Rimtutituki's GameSpot Friend's Reviews Rimtutituki's GameSpot Friend's Reviews Rimtutituki's GameSpot Friend's Reviews en-us Copyright (c)1995-2013 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved. http://www.gamespot.com 20 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 03:58:47 -0700 GameSpot Rimtutituki's GameSpot Friend's Reviews http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/shared/promos/misc/gs_logo.gif http://www.gamespot.com 135 40 Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:48:38 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Dead to Rights II for the PlayStation 2... http://www.gamespot.com/dead-to-rights-ii/user-reviews/812560/platform/ps2/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

You would expect snobbish people who always look at everything down the length of their nose to dislike a simple game like Dead to Rights II, and many of them did. Their reasons for dislike happen to be, "There's no minigames, no place where you have to use your mind, such a linear game, just mindless action." Exactly. There's nothing you're supposed to do in Dead to Rights II except shoot everybody. And boy, is it fun for the non-snooty.

The first thing gamers who played the first game will notice is that the graphics have been hugely improved. The visuals in this game are brilliant - slightly cartoonish, and the slow-motion blur effects while shootdodging are brilliant. This game really does it in the graphics department. There are no obvious graphical glitches to speak of.

The gameplay itself is even closer to Max Payne than the previous game. Shootdodging now is very seamless, while in the previous game it could only be done in four directions because it had only four animations. You won't be shootdodging as much as you will in Max Payne though, since your adrenaline runs out quickly - it's best saved for diving through and quickly killing a crowd of enemies. One small thing I really enjoyed about gun combat was tapping the X button to fire quickly with dual pistols. There was something very unexplainably enjoyable about that. Many games have that, but something in this game - the excellent gun sound effects, perhaps, makes it special. The music is brilliant too. I especially enjoyed the music in the cowboy bikers' area and in the graveyard.

In some levels, you lose your weapons and have to do with your fists. Melee combat is all right, but it's somewhat less enjoyable than gun combat. It can sometimes get tedious, but it isn't frustrating.

Like in the previous game, Jack Slate, the protagonist, can summon his dog Shadow to kill a baddie or two, but there's no separate HUD bar that fills for your dog - he uses the adrenaline bar. Shadow can also retrieve dead baddies' weapons for you, something that really comes in handy when you're low on health and out of ammo.

There are disarms and human shields in this game too, but there's a limit to them. There are two green HUD points beneath your Adrenaline meter; they turn red when you disarm a bad guy or use him as a human shields. Kill more bad guys to turn them green and disarm again.

You might be wondering why I left the story for last. Truth be told, story isn't the focus here. It's a good enough story, but it's a pretty cliche one, so while I won't post spoilers I doubt you can really spoil a game with so simple a story. It works as it is, though. There are many tributes and homages, usually in Jack's one-liners, to action movies like Commando.

So in short, Dead to Rights II is awesome. It's nothing but fast paced shooting action at its finest. The gameplay is so outstanding, the graphics so good and the music so excellent that all but the arrogant gamer would like it, or at least for the harsh, not dislike it. The extreme difficulty may put some people off, but for the patient and the hardcore, it's a very, very enjoyable game.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Dead to Rights II for the PlayStation 2..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:48:38 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/dead-to-rights-ii/user-reviews/812560/platform/ps2/ Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:48:35 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Dead to Rights II for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/dead-to-rights-ii/user-reviews/812559/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

You would expect snobbish people who always look at everything down the length of their nose to dislike a simple game like Dead to Rights II, and many of them did. Their reasons for dislike happen to be, "There's no minigames, no place where you have to use your mind, such a linear game, just mindless action." Exactly. There's nothing you're supposed to do in Dead to Rights II except shoot everybody. And boy, is it fun for the non-snooty.

The first thing gamers who played the first game will notice is that the graphics have been hugely improved. The visuals in this game are brilliant - slightly cartoonish, and the slow-motion blur effects while shootdodging are brilliant. This game really does it in the graphics department. There are no obvious graphical glitches to speak of.

The gameplay itself is even closer to Max Payne than the previous game. Shootdodging now is very seamless, while in the previous game it could only be done in four directions because it had only four animations. You won't be shootdodging as much as you will in Max Payne though, since your adrenaline runs out quickly - it's best saved for diving through and quickly killing a crowd of enemies. One small thing I really enjoyed about gun combat was tapping the X button to fire quickly with dual pistols. There was something very unexplainably enjoyable about that. Many games have that, but something in this game - the excellent gun sound effects, perhaps, makes it special. The music is brilliant too. I especially enjoyed the music in the cowboy bikers' area and in the graveyard.

In some levels, you lose your weapons and have to do with your fists. Melee combat is all right, but it's somewhat less enjoyable than gun combat. It can sometimes get tedious, but it isn't frustrating.

Like in the previous game, Jack Slate, the protagonist, can summon his dog Shadow to kill a baddie or two, but there's no separate HUD bar that fills for your dog - he uses the adrenaline bar. Shadow can also retrieve dead baddies' weapons for you, something that really comes in handy when you're low on health and out of ammo.

There are disarms and human shields in this game too, but there's a limit to them. There are two green HUD points beneath your Adrenaline meter; they turn red when you disarm a bad guy or use him as a human shields. Kill more bad guys to turn them green and disarm again.

