MEMBER PROFILE FOR The Source
Average Overall Score Given: 8.23077 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 35
Reviews
New Legends
Overall: When New legends was first announced, I was pleased that Microsoft and ThQ were on the brink of releasing a title that would challenge Koei's Dynasty Warriors. When the game was released I automatically purchased it thinking it would be good, however, to my dismay this is one of the most crappiest games I have ever played. The graphics are extraneously horrid, and the framerate moves at the speed of molasses. The fighting system as good as it is suffers from the extreme lacadaisical attitude of the A.I. With the Azurik's and Nightcaster type games being released, the X-box is starting to look like a dumping ground for crap games. Gameplay: I give props to the fighting system, yet with the horrible camera angles and horrible fighting animations the system is never truly utilized. Simply running around and killing things is fun but it would be be better on a non-glitchy fully polished game like Baldur's Gate. To top that off it's not even a multiplayer game.
Graphics: Am I even playing a game on the X-box? The graphics have a general look of the first generation N64 launch titles. The textures and colors are as bland and plain as an unfurnished apartment, and the trees and buildings look like they were drawn by a five year old. The framerate stutters consistently in addition to some horrid slowdown that hurts gameplay and the overall fun factor. There is not even one graphical piece that impressed me, and this game is probably using about 5% of the X-boxes graphical capability. Clearly an eye sore.
Audio: The sound gets extremely repetitive and the sounds of your own footsteps will annoy the living hell out of you. The voice acting is average and the general presentation remind of another crappy beat em up Fighting Force 2.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Legends of Wrestling
Overall: Legends of Wrestling is an awesome wrestling simulation. it's fun, nostalgic, captivating, and a refreshing turn away from games based on WWE story lines, which are usually outdated by the time the game hits the market. Not that Raw was a bad game, I liked it allot and found it had pretty good replay value, but there are allot of characters in that game who were pretty unpopular and that most people probably forgot about by the time they bought Raw (i.e. haku, k-kwik, shaneomac, the old billy gun, etc.). Legends of wrestling brought back to life the famous and infamous wrestlers that made wrestling a cornerstone of American culture, guys like Ted Dibiase, George the animal Steele, Hulk Hogan, King Kong Bundy etc. Any fan of oldschool wrestling would certainly appreciate the LOW roster. Gameplay: The Gameplay for LOW is very good. If you use RAW standards to judge LOW's gameplay, you'd probably think the gameplay was bad, at first I felt this way because I was playing RAW for the past few months and was used to the feel of the wrestler's movement, the speed, and the other physics of the game. When I played LOW for the first time I thought the way the wrestlers moved and threw punches were slow and unrealistic. But as I played on and learned how to use the grappling ISPs and The combo meters, moving around became more or less unimportant. The real challenge was properly using the combo meters. The combo meters where a great improvement over raw. This allows the players to reverse moves and to create combination attacks. I really like this feature, It adds a certain amount of skill into the game. Reversing moves in RAW was based largely on luck, LOW requires speed and skill to get the job done. The fact that the combo meter varies in speed and target size really gives you a discernable feeling of control over the game. The ability to hit a combo allows you to plan strategies for winning your match. This aspect of player control is one of the most important parts of a wrestling game and is really implemented well in LOW. In my opinion, the combo meters make LOW more interactive than RAW.
Graphics: The Graphics in LOW were quite different than RAW. RAW did a fabulous job of creating life like and outstanding depictions of todays favorites. The backgrounds and entrances were also a treat. Legends of Wrestling used a cartoon like and somewhat slapstick method of portraying it's wrestlers. I loved it. Acclaim did a wonderfull and truly creative job of recreating yesteryear's superstars in a way that not only captured the ambience of Wrestling's glory days but also personified the various personalities and gimmicks of the time. The colors where bright and the textures where shiny and rubbery. Someone else said that It was like they brought to life the old style wrestling dolls that were made out of rubber, remember those? I think that says it all. The fans , arenas, and referees were all excellent as well. You can even choose from a primary and secondary costume for your legend. RAW didn't have secondary costumes. Lastly one huge benefit of LOW is the blood option. What wrestling match would be complete without someone being busted open and spilling blood all over the map. It doesn't get any better than that.
Audio: The sounds in LOW where not bad at all. Although the entrance music for the wrestlers were not authentic, you can ripp your own music into this game and use it for the entrance. A feature that was disapointingly absent in RAW.
I did however find the generic entrance music very pleasant, they fit well with the wrestlers. Other great sound effects where the fans cheering and booing, the referee's voice, the weapon attack sounds, the wrestlers moan's and groan's and the voice of the managers when distracting the referee were very amusing. I found the wrestlers groans and such to be accurate and different from person to person, whereas RAW generally used two or three different voices. I also personally liked the menu music in LOW better than RAW, which used this annoying track when setting up a versus battle.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Spider-Man
Overall: There's an unwritten law somewhere that games based on movies always seem to fail miserably at being games. So when this version of Spiderman, a game based on a movie based on a comic, came out, I had some misgivings about how good it might be. Based on the movie will a lot of additional villains and filler story to give the game extra depth, Spiderman: The Movie builds on the success of the previous Playstation titles. Gameplay: Spiderman: The Movie is broken up into two major portions of the game. Part of your time will be spent swinging around town, fighting aerial enemies like the Vulture or Green Goblin. When not in the air, you'll crawl your way through warehouses, sewers and the like, beating up thugs and finding your path to the next area by way of keys or switches. Fighting consists of either using your punch or kick button in combos and you can unlock more combos by finding gold spider icons. Also, you can use your webbing as both an attack and defensive tool.
Graphics: For the most part, Spiderman: The Movie looks really good. The outdoor cityscapes are huge and look great. Reflective effects on the windows and effective lighting give the city a real-life effect. Also, you won't see a fog obscuring the city off in the distance, hiding pop-up. Once inside the buildings and sewers, you'll work your way through large areas that showcase some nice textures and a great array of lighting effects. Unfortunately, a lot of the furniture and debris seems rather blocky and could use a higher polygon count to make them feel more realistic. The CG cutscenes look good. While not as life-like as Final Fantasy (mostly due to the less than real body movements), they do add to the look of the game.
