Review: Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (PS2)

Back in 2005 I had a chipped Xbox. One of the games I burned onto a disc was the, then, newly released Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. I played it for fifteen minutes or so, wrote it off as yet another sub-par license game and went on with my life. A few weeks ago I had somewhat of a Charlie And The Chocolate Factory bonanza, where I re-watched all the three movies and started wondering if there was any games made related to the Wonka universe. Then I remembered this game and quickly bought a used copy for my PS2. It was time to re-evaluate it, 21 years later!

The intro was pretty good, it definitely had that specific Wonka charm that we all know and love. But right off the bat I noticed the main narrator sounded sort of... off? I couldn't quite put my finger on why he was so hard to understand. The sound of his voice was just right, but sometimes full sentences went by without a single understandable word. I'm fairly certain he has some sort of speech impediment or otherwise having trouble pronouncing certain sounds in a row without making a mess of all the letters. It didn't improve over time either, most of his lines were impossible to understand through the entire game. But all the other voice actors talked properly and I suspect some of them were even the real actors from the movie, so you know. You win some, you lose some. All in all, despite the narrator being awful, the game did a very good job selling the illusion of a well put together and magical product. So the setting was more or less nailed, cool!

All the stages had charm, a distinct identity and - while very simply laid out - felt somewhat inspired. As a matter of fact I was pleasantly surprised as to how "okay" everything was, from stage layout to controls and missions. I thought to myself that this might be on par with Oogie's Revenge, if the slight jank (which had already presented itself in form of some weird hitboxes and awkward movements that didn't quite connect the way they were supposed to) didn't take over going forward.

"the jank did continue to be a nuisance"

Sadly though, a lot of the jank did continue to be a nuisance. The objectives were communicated through speech, not always accompanied by a text prompt. Fair enough. But the voices were sometimes lower in volume than the background music and various sound effects, so I now and then ended up not really knowing what I was supposed to do, because I simply couldn't hear it. And there's no way to have the objective repeat, and if it was accompanied by a text prompt, that too was nowhere to be found once it had disappeared from the screen. Thankfully I could change the volume on all things, SFX, background music, voices and so on, in the settings. The only caveat was that the cutscenes didn't allow for that (you know, where most of the talking happens...).

I used the hint system extensively. Presumably put in place to help younger players, pressing R2 makes grandpa Joe nudge the player in the right direction. And boy did I require nudging. I must have heard Joe's voice more than any other throughout the adventure. The hint system did not, however, give any clues as to where to find all the collectables that were spread out on each level. And even though this is a kids game, it was pretty tricky finding everything. At least before unlocking a certain ability, that instead made it trivial. I failed to complete the gathering objectives on the first couple of stages - which in turn made the game a bit harder since all the buffs and increased health etc were tied to completing those. That's a bit weird, don't you think? If the player does badly for some reason, going forward will be harder. Oh well. I managed to 100% many of the later stages so it evened out. And in all fairness I didn't really need the buffs anyway - the game was very easy once I understood what to do.

"the game was very easy once I understood what to do"

After micromanaging the Oompa-Loompa's (which was painful at times because PS2 pathfinding was never all that great) to help all the children in the same order as the movie for a few hours I got a short cutscene - that skipped most of the movie's ending and just called it a day after being shot out of the factory with the glass elevator. Oh, that's right, the elevator. After completing the game I got the chance to go back to certain stages and collect a few new things to unlock tidbits from the movie all gathered under a new menu item called "Bonus", but I didn't feel like spending more time with this game than I already had. It was admittedly much better than I'd thought, but it's still a movie license game with lots of jank. I'd recommend it to fans of Wonka in a heart beat, but not to people in general.

Review: The Getaway: Black Monday (PS2)

One of my first reviews on VGL, all the way back in august of 2012, was The Getaway. I claimed the game was a diamond in the rough, with some strengths (the general ideas and the voice acting) and a lot of weaknesses (the driving, the shooting, the ambiguity). Now, I've played the sequal - The Getaway: Black Monday. Did Team Soho learn from their mistakes in the first one? Is Black Monday even a full game or is it a mission pack? Read on and find out.

The game starts off with us in control of Mitch, who is a fucking dipshit. I'm sorry, but he really is insufferable. It's his first day back in the police force since, supposedly, shooting a kid in the back. Every exchange between the cops is boring and needlessly macho. Mitch also has a weirdly large head for some reason... Anyway, it's of course the same sort of affair as the first game - an open world adventure in third person with driving and shooting. After a few forgettable missions meant to introduce the controls and lay the foundation for the things to come the game finally shifts focus and lets us control Eddie, a criminal boxer, instead (and to some extent a teenager thief called Sam). The general formula is similar to the first game as well, in that we follow the chain of events slightly chopped up and through various points of view. Story progression and mission briefing is also happening in the cutscenes, like before, and sometimes over the car radio - which can be hard to pick up on since the voices are lower than all other audio and subtitles only work in the cutscenes. When they give me orders over the radio I hear one word in ten and then that's it.

"The game starts off with us in control of Mitch, who is a fucking dipshit."

The driving is also the same as in the previous game, where there's often a hidden timer and your only means of navigation is to look at your blinkers that signal left, right or "fast" depending on where you need to go (fast blinking means you've passed your turn). Well, I could technically bring up the rudimentary map and plan my route a bit but who wants to pause the game and double check the map all the time? The controls are very clunky as well, because of course they are.

So, when we've suffered through the ordeal that is getting to where we need to go it's finally time to leave the vehicle and have some on foot action. There's a heavy emphasis on all the moves we can do (as both Mitch and Eddie), such as rolling, taking people hostage to use as shields, carefully aim from behind cover, using the gun's butt as a melee weapon and in Mitch's case even use teargas. But since the controls are so stiff and awkward (yes, on foot as well) nine times out of ten I ended up just using the "snap aim to enemy" and kept the shot button down. But even then, again just like its predecessor, the game frequently picked the wrong enemy to focus on making me take a lot of unnecessary damage. There was simply no time for finesse, fiddling about with awkward controls and a thousand different options to go about a situation when the CPU emptied magazine after magazine right at me whenever they were on screen.