You might be wondering why I left the story for last. Truth be told, story isn't the focus here. It's a good enough story, but it's a pretty cliche one, so while I won't post spoilers I doubt you can really spoil a game with so simple a story. It works as it is, though. There are many tributes and homages, usually in Jack's one-liners, to action movies like Commando.

The only reason I gave the PC version a lesser score than the PS2 version were the controls. The game works better with a controller, so if you want to enjoy it as much as on a console a gamepad is a good option.

So in short, Dead to Rights II is awesome. It's nothing but fast paced shooting action at its finest. The gameplay is so outstanding, the graphics so good and the music so excellent that all but the arrogant gamer would like it, or at least for the harsh, not dislike it. The extreme difficulty may put some people off, but for the patient and the hardcore, it's a very, very enjoyable game.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Dead to Rights II for the PC..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:48:35 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/dead-to-rights-ii/user-reviews/812559/platform/pc/ Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:38:19 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Tenchu: Shadow Assassins for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/tenchu-shadow-assassins/user-reviews/812407/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins for the PSP is actually a port of the Wii game. Now, you'd imagine all sorts of sacrifices for getting the game on the PSP, but the truth is that there are surprisingly few. It's still fun, challenging and worth playing and while it doesn't really achieve greatness there isn't too much to complain about either.

The game's story is OK at best, Rikimaru and Ayame being the good ninjas serving a goody-good emperor whose empire is apparently about to be attacked when Rikimaru finds a stockpile of weapons in a room in the wrong part of the empire on one of his justice-serving outings.

The gameplay is good, stealth mechanics work and it is enjoyable. Taking enemies down is satisfying and you can twirl the analog nub around to get different killing animations. The only complaint I have is about sword combat, where it really shows that this is a game ported from the Wii. You push the analog nub in the direction the on-screen arrow tells you to, and it's very easy to do this. Almost too easy in fact, so sometimes you get killed because you weren't expecting it to be so easy.

Aside from that, the game is challenging. You can use your Mind's Eye as much as you want to see where the enemies are looking, but it's still a very difficult game. You can use your Ninjitsu to escape to the start of the level once if you get detected, but after that if you get seen the enemy throws his sword at you and whack, you're dead.

The music is very good and the graphics are excellent. The gameplay is enjoyable, and the voice acting, except for the tutorial instructor's (which is annoying as hell) is very good too. While the game doesn't really be all it can be in my opinion, it's still worth playing for any stealth game fan.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Tenchu: Shadow Assassins for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:38:19 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/tenchu-shadow-assassins/user-reviews/812407/platform/psp/ Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:12:09 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Gangs of London for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/gangs-of-london/user-reviews/812405/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 2.0.

Gangs of London ... I first thought that it was a movie based game, so I didn't play it. Then I found out it wasn't, so I did. Then I realized it was a poor game.

One of the good things about the game is that there are several gangs to play as each with their own story (though their stories don't really go anywhere). So there are these gangs trying to take over London, and they're at war with each other, and they kill each other from time to time. Major yawn. Like I said, the story doesn't go anywhere.

The game tries to be open-world like Grand Theft Auto and such, but it fails miserably because the missions are put together as... missions. You select them at the menu. Free roam is a separate mode. Who wants it like that? And this is the major drawback of the game. The missions aren't put together right. The story, or lack of it, is told through Max Payne-like comic panels, with awful voice acting.

Gameplay, hmm... you have a lot of stealth missions which are awfully hard to get through because this game obviously wasn't designed as a stealth game. Combat is dull and frustrating. Mostly you fight with knives, standing in front of a person and mashing the X button. The animations are awful. In gun combat, you don't aim your gun, you aim your character. You have to stand directly in front of an enemy, target them and mash the X button. Like in melee combat, the animations are awful.

You can drive cars, but it's like driving on ice. There's no friction, no sound of engines, nothing at all. The brakes on every single car in this game seem to be broken because they are useless.

There is only one music track in the entire game, which is like the music when they put you on hold, only it's much worse, and the voice acting is awful. You'd think with gangs of so many cultures would have their accents, but no... the Talwar Brothers, for example, don't sound Pakistani at all, neither do the Traids sound Asian, and all characters speak American English. In a game set in England. Can you believe it?

There is not a single thing to like about this game. Stay away, or you are doomed. Doomed. Doomed doomed.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Gangs of London for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:12:09 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/gangs-of-london/user-reviews/812405/platform/psp/ Thu, 30 May 2013 01:28:52 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Obscure: The Aftermath for the PlayStation 2... http://www.gamespot.com/obscure-the-aftermath-2008/user-reviews/811876/platform/ps2/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Survival horror... the term instantly conjures up thoughts of low ammo and health supplies, avoiding enemies, jump-scares ... and some bad dialogue (cough, Resident Evil, cough). Obscure: The Aftermath has all of these elements, making it a great horror game that can be described as the bridge between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

What's Resident Evil about it? Combat. Over-the-shoulder aiming is here, and in some places the game borrows the fixed camera from the older Resident Evil games. There are some jump-scares and the monsters are well designed. You will run very low on health and ammo in this game, so there will be places where you'll be forced to run from enemies instead of taking them on. Health items are precious. The psychological horror in this game constitutes the Silent Hill side of it.

The game is the sequel to Obscure, but there are some changes - most notably that while in the original Obscure you could keep on playing as long as you had at least one character left, in this game all the characters' skills will be used, so even if one character dies it's game over. The game is quite challenging, especially compared to its predecessor.

