it's realistic, the graphics, or any of the usual stuff. You can beat on random people with a giant cat mask on with your pimps by your side. The story is good, but kinda short. I finished in two days, took me about 4-6 hours. Could be longer, but it's still very fun. I'm a person that can't finish many stories. I just get bored. But with this game I could not stop playing it, but even if the story is short. The amount of things you can do is amazing. Whether it's just running around on story mode doing whatever, or getting through waves on wave mode. It's just a fun time. Make your own character, get your house, some allies and just go out shooting cops or whatever the hell you want. I had a very fun time with this game, and whenever I'm bored. I just hop on this game and have a good time. I suggest this to anyone that likes having a good time on video games, not trying to level up on Call of Duty all day, but to just have fun. It's not a difficult game, most people can finish the game fairly quickly on the hardest difficulty. I really like this game, one of my personal favourite games, I give it a 9/10.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"hockeydude29 reviewed Saints Row: The Third for the Xbox 360..." was posted by hockeydude29 on Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:17:21 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/saints-row-the-third/user-reviews/797728/platform/xbox360/ Sat, 23 Jun 2012 05:41:08 -0700 kbaily reviewed The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii... http://www.gamespot.com/the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword/user-reviews/796294/platform/wii/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

I have long given up on the idea that any Zelda game is somehow going to top Ocarina of Time. Hell Ocarina isn't even my favorite Zelda game. Wind Waker is. There I said it. So instead of trying to compare every Zelda game to that lofty expectation, I just review them on their own merits.
For me, after the boring train driving slog that was Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword feels like an improvement....at least for me. It tries some new things yet still feels stuck with some of the cliches of past Zelda games but when it works, it works well.
The story goes that this time around Link and Zelda live in a floating city called Skyloft where Link is training to be a knight and upon completing his graduation training, Zelda gets whisked away and Link once again goes out to save her. At least this time around Zelda and Link actually have a connection prior to starting the game so there's valid reason for Link to go save her. Also Zelda doesn't stay kidnapped for the entire game waiting for Link to show up. Link does catch up to her only to be just short of finding out what the heck is going on. What his purpose in all this is as well as finding out the motives of a great, gay fopish bad guy. Seriously I like this guy. You know he sits in his room when no one's around going "would you F$#% me? I'd f&^% me."
The big addition to the gameplay is the use of Wiimotion Plus which I had to go out and buy since hardly any games implemented it and honestly it works well for me. Since I'm not one of those stubborn old gamers stuck in their ways and willing to try new things, using the remote for a sword works for the most part. It adds a bit more strategy to fighting enemies having to swing a certain way. I like fighting foes and finding that way to hit them to parry their attacks and such. It's still not perfect but I never found myself getting tired out or frustrated. If the controls are frustrating in any aspect, it's trying to catch bugs because that really is a point where you just have to flail and hope you snag it.
Speaking of bugs, this time around all the doodads you collect feel more worthwhile as they can be used to upgrade your gear as opposed to just collecting a certain amount of something to trade in for a new ability or a heart piece. This actually gives you incentive to explore even more and return to past places as well as try to complete sidequests.
So Link's ridden on boats and trains but this time being in the sky he gets to fly his own giant bird friend. Now while flying with the Wiimote is fun and waaaay better than driving a train around, most of the sky overworld feels sort of empty. A few sparse rocks dot the area with a few chests and it's not nearly as expansive as Hryrule of past games or even the great sea.
My major complaint is the game still drags at times. The dungeons are still too puzzle heavy at times. With the new control I was hoping for a bit more combat oriented gameplay but you'll still find yourself pushing boxes, hitting switches and trying to find the right order to do things.
Now the art design has been a subject for debate. It appears they went for a happy medium between Wind Waker's cell shading and Twilight Princess's Earthtone realism. Personally I like it. Given the Wii isn't an HD powerhouse going for a more artistic look compensates. Plus I'm not a graphics whore or a fan of ultra realism.
Skyward Sword is a game that has its ups and downs. When it works well, it works really well. But when it does work, it feels tiresome and tedious making this a really hard game to score. Look it you're open minded and willing to have patience then it can been fun an engaging if you let it but if you are the kind who gives up on the motion controls after five minutes or are expecting this to outdo Ocarina of Time then you will be sorely disappointed.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii..." was posted by kbaily on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 05:41:08 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-legend-of-zelda-skyward-sword/user-reviews/796294/platform/wii/ Tue, 22 May 2012 05:26:31 -0700 kbaily reviewed The Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/the-sly-collection/user-reviews/794395/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

I'm so happy we traded in our 360 for a PS3, namely because the PS3 has platformers. Better yet, Sony's been rereleasing classic platformers in shiny HD collections for those like myself who didn't own a PS2 to enjoy some great games.