"the game frequently picked the wrong enemy to focus on making me take a lot of unnecessary damage"

What about the open world experience then? Well, I'm going to sound like a broken record but like with the first game, the sense of urgency is always present. There's no real opportunity to explore anything at all - it's always 'go there, more speed, do this, hurry up, the clock is ticking, move it'. And the traffic is doing its best to be an obstacle. Cars that are freaked out by you driving towards them never turn left and up on the sidewalk, they turn right and try to go in the middle - exactly where you want to drive. And there's cars cutting you off in every single crossroads in the entire game, you can never just speed through one without ending up in a crash. And I'm sorry but I don't really enjoy the city. There might be some cool vistas for people living in London to look up but for me it's just a gray and anonymous city that I try to speed through as best I can as to not run out of time. The feeling of "realism" as it were is much more tangible when inside and all the textures and small details are available to look at in a slower pace. There were times when I felt "this looks almost like an early PS3/360 game". Well, at least if I didn't move my character or tried to do anything else, because then it really felt dated again.

I'm not very positive about this game as you might have noticed, and that's not really due to the shortcomings I've described. It all comes down to the story which isn't that interesting. It has its moments, but they are few and far between. Where the gritty story and setting made up for cumbersome gameplay in the first game, here it doesn't. This means Black Monday isn't a diamond in the rough, but rather just a curiosity for the fans, or perhaps the completionist. Team Soho clearly didn't pick up on what made The Getaway "good despite its flaws", they just carried on and made another flawed game but without the saving grace.

Review: Final Fantasy X (PS2)

I initially struggled a bit to get into the game, every session felt like a newbie session (what's that, who're they, am I in the past or the future, was it Zanarkand I came from and Spira I'm in now, why should I care about any of these places or the characters in them, the main protagonist is a boring douche etc) so I tried to let go a bit of my strategy guide and just let the game show me the ropes organically. I immediately missed the Rod of Wisdom, an incredibly useful weapon for Yuna, so I went back to following the guide more or less to a T - and boy did I think I needed it. There were a lot of useful items hidden with NPC:s appearing on already visited places, who - with no hints or pointers - just casually gives them out after exhausting their dialogue a second time. I didn't want to hunt down every last single NPC and go through their oftentimes boring/useless dialogue multiple times "just to be sure" so I stuck with the strategy guide at every turn.

"I thought the liniarity would help me [...] but it really started to feel constricting"

After 20 hours or so I realized there were only a handful of items that would really suck to have missed, and the game had yet to branch out at all (it was the most linear experience I've ever had with a Final Fantasy game, with absolutely no say in where the journey was heading) so once again I felt the strategy guide wouldn't help me that much. And I thought the liniarity would help me, I often get frozen from too much freedom and having a linear path to take sounded comforting on paper. But after, like I said, 20 hours or so it really started to feel a bit constricting. In fact, this was going to be the case all the way to the end. Just before the last boss I got access to an airship and from there I was free to go back and explore secrets and hidden paths. But by that time, a solid 50 hours into the game, I was completely fed up with it. In all honesty I was pretty fed up with it already at 40 hours, so when I reached the end and unlocked the ability to do as I pleased I just wanted it to end already. I know it's an epic RPG and all, but I guess I just can't dedicate myself to a video game that long - at least not if it's a fairly uninteresting game like the case with FFX. The characters grew a bit on me, sure, but only from "they're stupid" to "they're okay for the most part".

"I played strictly out of dedication to finish what I've started"

You might wonder why I skipped from my first sessions with the game to the 20 hour mark and then the 50 hour mark without commenting on the story or gameplay mechanics. That's because I didn't think they were memorable. I played strictly out of dedication to finish what I've started, there was no interest in the world or the progress. And that's my judgement on this game. It was not interesting. And it had a fitting ending. The last fights (a couple of bosses with several formations) were incredibly frustrating with long cutscenes without the possibility to pause, let alone save. I just had to sit the hours out and if I died, it was all in vein. After getting the advice to go back, find and use "Trio of 9999" (I won't go into detail here) the end fight became much easier. Eventually the lastest last boss went down and I was finally free. Free from the daily boredom, the daily chore. I don't think I'll play another Final Fantasy for a good while.

Review: Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)

Several years ago, when it was common to have a chipped Xbox and some burnt discs, me and my girlfriend started playing Shaolin Monks and got to a point where it was evident it was a bad iso and we couldn't advance anymore. Some time later I bought the real deal with the intent of finally beating it. We gave it a try and for some reason we stopped pretty early on. Our memory of why differs so I'm going to go with mine: we got lost (we didn't pay any attention to what the characters were saying and therefore lost track of the objective) and subsequently bored. It would pass a good 10 years before I finally decided to go back to it and give it another try - this time alone. (I'm still together with my girlfriend though!)

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is a 3D beat 'em up set in the timespan of Mortal Kombat II (a game which also is present in the disc as an unlockable extra). Shang Tsung lures Liu Kang (and/or Kung Lao since it's possible to play this in two player co-op) to Otherworld where the majority of the game takes place and to remain spoiler free I'll sum the story up with "the journey is filled with familiar encounters, predictable twists and turns, and leads up to a bombastic finale in an familiar arena". During the course of the game the player earns XP through pulling off moves and combos with which more moves and combos are unlocked. That's pretty much the jist of it.

"I had a blast trying out different combos and stuff"

I immediately advanced further than we've ever gotten and I had a blast trying out different combos and stuff. I found, however, that the unlockable moves and specials were pretty limited in quantity and I maxed everything out pretty early on - rendering the rest of the XP earned point(hehe)less. There's a lot of secrets (artwork, video clips, unlockable characters and things like that) to find, I found a fair bit but far from everything. The maps are varied and easy enough to navigate, with a few metroidvania elements thrown in there (Reached a point where you can't advance? Try coming back when you've learned new abilities.) and most areas lead up to a a roster character encounter. I had fun through most of it, some moments really showed the game's age and there were some technical issues (sometimes the voiceovers and/or music was played at 10% volume and the controls ignored some of the inputs) but I didn't fire this game up looking for perfection but for some casual fun and Mortal Kombat goodness. On this Shaolin Monks delivers.

"I can absolutely recommend it for fans of the series"

A few hours in I arrived at the final showdown which consists of a three fights long bossrush - and the third and very last boss was an absolute anticlimax. I struggled with him and went to ask the guides - all of which adviced me to keep my distance, use projectiles and go for chip damage. Close combat is mostly out of the picture. I wanted to shine, to put my acquired knowledge of the fighting to the test in the final fight, and instead I had to run around like a coward slowly grinding the boss down like a Souls-cheese. But the last boss is only a few minutes, the rest of the game is awesome (that is; b-movie fun) and I can absolutely recommend it for fans of the series.

Review: Shenmue 2 (Dreamcast)

"All in all I think that Shenmue had some great ideas that overshines the shortcomings and the tale of Ryu was engaging enough to make me want to play the sequal."

