MentalAnalysis Videogame Reviews

Mental Analysis: 1080° Snowboarding (Nintendo 64)

2010-12-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

Mental Analysis Halloween Special: Decap Attack (Mega Drive)

2010-10-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Mental Analysis: Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 (XBLA)

2010-10-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

Metroid: Other M Review

2010-09-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

Format: Nintendo Wii

Other Formats: None

Price: £34.99

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Team Ninja

If you were to describe Nintendo as a parent, Nintendo would probably the knocked up teenage mother that had a shitload of whoopsi daisies (by that I mean”videogame series”) and with child benefit so limited these days, she only kept the two favourites (which will be Mario and Zelda) while the rest of mummies’ little accidents would be sent to foster homes (by foster homes, I mean 3^rd party companies). Some take good care of the bastard children, some don’t. Probably the most recent and interesting 3rd party to date have to be Team Ninja.

Now this is defiantly one for the books considering Team Ninja are mostly famous for Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden games (which usually contain the healthy doses of boobies and violence) as well as the creator of both games going lawsuit crazy on his own company. With this background, it’s defiantly crazy to see a Tag team like this, considering Nintendo’s “Disney like” family friendly games and attitude. Seriously, it’s easy to think of the sitcom “two and a half men” where this is going...

So as the title of the review already suggested and me not bothering to mention the title, they made Metroid: Other M and to be honest, this was defiantly the title I was excited about this year. With worrying about story arch’s and Samus Aran being in the hands of creepy Japanese men aside, What I was hyped up for was the use of only the Wiimote, the switching between platform and first person shooting, the sweet moves that Samus will do while kicking alien ass and probably the chance to see a “little more” of Samus, if you know what I mean ;).

But with the only things they were showing off at the time before release, I really should’ve been worried about the other aspects which I thought that I would never have to worry about.

Let me just say right now that Metroid: Other M is by no means a bad game; it’s just a piss poor story teller. The gameplay was just what I was hoping for and expected, aside from a few issues involving the first person view and the graphics is simply the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed on the Wii, CGI footage that can rival the 360 and Ps3. But of course, gameplay and graphics nowadays aren’t the only aspects of a videogame and sadly, this is where Other M falls kinda short.

For years, with the exception of logs and given dialogue in Metroid Fusion, Samus Aran never spoke, since the introduction of voice acting in videogames, we’ve always wondered if Samus would one day be given a voice. Now that she has a voice, she won’t shut up. She will talk and talk and talk AND drivel on about random shit that we either already knows about or question what will be in her best interest to do in order to please her father figure in the game. Think Rorschach from the Watchmen but a bad female voice actor instead of a gravelly ginger pluck.

Speaking of father figures, we are also introduced to Adam Malkovich. Samus’ ex commander during her days in the Galactic Federation and a fucking asshole to boot as he stops Samus from using all of her abilities until he says so. At first, this might seem like a silly way by starting the player off from scratch but at least it’s a better excuse than the traditional “Whoops, looks like I lost all my power-ups down the drain” crap that’s usually what series is embarrassingly known for.

Aside from Adam, we also have a small squad of characters that aren’t really worth remembering as each one will be killed off Alien style throughout the game. There’s also one black guy that everyone claims to know called Anthony who is also Samus’ best friend or something.

For the story, Samus gets a distress signal from a space station. After explaining in full length about why the signal was called “baby’s Cry”, she sets off to the space station to rescue any survivors but runs into her old commanding officer that’s also happening to be leading a squad on a rescue mission. So Samus decides to tag along but as I already mentioned before, Adam restricts her from her powers and doesn’t get to use them until he say’s so. From then on out, the story story feels like a rip-off from an episode of Dr.Who as the squad gets killed off one by one and you eventually, confront the main villain.

Here’s the real kicker about the story, it ends far too soon. Final boss? You would hardly notice. Dramatic countdown to the ship before the place explodes? Faked out. Reward for completing the game? Aside from Hard Mode when you collect all the items, all you really get is an Art Gallery and a theatre Gallery. No playing through the game as Zero Suit Samus. What a fucking jip!

