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[img width=551 height=483]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-061/bf/U-061-S-06980-A.jpg[/img]
Certainly, I can't be the only one on this site who gets a little jealous when they read slakur's articles and hear about his weekly nights of gaming with friends. As I've mentioned before, I don't have a lot of friends who game and even fewer that actually collect games. However, over the last few weeks, a buddy of mine has been coming over to the house on Thursday nights to game. We have a great deal of fun playing some of the new games I've purchased (some of which I'm playing for the first time) and pulling games off the shelf that maybe he or I have never tried out. The best part of the night is that he always has a plastic grocery bag in his hand when I open the front door to my house and I feel like a kid at Christmas eagerly awaiting to see what goodies are in that bag. Our game nights are definitely making my wishlist increase and my bank account lessen.
This past Thursday, we had another great night of gaming and played such awesome titles as: Castlevania: Bloodlines (Genesis), Soldier Blade (TG16), Air Zonk (TG16), The Combatribes (SNES), and Choplifter III (SNES). As is always the case, we played a few stinkers as well and that night the list included The Tick (Genesis) and Tail of the Sun (PSX). However, out of all of the games we played, none of them surprised us more than Mobile Light Force for the original Playstation.
Continue reading Banana's Rotten Reviews: Mobile Light Force
[img width=640 height=610]http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespot/images/box/9/1/7/196917_50218_front.jpg[/img]
NOTE: This entry WILL contain spoilers from the game. Direct yourself to another page if you don't want to spoil the game for yourself. Otherwise, read on.
Everyone who knows me knows that I love Chrono Cross. It's my favorite game ever. Lately though, people have been asking me WHY I love it so much, and just what it is that makes it the best game ever. Well, here's the story:
I can't recall exactly when I discovered this game, but I do remember how. My best friend brought this game to my attention. When he did, I didn't think too much of it. It was obviously a sequel to Chrono Trigger, which I wasn't too fond of. Then I started it up...
Right away, it's impressive opening lines and movie captivated me. I was most impressed, as the quality of the game was better than anything I had experienced since Super Mario RPG. Once I started a New Game, I was greeted with 3 Characters emerging from an elevator (after the introduction movie of course).
It started out with what was clearly some serious stuff. Then your Character wakes up, as it was actually a premonition of things to come.
Anyway, it only gets better from there, as what unfolds is the greatest story ever seen in a video game. As I played the game, I only became more impressed with it, and when I finally achieved the true ending, I cried manly tears. I was upset that it was over, but I was happy that it came to a nice, ultimately wrapped-up, conclusion.
Along with the main story, there are over 40 different characters to recruit, several side-quests, and what's more, the optional, secret boss isn't just a powerful enemy in this game, but he also has a tragic backstory that ties into the Main Story, which is something you don't see in RPGs of today.
All of this and more is what makes this game my favorite game ever, and THAT is why it's the best game ever. There are other games which have received a perfect score from me, but this one is sentimental to me, which is why no other game can top it. Me and my brother will forever debate over this and his favorite, Final Fantasy VII, but he's always going to lose. I can think of 50 reasons why this game is better than that sorry piece of game, and I will defend it until the end of gaming comes.
The bottom line is, Chrono Cross just has more heart than other RPGs. It came along at the end of what I call The Golden Age of RPGs, and ended it with a bang. As I've said time and time again, no game will ever top this one. Period.
Thanks for reading!
What if someone handed you a disc and told you it is a game created by a studio named Artdink that is a caveman simulator? You eat, evolve weapons, sleep, kill animals, and eventually die. Would you hand it back, or would your curiosity perk up enough to play it?
[img width=320 height=239]http://a.imageshack.us/img146/1530/tailofthesun1custom.jpg[/img]
Tail of the Sun is a fun little game involving a tribe of cave people (you start out with 2) on a singular quest: to create a stairway of mammoth skulls to reach the sun. It's a 3D polygonal PSX game from 1996, which will tell you all you need to know about the graphics. The 3D isn't a true 3D, at least not in the sense that you will have control over the viewpoint (camera): you will always see direct north regardless of the direction your caveman (or woman) is facing. You can pan the camera up/down and left/right a bit, but you will rarely use this, outside of keeping watch on circling birds. The sound however, is quite nice. Lots of ambient noise and a techno music, which enhances the caveman atmosphere (?), I think.
In reality, calling this game a caveman simulator is a bit misleading. After all, if it were a real caveman simulator, you would likely spend your time scrounging for food, fornicating with whatever happened along, and trying not to die in any number of horrible ways, as opposed to running around aimlessly like a weirdo, hitting everything that moves and listening to techno music. There is a day/night cycle, and your caveperson will fall asleep automatically, which can result from anything to a short, harmless slide down a hill to a senseless death by drowning, or killed by a carnivore or bird. Sometimes you will come across some strange artifact, UFO, alien, or cave system. The world is fairly large (for the time period), and there is a great deal to see, though little to interact with (outside of killing it), but in this wide world you have one goal: make a tower of woolly mammoth skulls to read the sun.
[img width=640 height=413]http://a.imageshack.us/img825/9320/tail2small.jpg[/img]
Cons - The cons are glaring, so I will take care of those first:
- The camera is a horror from beyond time. It is 3D, but you can only see in one direction: north. You can use the shoulder buttons to look a bit up or down, but you are locked into the same perspective, regardless of running direction. This becomes fatal when you can hear a bird, but cant see the direction it is attacking from.
- While the weapons (fists on up to stone-tipped spears) are adequate for dealing with large prey (rhinos, hippos, or mammoths), you will find yourself dying often when being swarmed by smaller opponents, such as birds. This sort of relates back to the camera, I guess, as I am convinced that a manual camera would have eased, if not solved the problem entirely.
- The world is very large, and there are a great many points of interest to seek out, but ultimately nothing to actually do. Since the mammoths only live in one place (far north) you will only end up finding these spots once or twice, and spend the rest of the game (every time you play it) collecting those mammoth skulls.
- The last thing I think I'll bitch about is the sleeping thing. Your caveman needs to sleep once a day. If you let him get on with it when he drops down for the night and everything will be fine, but sometimes you need him to be awake. Once you wake him up, your caveman can and will drop off into a deep sleep randomly, which will place you in situations when the caveman will drown or die while hunting or trying to escape a predator.
[img width=640 height=413]http://a.imageshack.us/img834/5605/tail3small.jpg[/img]
Pros
- The game is refreshingly original, and a joy to behold for the first time (if you are open-minded, that is). It really makes me nostalgic for the "anything goes" mentality that dominated the minds of many game developers during this era.
- The sound is great. From sound effects to music, it all adds either immersiveness (birds chirping at dawn) or ambiance to the final package. The strangest part is when the techno music starts up, and it actually feels right, like it belongs. Also, much like the Castlevania SOTN disc, there are actual music tracks on it, so you can place it in a normal CD player and rock out. Or whatever.
- It just feels good, which is enough to warrant a purchase if you're a hedonist, I guess.
- The game is cheap to moderately priced. While there are a number of knuckleheads on eBay trying to cash in on the sad fact no one bought this game in the day, you can usually find a complete game for under $20 on eBay. Quite a bit less it you're only interested in the disc. Another alternative to Goozex, where it goes for 250 points (about $12.50, though they usually give you 100 points when you first sign up).
Looking back at the writeup it appears that the bad totally outweigh the good, but that is far from the truth. Sure, there are quite a few flaws (some easier to overlook that than others), but I think there is something special here. If nothing else, it allows one to see a bygone age of game design, where nothing more was needed than a silly (but unique) sounding idea to green light the creation of a game.
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