That's how my review of Shenmue ended, and now I have played the sequal. And my overall thoughts on the second entry in this series is also very (and even a bit more) positive. Shenmue 2 continues where the first game left off, storywise it's a direct continuation so in that regard it really feels like I just kept playing one and the same game. A lot of things are, however, different. A lot of "quality of life" changes have been made to alleviate the frustrating moments of the first game. My favorite improvement is that if I reach an area outside of the hours where the story progresses I get the option to "Wait", which means the time fast forwards in an instant to the time I want it to be. Also, conversations now have a few options so I can steer the topics a bit more in many cases!

"I find myself not exploring as much as I would like, because I know it's 40% loading screens"

But when things are easier to just... enjoy, without having to navigate outdated mechanics that's only in the way, other shortcomings become evident. For example, I find myself not exploring as much as I would like, because I know it's 40% loading screens. Have to open a door? 30 seconds. Want to gamble? a few seconds to initiate the conversation, a few seconds to get started, a few seconds to load the conversation afterwards, a few seconds to get back to free-roam. Need to restart the system (only way to reload a save)? A couple of minutes. Want to check out a new area? First you have to get there, it's three blocks away with a minute of loading screen between each block, and then a small loading screen when interacting with anything on the way. Most of the time I end up just going where I'm supposed to, because otherwise I've wasted an in-game day with walking and seeing a fracture of what I planned anyway. Perhaps I should've gone the HD remake route, but wouldn't that take away a bit of the awe? I mean, it's a cool game because it's on an old Dreamcast. It's all part of the charm. If it's on a modern system it'd feel underwhelming and outdated.

"it's really entertaining, in its own quirky way"

The main story progresses fairly slow to be honest, it's all the other things I experience "on the side" that makes it seem like a lot is happening. I mean this in a positive way, I feel like I've been through a lot even though I'm not particularly nearer the answer to Ryus question (who is Lan Di and why did he kill Ryu's father). As long as one is prepared to let the game take its detours, twists and turns it's really entertaining, in its own quirky way.

However - towards the end of the third disc they, to my great frustration, ramp up the QTE:s and it all becomes rather cumbersome. It's a lot of trial and error and I was starting to think "I hope they wrap things up soon" going in to each session. And then there's disc 4. It completely changes the pacing and the gaming experience as a whole. All you do through the entirity of the last disc is walk on a forest path with a girl I won't describe further to avoid spoliers. It's a mixture of walking, talking and the occational QTE. For three hours straight. Don't get me wrong, in the beginning I loved it, it felt like a fresh change of both scenery and pace and I quite enjoyed just talking about everything and nothing while taking in the scenery. But by the time we arrived at our destination I was so bored I think I almost fell asleep sitting up once. I know I had the option to skip most of the dialogue but then what was the point of the last part at all? I wanted to experience it the way it was intended. Anywho! Once we arrived this chapter of Shenmue came to its end and even though it dragged on towards the end a bit I'm still very eager to see how things unfold. The third installment is however on the PS4 so I won't be covering it on this blog. How's that for a cliffhanger.

Review: Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone (PS2)

While I'm well aware J.K. Rowling is a complete idiot nowadays, I was too curious (I've heard it's supposed to be really good) to pass up on this game when a neighbour offered it to me for free. Well, was it any good? Yes and no. Mostly no actually, but a little yes. Let me explain. 

 

It starts off very stiff, it's just as bad as one would imagine a licence game made for kids to be. And then it doesn't really... rise above that. But I somewhat enjoyed it anyway! When the jarring from the awkward pauses in the horrendous dialogue, the beyond clunky controls and the awful loading times had subsided I found myself thinking "this is like a watered down miniature version of Canis Canem Edit (Bully), but wholesome". I was thinking of ways to praise its simple fun behind all the bad stuff but then it was over. I think it lasted four sittings, I had just started to warm up and feel a bit entertained when it threw its unceremoniously (pun intended, if you know you know) brief ending at me. Huh.

"It's a solid bit of casual fun from the bargain bin, but not more."

Okay so, sure, I got to visit a lot of places and see some lore from the movie and it was pretty faithfully represented (even though they obviously had to make drastic compromises), but the gameplay was just too lacklustre. There were almost some good exploration segments, there were almost some good fights - but they both suffered from being too shallow and immediately repeated too many times. I bet the kids in 2001 had a blast with it, but I'm 38 when I play this for the first time and then it's just not as good as some people will lead you to believe. It's a solid bit of casual fun from the bargain bin, but not more. And that's pretty much all I can say about it. It just doesn't evoke anything worth bringing up.

Review: Nanostray (DS)

The first thing I do when I get a new system is to see what it has to offer in the shoot ’em up-department. The Nintendo DS didn’t have a wealth of shmups but it did actually have a few. I immediately got my eyes on the slimmed down version (a boss rush version called Death Label) of Ketsui but I never found it at a reasonable price. Then I saw Nanostray and I went for it, thinking that if I liked it I could get the sequal as well. I never did, for reasons to come.

Nanostray is divided up into parts – a bite sized campaign with a save feature to fit the platform (gaming on the go requires one to take frequent breaks), a more traditional arcade mode and a challenge mode. The campaign is not that long but it does have several different locations and a fair amount of difficulty. The arcade mode is a few of the campaign levels stringed together with traditional rules. Both are played with the same controls – being a regular shot, a charge attack and a smart bomb. The charge attack needs to be refilled constantly which is done through killing entire groups of enemies and collecting the blue medal they drop. Since the blue medals are basically raining down on the player at all times I felt it was a bit unnecessary to have that mechanic at all. Either make the medals few and far between or just have infinite charge attack. The medals can be sucked into the player ship by holding down R – something that could be used for something much more important. Namely switching weapons.

"It was a serious mistake that put me off from the get go"

As it stands, the ship has four different kinds of shots. All available to switch between on the fly when the situation calls for a different approach (homing, straight forward, sideways shooting and so on). The problem is that this is done on the touch screen. Not only do I need to take my eyes off the action to see where I should press to change to the desired weapon, I also have to move my thumb off the shoot button to press the touch screen, leaving my ship blind and not shooting for a brief moment. I used the main weapon during 99% of the game for this reason. Why it was done in such an idiotic way I have no idea. It was a serious mistake that put me off from the get go.

The stages themselves are okay with variety, a bit of walls to avoid (generally I don’t like that but here it made sense) and a couple of unique enemies. Nanostray is played at an angle which makes shots fly into the centre of the screen when the ship is off to either side and this takes some getting used to.

The bosses are where it’s at though. They don’t cheap out on the attacks and they often have several formations, even though the last boss is kind of a let down. (The final form of the last boss have exactly ONE attack pattern which it repeats throughout, they could’ve added a few more attacks to make things interesting if you ask me.) When the bosses try their hardest it’s actually really fun to play. I’d love to see a boss rush mode.