This is a real shame to be bashing this game because I for one enjoyed the experience but with so much crap holding the game back like pointless content, crap voice acting and a script that wasn’t really thought out well, it pretty much ruins the experience for a Metroid fan. The game has potential but unfortunately, bad storytelling and a game length that felt like it was cut in half pretty much blew its chances of me recommending a buy for it. Not at full price at least. Either wait until it goes down on price or rent it.

MentalMyles Plays Megaman 10 (WiiWare)

2010-03-19T17:26:00.001-07:00

Megaman 10 Review

2010-03-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

Format: WiiWare

Other Formats: PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade

Price: 1000 points

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Inti Creates

Nostalgia is a very powerful thing may it be a childhood memory, past relationships and even an old daily routine you got used to at a certain time of your life. Nostalgia will always be that thing in the human pshyci that would make us lie back and think “Those were the days...” Like everyone else, as much as I look forward to the future and what it brings, sometimes I would like to think back on those warm memories like when I used to go hiking with my close in the Scottish country side and woodlands or that time when I gathered the balls to say to the woman I love how I truly feel.

Stuff like that you can never top and videogames seem to have just as a strong impression in the past 30 years. You can’t deny it! When you discovered say...Super Mario World on the Wii shopping channel. You can’t tell me that you didn’t download that straight onto your Wii, started playing and the memories of your childhood didn’t come flooding back. It’s not just for childhood, a game could also remind you of certain points in your life, recent or long ago. I can remember last spring how I would unwind by playing Grand Theft Auto 4 with a can of Carlsberg by my side. Granted, GTA4 is shit but the point is that I can’t think of GTA4 now without thinking of those lazy evenings while staring out at the spring sky as it slowly got darker after 9pm. How I can’t think of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 without thinking about the typical college days in autumn and how I can’t think about Kirby without thinking about ........wait, what’s this got to do with anything? Oh yeah, Megaman 10!

Megaman 9 was released via download back in 2008 with the innovation behind the game was ironically the fact it was modelled after the games back in the NES days where everything was 8-bit and the difficulty was just unreasonable. And to be honest, I couldn’t imagine it having updated graphics without it looking.....well ...shit. Not only did Megaman 9 have the balls to have a small pixal count, they also gave you the option to make the game annoyingly glitch and slow down like if it were a NES game. So naturally after Megaman 9 became a nice success to the fan base, it was inevitable that Megaman 10 will be in the works.

December 2009 was when were first told that the next Megaman game will be coming in March, fan boys either gizzed in their pants with excitement or just thought how this was going to fail so badly. This is the part when I finally talk about the game, children....

It’s the year 20XX and robots are suddenly becoming infected with Roboenza, a virus that (as the name suggests) infects robots. One month later, the virus spreads and the robots start to act violent and attempt to take over the world. Meanwhile on the flipside of things, Mega man’s sister, Roll has been infected and the only way to save her is to help Dr. Wily retrieve the stolen pieces for his Medicine making machine (And if you’ve played any Megaman game or at least know of the plot, you know where this is going...). Protoman also decides to lend a hand as a playable character.

Ovarall story is as weak as you would except from a Megaman title but you don’t play a megaman game to get your story on, you were looking forward to the sexy new robot masters our blue pal get to victimise this time round. This time on Megaman’s “to molest list” is Sheepman, Commandoman, Nitroman, Solarman, Chillman, Strikeman, Blademan and Pumpman. Disappointing how they didn’t add a woman robot master this time around but the characters look good none the less and some of them are easily becoming my new favourites (Shut up, Sheepman rules!).

Gameplay is what you would expect from a Megaman game. Play through 8 stages in any order you choose and then face off with the big baddy in his heavily armoured base. Everytime you managed to make your way through a stage, you fight the robot master and after you defeat the robot master, you take its power to use it against another robot master. This is when you realise that there’s a hidden pattern into finding the robot masters weaknesses which you would take advantage of to get through the game easily. Sometimes it’s pretty obvious such as Pumpman’s Water Shield against Solar Man but sometimes you have to think harder for the not so obvious ones.

The only real unique thing about Megaman 10 is that you can now choose to play as Protoman (Megaman’s older brother)and you can also play as Megaman’s arch rival, Bass who will be available through download in April. There is also a brand new easy mode for the pussified casual gamer which is a good feature to introduce new players into the series while the veteran Megaman gamers can peacefully play their normal mode and not having to listen to bitches complaining about the game being too hard.