The game features a few characters from the original Obscure as well as new characters. Shannon, Stan and Kenny from the original game are back, and the new characters are Corey, Mei, Sven and Amy. All these characters will be used at one point or another in the game so none of them are useless - Corey, for example, is skilled in acrobatics so he can jump to places others can't reach and then lift his partner up. Amy and Mei are used mostly for solving puzzles, while Sven and Kenny are strong and can push heavy objects. None of the puzzles in this game are very hard, but they are clever.

The graphics are excellent. The characters and enemies are extremely well-detailed and so is the environment. Combat is a bit slow but it's not the focus except in boss fights. The soundtrack is excellent, but the voice acting and dialogue are average at best. There are sometimes screw-ups in the AI, but none of them mar what is a great horror game. If you liked Resident Evil and Silent Hill, you'll like Obscure: The Aftermath.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Obscure: The Aftermath for the PlayStation 2..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Thu, 30 May 2013 01:28:52 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/obscure-the-aftermath-2008/user-reviews/811876/platform/ps2/ Thu, 30 May 2013 01:28:49 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Obscure: The Aftermath for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/obscure-the-aftermath-2009/user-reviews/811875/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Survival horror... the term instantly conjures up thoughts of low ammo and health supplies, avoiding enemies, jump-scares ... and some bad dialogue (cough, Resident Evil, cough). Obscure: The Aftermath has all of these elements, making it a great horror game that can be described as the bridge between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

What's Resident Evil about it? Combat. Over-the-shoulder aiming is here, and in some places the game borrows the fixed camera from the older Resident Evil games. There are some jump-scares and the monsters are well designed. You will run very low on health and ammo in this game, so there will be places where you'll be forced to run from enemies instead of taking them on. Health items are precious. The psychological horror in this game constitutes the Silent Hill side of it.

The game is the sequel to Obscure, but there are some changes - most notably that while in the original Obscure you could keep on playing as long as you had at least one character left, in this game all the characters' skills will be used, so even if one character dies it's game over. The game is quite challenging, especially compared to its predecessor.

The game features a few characters from the original Obscure as well as new characters. Shannon, Stan and Kenny from the original game are back, and the new characters are Corey, Mei, Sven and Amy. All these characters will be used at one point or another in the game so none of them are useless - Corey, for example, is skilled in acrobatics so he can jump to places others can't reach and then lift his partner up. Amy and Mei are used mostly for solving puzzles, while Sven and Kenny are strong and can push heavy objects. None of the puzzles in this game are very hard, but they are clever.

The graphics are excellent. The characters and enemies are extremely well-detailed and so is the environment. Combat is a bit slow but it's not the focus except in boss fights. The soundtrack is excellent, but the voice acting and dialogue are average at best. There are sometimes screw-ups in the AI, but none of them mar what is a great horror game. If you liked Resident Evil and Silent Hill, you'll like Obscure: The Aftermath.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Obscure: The Aftermath for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Thu, 30 May 2013 01:28:49 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/obscure-the-aftermath-2009/user-reviews/811875/platform/psp/ Tue, 21 May 2013 09:35:15 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Army of Two: The 40th Day for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/army-of-two-the-40th-day/user-reviews/811558/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Sometimes you get that feeling. You want a game that is satisfying, but not excessively challenging. Usually you associate it with a good licensed game, like back in the PS1 days, but good licensed games are hard to come by now. Well, Army of Two: The 40th Day for the PSP definitely has that endearing quality that a lot of games don't have. It's easy, it's short, the graphics aren't the best on the system - but the game succeeds most importantly because of its enjoyable gameplay.

Salem and Rios from the first Army of Two game are back, this time in Shanghai, going from meeting a contact to a pointless detour through a zoo to saving the world. The story isn't mind-blowing, but it makes the game hang together, which is enough because it's the gameplay that is the main factor here.

Ever played Age of Zombies? The gameplay is somewhat like that. You press the face buttons to shoot in the direction of their placement, for example, pressing X to shoot downward - this is a top-down game, see. But you can also rescue hostages, buy upgrades and new weapons, pick up items such as cash, shields and power-ups, and then there is the Morality feature. In this, a cutscene plays and you have to make a choice that is either 'good' (which usually gives you no benefit but hey, you did the right thing) and 'evil' (which can give you cash, weapons, and other gear in exchange for pricking your conscience). While Morality cutscenes don't really affect the story except towards the end of the game, it's still fun and makes you go through the game again to make different choices.

There is also an achievements-like feature where you unlock achievements as you progress through the game. For the completionist, this too increases the replay value.

While Army of Two: The 40th Day is not a long game - it can be completed in one long afternoon, it was fun enough for me to play it over and over again. If you know what you're getting with this game, chances are it will be so for you too.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Army of Two: The 40th Day for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Tue, 21 May 2013 09:35:15 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/army-of-two-the-40th-day/user-reviews/811558/platform/psp/ Tue, 21 May 2013 08:32:48 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Dante's Inferno for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/dantes-inferno/user-reviews/811556/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 3.0.

Were that there were copyrights for gameplay. Sony's God of War franchise, as I have always stated, sucks - but they might have gleaned even more cash by suing EA for making such an absolute rip off of their games.