"It left me wanting to play a ”real” shoot ’em up instead"

I didn’t really care for the challenge mode where I had to reach certain goals within a set time or place. It felt like artificial lengthening with no worthwhile rewards. When the end credits rolled on the screen I felt pretty much done with Nanostray and although it had its moments it left me wanting to play a ”real” shoot ’em up instead.

Review: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge (Xbox)

October is upon us and I thought I'd play something with a bit of Halloween flair. I chose Oogie's Revenge (yes, I'm going to call it just that instead of the full title).

It's a year after the movie that we all know and love, Oogie has found a new way to mess with everyone and wants to be the leader of all holidays. We take the role of Jack Skellington, naturally, to fight Oogie and put things right. This is done by exploring Halloween Town and retrieving a set of holiday doors (the peculiar forest with holiday door-fitted trees, remember?). And it all controls a bit like God of War; 3D platforming with semi-fixed camera angles and hack 'n' slash fighting.

The first thing I noticed was how authentic Halloween Town felt. It was like walking around in the movie – which is just what I wanted for a game like this. All the beloved characters from the movie are present with different tasks for Jack and in the background different songs from the OST are played where they fit.

"It was like walking around in the movie"

No single game mechanic exceeded on its own, but the sheer variation of the gameplay made up for it nicely. Just as I grew tired of exploring for secrets the game threw a rhythm based fight at me, only to follow up with a trivia quiz and then play a cutscene that felt like it came right out of the movie. I was never ever bored when playing this game, and while it can't be praised for anything especially well crafted it delivers a solid bit of entertainment that looks and feels like the source movie. It's a perfect "casual Halloween game", I'd say. It's just a shame it didn't let me explore any other holiday world (except for a brief visit in my favorite place: Christmas Town), it would've made the game fit in during other holidays as well and give it a bit more lenght. As it stands, it's a nice little game to break out at Halloween – but only at Halloween.

Review: The Warriors (PS2)

I've played this game a few times before. The first time was on a bad copy on an old Xbox. About four hours in I reached a mission that couldn't let me finish it due to a glitch most likely caused by a corrupt image of the disc. I later on bought the game legit (as one does) but I opted for the PS2 version since that was cheapest at the time. Me and my girlfriend then tried to beat it in co-op but it was just too hard for us. Eventually we gave up. This was at least 10 years ago, and thus I now felt ready to tackle it again. This time I had my mind set on beating it once and for all.

I haven't seen the movie but both the game and the movie starts the same, with the killing of a fella called Cyrus. He wants to unite all the gangs in the city to be able to outnumber the cops and basically do what they want - and while this proposal seems tempting for most of the gangs, one outfit is not amused at all and shoot Cyrus right then and there. In the commotion that follows everyone ends up thinking The Warriors shot Cyrus and then they have to fend for themselves. The movie then continues on with this going forward, and the game steps a few weeks back in time and tells the story leading up to this point in time.

The Warriors is a pretty standardized Rockstar game when it comes to the general gist of it. Third person view, a city to explore and cause chaos in, people to hurt in different ways and story missions to clear. Between missions there are bonus objectives available that both tells even more backstory as to how The Warriors came to be and grants the player more abilities and perks. These are highly recommended as they make the game a lot easier down the line.

"The game lets you play as many of the members of the gang depending on the mission - and they all have a slightly different fighting style. This is a nice touch."

Guns are rare. While some gangs use melee weapons most of them tend to use only their fists. A simpler time. This also makes the fighting mechanics very important since fighting is what we're going to be doing most of our time with this game. And sadly I found it a bit boring. The combo I found to be the most effective was "light/fast attack, light/fast attack, strong/slow attack" so I ended up using it throughout the game with no real tactics behind it. I threw a block in there once in a while for variation but... Meh. By the way, notice how I said "attack" instead of punch or kick. This is because the game lets you play as many of the members of the gang depending on the mission - and they all have a slightly different fighting style. This is a nice touch.

There's quite a bit of variation between missions, sometimes you'll fight your fists off, sometimes you'll be sneaking around in the shadows, sometimes you'll be running around like absolute crazy and sometimes you'll focus on graffiti. And of course a mix of the four. Between the variation of the gameplay, the different characters you'll be playing as, the extra missions and the general wealth of bonus content it makes for a pretty fun game that doesn't overstay its welcome. It's fun and varied (well, varied enough) and not too long. It's around 20 missions - so take your time and don't rush things. The whole game is narrated by a DJ who speaks to the player through the radio - which made me think of Jet Set Radio. There are more similarities (the graffiti, the quirky attitude etc) so I'm guessing Rockstar has indeed gotten a lot of inspiration from Smilebits Dreamcast gem.

Upon beating the game I unlocked an arcade machine that let me play an old school beat 'em up (with heavy influences from and nods to Double Dragon and the likes) with the characters from the game and that alone made me laugh and really appreciate the vision. It's not a rushed moneygrab to cash in on the movie - it's a fun and cool experience that had me really feeling the gang rivalry and pride with every fight and every throwup. Come on, boppers, it's time to disco!

Review: Castle Shikigami 2 (PS2)

Originally a Taito arcade game, Alfa System's Castle Shikigami 2 found its way onto a couple of home consoles, the PS2 being one among them. With atrocious voice acting, pretty bad music and generally good gameplay it quickly gained a reputation for being a mixed bag. However, the PAL port of the game was treated differently and is by many concidered to be the worst version out there. I've played it for about a week now and my verdict is as follows.

Castle Shikigami 2 is a shoot 'em up. It's got a fairly straight forward scoring system even though it has a lot of options on how to play the game. You have seven different characters to choose from, each with three types of attack - standard shot, shikigami and special shot (mostly a bomb of some description). The shikigami attack also comes in two types, type 1 and type 2, which gives the player a total of fourteen different options as how to tackle the enemies. I often find a favorite and stick with that character, but in this game there were actually a couple of characters that I ended up using evenly (those being Kohtarou Kuga Type 1, Sayo Yuhki Type 2 and Kim De John Type 2).

The five stages are divided up into two parts each with their own bosses, which makes it a quite, for the genre, lengthy experience. I've yet to 1CC (one credit clear - a.k.a. no continues) it, but I don't think it's impossible for me to reach that goal in the future. I managed to get pretty far after just a couple of days of practice so one day I might do it!

"Ten levels of crappy music is enough to get anyone to mute the TV."