Reviewing a collection of games is hard. I considered reviewing each Sly Cooper title induvidually because you see a natural progression in the series when you get to play all 3 in a row in terms of graphics, story and gameplay.

The three games follow the exploits of Sly Cooper, a young racoon master theif who comes from a long line of master theives known for only robbing other theives because they see no challenge or honor in robbing ordinary people. When his parents are murdered, Sly is sent to an orphanage where he meets his best friends a brainy turtle named Bentley and a muscle bound hippo named Murray. The games follow these three on their adventures around the world to amass wealth all while outwitting Inspector Carmeleta Fox who Sly constantly flirts with (seriously those two should just do it and get it over with already).

Sly Cooper and the Theivus Racoonus was the first game. Sly is out to find the missing pages of his family's book "The Theivus Racoonus" which contains all the master theiving secrets passed down through his famiy. This first game plays a lot like Mario. Very linear, a lot of collecting keys to access other areas to get more keys to reach the boss. Collecting bottles to gain clues to unlock safes to get various extra abilities that you'll rarely use. Also in this game Sly could die after one hit if he didn't collect a horseshoe. Combine that with a sometimes wonky camera and this game could be frustrating sometimes. Not to mention there were sections with Murray where you either had to shoot enemies to protect his fat ass or drive a van that felt like it had no weight to it whatsoever. As well as to add some variety there were some sections where Sly piloted a vehicle or two. This first game was ok but at times more frustrating than fun. Not to mention the story is really flimsy. All of a sudden you reach Clockwerk the big robotic owl boss and he's like "Yeah I'm the one who has gone after your family for years mwah ha ha." It all feels a bit disjointed. Score: 7.5

Things majorly improved with Sly 2: Band of Thieves. While Clockwerk is destroyed, a group called the Claw Gang has collected his various broken parts using them for their own operations with plans to reassamble the evil robotic bird and Sly and his gang are trying to get the parts to destroy them once and for all. This game does better with tieing the story together more coherently and features a few interesting plot twists. Also it ditches the linear environments for a more open world feel and mission based gameplay which feels more suited to a character who is an acrobatic theif. It's easy to waste time just exploring the level collecting the bottles and pickpocketing guards for loot in order to gain more abilities which some actually come in handy for missions this time. Bentley and Murray get beefed up parts as well. Murray becomes the "thug" of the gang so his missions involve alot of smashing and punching and it's so satisfying to knock out a thug than pick him up and throw him around. Bentley is still the weakest with most of his attacks having to be slower and more sneaky usually involving hacking into computers and playing an "Asteroids" like mini game. It also brings in a health bar and ditches the life system which makes things easier as well. But compared to the first game, this shows where the series really found it's groove. Score: 8.5

Sly 3: Honor Among Theives goes even further. With Clockwerk fully destroyed, Sly learns of the vast fortune his famiy acquired over the years that exists in a massive vault on a secluded island, however an evil mad scientist named Dr. M, who used to work with Sly's father has set up shop and in order for the Cooper gang to reach said vault they need to gather a crack team of master thieves, a sort of furry Ocean's 11. This leads to some interesting story turns, the one that stands out is the gang needing the demolition skills of The Panda King, who was a boss of the first game and one of the people responsible for killing Sly's father which leads to some really interesting character development for both Sly and Panda King. Of course this many characters being added could lead the game to having a severe case of "Sonic Adventure" syndrome in that it might have too many playable characters. Thankfully the game finds balance. You still spend the majority of time as Sly, then Bentley and Murray and you're extended team members have only a mission or two. Bentley and Murray can also steal loot from enemies as well as get a few new abilities of their own. The rest of the additional team mates range from fun (Panda King blowing stuff up) to awful (Dimitri's swimming). Luckily there's enough balance and nothing feels forced. The gameplay has stayed mostly the same from Sly 2 but eliminated the need to collect bottles now but instead as a way to pad out gameplay you can go back and do past missions with a time limit and honestly I didn't bother with this after the game was beaten. But improved controls, graphics, camera and good variety does make it the strongest of the three. Score: 9.0

All three games are given an HD coat of paint as well as the inclusion of tropies and beating all three gives you a teaser for Sly 4 but also tacked on were a collection of forgettable mini games to use the Move but these are so dull and unimaginative, you'll maybe play them once to get the trophies and never revisit them again.