The game is set in the Crusades; Dante is busy killing in some place near Jerusalem. But because he's unskilled, he gets stabbed and dies, but fights off Death and takes his scythe. Then he goes to hell (literally) to get back his wife Beatrice from some smoky-hazy guy, who, I don't know, might be Satan or just some demon; I haven't read Divine Comedy (didn't have the patience for bad poetry) and I didn't play Dante's Inferno to the end (didn't have the patience for bad gameplay). So this Satan/demon bloke takes away his waifu for some reason... the game repeats the same cutscene where Dante vows to Beatrice not to have any 'pleasures of the flesh' until he returns from the Crusades... so what did he do? Adultery? Killing? Like I said, I wasn't interested enough to find out.

So the story is pretty bad. Dante is a weak-chinned, unlikeable jerk, and the game never really manages to make you care about what happens. I have played plenty of horrible games to the end just to see how the story ends, but in this case I just couldn't be bothered. I don't know if it's because the base material for this game's story is awful or the game struggles to settle into its twelfth-century setting. Probably both.

The sound in this game is low and is only hearable on the maximum volume both in-game and with the PSP speakers, and it's not memorable either. Some of the music tracks were almost, but not quite, listenable to by a person with functioning aural cavities. The voice acting is just plain awful - especially Dante's.

The graphics are very good and the only plus point in this entire game. This game actually surpasses the God of War games on the PSP because they had an awful framerate, but the visuals in this game are undeniably excellent. The CGI cutscenes were decent too.

The gameplay is identical to that of God of War - so basically, it sucks. A God of War fan might enjoy mashing the square button and pressing triangle only for the heck of it once in a while, but I don't. Like God of War, you can upgrade your abilities and unlock new attacks with 'souls' collected from defeating enemies. I hated the gameplay in God of War, therefore I hate the gameplay in Dante's Inferno. You almost can't tell them apart.

It's a very easy game, since the enemies are so stupid you barely ever have to guard. Unlocked combos don't have crushing power like you'd expect - indeed, some of them are even weaker than the attacks you have at the start. The combo system is broken - if you take a hit, you sometimes don't get knocked out of a combo, and you still build up your combo even if you repeat the same move over and over.

An avid God of War fan might enjoy Dante's Inferno, but I didn't. In my opinion, it's slightly better than the abysmal God of War games on the PSP, because at least the graphics aren't technically busted. But the visuals do not make this game worth playing. The horrendous gameplay, presentation, story, voice acting and music take care of that.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Dante's Inferno for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Tue, 21 May 2013 08:32:48 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/dantes-inferno/user-reviews/811556/platform/psp/ Sat, 11 May 2013 04:28:33 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Angry Birds for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/angry-birds/user-reviews/811201/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 2.0.

"Angry Birds is so cute!" "Angry Birds is so awesome!" "Little birdies, take wing..." How many times have you heard sentences like these in the past half-decade? I would guess around 950, 000 times.

But Angry Birds is the Justin Bieber of video games. It's undeservingly popular and is potentially dangerous. Some of the birds are cute, and that's about it. It's a game where skill is thrown into a lake of carnivorous piranhas and all you do is pull the birds back on the slingshot and kill annoying green pigs.

There's only one tune in the whole game (not counting the tune that plays when you beat a level, which is almost the same and lasts, oh, half a second), and it's very annoying. The birds make noises when they launch and when you tap the screen to use their special ability, like the yellow bird can speed up, but that's all there is to it.

The visuals are decent - compared to most iPhone games anyway - but the game isn't enjoyable. It's nothing but pure frustration. You pull the birds and launch them repeatedly just for the heck of it. You become the Rambo of video games. You don't even look if you're hitting the pigs, all you want is to beat the level just so that you can get the hell out of here.

I don't know why this game is so popular - yes, the birds are cute, but then babies are cute and yet except for Charlie in the 'Charlie Bit My Finger' video none of them became exactly famous. Maybe it's because some people don't know what games are. They think they're just crap like this where you just exercise your index finger and leave smudges across your iPhone screen.

One of the worst, no, THE worst because of its undeserved popularity, casual games of all time.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Angry Birds for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Sat, 11 May 2013 04:28:33 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/angry-birds/user-reviews/811201/platform/iphone/ Sat, 11 May 2013 04:12:07 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Resident Evil: Deadly Silence for the DS... http://www.gamespot.com/resident-evil-deadly-silence/user-reviews/811200/platform/ds/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Resident Evil: Deadly Silence is a port of the original Resident Evil on the PS1. What's truly impressive is that everything - the FMV cutscenes, the gameplay and the sound - all of it from the PS1 is intact. This is an amazing achievement for a DS game.

It's the same story, which means it's very good. The graphics are almost identical to the PS1 version except for some effects, and there isn't any slowdown which is a problem in quite a number of 3D games for the DS.

There's more - a new Rebirth mode, which can be called something like, 'Resident Evil Remixed.' Enemies are at different locations from the original version, and it's slightly harder. There are new puzzles, and it makes use of the DS's touchscreen and microphone.

The cutscenes are fully voiced, and the FMV cutscenes are all there and haven't been dumbed down. The game plays quite well with the DS's controls, and best of all, Resident Evil is finally portable.

Any horror game fan with a Nintendo DS would do well to play this.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Resident Evil: Deadly Silence for the DS..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Sat, 11 May 2013 04:12:07 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/resident-evil-deadly-silence/user-reviews/811200/platform/ds/ Sat, 11 May 2013 03:07:00 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Facebook for the BlackBerry... http://www.gamespot.com/facebook/user-reviews/811198/platform/blackberry/ ...and gave it a 1.0.