The famous voice acting is cut from the PAL version all together, some argue that this is a bad move as it's one of the main reasons the game is even remembered today - but personally I don't mind at all. I've never cared about story in any shoot 'em up and would end up skipping it even if it was there. But the music? What the hell happened? There's a different soundtrack in the PAL version, and personally I absolutely 100% prefer the NTSC J/U soundtrack over what we in the EU got. Sure, it's different and makes the game stick out, but it's just so utterly boring. Ten levels of crappy music (not even comically crappy!) is enough to get anyone to mute the TV. It also runs at 50 Hz instead of 60 Hz, so there's that.

The scoring system that I mentioned briefly is centered around the shikigami attack and grazing. When an enemy is killed it drops coins that fall down the screen. If the shikigami attack is used to kill the enemy the coins are collected automatically. And the closer you are to enemy bullets the stronger your attack becomes (this is what is known as grazing where you want to be in danger all the time to net bigger numbers). The usual options one would like in a shoot 'em up is here, TATE mode, arcade slowdown, practice mode and so on. There's also a gallery to unlock and browse but honestly I've never cared about stuff like that. I buy shoot 'em ups strictly for the arcade version of the game and nothing else.

To sum this rant up I'd say Castle Shikigami 2 is absolutely worth giving a try - even the PAL version is fine regardless of what all the whiny purists say - but it's nothing exceptionally special. One of the weaker titles in my PS2 shmup library.

Review: Forbidden Siren (PS2)

I was heavily into survival horror games on my PS2. I loved the genre and played just about anything I could get my hands on. Eventually I picked Forbidden Siren up. It was supposed to take a whole new turn and bring stuff to the survival horror table that no one had ever seen before. To some extent they were right, but not in a good way. I actually ended up not playing any more survival horror games for quite a while after this. I recently gave it another go and here's what I think.

Forbidden Siren tells the story of… a few people lost in a place shrouded in fog and darkness. And something about red water. See, the story isn’t told as a regular story. It’s chopped up into fragments played seemingly in a random order. After a while it becomes apparent that the fragmented nature of the game is very much intended to be that way to give the player an unusual way of discovering the story. Say that I sneak through a village as one guy, perhaps opening a door or two. Then if I enter the same village with another character (at a later point in time) – the doors will remain opened. In the same vein things you forget to do, or pick up, can make things difficult for other situations further down the lane. The immediate problem with this is that there are minimal clues as to what to do. I followed a FAQ and still was stumped several times. At one point I couldn’t trigger a cutscene for some reason. It turned out I missed to go inside another room with another character earlier in the game – and that character initially couldn’t enter that room because I didn’t pick up a key with a third character even earlier in the game. While this is all fine if you are given instructions as to how it all was connected – this is not the case with Forbidden Siren. The cutscene wasn’t triggered and that was that. No clue. Without a FAQ I doubt I would’ve gotten further into the game than an hour or so.

Anyway, the story. Since it’s played in such a weird and arbitrary order, with lots of characters with names I couldn’t keep apart in my head – and only small events happening in any given mission – I had absolutely no clue as to why anything of this was happening or why I should care. The only thing that kept me going was that it was indeed a bit intriguing to unravel more and more of the story. Even though it was happening much slower than I could tolerate.

"Everything, from equipping a weapon to accidentally bumping into a wall takes absolutely forever in this game"

The controls are of the tank variety, with a bit of a sluggishness to them. Everything, from equipping a weapon to accidentally bumping into a wall takes absolutely forever in this game, and since it’s very easy to die you spend a lot of time replaying the same mission over and over and over again. Each time growing sicker of the slow controls and the cryptic structure. A few hours into the game I was reading in a FAQ during every mission I activated. I just didn’t have the patience to figure anything out – and more importantly I didn’t have the time to aimlessly wander around the villages in search for secrets and clues. I found myself almost reading ahead at many places so that I wouldn’t become surpriced and die – because it’s such a pain to replay everything. And the checkpoints. God, the checkpoints. About halfway through most of the stages a checkpoint is silently activated. If you happen to die at any point after this, everything you did prior to the checkpoint is undone. Picked up a very tricky to reach key? Tough tits, it’s gone. Opened a hatch for another character in another mission later on in the game? Yeah it's closed. You get the picture. And many times, the checkpoints are placed after a point of no return in the mission, meaning you have to restart the whole mission. Well, you can technically finish the mission, but without also clearing the secondary tasks – you’ll be coming back to that level again. I 100% guarantee you have to.

"When the credits rolled I had wanted it to be over for a good five hours at least"

With about ten missions left to do, the credits rolled. Leaving it up to the player to decide if that’s enough or if they want to uncover every little remaining secret and find out the real truth. I really didn’t care. When the credits rolled I had wanted it to be over for a good five hours at least. Plus, the mission after the credits seemed glitched as I didn’t meet the criteria for the secondary objective no matter how perfectly I played. Perhaps I forgot to do something in a different place and time in the game… But I wasn’t about to figure out what. Life is just too short.

Some cutscenes were very engaging and the story seemed to be quite interesting once I also read a few discussions and theories online – but this game is just such an unforgiving waste of time trying to figure anything out and slowly progress through this mess. They claimed an all new take on the genre and while it was indeed new, it was also terrible. Stay away from this game unless you really love quirky survival horror games, have a lot of spare time and the patience of a saint.

Review: Manhunt (PS2)

Ah, Manhunt. Now this is a game I hold close to my heart.

I remember when Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released, I got it for my sixteenth birthday. The whole world had its eyes on Rockstar, the power house who pumped out success after success. Not long after Vice City people started to thirst for another installment. San Andreas. But that’s when I found out about Manhunt – which was also a Rockstar game set to be released a year before San Andreas. Initially I thought ”cool, a game to keep me occupied while I wait for more GTA!” and started researching it (as I do with most games I buy). Manhunt had a pretty hard time, as it would turn out, promoting itself. It was so gruesome and violent that no store really cared to put up any promotional stuff for it – and in some countries rumor had it that it was going to be severely censored. So… It was sort of an underdog game, with (for the time) insanely violent content and a graphical style (we’ll get to this in a bit) that was like no other. I just had to get it. I pre-ordered it as soon as it was available to do so and a few months later it arrived.

"sort of an underdog game, with insanely violent content"

Even the cover looked brutal. I remember almost feeling a bit uncomfortable staring into the eyes of that thing. I turned off the lights, put the game into my PS2 and just minutes later I was knee deep in a violent gorefest that had me dropping my jaw every five minutes. I loved it. I absolutely loved it! But it was very hard. In fact, it was so hard I soon gave up on it and kind of forgot about it until very recently. It popped up as ”Unfinished” as I scrolled through my backlog and I immediately decided to give it another go. And so, here we are. I’ve finally beaten it and I’m here to tell you why Manhunt is my absolute favorite of all Rockstar games.

