Tiger Chainsaw

Solar Striker Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

With the Game Boy being less than a year old, Nintendo published and released “Solar Striker” for the handheld in 1990. The vertical shooter would find critical success among the gaming community and become one of the early favorites in the growing library for the Game Boy. We’re hopping from side-to-side in this Solar Striker review!

Solar Striker Plot:

Looking at the manual for this Solar Striker review the game takes place on Earth as an alien army has invaded.

“It is now the year 2159. Earth has been attacked by forces from the planet Reticulon. Several hundred years ago, Reticulon sent messages conveying their intent to attack. The Earth Federation Government was formed, unifying the whole world. The Earth would be protected by the Federation Army.

Unfortunately, the power of the aggressive Reticulon forces proved too much for the Federation Army. Earth was subjected to a crushing defeat.
There is one last chance. The Federation Army has a secret megabase on the Moon. Here, the Earth’s finest scientists and technicians have developed an ultra-performance fighter ship. The name of this fighter is “Solar Striker”.

The only way to foil the menacing Reticulon’s mission is to fly to their home planet and destroy its core. This is where their main computer is housed — without it, they will be helpless. GOOD LUCK!”

Well, here I thought I was defending Earth in this Solar Striker review, but as it is revealed Solar Striker traveled to the planet of Reticulon and takes on their army. This brings up numerous questions for me. What has happened to Earth? Did the Reticulon’s destroy our planet and just leave it? Did they decimate the population or turn them into slaves? You would think once they crushed Earth’s defenses they would call the planet their own, but I suppose Solar Striker heads to their home planet to take down their leaders.

Solar Striker Gameplay:

As soon as I started my Solar Striker review, I noticed the cheery tune in the music. I loved it. Unfortunately, it’s the only music to the entire game so the programmers are lucky that it works and lucky that my ears enjoy the tune. The other sound effect that pleases me is the pause sound, I don’t know why but for whatever reason it soothes my ears.

There were six levels in my Solar Striker review and they are all unique with the enemies and backgrounds. When I fired up Solar Striker I thought the majority of it would take place in space. I was wrong! The first level takes place in space with the others taking place in various areas on land. There’s even a highway level!

Throughout the entire game, the difficulty of the gameplay is fair. I was never overwhelmed by enemies on screen or by bullets fired at me. Every mission felt possible, even when I died I knew that I could beat that level with a little practice or another go-around. There are over 20 different enemies you’ll face throughout the game, each with different patterns and guns.

You’ll need to power up the Solar Striker to take down these bad boys. Power capsules will float down from the top of the screen and after shooting them you’ll collect an upgrade. These upgrades will increase your single shot to a double shot to a triple shot and finally turbo missiles. Want to know the best thing about Solar Striker? When you died, you didn’t start from scratch again. I hate when you’re playing a shooter and you’re all powered up but one mistake blows your ship up and sends you back to square one in the middle of the level making it near impossible to finish the level alive. In my Solar Striker review, if I died I came back to life downgraded one level. For example, if you are maxed out with the turbo missiles, you’ll respawn with the triple shot. It makes death much easier to deal with!

Levels end with boss fights. I found that the first three were relatively easy to defeat. Things got intense with the stage four boss, he was a real pain in my butt as he fired about eight shots at you in various directions. The only way you can defeat him is by shooting his center but that’s a lot easier said than done. I had to replay him almost ten times during my Solar Striker review before I survived. The length of the levels is short, taking about a minute or two to cruise through before facing the end. When I died, I knew that it wouldn’t take me long to get back to where I was. My favorite level was the highway level. Tanks and trucks rolled down on roads in front of my ship attacking me from the ground. It was clever and added extra details. Although this takes place on another planet, it strangely felt like Earth.

My disappointment was the end of the game. After difficult battles against stage four and five bosses, the final boss is nothing more than what looks like an ant hill. I destroyed it on my first try. Wimp! Sure, the game is short but I enjoyed it and it’s perfect for the Game Boy. The graphics are nothing special but the gameplay is smooth and the bosses look good.

Memories:
No memories here! I never played Solar Striker until I chose to review it after reading about how it was one of the best-selling games for the Game Boy.

Solar Striker Review Score:

Solar Striker is a great game to introduce to new players of the shooter genre. It’s short but fair. There’s never too much chaos on the screen and the levels are unique. It’s not space the entire game, in fact as I said there’s only one space level! Give it a try if you want a shooter that leans more on the easier side.

Solar Striker scores an 8.4 out of 10.

What would you write in your Solar Striker review? Do you remember Solar Striker as a kid? Was it a technological marvel at the time of its release? How does it compare to other shooters that you’ve played? What was your favorite boss and level? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Mario Kart Super Circuit Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

In 2001, Intelligent Systems and Nintendo decided it was time to bring the popular kart racing franchise to the handheld console of the Game Boy Advance. Returning to the style of Super Mario Kart, would Super Circuit rev up the action and pull away from the pack? This Mario Kart Super Circuit review pulls away from the competition.

Mario Kart Super Circuit Plot:

As it has been with the last two entries in the Mario Kart franchise, this is just kart racing. Win the race, avoid dangerous obstacles and weapons from other racers on your way to claim the cup series!

