Playstation Update

Capturing the look and feel of the larger format SOCOM games, Fireteam Bravo for PSP is being called the best shooter yet for the PSP. In the game, you play “Sandman”, leader of a two person SEAL team. Lonestar, your partner, is at your disposal. You may tell him to be aggressive or defensive, as well as issuing more specific commands like “defuse”. Yeah, that sounds like a good thing to have the sidekick do for you.

The single player game spans 14 missions in four locations: Chile, Morocco, South Asia, and Poland. All excpect Chile overlap with SOCOM 3 for the PS2. This is where the “cross-talk” between games comes into play. By completing certain missions and secret objectives in each game, you can unlock skins and weapons in the other. The sync is accomplished by connecting the PSP to your PS2 via a USB cable. If only the PS2 supported WiFi, this could be a little less convoluted. The PS3 will supprt 802.11b/g, so I guess we’ll have to wait a bit for wireless sync.

You can play with up to 16 players in both ad hoc and online modes. Sounds like one of the most impressive online PSP games to date, with leaderboards, clans, message boards, and so forth. Modes include team deathmatch, hostage rescue, free for all, and a couple others.

Detailed review at Gamespot

Technorati Tags: psp, socom, playstation

Yes, another game from 2001. I’ve been catching up recently on the oldies. I just finished it for the first time last weekend, and I was quite impressed.

While the graphics don’t have the “wow” factor you get from newer games, the gameplay is hard to beat. Camera angle switches can be a little too frequent, and confusing at times, but other than that getting Dante to whup serious demon ass is a piece of cake. There are enough moves and weapons to make things interesting, but not so many that you have to spend time memorizing things.

The story is good if you don’t mind a little gothic cheese. You are Dante, half-demon son of Sparda, the Dark Knight. A terribly evil dude, whom Sparda smote 2000 years ago, has risen again. It is your job to find the gate to the Underworld, and defeat this beast again. If you just pretend you haven’t heard this cliché many times before, it’s quite entertaining.

One thing I really enjoyed about the game is that it seemed remarkably unrepetetive. You didn’t have to spend hours and hours beating up the same old demons before getting to the boss. Boss battles are really the bulk of the gameplay, and there are a lot of them. You end up fighting the same bosses several times, but they change between battles (usually getting harder), and the environment changes as well.

Any serious gamer has probably already played this one several times, but if you haven’t, you really should.

Technorati Tags: playstation, ps2, reviews, devil may cry

2001 isn’t exactly retro in the rest of the world, but it’s really the infancy of the PS2’s life. I just finished playing 2001’s ICO, and it was really something else. The graphics were stunning. Not just technically impressive, which they were for a 2001 PS2 game, but artistically stunning as well. It wasn’t a terribly difficult game. It’s more of a series of puzzles than anything else, but there are mild action and platform elements thrown in for balance.

The story is that of a Ico, a young boy born with a set of bull horns (I thought he was wearing a viking helmet most of the game, guess I wasn’t paying attention to the beginning). Anyhow he’s sent off to be sacrificed, but due to some rather good luck, he ends up escaping this fate. He presently stumbles across a ghostly girl locked in a giant bird cage, who he frees. He then spends the rest of the game fending off smoky black beasts that come in several shapes and sizes. Fighting the smoky guys isn’t too difficult. You just have to make sure you don’t leave the girl alone for too long, or they suck her into a smoky puddle, and you lose.

Gameplay is really seamless. Load time is impressively minimal, especially considering the beautifully rendered world. Cinematic sequences are impressive, and don’t seem to intrude much. Figuring out the controls will take you all of about 30 seconds. You can run, jump, grab things, and swing your stick. Sounds dull, but the game is so well done that it doesn’t get boring. It’s also rather short at about 7-8 hours, but since you can pick it up for about $10 now, it’s quite a bargain.

Check it out, you won’t regret it.

Technorati Tags: playstation, playstation 2, ps2, ico, reviews

For all you Matrix fans out there, Tuesday is your day. Or is it Monday? Most are claiming a ship date of 11/7, while the official Atari.com site for the game states in big Matrix-y type that 11/8 is the day. In any case, sometime next week you’ll be able to pick up this game. And it looks like it will be a good one. At long last, after a slew of Matrix games, you get to play as “The One”. The game follows Neo through the path of all three Matrix movies.

If that sounds like a bit much to bite off for one game, consider the fact that both Wachowski brothers served as writer/director types on this project. They’ve apparently tweaked the story line just for the game, and they’ve created an all-new ending. With video game budgets entering the realm of blockbuster movie budgets, it’s interesting to see the big name creative folks getting involved.

Anyhow from what I’ve read, gameplay is much improved over earlier Matrix titles. You’ll start out punching and kicking, but you’ll find it fairly easy in time to master more impressive moves. As the game progresses, you’ll also have the opportunity to improve your character, selecting from different attributes to improve throughout the game. In the end you’ll end up with your very own customized butt kicking Neo.

Technorati Tags: Matrix, Neo, PS2, Playstation, Playstation 2, Reviews

At last, Resident Evil 4 is upon us! I haven’t picked it up yet, but I’m definitely going to. Reviews have been nothing short of fantastic across the board. The latest PSM gives it a perfect 10, a rarity for those guys. Gamespot.com gives it a 9.3, along with an “Editor’s Choice” award.

Originally released for the Gamecube earlier this year, Resident Evil 4 has arrived for the Playstation 2, in all its gory glory. It features an interesting new perspective. Your view is over the shoulder of the main character, Leon, whom you may remember from RE2. Pressing the R1 button will zoom in even tighter, allowing you to perform nifty stunts like blowing weapons out of the hands of your opponents.