Facebook... Why is it so successful? Because it encourages people to waste time. It is a menace to society. People visit it, everyday, posting things like, 'Brushing my teeth', 'having my breakfast' ... I mean, who cares?

The only beings it makes sense for is the older generation. Like, can't-get-out-of-my-wheelchair old. They can talk to their friends and it'll be like old times again.

But oddly, young 'uns use Facebook the most.

And it's glitchy. Every page you go to, it says, "Oops, ironing out a few kinks." There are awful waste-your-time online games like YoVille, FarmVille, ZooVille, CityVille and a possible AssVille.

I urge everyone to stay away from this.

It does nothing but create a bunch of narcissistic self-obsessed attention seekers, and I wish for a crushingly violent punishment for the assclown who came up with the idea of Facebook.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Facebook for the BlackBerry..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Sat, 11 May 2013 03:07:00 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/facebook/user-reviews/811198/platform/blackberry/ Fri, 10 May 2013 22:42:33 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Tomb Raider: Underworld for the DS... http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider-underworld/user-reviews/811192/platform/ds/ ...and gave it a 6.0.

It's easy to see that unlike other developers, Santa Cruz really did try (a little) to make this a good handheld version of a console game. But for whatever reason, whether out of laziness or because it was rushed to meet the release date, they didn't succeed. The end result is a game that is impressive in terms of visuals, but a mixture of too-easy gameplay and choppy sound results in a game that is disappointing and doesn't last very long.

One feat that I would commend the developers for is that the FMV cutscenes are all here, and all are intact, without any loss in quality. That is something that induces a 'wow', but let's get onto the actual game. The story is the same as the console version - in other words, it's very good, but after that it's downhill.

The graphics, like I said before, are amazing for a DS game. There is no slowdown like in other 3D games on the Nintendo DS, and the lighting is great. The character models aren't HD, of course, but they look very good on the DS.

The gameplay is on the easy side. Like, disappointingly easy. Sometimes you die because you don't expect it to be so easy and overshoot. Unbelievable. And there is no increase in difficulty as the game goes along.

The game plays like a 2D side scrolling platformer, but with 3D character models and environments. You use the touchscreen for the inventory. And man, the screen is dark! You'll only be able to see everything if you play on a DS Lite on the highest brightness setting. It's easy, even though Lara has all her moves from the console games like hanging from ledges, swinging around poles and using her grapple, because it's side scrolling. You can't fall off because you jumped a little too much to one side.

It should take an average of less than six hours to beat this game. So what good you can take from this game, can be taken from its screenshots - the graphics. Aside from that, unless it's your life's goal to collect every Tomb Raider game on every platform, or you don't have any other console to play this on except the DS, I would dissuade you from playing it.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Spinnerweb reviewed Tomb Raider: Underworld for the DS..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Fri, 10 May 2013 22:42:33 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider-underworld/user-reviews/811192/platform/ds/ Fri, 10 May 2013 21:12:33 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Tomb Raider: Underworld for the PlayStation 2... http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider-underworld/user-reviews/811190/platform/ps2/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

Poor Lara. While I enjoyed every single Tomb Raider game in the original series, her popularity has been plummeting for a while now. People just can't be satisfied that easily. So what do the developers do? Do they just put in revealing costumes and a cover starring her midriff and hope it'll sell? Of course not. They do that, but they make a great game as well.

Underworld continues the story where Legend left off, and the story is very good. If this had to be the end of the series it's very satisfyingly so. My greatest fear, however, was that the game would be half-assed on the PS2 and the developers would give all the attention to the seventh generation version. But right from the start, Underworld restored my faith in developers. The FMV cutscenes are excellent, and amazingly the in-game graphics are comparable to the PS3 version - this isn't a joke. Whether it's because the PS3's version's graphics are bad or the PS2 one's are very good, depends on whether you see the glass as half empty or half full.

The gameplay is very similar to Legend, but it's more non-linear. You can do more stuff now - shift along small ledges just by moving the analog stick rather than taking a risky jump, and there's an obligatory bike in one level. There's also a 'realistic' factor that makes it more believable through animations and excellent graphics - when standing near a fire in the first level, Lara will raise her arms in that direction to protect herself from the heat. After climbing out of water, Lara's clothes will be drenched. Yes, the latter also happened in Legend and Anniversary, but I never stopped being amazed at how much the developers did on the PS2 in the matter of visuals. The music is good, and the voice acting is well done. There is some minor slowdown in the gameplay of the second level (the one with the giant squid in it) but it never amounted to excessive frustration.

Of course, it's still a PS2 game, so the developers had to make some sacrifices - namely, the double auto target mode from the PS3 version isn't here. Ah well. Who wants that, anyway?

Overall, the now-bankrupt developers did a really good job with it and it's a shame the series was rebooted, though it couldn't have gone on forever obviously and over a decade is a nice long run for a series... but Underworld is a very satisfying end to the original series whichever platform you play it on.

... Except the Nintendo DS, of course.



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"Spinnerweb reviewed Tomb Raider: Underworld for the PlayStation 2..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Fri, 10 May 2013 21:12:33 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider-underworld/user-reviews/811190/platform/ps2/ Sun, 05 May 2013 08:10:02 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Way of the Samurai 2 for the PlayStation 2... http://www.gamespot.com/way-of-the-samurai-2/user-reviews/811025/platform/ps2/ ...and gave it a 6.0.