Aside from that, there is little innovation in Megaman but when you think about it, it’s for the best, especially when you look at Sonic The Hedgehog in the past decade. The story was also disappointing as it really could have been used to add closure to the original Megaman series but at the same time, I’m also glad they end the story the way it did. It tells us that Megaman is going to be with us for a little while longer, refusing to day an age and I wouldn’t have him any other way.

Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Star Review

2010-02-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Format: Wii

Other Formats: None

Price: £24.99

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Eighting

Fighting games are like Chinese curries and Spare ribs to me. I love them but they sure as hell don’t agree with me so no matter how much I try to prepare and master these things, one way or another I would usually end up with a sore arse at the end of the day. Usually this disgusting analogy slips my mind when a colour new fighting game appears from the heavens full of promise and hope with colourful characters and half dressed women with generous anatomy, then comes to the part when I play it and I realise that I’m about as good at the game as a handicapped Dan Hibiki.

The only fighting game I have been good at in recent years have been Street Fighter 4 but seeing as Capcom is deciding to pull the “different version” bullshit once again, I sort of lost interest in the series and somehow, I felt ripped off knowing that I bought the original Street Fighter 4 at full retail price and one year later, Capcom decided to resell the same game with new characters and game modes for ½ of what I paid for. New characters and game modes are the sort of thing what DLC was invented for, dammit! So aside for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, there’s really been nothing else in the fighting genre that interested me......until now.

Enter Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom. The title alone interests me because as many people were thinking at the time; “what the hell is a Tatsunoko?!”. Tatsunoko is a Japanese Animation company mostly famous for Samurai Pizza Cats, Speed Racer and Robotech yet for some reason, neither of these characters appears in the game in the actual game itself. So, what is in the Tatsunoko roaster instead? Well, we have the likes of Ken the Eagle, Yatterman 1, Tekkaman, Ippatsuman, Gold Lighten and Karas. Yeah, I’ve never heard of them either...

Ok, to be fair, this game wasn’t even supposed to be released to the English speaking fags and I heard that a lot of copyright issues had to be dealt with before releasing it to the rest of the world so really, we should let this slid.....BUT HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU LEAVE OUT THE FUCKING SAMURAI PIZZA CATS?!?!?! DAMMIT!

Meanwhile, for the side of Capcom, you’ll be surprised to know that their tradition of having ½ of their roaster being from Street Fighter has changed this time around (Thank god!). Instead, we have a more colourful roaster of Ryu, Chun-Li, Alex (yeah, all from street fighter), Morrigan, Betsu, some douche from Onimusha and THEN we have the likes of Viewtiful Joe (yes!), Frank FUCKING West (YES, YES!) and Zero from Megaman X(FANGASM!!!!!). We also have Saki, a character who’s in a dating game that was never released outside japan, a giant robot mech from Lost Planet and of course, we have Roll. The cheapest character in a fighting game ever, but she’s just so much fun to use to piss your friends off. Finally, we have Yami (Okami) to play the role of the epic final boss. Who can only be described as a giant morphing ball of concentrated hate and frustration.

What make this game simply awesome are two things, the fighting system and the controls. First the controls, or the first hour of play, I decided to go for the Classic Controller for the retro feel but as the flashbacks of fighting games and back take-outs come running back, I find myself getting my ass kicked once again and wasn’t having a good time. The frustration and swearing started to kick in until I realised I didn’t have to play with the classic controller. So I decided to experiment with the different controls and then it dawned on me that I could play the game with JUST the Wiimote. This ended up turning the most complex and uncomfortable controls into button mashing fun. I couldn’t believe it, I was on Survivor mode for over an hour and a ½ before I finally let the computer win and I felt I had some sort of cheat on. It just feels weird kicking the game’s ass for once in my life and it being a fucking Capcom game of all things. As you can tell, Capcom had it covered for all forms of players, veteran to casuals alike. This is a perfect way to get your friends and family to play with you as well as get them into fighting games but if they begin to get a little smug and think they’re better than you, you could easily bring yourself down to their level and show them their place. Those casual ass-fucks...

