For the Koei fans (You know who you are, don’t hide, I see ya!)
You know who I’m talking to. You went back and checked out the original “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” novel after playing the strategy game of the same name to read up on your favorite character. You compared notes to the in-game Dynasty Warriors encyclopedia to see if they got your favorite character right. You decided to major in history after playing Samurai Warriors gave you an intrest in feudal Japan. Yeah, I see ya hiding. Don’t make me call out your name. It’s all good, becuase I’m one of you.
Koei’s games sell like hotcakes in Japan, but they don’t get nearly enough love over here. Samurai Warriors is a spin off in Koei’s Dynasty Warriors hack and slash games. Samurai Warriors differs from Dynasty Warriors in that it’s set in ancient Japan. The original SW had a number of gameplay features that made it unique from DW, and after playing SW, I was disappointed to see that these features weren’t integrated into Dynasty Warriors 5.
Samurai Warriors 2 comming to Xbox 360 and PS2 later this month will take the series where it has never been before: online. Although it’s only for 2 players, it’s long overdue. Also, Xbox 360 users will notive that several special mounts and bodyguards are already available for purchase over the Xbox live market place. Beside conforming a Sony/Nintendo fanboy’s biggest criticism against the Xbox 360 (Charging people for a special item! GRRRRR!!), this opens up the possiblities for what Koei could have planned for future Xbox support. Unfortunantely though, it seems that just as in the 360 version of Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires, this new version will receive minimal graphics enhancements at best. If you don’t care too much for graphics though, get ready to sharpen your sword and head back to the battlefield this fall!
Buried Treasure: Vagrant Story (PS1)
2000 was a good year for fans of Square-Enix, or Squaresoft as they were known back then. They released nearly a dozen titles, each gaining at worst cult status and at best critical acclaim from gamers and crtics alike. This was one of those titles, Vagrant Story. This game featured a complex plotline, lots of puzzles, a weapon customization/upgrade system, and espionage action not unlike Metal Gear solid, but in the dark ages. Although it didn’t use stealth, it made use of a sphere targeting system previously seen in Parasite Eve. Different weapons could damage different enemies, and they could all be upgraded and enhanced at a blacksmith’s shop. By timing your button presses correctly, you could unleash devastating combos on your opponent, doing massive damage. The trade off however, was that the farther you went along in the combo, the higher your “risk” meter became. The higher your risk was, the more damage you could do, but the less accurate your strikes were. The key to this game was keeping a good stash of weapons for whatever enemy you faced, and managing your risk. In the game, you play as Ashley Riot, a agent of the Valendia Knights of the Peace, or VKP for short. You were involved in a simple operation gone wrong, and now you are up against the kingdom’s elite troops, an apocalyptic cult leader, and a horde of beasts, both living and undead as you try to clear your name and get to the bottom of the conspiracy surrounding the ancient town.
When I got the game, I was at first dissappointed that it wasn’t the Midevil Metal Gear Solid I had been led to believe, but the game quickly redemmed itself with it’s mix of puzzles, story, and action. Even though it may not have sold like it should, you’d be hard pressed to find a gamer who didn’t enjoy it. This game ending leaves it open for a sequel which may unfortunantely never see the light of day.
Fun fact: This game was the third game to receive Famitsu’s (Japan’s gaming magazine) perfect score of 40/40. It was the first one earned by Squaresoft, and not even it’s Final Fantasy games have earned this score until Final Fantasy XII this past March. To date, only 5 other games have earned this score.
$20 game of the week: Darkstalkers Chronicle (PSP)
Since the early 90s, Capcom has been known for it’s fighting games. It’s three main franchises in the genre are Street Fighter, the Marvel games, and Darkstalkers. Of the three, Darkstalkers has had the least exposure, with only 3 games in the series and a few Japan-only “Championship edition” upgrades. Darkstalkers was unique due to the anime reinvention of classic universal studios monsters like the wolf man, dracula, and the mummy to name a few. Even though it’s based on the 6 – button street fighter engine (also seen in the marvel games), the game features crazy attacks and moves that you would never see in an SF or even any X-men game. One character summons a god from heaven to stomp on your opponent while another has an attack that turns his opponent into a female version of themself! Darkstalkers 3 is the most recent in the series, with 18 characters, 4 of which are new to this installment.
Darkstalkers chronicle (also the first PSP game featured here) gives players the “Street Fighter Anniversary Edition” treatment by allowing players to select versions of each character as they played in previous games in the franchise (i.e. Nightwarriors Morrigan vs Anakaris from the original Darkstalkers). Also, you can choose to play using rulesets from each game in the series as well, also accessing the music from them. The game also throws in a new “Chaos tower” mode, where you pick three characters and try to make it up the tower as fas as you can, unlocking artwork and features on the way. Some of the matches force restrictions on you, such as no punching and no specials. This game is light on the features as are most Capcom fighters and the PSP control pad is a bit cumbersome to work with, but the music and bizzare characters make up for it. This release proves 2D fighting is neither dead nor dying. Hopefully Capcom will give us a sequel, or at least a new 2D fighting game that’s not a remake or a rehash of 10 year old sprites.
Note: Darkstalkers 3 is also availabe on PS1. You can’t interchange characters and battle systems, but the rulesets from Darkstalkers 1 and Nightwarriors are unlockable. The game features a color edit mode in place of the PSP’s Chaos Tower mode. You create a character by editing the color palette of another and then build it’s stats. I’m sure it’s cheap too, so if you don’t have a PSP, find a copy.