Samurai. The legends of Japan. People who would commit suicide instead of surrendering, if my history book told me the truth.

Way of the Samurai 2 is not about samurai. That may be surprising, but it seems the developers have never seen a history textbook. In this game, you create a character, and you're a bum with a sword in feudal Japan who is starving when a little girl gives him a rice ball to eat, at the start of the game. Guess that makes you a samurai? Anyway, the story is not so great, and given how short the game is you would have thought the developers would have put more work into the story. There are multiple endings, but all but two of the story paths have the same ending. And none of the endings are good.

You can make choices on what to say which sometimes affects the story, and you can do stuff to prolong your story, but mostly it makes no difference. None of the characters are likeable - a dumb girl who the townspeople call 'No-name' (but you can find her real name by teaching her to read and write), a woman who runs some kind of business, a few side characters and Hanzayaman Takamura who is the 'rebel leader' of the town of Amahara.

The gameplay - you walk around town but there's rarely ever anything to do except go in the shops for doing stuff like eating to restore health or drinking alcohol which increases your energy but loses you some health. And you never need the shops because it's too short. You can talk to people, but nothing they say is interesting. If you kill even one person (except thugs), all the shopkeepers kick you out of their shop when they see you. Honestly, what else is there to do in free-roaming except kill a few people? You can visit a dojo where they teach you how to fight, but you learn as much on the fly.

There are different types of swords like 'Ore' and 'Ninja' and the swords break if you use them too much without pausing between attacks. You can collect items like scrolls which power up your swords and food items which restore health. You can roam around, sleep in your house, etc. Just pass the time. There isn't much to do.

The graphics are not very good, and all battles have the same music - which is decent but gets repetitive. The voice acting is poor, but the sound effects are good. There aren't that many options in create-a-character mode, which means whatever you create, you won't like in the least.

Overall, the developers really could have put together a good game here, but they didn't even bother to do a little homework. Even after playing through all the story paths and watching all the endings, I wasn't all that satisfied. Way of the Samurai 2 is historically inaccurate, gameplay-wise and graphically average, and the voice acting will hurt the ears of anyone with functioning aural cavities. It's really disappointing what the developers came up with when they had such a good premise to go on. I wanted to like this game, but it's hard to. Overall, this is not the best samurai-based game.

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"Spinnerweb reviewed Way of the Samurai 2 for the PlayStation 2..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Sun, 05 May 2013 08:10:02 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/way-of-the-samurai-2/user-reviews/811025/platform/ps2/ Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:33:04 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Street Cleaning Simulator for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/street-cleaning-simulator/user-reviews/810660/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 10.0!!!

I first played Street Cleaning Simulator about a year ago, and I have been playing it over and over ever since like a man possessed. So anyway, when I first played it it was with my best friend. We popped it in and started playing. I rarely get touchy while playing video games, but this game was so moving in every aspect that I started crying about five minutes into the game and by the time the credits rolled, I was basically bawling my eyes out. My friend didn't even look at me after it was over and he has never played a video game with me since. I have no idea why.

The game's script was written by many well-known geniuses the likes of Roald Dahl, Joanne Rowling, Jamie Rix, Aristotle, Mark Twain and Arnold Schwarzenegg-whatsisname, Stephen King, Sylvester Stallone and a small chipmunk. In fact, there are very few famous people who have not worked on this game one way or another.

So, anyway, you play as a street cleaner who has made it his life's mission to clean the streets of vermin. While little toddlers pore over comic books and movies and licensed garbage video games of men wearing their underwear on the outside and wearing a cape as if they're going to the opera, this real-life superhero puts his truck on the road and cleans, cleans, cleans. He never rests because he knows that if he does, the streets will get dirty. And if they get dirty, he drives his car to the edge of a cliff and stays there.

Our street cleaning superhero apparently doesn't have a stereo in his truck, so there is no music. Smart choice because otherwise every time he gets off a bunch of bad guys in masks would smash the windows, steal his stereo and leave a note sneering at his taste in music. And since he's busy fighting the real evil: smidgens of dust, he would not be able to stop them. Oh well, he fares much better than other superheroes. They never fight crime in neighbourhoods that need it. I'd like to see Batman fight crime in my neighbourhood.

"Robin?"

"Yes Batman?"

"Didn't we park the car right here, man?"

Along the way, our hero encounters other cars whose drivers are either busy defying gravity or driving their vehicles full pelt into your truck in a desperate effort to ram it off the road. Obviously these are the same people who say, "Littering is a very bad habit," and at the same time drop a banana peel in the middle of the road, ready for the next unfortunate wretch to cross the road. But our hero here... he stops it. He risks it all. The game lasts a good long time itself, but you will play it over and over and over again because it's so damn addictive. And in the end, there is only one gripe with this game - the inclusion of Stephenie Meyer in the credits. I can't forgive that. They should have had her work uncredited. Big Rigs, I've got two words for you: ha and ha. Turns out, a street cleaner surpasses a big rig in every way. So there you have it. It's not the reigning champ of video games (which is Valkyria Chronicles II. Sorry, I can't help myself even in troll reviews), but it's definitely one of the top contenders.

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"Spinnerweb reviewed Street Cleaning Simulator for the PC..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:33:04 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/street-cleaning-simulator/user-reviews/810660/platform/pc/ Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:52:55 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Strikers 1945 Plus Portable for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/strikers-1945-plus-portable/user-reviews/810500/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 5.0.