Overall though, it's a good collection to have if you're a fan of platformers and can get you ready for Sly 4 coming soon.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed The Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Tue, 22 May 2012 05:26:31 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-sly-collection/user-reviews/794395/platform/ps3/ Sun, 20 May 2012 11:30:41 -0700 kbaily reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-the-hedgehog-4-episode-ii/user-reviews/794244/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

It's funny how quickly the minds of gamers and fans can change within a couple years. Back when Sonic 4 was announced, gamers and Sonic fans had been jaded and tired of broken promises. Watching Sega force Sonic to be werehog and wield a sword, play boring olympic games with Mario and most just wanted something to remind them of those old happy times on the Genesis back before the series became cluttered with fluff and gimmicks and idiotic stories.

But in the end, you really can't go home again. Sonic 4 Episode 1 was unable to live up to the lofty expectations fans had for it. It was too short, to easy, the physics felt off and most of the levels just rehased past games and some felt that perhaps the Sonic they once knew was gone forever.

And then something interesting happened. Sonic Colors came out and it was good. So good that everyone quickly forgot about Sonic 4 and shifted focus to this new game that felt like what a modern Sonic game should be. Then Sonic Generations came out and it was amazing and suddenly Sonic was good again. So enamored we became with 2 solid console outings that when Episode II showed up we were like "oh yeah, they planned to make more of these."

Sonic 4 Episode II does attempt to improve on a lot of Episode 1's issues and manages to do so but at this point its best to lower your expectations. Storywise it's attempting to connect to Sonic CD for some reason in what is already the flimsy Sonic canon. I had no idea what the story was and really don't care.

The major edition to this is Tails but this time around he's actually useful where he and Sonic team up for tag team moves. They can roll into a powerful ball to smash through things and Tails and carry Sonic through water and in the air. Better yet when you go to the new halfpipe Special Stages, you don't have to worry about Tails screwing stuff up for you, however these additions also make the game somewhat easy. Only the last two special stages will be significantly difficult but the ability to restart if you mess up also saves the hassel of repeating stages to get to the special stage.

As for the levels, most are still rehashes. Sylviania Castle is a combination of Aquatic Ruin and Marble Garden, Oil Desert is Oil Ocean with crappier music. It even rehashes the Sky Chase and Wing Fortress zones of Sonic 2. Winter Park should be noted though for taking one of Sonic 2's lost levels "Winter Zone" and finally giving us a finished product. I would've like to have seen Sonic 4 use more of those lost levels like Dust Hill, Genocide City, Wood Zone and Rock Zone. Luckily the boss fights aren't rehashes and you get to fight Metal Sonic. However they are still rather easy.

Graphics have been improved from the first game as well. There are nice little touches like fireflies in Sylviana Castle Act III and the hand painted clouds in the Sky Chase but sadly the same can't be said for the music. Honestly this is some of the worst music the series has had since "Sonic and the Secret Rings" especially Oil Desert Act II. Though Winter Park Act II does through in a bit of Twinkle Park's theme. Seriously where's the Sonic Colors composer when you need them.

A few other added extras are here too. The inclusion of Tails allows for multiplayer and the red rings first introduced in Sonic Colors are in this as well. Adding a bit more longevity to the game.

In the end, Episode II does improve a lot of episode 1's issues but now, 2 years later, it feels like an unwanted visitor from the past. You'll have fun with it but soon find yourself returning to Generations or Colors and with games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Rayman Origins proving you can sell a 2D sidescroller as a full disc, it's easy to see why Sega as of right now has no plans to continue with future episodes.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"kbaily reviewed Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by kbaily on Sun, 20 May 2012 11:30:41 -0700
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