Fiend – The Addiction (CD review)
Out of all of the former No Limit soldiers, Fiend has arguably been doing the best (besides Snoop of course) since he left the label. Shortly after leaving the label, he hit the ground running dropping albums and mixtapes, and working with people such as Little John, David Banner, and Three Six Mafia before many of them became famous. He had a deal with Ruff Ryders, even appearing on some of thier albums, but that fell through. Now he’s independent, and his game is as sharp as ever. This is probably his best post No Limit release. The production comes mostly from him and Beats By The Pound (Now known as the medicine men) and the few guest appearences are from the artists on his label, mainly Corner Boy P. The first track is a dope way to open the album, and another track I like is ‘That’s what you want”. I was hoping to hear some 1998 No Limit style old school flavor, but the production here is slamming and fiend is comming dope as hell as always. Fiend is one of the south’s illest lyricists and this album is more of what we love from the man. He may not do a 5th of what he should sell, but he’s still hard as fuck.
Buried Treasures: The Fear Effect Series (PS1)
In 2000, Eidos released a ground breaking game that should have been the start of a mega franchise. Fear Effect was one of the first games to use the popular cel-shaded style of animation seen in games such as Jet Grind Radio, XIII, and Zelda: The Wind Walker. It was a survival horror game with a compelling and bizarre plot, three playable characters each with their own abilities, multiple endings, and LESBIANS! It was also heavy on cinema sequences which depict your character being instantly killed if you don’t do the sequence right, similar to old school adventure games. Even the “health” of your character was innovative, instead of your life bar, you had to manage your character’s fear. Solving puzzles, stealth killing enemies, and overcomming obstacles decrease your fear, while being spotted, taking too long on certain sections, or triggering traps raise it. If it’s too high, you could be killed instantly. A sequel was released in 2001, which added a new character, Rain, and told the gruesome backstory of how the three mercenaries came together. It was an even larger game, and the action was spread out amongst a series of levels. Sadly, a third game, “Fear Effect Inferno” had been planned for PS2, but it fell through due to developer Kronos’s collapse. Fortunantely for fans of the series, all is not lost; a movie adaptation is in the workd for 2008. Hopefully this will revive intrest in the game, and it can finally get the attention it so rightfully deserves.Seriously though, how the hell could a game with this in it not be doing Grand Theft Auto numbers?
$20 Game of the week: X-Men Legends 2 (Xbox, Gamecube, PS2, PC, N-Gage, PSP)
In 2004, Activision and the crew at Raven released one of the best games based on any comic book property. It bought the X-Men mythos into the realm of roleplaying, and it won over comic book fanboys everywhere. A year later, Activision granted us a sequel that not only added more of what the original awesome, but it addressed the complaints that players had about the first one, mainly the uselessness of some characters, and parts of the game where players were forced to fight solo. With over a dozen characters, (some of which are hidden) unlockable costumes, online multiplayer, and just about every facet of the X-universe a gamer can think of, this is a Marvel fan’s dream come true…at least until Marvel Ultimate Alliance arrives this fall.
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Buried Treasure: The Parasite Eve series (Playstation)
For those of you just joining us, the Buried Treasures section is where I spotlight a game that, while it may not be as well known as the Mega Men, Final Fantasies, and Contras, it’s still a classic in it’s own right. This week’s entry is the Parasite Eve series from Squaresoft years before they merged with Enix. These two games strayed far away from the norm as you can get, eschewing the mideval/fantasy plots of other games and placing it within a Modern day setting with guns and a heavily laden sci-fi plot. The first game was an RPG with Resident Evil-esque survival horror elements. You play as Aya Brea, a New York police dectective attempting to prevent a catostrophic outbreak while discovering the secret within her own genetics. The series deals with the origin and purpose of mitochondrial DNA (Yeah, I’m lost too, you’ll just have to play the game to understand). The first game introduced a strange, but innovative targeting system which would allow players to target any part of thier enemy. (This targeting system would later show up in another Square title, Vagrant Story.) Also, you could upgrade your weapons, attaching any adjustments you could find on it. When you beat the game the first time, the New Game+ opened up, allowing access to a secret area and the true ending. The only bad part of this game was that there were no shops, so you had to rely upon whatever you found in chests or whatever was dropped by enemies after battle.
Parasite Eve 2 was a Resident Evil-esque survival horror game with RPG elements. The combat was real time, and the weapon sphere and upgrade systems were unfortunantely gone. Thankfully, by earning credits from defeating enemies, you could buy things at any one of the game’s shops. The plot was designed so that players didn’t have to play through the first to understand the second game. There were a number of hidden modes and weapons (including Squall’s gunblade) you could unlock in the game, and the plot was as science-heavy as in the first.
You should be able to find these games used at about any decent gaming store, so you might want to check them out especially if you’re a fan of Resident Evil. or are just tired of the same old RPG conventions. Also of intrest is the movie and novel of the same name.
$20 game of the week: Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox)
2 years ago, Tecmo released what was not only one of the most anticipated games on Xbox, but an addition to one of thier most beloved franchises, Ninja Gaiden. It had some of the finest graphics of the current console generation, a deep weapon upgrade and combat system, a large variety of enemies, and an insane difficulty level which makes even easy mode a challenge, it became an instant classic with many gamers. Tecmo also released two ‘hurricane pack’ downloads over Xbox Live. The first of these two downloads added new weapons, new bosses, and an adjustable camera while the second pack added a challenge mode. Last fall, Tecmo released this update with both of the hurricane packs, a new mission mode, a new difficulty mode, new cinemas, and an unlockable version of the arcade ninja gaiden. In short, it’s heaven for an action gamer. You know a game is great when it’s hard as hell, but you still keep trying to play it just to get to the next part. I have to warn you though, if you wimp out at a high difficulty, then THIS IS NOT THE GAME FOR YOU!
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