Next is the fighting system is just perfect. Not only do they have pretty much the same engine as the one they use in street fighter 4 (but a little more loose and well, broken) they also have an awesome way to fuck your opponents over. Remember when you would end up getting caught in a combo that you couldn’t get out of and without a doubt, the opponent you’re facing will spam this combo to death? In Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, you can simply perform “Mega Crash” and this will fuck up the enemy’s combo and send them flying, though this would also take some of your health off and a special bar, so be sure not to make a habit of it. You also have your Hyper Combo cancellations, Air combos, Ground Combos, farting combos, Counters and Snapbacks which all blends together nicely to create a challenging and fun fighting system with a lot to learn for the eager to master players.

I guess my only complaints for the game is the fact they got rid all of the animated cut scenes and swapped them with Americanised butchery. I mean the Japanese version had the most kick-ass intro to a videogame ever and what do we get? Some terrible remixed rap song and something that was thrown together at the last minute by using the images and puked all over it with effects and Photoshop.....thanks guys! What happened to the animated endings? Don’t tell me it was too much effort to throw in subtitles. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the illustrated slide shows but people don’t admire artwork when it’s on a TV screen. Eyes tend to get damaged! And most importantly, WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE SAMURAI PIZZA CATS, YOU CUNTS?!?!

Aside from that, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is a title worth having in the small collection that is the Nintendo Wii and it’s probably going to already take the price of the best fighting game of 2010. Of course, theres other title in the works but chances are they’ll be the same shit that would either rip off Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat or a rerelease of a game that’s a year old in which case, Super Street Fighter 4 can suck my balls and jerk itself up the ass with a flag pole.

Mass Effect 2 Review

2010-02-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

Format: 360

Other Formats: PC

Price: £39.99

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Bioware

People who know me, knows that one of my favourite games of all time is Megaman 2 and if there was one thing that Megaman 2 taught me, it was that a good sequel should be able to stand on its own and prove to be superior in every way compared to the original. Because of this, I would tend to occasionally take a leap of faith towards a game sequel without playing the original. Mass Effect 2 was the current target of my sequel theory this time around as it was hyped up so damn much that it deserves a good critic spanking and with all the many attempts lately to try different and weird things, it would feel refreshing to play 3^rd Person Shooter pretending to be an RPG for once as weird and unprofessional as that may sound.

You’re Commander Shepherd. A well known Commander with either a dick or cunt (depending on which gender you chose at the beginning of the game, of course.) who’s just had one hell of a bad day when his or her ship gets destroyed by an evil alien race and with the added irritation of getting disintegrated in space. Two years later through the marvels of advance technology and space age jib-jab, Shepherd is revived by an organisation called Cerberus who wants him to save the humanity from the evil aliens known as Reapers. From then on it’s up to you to save the galaxy by recruiting new crew members, taking on dangerous and daring missions while probing planets from all their wealth and eventually, preparing for the big suicide mission while either being a good Samaritan or complete asshole in the process. This is all without giving away too much, which is a stretch. It may bother me that the game pulls the “You are the only one!” bullshit on the story from the very beginning but at the same time, I applaud it because the game is also giving me the reason why I am by being reminded of what Shepherd done in the last game which made him/her the big hero/ heroine that he/ she is. Apparently, this will differ if you uploaded your character from the previous game but as I already made clear in the previous paragraph, I didn’t play the last game.

At its core, it’s a 3^rd Person action shooter which is almost similar to Gears of War but fewer walls and less clumsiness. During each mission, you choose 2 or your crew members to assist you as you blast your way through all kinds of scum in the galaxy. Like in Gears of War, you can run up to wall and they pretty much attach to the character like a magnet and ALMOST like in Gears of War, you can dash towards walls and take aim from corners. So far, it sounds like a generic 3^rd Person Shooter but the RPG element takes place when you level up and are able to use different abilities to assist you in battle. For example, I was able to use different forms of bullets from Incinerate, to freeze, to electrify, to penetrate to destroying shields. Using these bullets was interesting as it added strategy to the taking cover and fire routine like taking down Robot enemies with your electrified bullets or incinerating bug-like enemies and so on.

Speaking of bullets, I remember hearing about how fans were acting like Sonic the Hedgehog fanboys towards the changed ammo system and how it sucks that the ammo is limited. Boo-fucking-hoo, I didn’t know what the ammo system was like in the first game but I’m sure that the old system let users use the same gun throughout the game without switching. Meanwhile, the new system is pretty much....the same as any other ammo system in a typical shooting game. The way I see it, it’s an improvement as it stops players from being a sniper-whore and actually think before they jump in a gunfight.