Audio: Both the voiceacting in the cutscenes (performed by Toby Maguire and Willem Dafoe) and sound effects are done exceptionally well. Bruce Campbell provides commentary in the training modes, which is well worth the time alone for the laughs. Some the lines in the game are cheesy and the thugs tend to same the same two or three lines over and over again. The music has the grand cinematic feel that successfully ties to the game to the movie.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Burnout
Overall: For me this game has a lot to offer, I like games that stick me into hairy situations, and what's more hairy then some oncoming traffic? There are plenty of tracks to be unlocked, and an average number of cars for a game of this type. In the end it isn't the cars, the graphics or the sound that keep me coming back for more, it's the track layout and the utter thrill of driving fast and completly crazy without any real danger. Anyone who liked the first Need For Speed will feel at home with the crashing, and anyone with a love of racing games of all types will gobble this one up. For the rest of you, I suggest you give it a good rent first. Gameplay: This is the department where Burnout really excels. Let me start off by saying the AI is excellent. Computer controlled cars not only get in accidents as often as you, but they also drive on the wrong side of the road, use their boost, and force you into oncoming traffic. The in game traffic reacts to what you do as well, if you swerve at them they will hit the breaks and try to get out of your way in a realistic manner. The crashes in this game are said to be the best and most realistic unfortunately I cannot agree here, while very good I didn't find them to be as real as I expected them to. Maybe its because my idea of a 150 mph crash into head on traffic is more of along the lines of a few flips and some rolling, while in this game its mostly spin outs and a single flip in the air. The most annoying part of a crash is the instant replay that you cannot skip. Right after the impact, the game goes into a semi slow-mo replay; which is cool at first but will soon get on your nerves. The focus of the game is Championship mode, which consists of circuits, each with its own set of tracks. When you beat one you unlock the next, and eventually new cars. There are time trials and single races, as well as a two-player mode. Let me stop there for a second and talk a little bit about the two player mode. First off, its !&%$@#* fun! Smacking your opponent around is a joyous thing that should be enjoyed by everyone. However it is very hard to see the traffic ahead of you mainly due to the timer in the middle of the screen. This might be different for other people with bigger TV's; I myself tested this game on a 27 inch Sony Vega.
There isn't much to talk about here, it's a very ''Arcadey'' game with loose controls, and the occasional drift which is simple to recover from. This is the type of game anyone can pick up and play with little to no practice whatsoever. The layout is simple, R&L are the analog Gas/break, and you can use the control stick or D-Pad to turn, that's pretty much all you need to know.
Graphics: Where do I start? Burnout can best be described graphically as an ambitious effort. The frame rate is a rock solid 60 fps no matter what happens. Not once did I ever notice a drop no matter how many cars were on screen and there can be upwards of 30+ at any given moment. The texture work is not great, but its not bad either, certain textures seem to have gotten an overhaul while some just look washed out and plain, no bump mapping here folks sorry. The cars are average looking, but the Xbox version seems to have gotten a revamped reflection map system. It is not of the same quality as Project Gotham or RalliSport, but more along the lines of Test Drive Off Road. This basicly means that it will reflect the road and the sky, but not really anything else. Track detail is scarce and the road at times looks very flat but you will hardly notice while your screaming at over 130 mph in oncoming traffic. What this game does manage to show is the absolute balls the RenderWare engine has, with a rock solid 60 fps and upwards of 12 million polys per second on screen. With a little tweaking, I believe we could see a sequel with graphics that easily rival Project Gotham.
Audio: Sound is tricky, while it runs perfectly in Dolby 5.1 which really adds a lot to the atmosphere, after all there is no better sound then a car whizzing by at top speed, And with positional audio you feel like your in the drivers seat. The basic racing sound effects like screeching tires, the roar of the engine and the carnage that is a crash are all done nicely, but I feel they could have been a lot better. The music on the other hand will make most people want to rip their ears off their head. Funky semi-techno/Euro pop tunes with almost no pleasant beats really get on your nerves, especially since there is almost no variation in the song. It's like a 30 second audio clip stuck on loop and you cant find the remote to turn the volume off.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
NBA Inside Drive 2002
Overall: Coming off the heels of the surprisingly impressive NFL Fever 2002, Microsoft's latest addition to their Xbox sports line, NBA Inside Drive 2002 had a lot to live up to. Developer High Voltage (the same developers behind the original PC version as well as Hunter: The Reckoning) had the experience to deliver an impressive basketball game - and indeed they have. In fact, NBA Inside Drive delivers a basketball game that's actually better than Sega's, and perhaps the best NBA game I've played since the days of the Sega Genesis. It might be a little lacking in the features department, but it has it where it counts - exceptional gameplay and outstanding visuals. Only a few nagging flaws exist, but they're ignored because the game is a blast to play, either by yourself or with friends. Gameplay: NBA Inside Drive 2002 comes with only a few features - all you'll find is a basic exhibition, season, and playoff mode. There is no franchise mode, and no create a player either. Coming from the incredibly deep feature set of NFL Fever, this comes as a letdown, but all is forgiven once you sit down and start a season & start having fun. Before you know it, you're 30 games in and you're hooked to how great the gameplay is, which makes up for this lack of features 10-fold.
In the season mode, various things can take place - you can trade players, sign free agents, release players, and fool around with your starting lineups. Oddly, you are not allowed to make uneven trades - no 2 for 1 sales here, which is unfortunate given these kind of trades happen all the time. What's neat though, is during the season the CPU teams will offer trades of their own, and you can accept or reject them at your mercy. Also, players become injured, and can either be out until a particular date, or be the day-to-day sort and still play, even if they're hobbling around and their skills are depleted a tad.
NBA Inside Drive also has a full stat-tracking engine that's easy to understand and clean to look at - top 10 leaders in each category are there to look at, as are individual team statistics. Plus, you can view transactions and injuries for other teams. My only nagging complaint here is something that some basketball games do and some don't - if you set your quarters for 8 minutes (where you can realistically have a common 100 point scoring NBA game that feels like an actual game) the stat tracking is for 8 minutes with the CPU teams - which means they're averaging like 50 points a game and their leading scorer is putting in about 12 a night. Why not either make it default at 12 minute stat tracking, or give the option to track stats a particular way? It's not a big deal, but it looks funky when you're a stat junkie and you see all the awkward league leaders and such. It's the exact reason I got turned off from EA's NBA Live series...that and the slowly growing horrid gameplay.