The game is more action packed than previous iterations in the series, without losing the superb adventure elements that made the previous games so good. There are also plenty of good, interactive cinema scenes. On note is an entire boss battle that involves lots of precise button timing moves, along the lines of those found in God of War.

In addition to superb gameplay, the game is simply amazing to look at. It features full widescreen progressive scan support, if you have the TV to support such a thing. Gamespot.com has a whole slew of great screenshots. I’m definitely going to be getting this one.

Technorati Tags: playstation 2, ps2, resident evil, re4, reviews

I’m not terribly into soccer sims personally, but particularly for those in parts of the world that (more rightfully) call it “football”, this is apparently the game to have. The most realistic Pro Evo title to date, this game has received rave reviews across the board. GameSpot users give it an average 9.4/10, and the reviews across the web are similar. “Revolutionary”, “masterpiece”, and “addictive” seem to be common among the reviewers.

Where Gaming is Oxygen has the following to say:

Where player awarness and tactcial play is crucial in winning the game. There are noticable improvements in off the ball running and even on the ball battling for the ball. Where players animations are even more life like than before. The grappling for the ball in midfield, injured players limp off who are not even involved in the play, with strikers going through to goal and end up clinging to the net further to add to realism of the game.

Sounds like I might need to look into the soccer sim thing.

Technorati Tags: playstation, playstation 2, ps2, reviews, pro evo, pro evolution

From the team that created the fabulous ICO in 2001, comes a new fantasy adventure, Shadow of the Colossus. As with ICO, the attention to graphical detail is impressive. It’s truly a work of art. The collosi (is that the plural of collosus?) are intricately rendered, towering beasts, and they’re really the stars of the show.

This is not your traditional RPG, where you must battle hundreds of insignificant foes before taking on the bosses. Here, right from the outset, you are pitted against these huge beasts. The challenge is determing how to defeat each one. In this respect, the game becomes more of a puzzle than a traditional action game or RPG. You must climb up to the top of each collosus in order to figure out how to destroy it. Oddly enough, the creatures don’t much like this, and as such, they will try mightily to throw you off. By pressing R1, you can (usually) manage to keep from being thrown. After you defeat each colossus, it’s normally a fairly trivial matter to find the next one. This sounds a bit repetetive, but it’s strangely not. Each collosus is different, and requires a different strategy to defeat.

As in ICO, the play control can take some getting used to. Your character can stumble, and mounting your horse can be a bit awkward. The character animations are quite impressive and realistic, but this does translate into some delayed reactions. The character doesn’t change direction instantly.

The game itself is rather short. Because you need not spend hours wandering around defeating hordes of lesser enemies, you can probably finish it in under 12 hours. Still, those will be 12 hours well spent. And would you really rather spend 30 hours beating on minons, or 12 figuring out how to defeat creatures that tower hundreds of feet above your head?

This is a truly original game. It probably won’t get the attention that the mega sequels will get, but it’s definitely worth playing.

Official Playstation Site

Technorati Tags: playstation, ps2, playstation 2, reviews, shadow of the colossus

The PSP was introduced with one of the strongest starting lineups of games of any system I can recall. Since then, we’ve been in a sort of slump. No great games to speak of while we wait for the holiday rush (which will soon be upon us).

X-Men Legends 2 is an exception. It’s really one of the best action role-playing games out there currently. Very good graphics and sound for a PSP game, and an impressively long play. Publisher Raven managed to cram pretty much every detail from the full size console game onto the PSP version.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, the story is basically this. The Brotherhood and the X-Men are forced to stop squabbling and join forces to defeat the baddest of the bad guys: Apocalypse. This Apocalypse character has kidnapped some particular mutants, with plans to extract certain special DNA bits, to make him even more powerful, so he can take over the world. Not exactly a brilliantly different story, but really better than most.

The best part of the game, really, is that you can play such a wide variety of characters. You can of course play as all of your favorites, but there are a few more obscure characters, like Sunfire and The Scarlet Witch. There are even a few unlockable characters. Nice! Put together a couple of your favorite X-Men with a Brotherhood character or two, and you can come up with some pretty cool combinations.

Your party consists of four characters. You control one at a time, but switching between them is quick and easy. You’ll find yourself doing this often, since certain puzzles and activities require the attention of specific characters. Of course the best way to play this game is cooperatively. The game supports both ad-hoc and online modes, where each player can control a character. Better this way than letting the AI control 3 characters, unless of course you get stuck with someone who doesn’t really follow the rest of the party, in which case the camera gets pulled back to such an extent that it’s difficult to see what’s happening.

A great game overall, I’d say. Plenty of bad-guy-bashing action fun to be had. And definitely the best PSP game to surface since the original lineup in my opinion. Check it out if you haven’t yet.

Official Site

Technorati Tags: playstation, PSP, reviews, x-men, x-men legends

Burnout Revenge is the latest in this action racing series. As always, the focus of the game is on the absolutely beautiful crashes. This sequel manages to keep what was good about the previous games, and add a few things to make it even better. Everything is faster, which is always a good thing in this genre.

Any car going the same direction as you are can be turned into a weapon. This is known as checking. If you hit one just right, you can send it into the oppostie lane, hopefully into an opponent, taking him down. You can also send checked traffic flying off behind your car, creating obstacles for other racers.

Even more interesting perhaps than the whole checking thing are the new track layouts. There are many more choices to make in running a track now. There are shortcuts, and various alternate routes that allow you to fly down on top of another car for a stunning vertical takedown. When playing online, these shortcuts can also server as hiding places.

As with previous incarnations of the game, loading screens tend to appear too frequently, although in crash mode loading time is at least made a bit more entertaining with a “rewind time” sort of feature.

Official EA Site
Review from GameSpot.com

Technorati Tags: playstation, ps2, burnout, burnout revenge, reviews