The story is fairly straightforward. We take the role of James Earl Cash who is about to be executed. But he wakes up shortly after the procedure, in a dark and gritty room. There are speakers in the room and from them comes a voice ordering Cash to partake in a game of death. This voice wants to create authentic snuff films by having Cash fight through heaps of ”bad guys” to regain his freedom. And Cash really has no option. It’s either do as the voice tells him or die. So he picks up the earpiece from the tray in the room and embarks on the journey that is Manhunt.

"The sneaking is the challenging part but we do it to get to witness exquisite violence"

At first we’ll have to perform simple tasks to get a grip of the controls (it’s a third person view kind of game, much like GTA but without the cars) and the enemies are few and far between. We learn that we often have to rely on melee weaponry such as chains, sickles, knifes and bats – which means that if more than one enemy spots us – we’re as good as dead. Stealth is the name of the game as we crawl through the shadows of run down areas and sneak up on people to kill. The more gruesome the better, and this is determined by how long we charge our attack from behind. It’s a risk and reward kind of thing with three levels of goryness. I can absolutely see why this game had a hard time with lawyers and age restrictions because the way Cash kills his victims is pretty much the core of the game. The sneaking is the challenging part but we do it to get to witness exquisite violence – where people get strangled, stabbed, their throats cut, their skulls smashed to bits with brains flying everywhere. And the sounds, the gasping for air, the panic in their voices as Cash tears them apart… Man, it’s so cool.

The whole game is coated in an ”old VHS”-vibe, which ties in with the notion that it’s all part of the snuff movie making. Movie grain, static and those classic VHS artifacts and tracking issues are all present to make it feel like you’re watching a forbidden movie about real snuff. This is what I talked about earlier when I said it had a graphical style not really seen before. Not to my knowledge at least.

But it’s not all good. The later part of Manhunt is much more action focused with a lot of shooting. I really prefer the stealthy aspect of the game (something I never thought I’d say as I’m normally not entertained by stealth segments), because it’s where the game shines. The silent sneaking up on someone that’s soon to be a bloody puddle of meat. The shooting, while also very graphic, just makes it feel a bit too similar to a regular shooter – and it doesn’t really have the shooting nailed. Think of GTA 3 and you’ll understand. It’s just… a lot of auto locking to be able to hit anything at all and the controls are too clunky to feel natural. But I got through it, from start to finish in a couple of days with two instances where I had to look up a walkthrough just to get some advice. Certain areas had me pulling my hair out with over 20 retries.

When the credits rolled I thought ”Damn, minus the controls, this is a gem, an absolute gem, even today!”. And that pretty much sums it up. If you like gore and sinister themes then Manhunt is a must. No question about it.

Review: Fable (Xbox)

Here’s one of those ”this is why I got an Xbox”-games that I have never really beaten, but started so many times. I don’t really know why I haven’t played it all the way through because I remember I was utterly impressed with the graphics and the amount of fun stuff to do. Anyway, I’ve beaten it now. Here’s what I think. (Note: I’m skipping the explanation of the formula, if you’re reading this blog you probably already know about the franchise.)

At first I thought Fable was about a vast and unique world to explore. Then I realized the map wasn’t all that big to be honest. So I changed my mind and had Fable pegged as a game with endless choices and possibilities. Then I realized there wasn’t all that much to change. Sure, the story is changing depending on my choices, but not in a lot of ways. It’s more or less ”Do you want to be good or evil? Here’s good and evil quests and things to do.” A or B. So what is it about Fable then, that makes it so appealing? Having played it half-way through multiple times and now finally ALL the way through once, I’d say it’s the immersive setting. It’s the dialogue, the music, the mood of it all!

"It feels like I’m taking part in a old fairytale"

It feels like I’m taking part in a old fairytale (albeit a very grim one from time to time). There’s excitement, there’s sadness, there’s humour, there’s bravery and all the good stuff that makes a great story. My main problem with the game, because I actually have one, is that the storyline is way too short. I went on every side quest I could find and the credits still rolled not 10 hours into it. Granted I didn’t care about most of the demon doors (doors that open when certain more or less cryptic requirements are met) and I had a build that focused on strength/melee so I didn’t expand on my magic abillities (I bet that’s where a lot of grinding and character development takes place). This might have been why it was over so quickly, but even so, the story quests could’ve been a lot more. If you rush things and are a good player I bet you could wrap this game up in under 5 hours.

On the other hand it’s pretty nice with a game that isn’t unrealisticly long. Fable doesn’t overstay its welcome one bit. It just delivers a short but sweet tale of magic, action and revenge. I get to make a few decisions along the way that somewhat tweaks the turn of events and when it’s over I really feel motivated to look up Fable 2. (I’ve already beaten that as well but it was on Xbox 360 so that’s no candidate for review here.)

Review: The Bard's Tale (Xbox)

The Bard’s Tale is a self-aware humorous action RPG with a witty brittish narrator and a randy main character that is only after ”coin and cleavage” as it were. Sounds like a simple concept, right? It is. It’s perhaps even a bit too simple.

The story begins with the Bard sending in a magic rat into a tavern to scare the owner, ”rescue” her from the rat and then recieve… rewards… The things he need to do to get laid and earn the silver snowballs on him and before he know it he’s knee deep into quest after quest over the, rather small, land. Gradually we earn stronger abilities, stronger helpers to summon (through songs, because the gimmick has to make some sort of sense I guess) and after a few hours of fetch quests, peculiar meetings with strange people and a whole lot of senseless killing it dawned on me that this is a pretty repetetive action RPG with only the most basic of components. It feels like one of those ”what if we did this sort of video game, lol”-ideas that shouldn’t have seen the light of day. Not in it’s current form at least.

"I was fed up with the humour and the gameplay but I still had 15 hours to go"

After a handful of hours I was fed up with the humour and the gameplay but I still had 15 hours to go. That’s right. A game that showed me everything it had to offer during the first three hours dragged out to a 20 hour journey. I didn’t care for the Bard or his quest what so ever and I honestly picked it up mainly because I thought it’d be much funnier with more good jokes. But it just didn’t deliver. So once again, I played through a game just so that I could mark it as cleared. Out of duty to my backlog. Not because I wanted to keep playing. It’s a curiousity and a time killer, sure, but I can’t see myself going through it again in the future. It wasn’t very good. A pity.

Review: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox)

Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the movie so I went in to this game without any expectations.