Thankfully, the gameplay of NBA ID 2002 is something to cheer about. Not really a pure sim, or a true arcade game, ID manages to toe the line between arcade and sim, delivering a game that feels like a real NBA game, only with a slightly faster edge. The computer AI is pretty smart, even on rookie, giving you a pretty challenging game each time out.
Unlike a game such as NBA Live, where all you need to do is drive the lane and lay it in, or NBA 2Kx where you're almost forced to shoot from afar when against tougher competition, NBA ID is able to successfully mix in outside shooting with inside power basketball to create a great balance between play styles. Each NBA team is also different - some teams, like San Antonio, pound the ball inside at all times to their big men - while other teams like Dallas are prone to taking lots of 3-pointers and outside shots whenever they can.
Players and their skills actually vary throughout games, or depending on the opponent - playing as the Wizards, Michael Jordan sometimes had a game where he shot the lights out, and other times he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. This applies for most of the players as well. Also, there's no Shaq 3-pointers in NBA ID - all that will get is a smart remark from the announcers on how this guy certainly isn't their outside threat.
My beef on offense is how lackadaisical the other players are at hitting the boards - even after changing the settings to make the rebounding more aggressive, they're still a little passive about getting under the hoop and pulling the ball out. When it happens it's usually a big dunk, but this is few and far between.
Playing defense is a bit more of a chore. That same poor rebounding skill is also here, leading to way too many second chances. It's not as bad as the offensive rebounding, but it's not great either.
Meanwhile, just playing the defense is a challenge. Fouls are called a bit more frequently if you're aggressive than they'd call against the computer, and it seems like they can practically charge to the basket and score. However, this can be solved by actually playing defense. Like NBA 2Kx, playing defense is actually a useful tool, instead of something that's an afterthought. Learn how to guard and get in the offensive player's face, and the chances of them scoring is a bit less. The rebounding thing is tough to control, but if you use the icon player switch (mapping each player to a button on the Xbox controller) to get to your big men, it's possible to rack up more rebounds and thus be a better player.
Shooting free throws is a new process - instead of the weird (but effective) process used by Sega Sports or the T-meter of EA Sports, NBA ID uses a different standard entirely. There's a ''power'' and ''accuracy'' meter that's basketball shaped - get the moving basketball in both black holes and the shot will be
Graphics: As you'd expect, NBA ID 2002 is a visual beauty, using all the power under the hood of the Xbox. Each player and their faces are accurately mapped, along with each of their trademark features - be it tattoos, headbands, wristbands, kneepads, the whole thing. It's to the point where you can identify players by their graphical design, without looking on the back of their jerseys for names & numbers.
The player animations were motion captured by NBA Inside Drive coverboy and NBA superstar Vince Carter. These are most present in the great dunking animations - for the most part every player moves the same. However there's tons of shooting animations too - all the players have their own free-throw animations as well. Visually it's one of the most realistic basketball games made, closely mirroring the real thing.
The courts are also implemented perfectly, each coming with their official name instead of ''Chicago Arena'' instead of United Center. Hey, they're Microsoft here, they can afford the cost of the name. The only odd thing is how dark the game feels - it reminds me of a WWF non-televised show where all the lights are on the ring and the rest of the arena is dark. It's not as bright as you'd expect in a basketball game, that's for sure.
Audio: Play By Play is done by Seattle Sonics announcer Kevin Calabro, and the color man is former NBA player Marques Johnson. The interaction between them is well done, and feels quite real, if not a little repetitive. MJ tries too hard to be funny, and comes off as a moron at times, but Calabro is genuinely entertaining and has multitudes of ways to describe ordinary situations.
During the games there's a few ambient sounds here and there - squeaking shoes, cheering and booing fans, and occasional blaring of music in timeouts or substitution, but that's it. Certainly less is more, and the pretty well done commentary makes up for it, since it is supposed to be the star of the audio show.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
NHL 2002
Overall: NHL 2002 is a great game to play and is definitely one to buy, has a great replay value, since you can keep playing your season after the first year is finished. Even gamers who don't enjoy hockey will find this game enjoyable to play, one of my favorite games for the X Box so far. Gameplay: The NHL series goes back a long way, since it's debut on the Super Nintendo the gameplay has always been a lot of fun. And NHL 2002 is no exception. The game includes a Play Now option that lets you get right into the game without having to do anything other then pick your team. It also has a great season mode, which allows you to pick your favorite team and take them all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, and after you get to draft and sign players like in a real off-season. Or you can skip the season and go straight to the playoffs where you can pick teams to battle for the Stanley Cup. If you rather play with countries there is a tournament mode, which allows you to pick a country and face-off against other countries. There is also a shoot out mode where you take 5 players and involve yourself in the most exciting part of hockey. There is a in depth Create a Player option that allows you to create any player you desire. The game is very realistic and involves all the parts of hockey, unlike NHL Hitz 2002.
Graphics: On the X Box console one would expect NHL 2002 to have good graphics, which it does. Although they aren't mind blowing they are exceptional. All players' faces are almost identical to the real thing and you can see a player's reflection on a freshly cleaned ice. All arenas are identical to their real life counterpart. Each team has a coach alongside them on the bench, although they are nothing like their real life counterpart. The graphics are not as good as they could be, but you will be to busy playing the game to care.
Audio: Jim Huston and Don Taylor are the commentators for the game and Huston calls the game as it's being played, the names will be said after a player makes a save or takes a shot, but they will not say their name when they talk about them, they will refer to him as ''he'' not ''Mario Lemieux'' or whichever player. The comments made by Taylor are highly repetitive and will begin to annoy you as they are so stupid. They have announcements made during the game and are quite humorous. There is real sound of players hitting each other and the crowds' cheers sound very good.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Blood Wake
Overall: Imagine a game that takes you through the cycle of destruction on the high seas with some tricked out boats, awesome naval battles and missions thrown in for substance and what you have is Blood Wake. While not the most technically difficult game in the X-Box library, Blood Wake gives you all of the run and gun action that games such as Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8 on previous systems in the past have given. With several stages of action, different boats and means of overall destruction, there is plenty to do; though it does tend to repeat it in the later stages! Gameplay: Blood Wake has a couple of different modes that allows you to either play through on the story mode or in the multiplayer mode. Now, the difficulty that you play with in the story mode is dependent on what you wish to choose. The higher your difficulty level, the more the enemy boats seem to pester you and they also seem to have a higher degree of stamina, which can turn your quiet boat ride into a tempest ride from hell. Once you?ve gotten into the game, you?ll find that the missions you undertake are more or less there to keep you from just constantly taking out the boats that are coming at you.