Strikers was a series of bullet hell games before bullet hell games were cool. Now, I happen to be a big fan of bullet hell games, and since the PSP has a tragically undernourished library of bullet hell games, of course I had to try this. Who cares if every reviewer in existence panned it, right?

Turns out, I should have listened to the reviewers. This game may be good to distract a child for a while (after tying his wrists to your PSP of course, so he doesn't throw it down in frustration at this game) and if you just feel like a 15-minute blast once in a while, then Strikers 1945 Plus Portable can be pretty fun. But looking at the price and the value for money this game offers, you should look at alternatives like Neo Geo Heroes: Ultimate Shooting instead.

The idea of the game is unique - a sci-fi World War II shooter, and the music is very good - war trumpets - but after that, it goes downhill. There are six planes you can choose from, and what I don't get is why the hell why we have to choose from them in nine seconds flat - nine seconds flat! Nine seconds is barely enough time to look through the planes. And none of the plane's powers or strengths or abilities are shown in the select screen if that's what you're wondering.

It plays like a generic shmup. If you hold down the shot button, you get a special charged attack, but that's the only special thing about this game. You use your bombs to call an airstrike in which five planes come to back you up; they stay for a very long time and absorb bullets, so all you have to do is get behind them and you're in barely any danger.

The level designs are generic, the bosses are easy and you get infinite continues! Infinite continues, and the scores are randomized so if you play this game for a high score, don't bother since there is no set score for killing a certain type of enemy. So you have infinite continues and you die on one hit; this makes the game both insanely hard and awfully easy at the same time. Worse still, the levels start repeating themselves after a while. Do they think we have amnesia or something that we can't remember?

I'd love to give this game a higher score, but I really don't feel it deserves it.

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"Spinnerweb reviewed Strikers 1945 Plus Portable for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:52:55 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/strikers-1945-plus-portable/user-reviews/810500/platform/psp/ Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:39:21 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Cho Aniki Zero for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/cho-aniki-zero/user-reviews/810458/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Cho Aniki has been around since the mid-1990s, but was never released outside of Japan, and what we'll get to in a second will prove why. Anyway, this is one of those games that never made a buzz and is lucky to get localized at all. And if it had been more noticed, then there would be more lawsuits. Quite simply, you can retitle this game, "Sexual Objectification in Videogames: How Would Men Like It?" and it would fit perfectly.

About ninety-three per cent of the cast (the rest are robots) is three-quarters-nude, and horror of horrors, all but one of them are men. The creepiest are Adon and Samson - really huge, muscular men (the subtitle of the game is 'Muscle Brothers') who are almost always in awfully homoerotic poses. Writing about it makes my stomach roil. And there are the two naked babies Misha and El.

Anyway, the only normal-looking characters are the two playable ones - Itadon's a guy (and yes, he's muscular as hell too but at least wears pants) and Benten's the only female character. And she is pretty hot. Actually, she's very hot. They had to make this game sell a little somehow, after all.

I'd have preferred not to have naked men or babies flying around the screen, but you have to pick a sidekick alongside the character you're playing - Itadon can pick between Samson and Adon and Benten has to stick with both Misha and El.

The story is that BuilderPlanet is running out of protein so Itadon and Benten set out to kill off Balzac II the Villain. Quite a simple and idiotic story, with no speech narration, and it's all told through the opening but the story's never the focus in bullet hell games - the gameplay is.

So what about the gameplay? It's decent. You fly horizontally around the screen shooting stuff, you can change directions, and you can use traditional bombs (called Eruptions - it's not as bad as it sounds) and Men Beams - basically laser attacks - though if you pick Benten it's called the Splash Beam and is more of a screen-sweep. Your sidekicks shoot alongside you and absorb bullets. Enemies drop protein capsules and man-juice which you can pick up for more bombs and lasers - let's just call them lasers. You can change your direction, which is a feature not all bullet hell games have. The graphics are nice - the models and environment are 3D - and the music is fine too. There isn't that crazy sense of speed because backgrounds are static, but overall the game does well in the gameplay, graphics and sound department.

One thing to complain about is the presentation. The title and options menu makes you expect it's gonna be hella oldschool - 16-bit graphics and choppy sound effect - but it's not like that, which is good. The Pause screen is just a simple 'PAUSE' written across the screen in WordPad font and you can't exit to the main menu or anything (you have to quit the whole game). In the options menu the control scheme indicates that you can access the options midgame by pressing O, but you can't.

Overall, Cho Aniki Zero is a good bullet hell game for someone who can maintain an indifference to a lot of the stuff shown and implied in the game, and can simply focus on shooting everything, but if you're sensitive to such things then definitely avoid it.

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"Spinnerweb reviewed Cho Aniki Zero for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:39:21 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/cho-aniki-zero/user-reviews/810458/platform/psp/ Sun, 02 Dec 2012 00:22:17 -0800 Spinnerweb reviewed Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/lara-croft-and-the-guardian-of-light/user-reviews/804063/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is the first Tomb Raider game Square Enix made when they bought out Eidos and its franchises. It happens to be the only Tomb Raider games not to have Tomb Raider in the title, and it doesn't deserve that degree of merit because while it's a fair enough game, it's by far the worst in the series.