Riddick is a badass. He’s also a caught badass. He’s a prisoner at Butcher Bay and the object of the game is simply to escape, as one would’ve guessed from the title. It’s a first person shooter with emphasis on melee combat, much like the Condemned games. The physics are sluggish, you feel heavy moving around and throwing punches have both timing and planning to it if you want to succeed. If you throw a huge punch and miss your opponent, then you’re open to counters for a few seconds – an opportunity they seldom ignore. Much like the Condemned games. There are weapons in the game but often times you can’t pick them up because they are ID protected only to be used by guards. When you do have the delightful possibillity to wield a firearm it’s a bit tricky to hit your targets unless you stand still and aim carefully. The environments are gritty and dark and psychopaths are lurking in every corner, just waiting to gain the upper hand on you. Much like the Condemn… You get the picture at this point I’m sure.

"It’s actually a really impressive looking game for its age and I’d argue it has grown old with intact integrity."

The frame rate is not the most solid thing in the world, but I guess that’s the trade off they made to have such detailed textures, beautiful lighting and a dusty filthy atmosphere everywhere. I can live with a few dropped frames. It’s actually a really impressive looking game for its age and I’d argue it has grown old with intact integrity. Well, apart from one thing. One glaring thing that makes the game really feel old. The stupid checkpoint system. It’s one of those ”ooh, you don’t need to save, things just saves automatically, what a seamless game this is, wow, cool”-games. I mean for the love of god, I know I’m playing a video game. Give me the option to save when I want to save. Give me a save option in the menu or put out save locations in the game. As it is now, I have to keep an eye out for ”Saving...” that pops up on screen from time to time. Problem is, I’ve had numerous problems with this. I remember clearly how it said ”Saving...” after certain passages only to have me replay the whole section again if I were to turn the game off. It’s never clear when it’s ”safe” to turn off the game and in some cases I had to start almost half an hour back. I kid you not. Half an hour worth of progress just vanishes from time to time, even though you pass multiple ”Saving...”-sequences. So there’s a constant fear of losing progress whenever the gaming session is coming to an end. Should I stop here? Or here? Or…

Other than that it’s mostly a great game. Once I accepted the flawed checkpoint system I had a complete blast with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Sure, there were times I was completely lost and had to consult a walkthrough to get some hints and pointers, but that’s to be expected from a maze like open ended stealth game when you have as little patience as I do (I have ADD).

Now I’m almost tempted to watch the movie.

Review: Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)

Oh, so Master Chief did talk after all? I thought he was a silent hero… Well, I never did care much for the Halo series. In fact, I only got half way on Halo and beat Halo 2 on a burned disc off of a chipped Xbox ”back in the day” and played the later installations of pure duty. Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I played Halo. On my new original Xbox (I recieved a clear cased one as a gift from a friend recently). My old Xbox has been broken for many months now, hence the lack of Xbox content on this blog. Well, not anymore my friends. Let’s take a brief look at one of the most important FPS games in later years.

"Spaceships're boring."

The Flood's boring. The Covenant's boring. Spaceships're boring. Lasers and plasma's boring. I'm an iron, bullets and blood kind of guy. I like my weapons to feel heavy and the bullets to sound off like they exploded. The ”pew pew” side of shooting is… not for me. It’s just so weak, so bland and so boring. That’s why I didn’t care for this game’s story or setting. What I did care about, a great deal, was the game’s execution. I really appreciate what Halo did. Putting consoles on the FPS map once and for all, and paved the way to a gloriously successful genre (outside the PC realm where it oviously already flourished). It’s almost unbelievable how Halo manages to chug along on a comfortable 30 frames per second during most of the game, only dropping a few frames during the very extreme moments. I understand the impact and I’m completely convinced this was the game to open the developers' eyes towards consoles as a viable FPS game platform. But again, the story, theme and setting is utterly lost on me. I yawned through the whole thing. But I still enjoyed playing it. The gameplay is just that satisfactory. I would use Halo more like an example in game development.

Anyway, the game ended with me blowing up some stuff I guess. I jumped straight in to Halo 2 to continue my journey because no matter how much I didn’t enjoy the space side of this shooter, I loved the controls and the technicals behind it. Not amused, but amused. Ehm. Yeah.

Review: Motorstorm: Arctic Edge (Playstation Portable)

One of the earliest decisions I made in my PSP career was to pick up a copy of Motorstorm: Arctic Edge. I'd tried it before and was blown away at the graphics and pure quality of the game and the controls were spot on, so it was only a matter of time. Little did I know it'd take me several years before finally getting around to it. Let's just say I tripped over a deal I couldn't resist.

I think most of you are familiar with the Motorstorm formula, so I'll only go over it really quick. It's a racing game with courses that affords different routes that all leads to the same goal. The route you'll want to take depends on which vehicle you're driving, since you often can choose between many different ones, such as rally cars, buggies, motorcycles, trucks and so forth. You are allowed to mess with your opponents and therefore motorcycles should absolutely avoid driving close to angry truck drivers and well you get the picture. It's chaotic fun.

"It looks like something that couldn't even be done on a PS2"

Even today the game holds up great. It looks like something that couldn't even be done on a PS2 and the controls are not cramped at all. Brake and gas on the triggers, boost and handbrake on the face buttons and the stick to go left and right. Nice. The problem this game have as of right now, for me, is that it's offline only. I have a chipped PSP (don't worry, I buy my games, I chipped it for other reasons) so online is out of the question. I doubt there are any games online for Motorstorm: Arctic Edge at this point anyway though. There are about 20 different tracks, many of which are pretty similar. And then you get to repeat these tracks in different variations for 100 challenges, during which you unlock goodies for the garage such as new vehicles and stuff to modify the appearances of said vehicles with. Some may argue that this extends the longevity of the game but I never found the tweaking to be the driving force (pun intended), for me it was the chaotic races and the chaotic races only. By the time I'm closing in on finishing up the pre-set challenges I'm pretty gosh darned fed up with the game. And now they give me pretty stuff to put on my motorcycle? Nah, too late guys. Too late.

"my conclusion in this matter is that it's a flawed function"

It's possible to play your own music in the game if you don't like the soundtrack (which I very much didn't). I followed the instructions as to how the mp3 files should be converted (max 256 kbps, 44.1Hz stereo) and put them in the correct folder (~/PSP/MUSIC/) and sure enough they appeared in the menu available for me to select and play, but as soon as the game started only one track was played and then no music would play at all. Not even the stock music. At all. I had to restart the PSP every time, and remove the mp3's if I wanted to get the soundtrack working again. I tried this with several different files back and forth and the results were identical every time. So, my conclusion in this matter is that it's a flawed function. At least with my hardware. So... back to the default crap music I went. And this didn't help the already monotone feeling of playing the same stages over and over again.