The missions themselves are pretty easy to understand, and they do take a little bit of strategy depending on what type of mission you?re up against. You?ll have to run a checkpoint race in one stage, or do an escort service in another, while picking off the boats of several enemy kingdoms on the high seas. As you move through the game, you?ll be able to unlock different boats for use not only in the story mode, but also different aspects for the multiplayer mode that include death matches and some pretty cool party games. All in all, there is plenty in the game play department here to keep either a single player or up to four people playing for quite some time!
Control in Blood Wake is nothing difficult to work with, although you might have to get used to the use of both thumb sticks to move your boat through the water. In a particularly difficult battle, you might find that the game is a little slow in this department based on the tight turning that you have to perform with each passing moment. Weapons switching and use is nothing more than a button press away and all you have to do is get used to the fact that the secondary weapons have a range and reloading time, all of which comes into the control scheme of knowing where and when to fire them off.
Graphics: Blood Wake is a good-looking game with plenty of real-time water effects and impressive looking boats. Though the game definitely has a fantasy feel to it, all of the detail that you find here is first rate, from the way that the engine turbines move on your boat to the huge underwater explosions that result from a fired torpedo! The stages on the other hand really have nothing going for them, with most of your missions taking place at night or somewhere near dusk. The locations have more of a war game feel to them, with most of the detail there having to do with the cities that you sometimes have to raid. Aside from that, it?s nothing but open sea and some speed effects thrown into the overall naval battles.
Audio: The audio that you find here is decently placed in order to not really take you out of the game, but rather attempt to put you into it. With the Asian feel to it, the music is set with a slight beat that gives you a spy-game feel but doesn?t go overboard on the techno theme that most games like this seem to have. The sound effects are minimal, with your navigator having some pretty interesting things to say depending on your performance on the water. You?ll get yelled at or praised depending and the way that the stages are explained to you almost makes you feel as though you?re in a movie. However, the blending on the audio seems to be muted throughout the entire game, and you?ll have to strain at certain points in order to hear anything new and interesting.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Wreckless: The Yakuza Mission
Overall: There are two sets of missions: Missions A-#, and Missions B-#, with a few bonus missions among them. In Missions A, you play as two female police officers out to find the ''Yakuzas,'' who've hijacked an armored van. Missions B, you play as two spies for the government, who happen to be undercover, spying on the Yakuza.
Now, each mission has objectives (obviously). They very from ridiculously friggin difficult to being able to do them with your eyes closed. Mission A-1 is fairly simple: Destroy the three jet black Yakuza cars by running into them.
Gameplay: The missions are crazy fun. The game has two settings: Easy or hard. Even some of the missions on Easy make you want to heave your X-Box at some poor by-stander...
But the REAL fun comes in this: The Replay. The game's replay alone makes this such an awesome game. You use the sticks to change camera angles, and up to change the camera type (Night vision, black and white, grainy, etc), not to mention that you can unlock other camera types as you progress in the game.
The controls? Eh, they're decent. I had a gripe with Halo's controls, but it's fairly simple.
Oh, one important reminder: The game doesn't have Auto-Save. Remember to save on your own.
Graphics: This game rocks. The gleam of the cars as the sunlight bounces off of it, the license plates hanging from a screw after you run in to enough things, the trunk popping open upon enough ramming, it's just enough to make you jump up and hug this game til it breaks. My personal favorite thing is the civilians on the sidewalk. They run like hell, or back up against walls to avoid your speeding car of death and destruction. If you really want fun in this game, set the traffic on ''Heavy,'' ohhhh, yeeeeaaahhhh!
Only thing that keeps this from being a ten? Traffic disappears upon taking too much damage. They flicker twice, then POOF! Gone. Which is nice if you get stuck behind them, but otherwise...
Audio: The sound of the crashing bumpers, the screaming of bystanders, the noise of guard rails flipping into oncoming traffic... ahhhh. I could do without the officer in the car going ''Yeah!'' after completing some objectives though. It tones down the rest of the hectic noise, and is LOUD... like ''Little children on a sugar rush screaming in your ear'' loud. Well, maybe not QUITE that loud. But you got the general idea, right?
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Max Payne
Overall: From the PC game itself to the X-Box consoles. Max Payne has came all the way to X-Box carrying along the excitement and fun in every minute you play. Ever wonder if you can play a shooter game Matrix-style? Well this is what you've been looking for. Max Payne is something for you whether you wanna enjoy a good shooting game or maybe relieve you from too much stress well this is what you need. Are you curious about the game? Why not read further to find out more about it. Gameplay: Gameplay is just about everything. In Max Payne, forget about dodging quick bullets or maybe bar brawls and enjoy a good shoot-out Matrix style. You don't need to bother much about controls once you've mastered moving like the Matrix and shooting like one then you won't find any problems with the control. What you need to do is to master when to use the slow-mo and when to use the regular game speed. The Camera's perfect, it won't bother you at all even a little. Smooth controls, Very Smooth, the sleek controls works well with the veriety of movement and weapons you can use to pummel your enemy up. Whether you do a bar brawl style of fighting using a baseball bat or be like the Matrix dodgin bullets in mid-air while shooting back twice at your enemy with great precision and accuracy. This slow-motion command is what makes this game perfect. The movement alone and the slow-motion as well are enough to make this game as great as what it is now. Also, you have the full use of your environment meaning you can hit glass windows, shoot fire extinguishers, open up showers and stuffs. The game is quite challenging at first but after learning the basics you'll be a super one man fighting army in no time. Blasting into a group of thugs with your handy dandy shotgun or blast them away with your trusty grenades. You'll place this till somebody stop you from playing it. Pretty addicting indeed. One word can only explain all of these... perfect.