Let's start with the story first. A bunch of idiot explorers (every explorer except Lara is an idiot) get their grubby hands on a Mirror of Smoke and set free the evil being trapped in it, going by the name of Xolotl. Lara, always the heroine, teams up with the Guardian of Light, Totec, who defeated Xolotl once before and sets out to imprison the bad guy once and for all. The story just about hangs together, but by Tomb Raider standards it's disappointing. The story, at least, is a department in which every Tomb Raider game has excelled whereas here it's rushed and very little focus is on the plot. Cutscenes are short, rushed, few and far between. The ending is a bit too sudden, and isn't satisfying compared to the other games.

Square Enix has made some changes to the gameplay here. First of all, the camera is fixed from an isometric viewpoint and while this works most of the time, it really screws up when, for example, the grappling icon appears right at the edge of the screen or under your HUD. Lara has a spear that she can stick into walls to climb up to higher ledges. Grappling along walls is somewhat similar to that of the previous games, except it's a helluva lot more awkward due to the camera. While combat was almost never the focus in the first era Tomb Raider games, and secondary to puzzles and platforming in the second era games, here it is one of the big parts and most of the combat sequences consist of enemies ganging up on you twenty to one while you rush around planting and exploding landmines behind you... yes, Lara has landmines in this game too.

Health is refilled from health packs that enemies drop (you can't carry them around like in previous games) or at Health Shrines. Ammo isn't measured in bullets, it's a blue bar under your health bar and depletes as you use weapons other than the infinite-ammo pistols. All weapons use the same ammo bar; ammo is refilled from ammo packs placed at hard-to-get locations or at Ammo Shrines.

Puzzles are simple, few and far between, but it's not all bad. There is a big focus on platforming and there are some tense sequences where you keep going jumping from platform to falling platform. The controls work well, though sometimes Lara shoots completely away from where you're aiming. The graphics are good for a mobile game, and the music, which usually was non-existent in first era games, is decent as well, though not as good as that of the second era games.

Square Enix have done a decent job with the franchise they finally got their hands on, but Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light cannot be compared favourably to any other Tomb Raider game (yes, that INCLUDES Angel of Darkness). Tomb Raider fans won't be dissatisfied with it, but they won't be as satisfied as they've come to expect from the previous games either.

Get the full article at GameSpot

]]> http://www.gamespot.com/lara-croft-and-the-guardian-of-light/user-reviews/804063/platform/iphone/ Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:00:09 -0700 Spinnerweb reviewed Brian Lara 2007 Pressure Play for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/brian-lara-2007-pressure-play/user-reviews/801997/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 4.0.

Have you ever wondered why people like you are so fat and flabby? Why you can't walk more than a few yards without having to draw breath? Why you're always lounging around on your broad-beamed backside reading the reviews this polite reviewer writes? It's because you'd rather play video games of the king sport, cricket, than cricket itself.
... Ahem. Sorry.

Brian Lara 2007 Pressure Play is a predictably watered-down-for-PSP version of Brian Lara 2007 International Cricket. Also known as Ricky Ponting 2007 Pressure Play in Australia, but the way it's not called Inzamam-ul-Haq 2007 Pressure Play in Pakistan is a telling one. It would be an insult to said legend. The game doesn't even feel like it was made by a respectable company with a CEO in a dark suit. The presentation is plain, the load times are awfully long and plain and extremely frequent, there's no commentary, stumpings do not exist in this version and the players do not look remotely like their real-life counterparts. There are countless things to complain about. We'll start with the presentation first.

The title loading screen is a disc spinning around in the bottom right corner. Would it have killed them to make it feel more ... cricket-ish? Second, in the title menu after every option you select there is a loading screen. There is also a loading screen after every over in a match. The game doesn't even have a tutorial - you have to figure everything out yourself. There is no commentary, and the graphics are just bad. The characters barely resemble their real-life selves, have super-deformed heads, and often the colour of the skin of their arms is in stark contrast with the skin colour of their face. Most of the crowd are present without stands to sit in. There are texture seams, slow-downs, lags after every ball and matches feel sluggish overall. It feels like the players are playing in slow-motion. There are no stumpings in this game either. Poor wicket-keeper.

Still, once you figure out the controls, you can have tiny amounts of fun - ocassionally. Mostly you're just frustrated and waiting for the awful loading screens to go by. Either way, you can find solace in once again having the retired greats of your national cricket team play. Cricket '97 was more fun than this. So all in all, it's not even a fraction as exciting as a live match.

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"Spinnerweb reviewed Brian Lara 2007 Pressure Play for the PSP..." was posted by Spinnerweb on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:00:09 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/brian-lara-2007-pressure-play/user-reviews/801997/platform/psp/ Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:51:24 -0700 InstantKlassick reviewed AMY for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/amy/user-reviews/801982/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 1.0.

I found this game on PSN for $2.50, this game was a waste of both time and money. I can't believe this game debuted for $14.99. This game is broken in every way. The screen tearing is atrocious, the graphics are painful, and story is almost non-existent. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to purchase this crap. Even though it's discounted for a special time, just pass it up. I played this game for 47 minutes, that was 46 minutes too long. Just say no to Amy! Graphics - Horrible (Screen Tearing, to many trails on character models) Sound - Grating and Annoying. Game-play - Awful (Clunky Combat, Stiff Character Models, Horrible Collision Detection) Replay Value - NONE! (If you beat the first level and not die of boredom first, Kudos to you!) All-in-all, this game sucks, please do not buy! Thank you!

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"InstantKlassick reviewed AMY for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by InstantKlassick on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:51:24 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/amy/user-reviews/801982/platform/ps3/