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| GAME REVIEWS |
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| GAME REVIEWS |
| Game: The Mark of Kri Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: Playstation 2 Developer: Sony San Diego Studios Date of review: Dec/06/02 Review: A bloody barbarian action/adventure, with animation much like a Disney film. Many are turned off because of it's childish look, but i assure you, with it's Muture rating its every thing but childish. The game is gruesome with gore, and it takes an intelligent and creative mind to master it's battle system. The story starts with our hero Rau and his black bird, Kuzo, training for an advanture. Sure enough the adventure starts, and Rau and Kuzo is on their way to gather the 6 marks of Kai to prevent an evil sorcerer from taking over the world. The overall look to the game is very Disney but with enough detail to compare with the likes of Metal Gear or Crash Bandicoot. The world is amazing, and the characters are original, and with so meny differnt terrains to travel to, such as a snowy Tibet, a leafy forest, or a burning volcano, you'll never get bored of the look. The action is both innavative and mesmerizing. Meny action games you attack who ever's in front of you. Missing your intended target and bordom over time are the biggest problem with this system. Some other games try to nullify these problems with a targeting system, where you select an enemy to fight and thats your main taget. The problem with that is, when there are multiple enemys and your only aiming at one, the rest will hack and slash you while your hoplessly facing the other direction. Another problem with this system is when there are 10 or more targets, trying to select the right enemy is a challange all to it self. The Mark of Kri dos'nt have any of these problems. The battle system for this game is one of the most original I've seen yet. To select what enemys you wish to do battle with you use the right directional stick to swing an imaginary arm, and whom ever the arm passes through, they are your targets. You may also choose more then one enemy to do battle with at a time, you may choose from 1 - 6 differnt targets, depending on your weapon. Each enemy that has been selected has a corrosponding button logo over it's head. When ever you press that button over the head is the enemy that you will be doing battle with. This eliminate the problem of trying to select the right target. This also eliminates cheap shots from other enemys. If fighting enemy 1 who has X above his head, and enemy 2 who has O above his head, and enemy 2 is atempting a cheap shot at you, all you have to do it tap the O button and his attack is nulified. There are also inhanced attacks where you can do special combos, the potential for creativity in combos are limitless. The action in this game is far from just hacking and slashing, it is actully closer to that of Metal Gear Solid where stelth is your best friend, and if cought, your in big trouble, becuase the enemys are as smart and as powerful as you are. Useing your birdy friend Kuzo to fly to stratigical points of the battle feild before moving on, allows you to plan your attacks. If you do not plan carefully, an enemy may see you and alert others to their aid, worsening your situation. Dont like a game thats totally based on stelth?? Do not worry, there are missions where the game purposely put you in a situation where you have no chose but to do battle. Those who are young and maybe attracted by the cartoony look of the game should avoid it. The game is very gory, there are lots of blood and dismembered body parts flying every where. Your able to chop peoples heads, arms, legs, and torsos off. Even the animation is violent. When your snap a persons neck, the dieing person moves almost life like, shaking just for a bit, then motionless. Some of the cut sceans are gruesome, with heads choped in two, and blood splattered all over the walls. This is obviously not a kids game Though the look and the action are nothing less then spectacular, the game is not with out it's share or problems. The learning curve for this game is huge. Learning how to use the battle system effectivly will take you a good few minites if not a few hours, then you must learn how to use your weapons effectivly for differnt situations. Differnt weapons have differnt attributes where it maybe weak for one situation, but stronger for another. Learning how to kill with stealth is a difficult one and will take practice. Perhapes the most difficult thing to learn is to use Kuzo to help plan out your attacks. Planing your attacks maybe the most important thing to learn in this game. With out this ability, the enemy will surly kill you within a few seconds. Another Problematic area of this game is the controls. Rau moves very sloppy, with his slow jog, and stoping when ever he hits an object. This problem will frustrate you especially during a battle. The length of the game is also a problem. The story holds potential for a 12 hour game easily, but lasting only for about 8 hours, makes the game a bit of a disapointment. Dispicte a few problems, the game is fun! With posibly the most original battle system, exellent action, mind boggling battle terrains, and lovable charatcers, this is one of Playstation 2's best action/adventure games with out a doubt. This Game gets: 4 out of 5 super stars! |
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| Game: Resident Evil Zero Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: Game Cube Developer: Capcom Date of review: Jan/15/03 Review: Can the evil Umbrella corperation ever be stoped? Will the horror ever end?? Possibly, but not in this instulment of Resident Evil. Resident Evil Zero is a Prequal to Capcom's, Resident Evil one. In this case the better questions would be "How did the Evil Umbrella corperation start?", "How did this Horror began?" but more impotantly "Is a prequal to the Resident Evil series neccasery?" The game starts when special task force S.T.A.R.S is sent into the outskirts of raccon city to investagate strange murders where victoms were eaten alive. At first, the police and S.T.A.R.S thought the murders was possibly connected to escaped Convict, Billy Coen, who was convicted under cercomstantial evidence of murdering 25 people. Later Billy meet up with S.T.A.R.S member "Rebbecca Chambers" and find out that Billy was not guilty of the strange murders, but was the fault of experiments gone wrong done by the Umbrella Corperation. Through out the game the story unfolds to explain the happenings and history of both the Umbrella Corperation and the S.T.A.R.S team. Unlike the past Resident Evils where you play as either character 1 or Character 2, this time you'll have to control 2 characters at once through out most of the game. This is an interesting feature Zero offers which allows for more interesting puzzles, and adds more stratagy to the game where instead of thinking about feeding one character with avalible health items and ammo, you now have 2 to worry about. As interesting as this system is, it also has it's draw backs. Your computer controled partner is smart enough to move out of your way, and is smart enough to back up a little when danger is near, but when a zombie bites your partner, he/she dos'nt run away, instead he/she just stand there and trys to shoot it away. This dose not work all the time and is oftain biten multiple times before an enemy dies. Another problem is when your partner is in attack mode it waste alot of unnessacary ammo, or if you set them on idale mode, they do almost nothing to defend them selves and waste alot of health. Haveing a partner in the same room as you are during a battle really drains your ammo and/or health items. One may avioid this wastage by using your perfered character to clear out a room then sending your partner to the cleared room. The problem with this stratagy (though it maybe the most strategic thing to do for most of the game) it turns the partner system into more of a baby sitting system, that just gets agravating after a while. The partner system may have it's flaws, but when you and your partner successfully work togeather to finish off a tough enemy or boss, it makes you want to do a dance. The graphics and sound are top-notch, perhapes some of the best any consol has ever seen. The graphics are much like the remake of Resident Evil 1 for the Nintendo Game Cube, with almost CGI quility character models that makes your mouth drop. The high resolution backgrounds are also a sight to see them selves. The backgrounds are highraised so you can pick out every drop of blood that stained the walls, every rust spot off metal pipes, and every dead body was was devoured by man eating zombies and it all adds to create a creepy atmostphere. The sound is horrendisly evil and adds to every situation in the game, for example: The music for the leech zombie is enough to make your skin crawl with it's fast paced violens. While in a check point of the game where it's free of monsters, it has a relaxing yet eerie piano theme. All the moans of zombies sounds realistic, yet the voice acting is still pretty bad just like all the previouse Resident Evils. Resident Evil Zero did'nt really add much to the story, and the team battle system was a waste of time and effort, but like every other resident evil, it was still fun as hell playing though the game. Though it didnt have as much Pop-up scares as the previouse ones, it still had it's tense moments where your heart would shoot out of your ass. This Game gets: 4 out of 5 super stars! |
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