You'll take the role of Max Payne, a police officer in New York. At the beginning it'll all start as a basic plot and then develop into a very good one. Okay I'm trying not to spoil anything for you. The down side in this is the way it explains and tell the story. Would you believe it is in a comic book style! But not all actually there's some 3D animation that has a voice over which is next to fantastic. But what do you expect from an Action/Adventure game? You should be looking for an RPG instead.
Graphics: The graphics are very very good. The environment, the way the characters are modeled, the guns, the bullets, gunfires, explosions, everything looks fabulously superb. You are given almost full use of your environment which most interacts with what you do. It simply means that you can a shower open, break glass windows (Hehehe... some shooting game can't even break a glass window even if you use the almighty rocekt launcher on them!) smash vases, etc... For being a 3D character Max Payne himself looks pretty good and I can't even find even a little flaw in it. The gunshots and the blood that burst out from enemies or your environment is pretty good. Like the way you shoot somebody in the game ''Half-Life: Counter-Strike'' blood burst out from thugs you shoot who's near the wall or when you buy them a gift of grenade. There's a place where you can even shoot a television hehehe... pretty cool eh? The environment itself is pretty good it reacts well to the movement you do. The scenes in the story are well drawn but the 3D in it are great the voice over everything!
Audio: A good competitor against Halo's musical score. Like the game Halo, Max Payne has a little music in the background or maybe I don't pay much attention because of its superb gameplay and graphics? May Payne don't actually lacks in music since you won't be paying much attention to it as well. Max Payne has some cool sounds as well. The voice over is perfectly done. The gunfire and the explosion are great. If you listen carefully you'll notice some more great sound effects like some footsteps when you or a thug is moving, screams, voices, the grenade bouncing of the wall or on the floors, the explosions even the grunts when being hit are nice.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
World Series Baseball (Sega)
Overall: This year's crop of baseball games hasn't been too impressive. But out of the gates of Sega comes this god-send of a game. Gameplay: Ahh yes, the meat of the game. The beauty of WSB is that it can suit any player. Like a arcade experience with tape measure homers? Then turn on the rookie mode, slow down the pitches and increase the size of your batting cursor. Like a real life experience? Turn on all-star difficulty, turn off the visual strike zone,increase the pitch speed and be prepared for a battle. The game uses a cursor style batting interface. It works very good. The fielding is very easy (a bit too many diving catches though). This game is nicely refined and plays great.
Graphics: This is a great looking game. Shadows are very realistic, the player models are very detailed, and the grass looks good enough to eat off of. And every thing moving at a silky smooth 60 fps. There is also many nice touches like birds flying in the sky and umpires/base coaches being fully rendered and in the game. But nothing is perfect. No apple at Shea after a homerun, no train at Enron errr Astros err Minute Maid Field. Also, the homerun celebrations are way overused. Over all, this game shows the power of the Xbox.
Audio: er. In a sports game that is. Turn on your sound system (the game supports Dolby Digital) and you could swear you're in the park. The roar of the crowd is deafening after a homerun, or its as silent as a mouse if your team is on the losing end of a shut out. Listen to the road team get bashed with ruthless comments from the crowd, and heck, the peanut man will sound off once in a while. The announcers are generally good. The play-by-play makes perfect sense, but some phrases are repeated too much.
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10
Jet Set Radio Future
Overall: Hip, modish, daring and dashing are the words that can most accurately describe the Jet Set Radio series. The first game, entitled Jet Grind Radio for the American market, defined gaming standards. It is obvious that it broke barriers of game themes and content by using the absurd idea of rebellious teenagers roaming the streets of a futuristic Tokyo and spray painting every wall in sight. Not selling nearly as many copies as expected, especially in the Japanese market that usually strives on over-the-top games, Smilebit took a risk of sorts in revitalizing the game. For those that are not aware, Jet Set Radio Future is actually a Jet Grind Radio Redux, you could say. If you were to ask any hardcore Dreamcast gamer about the first game, you'd surely get a list of some gripes that they experienced with it, whether it would be the frustrating time limits, frequent deaths due to the annoying police, or the thwarting and oft troublesome boost button. Well, Smilebit heard most of those complaints, and didn't exactly decide to do a sequel to the original per se. They decided that they should revisit the original game, only this time it would be 30 years in the future, and it would have all the problems from the previous game fixed. For those that are reading right now and think that this is just a rehash of the original game, that's entirely untrue. In actuality, Future has nothing in common with the original besides the evident new character designs and a slight similarity in some of the level designs. The story is changed according to the warp in time, thus you'll have to once more meet up with all the characters you've met in the previous game and form the friskiest gang of hipsters that Tokyo has ever seen, the GGs. Sit back, turn the volume up, and get ready for an experience unlike any other. Whether or not you're a fan of the game, you have to agree that Smilebit has a unique knack for style. Just take into account that these guys started the whole cel-shading graphic trend that is so commonly used in video games now. The original Radio also dared to include the wacky musical stylings of techno virtuoso Hideki Naganuma, amongst others. Even if your musical taste does not include songs like ''Super Brother'' or ''Rock It On'', you still found that the rhymes and beats stuck to your head even long after you played the game. That's the charm about Jet Set Radio, it tries to be different, and it succeeds at being different. With the slew of games we see almost bi-monthly that are unsurprisingly similar and offer no real innovation, it's good to get a terrific new game that does what no other games have done before.
Gameplay: The story of the game is simple, yet still has the previously mentioned flavor and style to make it interesting. First off, Jet Set Radio is the name of an illegal underground radio station run by DJ Professor K. DJ Professor K narrates the story throughout the whole game, providing objectives and explaining the different groups you'll face off against. Obviously, Prof. K is much older now, but he's still the smooth talkin' mac daddy we all know him to be. Tokyo, now an evidently futuristic society, is being threatened by the mega-corporation called the Rokkaku Group who wishes to tyrannize the city. The city suc !&%$@#* bs to the group's influences, partly due to Gouji's financial status. The Rokkaku influenced the society, industry, and even culture of Tokyo, and now he has his eyes set on the government. They've instated a Rokkaku Law, and even bought out the police department. Apparently, things aren't looking so good for Tokyo. As a member of the GGs, you have to fight back against the evil Rokkaku empire and entrust the protection of Tokyo, as well as regain the soul of the city through graffiti art.