Back to the characters that assist you, they’re pretty much your average AI characters that will shoot whoever’s shooting you and move to positions whenever you tell them. Some people complain that they would get in your way during a gunfight but through my play through, I didn’t really have problems. They did their thing and I did mine. They were more helpful than they were useless if anything. This was probably because I was playing the game like a decent human being rather than a dick head. I’d imagine if I was trying to be evil, the characters would have gotten in the way and probably sit and watch me get gunned down to death rather than coming to my Aid. That and ignore orders. This is where the royalty plays in, you see. Throughout the entire game, you will be talking to people ALOT and how you answer back to them results in how they feel towards you as a person. Because of this, you will end up getting attached to your crew mates and you will probably end up trying to make everyone happy before the inevitable suicide mission happens.

One thing that WILL kill the flow of the game and that’s the planet probing you will have to do in order to get resources to buy your weapons and equipment as well as upgrades for yourself the ship. As I described....you probe planets and it’s about as tedious and minuteness as it sounds and you will have to take a break from the missions and space adventure just to do this boring and brain-numbing task. I was told in the last game, you had to actually drive around the planets to get resources but it apparently the planet probing was an improvement to that.

The graphics are pretty fucking impressive if you can forgive my lack of profession (who am I kidding, I’m never professional!). The Facial expressions and animation is almost perfect as they better be, considering all the cut scenes and conversations you have to sit through though it comes to no surprise as the first game was given a spot on the Guinness World Records (Videogame edition 2010)because of the facial expressions. All the character designs are well done and beautifully detailed, though some of the alien main characters could do with a little more originality to at least stand out a little more compared to the rest of their races. Not exactly a big deal, the alien characters stand out well but a little more variety would have help.....yeah, a gripe that’s so petty, it’s clear I’m trying really hard not to make this a one sided review. Did I mention that the voice acting is just fucking incredible?! Nearly all of them are just fucking incredible. I could list all the big names that took part but you can look that stuff up if you’re really interested. I personally can’t believe we have Seth Green (Creator of Robot Chicken and Scotty from Austin Powers) as the ship’s pilot, Joker. That alone is fucking win.

The music is pretty good as well. Not as atmospheric as the likes of Metroid Prime or Bioshock but its pretty good to listen to.

I also love how you can design your armour in the game. It adds creativity and adds more to your own game in unique way. Also worth noting that your face will differ on how you play the game. If you play good, your eyes will be blue(correct me if I’m wrong on that because I’m actually not sure.) and you’ll have fewer scars while being bad will give you red eyes and riddle your mug with scars. Reminds me of Fable 2 but less stupid in that respect.

Oh! If you are getting this game, I strongly recommend buying it new, that way you won’t have to pay 1200 points for the Cerberus network which will provide with new Content DLC. Yeah, it’s way of you buying it full price but it’s a clever move and you won’t really be suckered with the content you’ll be getting with it such as armour, weapons new mission and even a bonus character.

Unless Sci-fi, shooting stuff and good story telling isn’t your thing. Then there’s no excuse not to at least try it out. You might want to take time off work before you sit down on this one because it’s too easy to get absorbed and fully lose yourself by the games incredible immersion. You will get attached to your Sheppard, you will get close to your crew mates, you will think every conversation matters and you will want to enter the Omega 4 Relay to save the Galaxy. A game that makes me sad enough to not shut the fuck up about it, even when I’m with loved ones and friends, it’s a clear sign that this is worth getting. It’s good enough for the game to proudly stand on its own and it’s good enough to make me write a badly written review...

What Hitler thinks of Sonic The Hedgehog 4

2010-02-09T04:58:00.000-08:00

Bayonetta Review

2010-01-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

Format: 360

Other Formats: Ps3

Price: £39.99

Publisher: SEGA

Developer: Platinum Studios

I have to say that January is a pretty interesting month for gaming. Here we have three promising titles. One that rips off God of War, One that rips off Zelda and one that rips off Devil May Cry. End of the world, angsty characters and fighting Satan has been done to death in the past decade so fuck the first two choices, I chose Bayonetta.