To sum things up, it was absolutely great the first hour or so, then it became stale very quickly and ended up being not even cleared all the way (I still have a few challenges left to do, but I just can't be bothered). It makes me wonder, if I'd bought it back in the day, at full price, would I be disappointed?

Review: Resistance: Retribution (Playstation Portable)

Resistance: Retribution takes place a few months after the events in the first game, Resistance: Fall of Man. We take on the role as a insufferable douchebag named James Grayson that are making exceptionally bad decisions based on the need to revenge his brothers' death and that he feels let down by the army and his country. When awaiting his execution (yeah, he eventually is sentenced to death) he gets a visit from this french woman named Raine Bouchard who gives him an opportunity to extract said revenge after all. And I guess this also is the seed to what can evolve into the road to redemption, if you will.

"When I had fun I had really fun, and when I was bored or frustrated I was really bored and frustrated."

Making a third person shooter work well on the PSP isn't the easiest thing in the world concidering that there's only the one thumbstick but Bend Studios (yes, the guys who did Bubsy 3D, the two Uncharted games for Vita and the upcoming Days Gone) came as close as I think it'll get. The thumbstick is used to moving around and the face buttons are used to aim. Specific in game actions are triggered by the d-pad and the shooting is done with the shoulder buttons. Granted, using the face buttons as a way to aim is clonky at best, but they have also included a very generous aim assist that makes up for the lack of precision.

Review: Silent Hill 2 (Playstation 2)

When I first purchased my Playstation 2 (I worked an entire summer to be able to afford it) I did it because I had heard of the new Grand Theft Auto and that it was in 3D. The thought alone was enough for me to work my butt off and come autumn I had enough to buy a console and a few games. I bought it second hand, so I did not get to choose which games came with it but I was happy as long as Grand Theft Auto 3 was part of the deal. Hiding among the other titles was this mysterious game called Silent Hill 2. I did not care to look closer at it and instead I invited some friends over and fired up GTA 3. We played it for an entire weekend and had a blast. When sunday came one of my friends stayed late to see what this Silent Hill 2 was all about, so we tried it out. Suddenly, the night was over. We played the game through the night and when the sun came up we were done. What. A. Ride.

Silent Hill 2 was the first game to really show me what games can do. What great sound design and the power of suggestion could do together to build up tension I never thought were possible in a game. My friend was equally impressed and we ended up getting Silent Hill 3 when that came out, and during the wait we laid our hands on the first game on Playstation 1. By the time I am writing this I have every Silent Hill game out there. At least that is in the main series. I even have the P.T-thing on my Playstation 4 even though it is pulled from the store. It has become my absolute favorite series of all time and I have several tattoos with Silent Hill artwork.

"The sheer terror coming from incredibly well thought out mixes of noise and deranged music is awesome."

The other day I figured I would play through Silent Hill 2 again just to see if I was being to nostalgic about it. Is it really that good even today? I have now completed it once again just to be able to say yes, yes it definitely is. It is every bit as great now as it was back then. There is something about masterpieces that makes them age with dignity I guess. The deep psychology behind every area, every enemy, every NPC encounter, every piece of history found... The sheer terror coming from incredibly well thought out mixes of noise and deranged music is awesome. The combat is clumsy at best of course, but that just adds to the stress. Sometimes it might even feel a bit unfair but it never really crosses that border and becomes all out broken. It is a matter of planning your attacks and pay close attention to your surroundings. And this is where I think some people might find the Silent Hill series a bit bland. The ones that do not pay attention to the story. There are plenty of horrifying symbolic events and details to discover, but if you want an action horror game like the later Resident Evil parts then you will be disappointed.

"I like it in Silent Hill. We should go there someday."

There are several endings to Silent Hill 2 as well, so make sure to play it different each time you come back. Something I can almost guarantee you will do. I have lost count on how many times I have visited the town of Silent Hill - both in this particular game and in the series as a whole. I like it in Silent Hill. We should go there someday.

Review: Psyvariar Complete Edition (Playstation 2)

Risk and reward. A concept often used in shoot 'em ups. But Psyvariar was one of the titles that brought it to a whole other level. This collection consisting of Psyvariar: Medium Unit and Psyvariar: Revision once upon a time paved the way for me in to loving this genre. Let me tell you about it.

(Medium Unit is the first version of Psyvariar, then they made some revisions to the gameplay and design and put out Revision. Even though they are very different in both pacing, enemy design and, to some extent, gameplay I will be focusing on Revision in this review since it is the only version I am playing.)

I was fresh out of my first shoot 'em up ever, Strikers 1945 II on Playstation, and I was looking for the next step. I found Psyvariar Complete Edition on eBay for practically nothing and picked it up. At the time I still had this vague image in my head where shoot 'em ups were unvaried, shallow and stale. Something to eat quarters at the local pub. I fired Psyvariar up and everything I ever thought I knew washed away.

"The buzzing."

Psyvariar is a vertical shoot 'em up with colorful enemy bullet patterns like many others. But the famous risk and reward is brought to a point in Psyvariar through two aspects. The first, obvious, way is to choose the harder stages (yes, we can often choose path between stages) and through this get bombarded with more enemies and points to earn. The second is the core mechanic of Psyvariar. The buzzing. Buzzing (also called "grazing", "scratching" and "scraping") is when you fly close to enemy bullets on purpose, to rack up extra points/increase in level. This means that a novice can choose the easier way through the game and avoid buzzing to simply reach the end and then start to push the limits. Personally I started to experiment with the buzzing on the easier stages until I was comfortable with it, then I went for the more difficult stages and my highscore skyrocketed.

During the gameplay the ship goes up in level which means that it transforms into a new shape and more importantly changes attack pattern. My favorite form is where I look like a cone with wings - where I can shoot from the sides as well when not focusing my shot for power. Oh, that's right, I forgot to mention that there's also a focus mode to the attack. If the player wiggles the joystick quickly from side to side the ship starts to spin and the attack becomes more powerful at the cost of ship speed. It's much like the laser attack from the Donpachi games in that way.

"It's much like the laser attack from the Donpachi games in that way."

If you beat the game on one credit while always going for the hardest stage available at each impasse you unlock a secret final level which I have yet to see because I am not that good yet. But one day I will see it. One day...

So what do I think of the game all in all? In one sentence: It is great fun. Adding a second sentence: If you have a Playstation 2 and like shoot 'em ups then I see no reason not to get this game.