Basically, the game is all about breakneck rollerblading, radical jumping, extensive grinding, and graffiti painting through the streets of Tokyo. Equipped with special rollerblades, the GGs are set to cover the whole town in graffiti, as well as defeat any obstacles that face them. Along the way, you have to collect cans of spray paint to help you complete your pieces, which come in denominations of single and five cans, as well as a health can that replenishes your health bar. The main premise of most of the game's missions is to skate around the multitude of areas available in the game and find graffiti spots, which are distinguished by special icons. There are also other missions to spice up the gameplay, some of which returns from the original game, and some that is all new. Some of them include Tagger's Tag, which has you following your opponents and spray painting their backs, Flag, which has you taking shortcuts to be the first to capture five flags, City Rush, which is a basic race around the city, and Ball Hog, a really fun and frantic race where you have to cross the finish line with the ball. In addition to these modes that appear in single player mode, you are also allowed to play these in the Vs. mode, which supports up to 4 players through split-screen. This is a first for the series, since supposedly there wasn't enough time to include one in the previous game. Thankfully, Smilebit provided has computer controlled bots, so if you don't own a second controller or don't play with other people, you can challenge the computer in one of the available game modes. There are also plenty of power-ups to be found in the multiplayer mode, ranging from invisibility potions to grenades and bombs, which adds some needed variety to the game.
The most evident change in the game has to be the fact that it is much faster than its predecessor, and this is clearly evident. From the moment I started controlling Corn, the first character you are able to use, I knew that this was nothing like the previous game. Everything moves at a frantic and furious pace, and your character maneuvers and controls much easier. The grinds are much more expeditious, the jumps much higher, and the excitement, rush and haste are clearly present. Due to this change, JGR now seems more like an action game, and Jet Set Radio Future is more of a frantic mission-based platformer.
There are a few new additions to the game, which strongly heighten the game's replayability as well as challenge. The one that stands out is the stage challenges feature, which is sort of similar to the challenges presented in other skating games such as the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. Every area in the game has a Golden Tape hidden in a secret location, which you must find. Upon finding the tape, you receive 5 challenges that you can perform if you want to, but it's not required to advance in the game. These challenges range from acquiring a set amount of points in one trick combination, or doing an air trick four times in a row. Whenever you perform a challenge and cross it off your GG notebook, you are awarded with the location of a Graffiti Soul. For those that are new to the series and might not know what Graffiti Souls are, they basically are special items that unlock different graffiti pieces that you can use in the game, and you can select these through a menu. Each area has about 8 or more Souls, which comes to a total of about 150 graffiti pieces of various sizes.
Speaking of graffiti, the game also features a graffiti editor that lets you create your own tags. It is fairly simple too use, and does the job of making a tag, although it takes loads of time to actually complete your piece. You have different brush sizes, and you are also able to zoom in on your tag to draw those tiny details. Jet Grind Radio allowed you to download tags t
Graphics: The graphic department at Smilebit is at it again, and Jet Set Radio Future is just seeping with style and beauty. Smilebit has often been hailed as the inventors of the cel-shading graphic style, and they have obviously inspired numerous games that have been released over the past year or so, but none even come close to reproducing the sheer detail and gorgeous design that we've come to see from this series. The characters are highly-detailed, featuring varying shades of color, discerning the argument that stated cel-shading does not allow color detail. The vivacious environments are massive and immersing, filled with dozens of buildings, billboards, posters and other details you would find in a regular city. The draw-in problems that plagued the original have been exterminated, and there are minimal, if any, graphical glitches. Besides the inanimate objects, you will also encounter as many as forty or more pedestrians at some levels, and this is possible because they are simple filler characters that don't require a high amount of polygons, and thus they are not very detailed. There are also numerous vehicles moving around the streets, which are wonderfully detailed, and surprisingly, these do not cause any slowdown either.
Smilebit has included some little extraneous graphical details into the game, which are really impressive if noticed. One of them is the motion blur that's evident when your character has gained momentum. You will be able to see faint motion lines and a slight blur around your character, which is a neat and stylish effect that is also very often seen in manga and anime. While you perform a boost dash, you will also notice that your screen shakes and blurs, and a gust of flames comes from underneath your character's rollerblades. Besides having a visual flare about it, this effect also adds some sense of speed to the game.
Due to the next generation hardware of the Xbox, the game is allowed to run at a super smooth 60 frames per second. While you will experience some hiccups here and there, an average of 50 fps should probably be expected, and that's more than enough for a game with graphics of this magnitude. The character animation is simply astounding and it is evident that a lot of time was committed to this. Every single character, with an exception of some of the pedestrians, moves very fluidly, whether it be while skating or when taking a break and busting out into a dance. The flips and spins that your character performs while getting air and performing tricks are highly stylized and artistic.
Audio: The sound that this game has to offer is simply audible excellence. The fresh soundtrack fits in perfectly with the game, and the musical stylings of the geniuses found within completely entrance you. Most of the tracks are from the techno genre, and about half of them are composed by the Smilebit maestro, Hideki Naganuma. Mr. Naganuma provided nearly all of the original songs for the first installment of the series, and this time around we only get to see a couple offerings from him, including some remixes. A couple songs are heavily influenced by Japanese music, such as the Guitar Vader tracks, or a very controversial and oft hated song by Cibo Matto entitled ''Birthday Cake.'' Cibo Matto is a group whose songs are usually out of the norm and different, and maybe this is why the song isn't really accepted. There are also some songs from the popular and talented group The Latch Brothers, which will probably favor to a wider audience than other songs.
As for sound effects, I don't really have any serious complaints about them. Everything sounds fine, from ambient noises such as the cars in the Shibuya Terminal, or pedestrians talking while observing a horse race on one of the TVs located on 99th Street. Voice acting is done exceptionally well, but this does not come as a surprise since Jet Grind Radio did not have problematic voice acting to be found. There are some tiny gripes though, such as the annoying buzzing sound during the loading screen, which I think is unnecessary, or just could have been done better.