Calling Bayonetta a clone or imitator of Devil May Cry seems pretty foul considering its created by the same guy that made Devil May Cry and for normal people that actually sat down and played the game, instead of throwing boycotting classics such as “Sex sells!” or “Its a DMC rip-off!”, you may be surprised to know that there’s more to DMC’s little sister than stripper Mary Poppins.

While Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders pits you against Demons with the motivation of being accused of starting the apocalypse and saving your wife from getting gang raped in hell and at all times being moody gits about it, Bayonetta takes the different root by being about a Witch fighting angels in a futuristic Europe while being sassy and fun about it.

But if there something I would drop marks on is the story which is hard to follow and all over the place. Bayonetta is a Witch with no memory of her past (as all lazy story writing goes) and after getting some info from Gilbert Gottfried that could relate to her past, heads to Europe to track down some guy that turns out to be (Spoiler Alert). Between the lines, she meets another witch who wants to kill her for reasons unknown, a stalker and a little girl that claims to be Bayonetta’s daughter but turns out to be (Spoiler Alert), sorry. Though there are plenty of subtle Capcom and SEGA references throughout the game.

Storyline may be a bit poor but it’s the game part you really want to know. Bayonetta pretty much plays like Devil May Cry in almost all respect but less shit. Bayonetta is more agile than Dante, she also has a “witch time” that activates when she dodges an attack with perfect timing which puts me in the mind of Viewtiful Joe.

Oh yeah, and Bayonetta has guns attached to her heels which makes her cooler than Dante, who doesn’t. Finally, Bayonetta can summon monsters, fists and over weird and wonderful things with her long black hair while Dante’s short white hair....doesn’t do any of these things...apart from making him look like a homo.

Also, remember in Devil May Cry when you bought an item and suddenly all items including the one you bought risen in price and when you use that item and got killed, you lost that item forever? Remember going far in Devil May Cry in a mission and when you get killed by a random spawning enemy or a trap and you had to start the whole mission again? Yeah, there’s none of that crap here. In Bayonetta land, they have prices that stay the same and checkpoints. The difficulty is reasonable on normal but when you unlock hard mode, it’s fucking solid. I heard that easy mode is a laugh for casual players and theres the infamous one hand gameplay. Why? What will you use the other hand for? You’d say masturbating but I’m right handed and really, who gets off on Witches slaying angel?

Maybe it’s because I’m mature enough to know better or maybe it’s because I’m not a virgin but I don’t see how seeing PG 13 nudity would get you jerking off to the milf on screen. Also, I don’t believe in dumbing down games for the pussy casuals because they just get full of themselves and behave like general dicks, thinking they can go for “World’s Ultimate Gamer”.

Another feature worth noting is when you can perform torture moves on your enemies in which Bayonetta throws the enemy in a torture/execution device dues ex machima style and deal massive damage. The ability to do that is none short of pretty fucking sweet but then you realise that doing a torture device move takes away all your magic.

In certain points in the game you also ride motorbikes arcade style in a couple of mission and near the end, a missile. You also have a brief minigame to play at the end of each chapter where you shoot down angels with a limited amount of bullets. In a nutshell, you can easily say that the game sacrifices a good story for the sake of a good game and isn’t that the point of playing a game in the first place? How can you take a game seriously when it involves a witch constantly making sex jokes and beating the shit out of angels? It’s silly but it’s fun and that’s why people play games, to have some of that fun we took for granted before the likes of Metal Gear Solid acted like a movie and forget that it’s a fucking game half the time and your general shooters like Halo and Call Of Duty where they forgot about the fun and made it a competition of who can make the most gory, realistic and story driven experience. If I wanted that, I would watch a film! If I want to have fun, I’d play a fucking game.

...

