• 24Sep 08

  Japanese Cover Art Special (PART 1)

  What's up? Welcome to my first part of the Japanese cover art special. Remember those Japanese games which had an awesome cover in Japan but had a terrible one in the US? Well, today it's going to be backwards: American-developed games with a different cover in Japan. Get Ready! (NOTE: I will only show Genesis/MegaDrive covers, so if you were expecting more covers from other systems, you will see them on the next parts)

  First, we'll begin with a fan-favorite on the Genesis: Comix Zone. A game that was called as "innovative" because of the idea of being in a comic book and interacting with it (ripping off parts of the comic: sweet!). As you probably will notice, the character design in this cover is your standard anime-like characters. Here it goes:

  

  Now comes another well-known and innovative game for the good ol' Genesis: Ecco the Dolphin. As a matter of fact, I find this game boring. Anyways, both covers are pretty much the same as the American ones (NOTE: obviously, with "both" I'm talking about Ecco and Ecco 2, not that there are 2 Japanese covers for the first). See for yourself:

  

  

  The next cover is from a fighting game that is considered to be awesome by many Genesis fans: Eternal Champions. Well, with this one it's just the same except that there are some names of the characters. Anyway, let's see:

  

  Next up, a platformer wery well recieved, but very hard: Kid Chameleon. The cover is pretty much the same deal as Comix Zone: average anime-like characters. Here it comes:

  

  Well, that's all for now. Check out next time the second part of the Japanese cover art special.

  • Posted Sep 24, 2008 1:16 pm PT
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• 3Mar 08

  Quick Play: WiiSports, Rush (PSP) and Thrillville (PSP)

  Hi, everyone. Welcome to my new segment called "Quick Play", in which i give a short and quick opinion to three games, in this case they are: WiiSports, Rush and Thrillville. Now, here they go.

  WiiSports (Nintendo, 2006) (Wii)

  Yup, the first game that i will comment is the game that comes with every Wii. Yesterday, since i went to a cousin's house, we played this game. The game that i picked was Boxing. I gotta say that i was pretty bad, since i've never used a Wii, and the motion sensor was a little bit too high (probably it's because i'm used to the Knockout minigame in EyeToy: Play 2). But at least it was nice to play with a Wii, so i give WiiSports a 4out of 5

  Rush (Midway, 2006) (PSP)

  Rush is another entry in the Rush series (with San Francisco Rush on Arcades, Nintendo 64 and PS1 being the 1st one). It's basically an adaptation of L.A. Rush, which was released for PS2, Xbox and GameCube on 2005, since it features almost the same things (even that i haven't played L.A. Rush): street races (but with checkpoints, a la Midnight Club), the same stages, cops, tuning and the inclusion of the West Coast Customs team (yep, those from the first seasons of MTV's Pimp my Ride, which is also included in this game). I've played quick race mode, and, well, it was acceptable. The graphics were somehow nice, and the music, well, it's your common hip-hop music from a street racing game (although in the options menu you can also select between rock and techno music). The second mode, which is the best, is the stunt mode. In this mode you must, well, duh, do stunts. The gameplay is really Midway-arcade-racer-like although without the wheelies from games like Cruis'n. I give Rush a 3 out of 5, because although it isn't good, at least it revives some of the stuff that made arcade racers so good.

  And now... (drumroll please)

  Thrillville (LucasArts, 2006) (PSP/PS2, comments of the PSP version)

  Developed by Frontier Developments, creators of Atari's mega-hit Rollercoaster Tycoon series, Thrillville puts one of more than 20 selectable characters (which you can customise) in charge of one of the many parks by your uncle Mortimer. In this game, instead of being like Rollercoaster Tycoon or the Theme Park series, you control the characterm and you can talk to people and go to the rides and games. Also, when you're talking to people, you can challenge them to the games. It seems that Frontier got inspired from many old arcade games (like Gradius, 1942, Gauntlet and many others) for Thrillville's arcade games. And, if you want to play them without the need to play them on the park, you can play them on the Party Play mode, in which you can play it with three more players via Ad-hoc. The bad thing about this game are the graphics in some of the FPS minigames, which have PS1 quality textures. So i give it a 4 out of 5.

  And well, there you had my comments about those games. See you next time on another "Quick Play"!

  • Posted Mar 3, 2008 3:58 pm PT
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• 16Nov 07

  Reviews: Guitar Hero 3

  Full Name: Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock

  Alternate Name: N/A

  Publishers: Activision/RedOctane

  Developers: Neversoft

  Year: 2007

  Platforms: PS2/PS3/Xbox 360/PC/Wii

  Ok, we all know that Guitar Hero was a revolution in 2005, and it was also last year with Guitar Hero 2. But this year we had 2 Guitar Hero games: Guitar Hero 2 for the Xbox 360 and the not-so-good Guitar Hero 2 "expansion" Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the '80s for the PS2 (this game had 5 characters, plus a secret one, guess who? Right... it's Grim Reaper. Also, it had 30 songs, no bonus songs and no outfits for the characters). But now Guitar Hero goes really BIG with Guitar Hero 3: Legends ofRock, this time by long-time Tony Hawk's Pro Skater developer Neversoft (the 4 previous, i said the 4 previous because the X360 port of GH2 and GH Encore: Rocks the '80s count; were developed by Harmonix Music Systems, developers of Konami's Karaoke Revolution series and SCEA's EyeToy: Antigrav). GH3 introduces new game modes: "Co-op Career" and the "Battle Mode", in which you can battle against a friend and try to make him lose by using several power-ups, like "Whammy", "Amp Overload" (in which the notes are like "tilting", so that the player won't know well which notes are coming), "Difficulty Up", "Double Notes", "Broken String" and more. In Career Mode, this "Battles" features two famous guitar players: Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave) and Slash (Guns 'n Roses, Velvet Revolver) as bosses. The songlist is much better than the setlist from GH2, including songs like "Paranoid" (Black Sabbath), "Anarchy in the UK" (The Sex Pistols), "School's Out" (Alice Cooper), "Ruby" (The Kaiser Chiefs), "When You Were Young" (The Killers), "BeforeI Forget" (Slipknot), "Bulls on Parade" (Rage Against The Machine), and the most honorable mention: "Welcome To The Jungle" (Guns 'n Roses). Some of the cast of the previous GH games is back, like Axel Steel, Johnny Napalm, Lars Umlaut, and others, but they have a brand new look (see by yourself). The gameplay is the same, but that doesn't mean it isn't good, in fact, it's AWESOME! Although you can't press more than 3 fret buttons at the same time (i think that it was like that). The good thing of this game is that most of the songs (almost all of the songlist) are by their original artist, so that means you won't hear anymore those wannabe voices of the previous Guitar Hero games. Also, for those that want to play in career mode in Easy difficulty and get some cash, here i got a meganew: NOW YOU CAN GET CASH IN EASY DIFFICULTY! YAY! (sorry for the"YAY!"). For me, it seems that Neversoft put all the stuff that Harmonix didn't. Oh, one message for you, guys: LONG LIFE GUITAR HERO 3! See the good, the bad and the weird below (plus some screenshots!)

  

  THE GOOD: The new game modes are great, the graphics and the songlist too. The best thing? Getting cash in Easy difficulty in Career Mode

  THE BAD: I don't know

  THE WEIRD: When you beat Tom Morello in Career Mode, it tells you to play an encore with him. The thing that i don't understand is: if Tom Morello participated in the game, why the hell in the name of the song and the artist it says "AS MADE FAMOUS BY", which means that is a cover

  THE END!

  • Posted Nov 16, 2007 5:53 pm PT
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