A major disappointment dealing with sound in the game is the lack of support of a custom soundtrack. There will be numerous people that will basically detest the music in the game, and it would probably lessen their experience of it, although I believe this genre of music fits in best with this type of a game. It hasn't really been revealed as to why they have excluded this feature, but Mr. Naganuma was quoted as saying that he does not support a custom music system in which the users can obtain songs illegally. Another neat feature is the 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound support, which is a extra that immerses you in the world even more. Even though it isn't as advanced as the surround sound in games with more action at one time, such as Halo, it is still worth checking out.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind
Overall: Morrowind begins as with the player on a slave ship. For some reason, you've been set free by the Imperial authority and dropped off on the shores of the Vvanderfell District of Morrowind, a diverse land populated with many races, including the Imperial colonists and the Dummer, or dark elves. Beneath the surface of political and social intrigue, there is an entity called the Blight, which seems to be diseasing the land. As you go further in the story and become part of the Blades, a network of spies, you learn of cults and conspiracies and the name of Dagoth-Ur is battered about as something unpleasant. Outside of the basic framework of the story, you're basically given the whole world to explore and enjoy. Gameplay: Morrowind is a true PC RPG game at heart. In fact, its concept is fairly ambitious in that it allows the player to basically do as they please. While there is a main quest, you'd be remiss not to spend some time doing all of the others things that are available to you. Many of the people that talk to you have things they'd like you to do for them and you can even join a variety of Guilds in which to gain training and do various quests. And if none of that pleases you, the player can always just go for a walk in the countryside to find mines, tombs and assorted dungeons to look for treasure and trouble. One of more impressive features is that the player can basically steal anything that they can carry. And when you're a little tight on money, swiping some silverware may not be such a bad idea. But, be wary of stealing too much. If someone sees you, they'll try to fight you or report the theft to the authorities. Also, killing villagers in plain sight of the guards is a no-no. For everything that you can do, there are repercussions. Available in the game is a large variety of weapons and spells. This is made even better by the fact that the player can create their own spells or even their own magic potions by finding the right ingredients and paying someone to make them. One of the nicer features is the experience system, which doesn't force players to go looking for a fight to gain levels. Characters gain experience by improving their major, minor and miscellaneous skills through training or use during the game. After they gain enough improvement in their skills, they need to rest to meditate on what they've learned, at which point you can add points to your attributes. This kind of experience system allows non-fighters to improve without so much melee combat.
Graphics: The graphics are a mixed bag. While the environments are large and the architecture is well designed, the game doesn't really seem to take advantage of the Xbox's power to make the little graphical details seem more polished. The towns are fully realized and packed with tons of items that make it feel like a real world, but certain areas just feel unpolished. And for the most part, the character models look blocky and underdeveloped, even though the texture maps used look fairly good and the design of the characters is imaginative. The little things really help in making the world more realized as a realistic, functioning world: the water looks great and the shift between day and night and between sunny to overcast to raining are done well. The fact that everything seems to attempt a real-life setting is impressive, even if the graphics engine seems a little unpolished. While the exterior settings may not look as good as in Halo, you'll be impressed by the city settings, each of which is designed and modeled with impressive detail.
Audio: The sound portion of the game is nicely polished. The soundtrack is excellent and really works in a timepiece manner. Sound effects are well done, especially when you hear a monster off in the distance heading your way. The voice-acting is pretty solid, even though hearing the guards repeat the same lines over and over again everytime you pass them in the city may grow a little old.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Halo: Combat Evolved
Overall: It's been said before that it couldn't happen. A console title smashing its way to the top of a PC-dominated genre, becoming one of the most immerse, entertaining and vivid first person shooter games of all time. But now it has been proven, and the majority was wrong. Bungie, acquired by Microsoft around the summer of 2002, brings this stellar sci-fi action title that they've been working on for close to three years to the Xbox. Originally developed for the PC and Macintosh, the buy-out caused Mac users to speculate whether or not they'll actually get a version of the game for their platform. Halo thrilled crowds and media at the 2000 E3 show, when it was still in its PC incarnation, being called a showstopper among other things. And now, after being unleashed on the Xbox, it won Game of the Year awards from numerous magazines and organizations, and deservedly so. Gameplay: The story of the game is fairly simple, but remains appealing and intriguing, even enough to warrant a couple of prequel novels to be written. The game of course takes place in the distant future, and you play the role of the only remaining Spartan-II soldier, known only by his rank, Master Chief. The universe and its planets are threatened by a malicious and formidable alien race called the Covenant. Master Chief has been cryogenically frozen on board the Pillar of Autumn--a warship that has served for decades--and now during a Covenant attack on the ship and a last mission decision to lure the Covenant away from Earth, it is time to finally awaken you. You and your fellow marines are sent out to a distant uncharted system where you find a giant ring structure, aptly named Halo. So there you are, placed in the middle of a giant battlefield along with your comrades in arms, continuing your mission to wipe out the Covenant, as well as learn more about the mysterious artifact. Are you up for it?
Despite the controversy that the Xbox controller would lessen the FPS gaming experience, the controls have been made very user friendly and do an excellent job. Ever since the evolution of the genre, brought on by Quake, the use of a mouse as well as a keyboard was introduced. Microsoft decided not to provide the Xbox with keyboard or mouse support (probably to ward off PC-comparisons), and there?s no support for third-party peripherals in the game. But to be completely honest, the current controls are excellent. All the hours that I've spent on the game without being frustrated once prove that there's no problems with the controller whatsoever. For experts, the set-up that Bungie chose is perfect, but as with all FPS games, some beginners might have problems their first time playing, but you should get used to it quickly.
First off, the left-hand analog stick is used to walk around the levels. There is no strafe capability, so you just have to turn left or right whenever you want to maneuver horizontally. The other analog stick, located on the lower right, is used for aiming and looking around your position. The analog aiming is completely fine and level, and you have an aid of sorts, because the cross hairs turn red whenever its aimed at an enemy. No complaints here, everything is nearly as smooth as using a mouse. The two back triggers are used for chucking grenades as well as shooting the weapon you're holding at the current time. The 2 side buttons (black and white) are used for switching the type of grenades you have (Plasma or Fragmentation) and for turning your flashlight on and off, which comes in handy when you're in those dark corridors. The 4 face buttons have really intuitive set-ups, with X being used for reloading, A used for jumping, B making your character perform a close-up/melee attack with the butt of his weapon, and Y for switching your weapons, since Halo only lets you carry 2 weapons at a time.