Oh, Presentation is beautiful with shiny model designs and the cutescenes are well done, nicely put together but it seems half the time, they would go for a grind house feel and not bother with any animation but instead, pan and zoom a camera around posing models. Could be for effect or maybe that was when the animation team just got lazy. Apart from that one thing, it’s all good in the eyes. I could go on about how the enemies’ flesh fall apart while you slicing them up and the music is disturbingly catchy as hell but I’ll leave that to discover for yourself because Bayonetta is one awesome experience and I highly recommend you check it out for yourself. Yeah, it might seem like something you shouldn’t try like your friend’s slutty little sister but screw it, it’s not like you were that close to Devil May Cry anyway.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Review

2010-01-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

Format: 360

Other Formats: PS3, PSP, PC

Price: £44.99

Publisher: Vicarious Visions

Developer: Bioware

Before we get into the new year with some shiny new games of twenty-ten, let’s take a look at a game I didn’t bother playing until after Christmas when I had money to waste. The game in question is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. It’s pretty hard not to be excited about the title before it came out. The original was so good, that game retailers were literally throwing the game right in your face, even months after the game was out. I remember when The Ghost Rider movie and Spiderman 3 was coming out and at the same time, retailers were slapping on promotional stickers on the games stating you can play the characters from those films. So when Ultimate Alliance 2 was announced, people were hyped as hell.

Then Activision announced that the game will be developed by a different team, people were worried. Then Activision announced that the game will be based on the Civil War Saga, People were slightly more worried. But the more Activision talked about the game, People became less worried but that’s only because most of the nerds killed themselves. So it was clear why I gave Ultimate Alliance 2 a miss the first time it came around in favour of more promising games like Halo 3: ODST, Brutal Legends.....and...Modern Warfare 2....yeah, so we didn’t have many good games after the summer and it made me realise that I can’t do any worse.

So after playing through the entire game, it’s safe to say that ultimate alliance 2 isn’t all that bad, just not all that good either. Don’t get me wrong, the game isn’t, terrible, its just with all the good points, it’s countered with bad points which makes me compare the sequel to the original. For example, we have characters that has little involvement compared to the main story yet so many important characters were missed out, in fact, the game isn’t really based on civil war that much because I don’t remember reading the part where almost the entire world gets infected with a nano machine virus and Nick Fury becomes a cyborg and tries to kill my merry band of super heroes. Then again, there’s alternate ways in how the game will end but I’m assuming it will end the same way, only the side I choose the second time around will win the argument of the Super Hero Act which the plot around that is about as pointless and shouldn’t have existed like Obama’s retarded Health Care Plan.

All your favourite characters are back unless your favourite characters were Ghost Rider, Electra, Blade, Dr. Strange and Ronin then your fucked. But that doesn’t matter because you get to play with characters new to the Ultimate Alliance Club such as Cable, Carnage, Psylocke and Juggernaut. Just a shame you have to pay an extra £7 in DLC to play with them. Then Again, new characters don’t mean anything to me as long as I get to play as Deadpool, which you do and it’s nice to know that he’s as fun and ridiculously overpowered as ever.

I would talk about the game play but really, if you played the first game, you know how this game will work. The only feature that Activision wouldn’t shut up about was the Fusion system where two characters can combine their powers and there are 200 different fusions to discover. That last part was a lie...

All we have left to talk about now is the shell of the game which is the graphics and presentation. Well, the graphics are nice and realistic just like any other colourless next gen game but overdone with the highlights and it also means the number of alternate costumes for your character have changed from 3 like in the last game to 1 and the alternate costumes just look retarded when the Comic Book heroes were suffering during their silver years and finally Presentation is bland with an American politician theme to it not like the last game where the presentation was a fun comic book sort of theme.

Overall, the game isn’t bad, just not as good as the last game because it just feels like the new team behind Ultimate Alliance tried to make the same game from the ground up and forgot that they were supposed to make a sequel to that game. I would say buy it but with the laughable price tag, I would just forget it and just go for the original if you haven’t already. That way you can have a fun superhero game without any politics and freedom thrown in your face. Only alien threats and Galactus trying to murder you.

Introduction

2010-01-28T15:13:00.000-08:00

hey there, I'm MentalMyles. You probably know me from Newgrounds.com where I make cartoons and such but I do more than that. My biggest passion other than my certain other and animation is in fact video games and if you know me, I usually tend to have a habit of not shutting the fuck up about them. So here, I decide to write my experiences based on a video game I recently played (translation, I'll be writing complete bi-est reviews and talking out of my ass). I'll also use this blog to whore out anything else I do be it a new animation, comic strip, piece of art or even a video I dumped on Youtube. So yeah, those are what i'll be doing and expect some reviews posting up shortly after you read this.

-Myles