| GAMES 3 |
| Project Zero continued... The game uses a mixture of Resident Evils shocks and Silent Hills psychological terror to a good effect. Things leap out at you, strange noises are heard and ghosts materilise and vanish in a flash. The best parts of the game are the brilliant black and white intro, the ghosts, and the sackful of extras given for completing the game. Special mention must go to the sound, the game has no music, instead it opts for strange sounds. White noise, wind chimes, rubbing ropes and agonised screams amongst overs combine to make for a unsettling experiance. The game isn't perfect though, the main character never looks terrified, instead chooses to look mildly scared throughout (I know if I was there I would be clawing at the front door after less then a minute, but then I wouldn't have gone alone. How intelligent is she? Some people went missing at this house so her bro goes to find them, he dissapears so whats she do? "Oh I wont bother taking anyone to the house with me, i'll go to the middle of no where on my own, and without telling anyone, should I take any weapons? no I think i'll leave all my knifes, shotguns and rocket launchers at home"). Also is the lack of any other characters at all, it would have been nice to occasionaly have conversations with other people. These dont really detract from the game though, there just personal quibbles. To preserve the story I wont say anything else about this jem, apart from the fact that I just know this game wont sell lots as its been mostly ignored by everyone. Overall this is a fantastic game and a must have for survival horror junkies, it plays well and at 8 hours 1st play is long enough (compare that with Resident Evil 2's 4 hours 1st play and subsequent 3 hours average time) This is a unique experiance- 9.2/10. Quck tip- Complete the game twice to unlock Nightmare setting which features an alternate ending Alone in the dark 1 This is one old game and the one which Resident Evil is supposedly based on this game is now very much showing it's age though. Some man goes to some creepy house for some reason and is then trapped in thier by ghosts. Thats the story! Resident evil zeros idea of dropping items anywhere was first done in this game, and is confusing as I could never remember where I had left them. The enemies are mostly ghost based and cant be killed by weapons (like a possesed camera for instance) while awful looking zombies are the most common physical enemy. There are many similarities between this and the original resident evil, the front door is shown to be bad in res evil, but in this game if you try and open it the character is instantly killed- great! Caves feature in both, though the ones here are much more central to the plot. The game is enjoyable though and does have genuinly creepy moments. Dont know how near the end of the game I got as my computers memory was...DESTROYED, but I think i must have been very near the end as I'm cool. If you can find this and get it too work (PC) it's worth playing but only if you are a genuine survival horror nut. The 2nd one also appeared on the original Playstation, but dont know what thats like as could not find it anywhere. Dont know anything about the 3rd one either apart from I think it was set in a deserted village rather then a deserted mansion. The game certainly looks it's age now and because of this I cant give it a good score as it feels so outdated, so 5.2/10. Parasite Eve 2 Didn't get the chance to play the first game as it wasn't released in Britain (bah) but sequels are always better (well sort of) You play Aya Brea an operative for MIST (a special forces group which deals in fighting Mitochrondrian monsters) who is called in to deal with a situation at the 'Akropolis Tower' which has been over run with monsters, after this intro mission, Aya then goes to the Mojave desert where the rest of the game takes place as she looks for the source of the monster outbreak. For each monster that is killed Aya gets points which she can use to buy bullets, health and new weapons, also the points help her to unlock her psychic abilities such as healing and flame abilities. The weapons are general survival horror type (apart from her psychic weapons) such as pistols and shotguns. The monsters are mostly of the giant insect type, but there are enough different viraities to make them interesting. Special mention must go to the bosses which are mostly brilliant and usually massive, special mention must go to Agent x (?) the wierd masked assailent who keeps appearing through the game, and the end of the deserted town boss- a gigantic flame breathing monstrosity. Locations are good through out- though the caves and initial lab sections are similer to the ones of other games. If anyones read the 4th Resident Evil book, then you will notice the later part of this game is identical (sort of). This game has flaws though- the end boss is nightmarly hard to do, the ending is rubbish (well the normal one is) and if you lend the game to a friend it will come back minus the FMV scenes (well mine did, which quite killed any replay value it might have had) The FMV is brilliant all the way through, especially the little war bit near the end of the game. This is also the first survival horror game to my knowldge which has a big bit of the game taking place during the middle of the day in the blazing sun, so well done! Overall this is a solid game but is not the least bit scary and doesn't really keep the player hooked to it, so 5.9/10. Dino Crisis 1 I really liked this game the first couple of times through but it suddunly became very very boring to do (wow! it rhymed). The game sees some group of soldiers(?) going to some research place which for some explicable reason has sprouted a vast jungle around it. The FMV intro shows this to be a bad place, as the jungle is full of Dinosaurs (hence the imagitive title). You take control of some red haired woman as she try to discover what has happened to the place. The game has no pre rendered backgrounds, which would be a good thing, but as a result it looks a bit rough compared to the Resident Evil games (made by the same people) Most the locations take place in the research center, so grey walls prevail. The weapons are bad, as most are tranquiliser darts and so not very exciting to use. The dinos are ok I suppose, the raptors are the main baddie, compys also appear as well as the T-rex which pops up at different points during the adventure. The game features alternate endings which is always a good thing. The puzzles take the form of password decipering mostly, and can be quite hard to do. This game was a good attempt but the drab locations and general lack of action mean it isn't a classic. Competant 7.0/10 Dino Crisis 2 Having taken criticism from the first game this sequal was turned into virtually a pure action game, from the very start you are under constant attack from the dinos, like parasite eve 2 killing enemies gives you points to spend on new weapons. The story again casts you as the red haired woman, this time you have travelled back in time (?) to rescue any survivors from a experiment which sent a laboratory and the nearby town into the dinosaur age. Locations this time around are much more varied- Jungle, town, labs and research center all feature. The game is much more fun to play then last time but is much shorter. The brill FMV scenes are dino carnage are back, and the obigitary T-rex is back to chase you at points in the game again (this time it has a reason- in the intro scene you blast it's eye out) New first person sections are a very good idea, one has you shooting dinos while sitting on the back of a moving vehicle |