As Master Chief, you're going face a variety of different baddies, such as maniacal life forms called the Covenant, which come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from the midget Grunts to the shield-bearing mammoth Hunters. Later on in the game, you also come across seemingly ubiquitous life forms dubbed the Flood, which are very appropriately named, but I'll leave it at that and let you find out why. Each of these also come equipped with their own personality traits, so you'll have to make a game plan for how you're going to take them out.
The basis of the game is that as of other FPS games; you mostly go from level to level, wiping out Covenant s !&%$@#* in your path, and finishing branching story-driven missions. It might be simple and it could seem repetitive, but Halo is far from either of these. The sheer level of strategy required to beat these AI powered beasts really makes you pick up this game and play it whenever you're bored, and you'll still have a good time. To help out with your assault against the Covenant, you have a diversity of vehicles to choose from, which really adds another level of depth to the game. Human technology provides you with the Warthog, an all-terrain jeep equipped with a machine gun turret, as well as the nearly invulnerable but sluggish Scorpion tank, which can hold an additional 4 marines. You are also able to take control of Covenant vehicles, one of which is the Ghost, a speedy but ill-maneuverable hovercraft capable of shooting a constant stream of plasma. The other is the Banshee, a vehicle that can actually be used to fly in the air at levels where it's available, is very fast and maneuverable, and is equipped with a standard issue plasma cannon, as well as a rechargeable fuel rod cannon. These vehicles almost makes Halo feel as if it was two different types of game genres, but I wish there would be a slightly larger focus on them. Maybe more vehicles, or more vehiclemedk physics would be a nice touch.
Also assisting you against the Covenant th
Graphics: The graphics in this game clearly must be a breakthrough for console games. If I were to use one word to sum up the graphics in this game, it would have to be ''unbelievable.'' The picturesque environments are vivid, all the details that you would find in real life are here to enjoy and gush about. Every little element looks authentic; the waterfalls are gorgeous, with water splashing off of the rocks and traits of mist being evident in the air. You really need to take time out from playing and do a little exploring , looking at all the little details that you normally wouldn't notice if you were bashing your way through the game.
Even with all these graphical treats, not everything is perfect. Unfortunately, probably because due to memory and processor restrictions, Halo's framerate had to be kept at a steady 30 fps, instead of the more common 60 found in most PC games. But come on, you get a huge battlefield with 20+ characters at times, gorgeous graphics, character models, backgrounds, textures and splendid lighting and particle effects, so can you really complain? Sixty frames per second would most likely speed the game up a bit, but as it is, Halo is perfectly fine with that slight touch of reality. We need some different games to be, well, different from the rest of the stack. Also, speed isn't always a good thing in first person shooters, since a lot of people get motion sickness due to the constant movement, and a lot of people that usually get this said they haven't experienced it with Halo.
For most instances in the single-player game, the frame rate is usually smooth as butter. You shouldn't experience any slowdown or frame dropping unless you're in a really graphically detailed area with a lot of enemies nearby. When a second player joins in for co-op, you will rarely see any slowdown, either. You might experience some frames drop if you and your buddy are both on Warthogs and charge into a group of 20 Covenant, but instances like this are very rare. The only possible slowdown that somehow detract from the gameplay itself is if you play with more than 6 people on a level with multiple vehicles, and the frame rate might get a little tight there, but nothing too serious.
The most lavish graphical treat is how splendid the textures look. Right away, you can tell that Bungie did an excellent job and put a ton of work into every single texture in the game. The first noticeable texture is the grass, which looks simply astounding, even though it's only in the game for a couple of levels. I'd be lying if I told you that this isn't the most realistic grass I've ever seen in a console game. If you take your pistol and zoom in, you can see that no clarity and detail is lost, even at a 10x zoom (using the sniper rifle). This applies to every single texture in the game; the snow with its puffy quality, the roughness and crevices es on various rocks in the game, and the cracks on the barks of trees are all visible and extremely clear. Things like this just immerse you in Halo's world even more.
There's many other details in Halo that just define it further as one of the best, if no the best, graphically impressive console games ever made. The lighting in the game is incredible, from the plasma grenades, the ambient lighting in the halls, the light from your flashlight that illuminates the frequent dark paths, and more. Also, the character animation is so intricately realistic, enabling your fellow marines to look like actual people. Their stances and positioning are what actual soldiers would stand and act like during a full scale war, performing different actions such as fleetly rotating 180 degrees whenever they sense an enemy, or maneuvering around to switch positions and flank.
Audio: One of Halo's stronger aspects is its music and sound effects. Taking advantage of the Xbox's 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound capabilities, Halo delivers a whopping soundtrack and sound effects to please your ears. A Gregorian chant intros the powerful and motivating theme song of the game, and it's a really nice touch, since drum pounding and metal riffs are usually the stereotypical theme for other FPS games. The level music also has light themes, some that are emotional and seem as if they were taken from a war drama, and others provide a frequent beat to complement the pounding of your weapons.
The sound effects are spectacular, even more so with a 5.1 surround sound system. It completes the package and makes Halo the most realistic movie-like gaming experience you've probably ever had. You will hear every little noise made, and the immersion in the world is just incomprehensible. You'll have Covenant Elites roar in one speaker, your fellow marines calling for back-up in the other, Cortana briefing you on your next assignment in the next, and so on. You really need to witness it to experience it.
For those not fortunate enough to have high-tech acoustics, you will still get to experience the frantic and fantastic sounds that this game offers. Every little sound is constructed perfectly, and every weapon has a unique and interesting sound to it. Your assault rifle rattles rapidly, the sniper rifle bursts with a piercing noise, the Warthog sounds like a real jeep, and the Banshee makes a frequent swoosh. Another very appealing and oft-hilarious aspect is some of the phrases the marines blurt out during battle. You'll definitely come across some memorable quotes, one of which is the classic ''I'm a cowardly fool!'' line. Interestingly enough, a lot of these marines actually have different accents, so sometimes you'll hear a Hispanic voice instead of an English one. It's things like this that just cultivate Halo's ambience, and make it one of the most consuming world in FPS gaming history.
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10