Mario Kart Super Circuit Gameplay:

I had eight racers to choose from in my Mario Kart Super Circuit review. The same racers return from Mario Kart 64 including the same classes that they represent. Mario and Luigi are the middleweights, balanced all-around but masters of none. Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario are the heavyweights, tough to knock around and fly by the competition with their top speed. Yoshi, Peach, and Toad are the lightweights who steer well and accelerate quicker than any other class.

Like I have in the previous two games, I chose to play as Mario during my Mario Kart Super Circuit review as I like balance in my racing. You’ll have the option of selecting your racing class with 50 CC (easy), 100 CC (medium), and 150 CC (hard). In Mario Kart 64, I didn’t notice a difference between easy and medium but in Mario Kart Super Circuit they fixed that issue. I played on 50 CC for my Mario Kart Super Circuit review and was thrilled that the programmers got rid of the stupid rubber band effect between first and second place. In Mario Kart 64, no matter how many boosts or weapons you used, you were never more than a few feet ahead of second place and vice versa. Mario Kart Super Circuit fixes that huge annoyance for me. When I picked up boosts or hit another racer with a shell, they fell behind me and stayed behind until I screwed up. Finishing first wasn’t a white-knuckled event until the end. There were races that I won by five seconds, there were races that I won by ten seconds and of course, there were races that I won by the front of my kart. Being able to pull away from the pack was a huge welcome from the one-second victories that earned me so many cups in Mario Kart 64.

Mario Kart Super Circuit does suffer from the graphical limitations of the Game Boy Advance. It returns to the sprite style of the Super Nintendo version, and that’s not a good thing. It hurt my eyes staring at the flat track and karts zooming around. For whatever reason, I just don’t care for the graphics and prefer the 3D version of Mario Kart 64. What I did like was the beautiful backgrounds and skylines of the tracks on the courses. Princess Peach’s castle looks great as you zoom by it and I loved seeing the pirate ship in the ocean sailing around. Even more, I loved how some of the large objects in the background interacted with the race itself. The ship I just mentioned launched cannonballs at racers as we whizzed by and there was a volcano that shot fiery chunks of lava onto the course.

Collecting of coins returned to the third edition of Mario Kart. In the original, the coins sped up your kart as you maxed out at ten. During my Mario Kart Super Circuit review, the coins acted as more of a bonus system that increases the score of your rank at the end of the cup. The more coins you collect, the better your rank.

In racing at 50 CC, the game wants you to win. Whenever I found myself in second place, I was gifted three red shells almost two out of three times. I’m not complaining, I just noticed that the game was generous in giving me very useful weapons. Mario Kart Super Circuit stands out in how many tracks it packs into the game. You’ll play four cups plus a special one after you unlock it. Each cup offers four unique tracks. I found that the Sky Garden was my favorite track to race on during my Mario Kart Super Circuit review. There are 40 courses to unlock, and you’ll be able to race on every course from the original Super Mario Kart giving Super Circuit a huge boost to replayability.

Aside from the Grand Prix cup mode, you race in time trials and an arcade mode. If you have friends (I don’t) you can link up and race with up to four players and compete in the battle mode.

Memories:
My wife had Mario Kart Super Circuit growing up. She’s played it a ton and my guess is she’d probably run circles around me in it if we played it together. I didn’t play this game until I met her so I don’t have any nostalgia for it like she probably does.

Mario Kart Super Circuit Review Score:

The Mario Kart series is loved by so many gamers and I think it’s because casual players can pick it up and play it right away. I haven’t fallen in love with any of the games yet but I keep waiting for the series to rev up. Mario Kart Super Circuit offers a huge buffet of tracks to race on but the flatness of the tracks turned me off during my Mario Kart Super Circuit review. There are no hills, bumps, or dips, and focusing on the track so much to make sure I’m not running over and dangers made my eyes strain on graphics that I don’t care for. It’s a fun game to play but surprisingly I’d rather play Mario Kart 64 just so I’m not straining my eyes. I have an inkling that the next game on the GameCube will be the Mario Kart that gets me excited. Until then…

Mario Kart: Super Circuit scores a 7.5 out of 10.

What would you write in your Mario Kart Super Circuit review? Do you have Mario Kart Super Circuit? Who did you race with? What is your favorite track? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Fighting Force 2 Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

Two years after the release of the multiplayer beat ’em up Fighting Force, Core Design and Eidos Interactive produced Fighting Force 2 in 1999 for the PlayStation and Sega Dreamcast. The sequel dropped the multiplayer but continued the emphasis on the destructible environment and weapons to bash the brains of your enemies. We’re kicking switches and loading clips in this Fighting Force 2 review!

Fighting Force 2 Plot:

In my Fighting Force 2 review, I was Hawk Manson, a former U.S. Marine who served on duty in the 80s and early 90s. If you recall from my first review of the original Fighting Force, Hawk Manson is one of four featured playable characters to choose from. In Fighting Force 2 Hawk is the only character that you can play as. From my manual, Fighting Force 2 has toned down the ridiculous nature of the first game but kept the futuristic sci-fi approach to mega-corporations.

“Formed from the ranks of the CIA, FBI, and Interpol, the State Intelligence Police, (SI-COPS) was created to combat the rising tide of international corporate crime.

Human cloning was banned by an international treaty at the end of the twentieth century, but the military’s dream of a soldier capable of surviving in any environment and fighting without conscience is now fueling an illegal trade in biotechnology and cloning.

A Global giant, the Knackamiche Corporation, has just such a project underway. Buying parts and expertise from small companies around the world, they are assembling and testing the prototypes of what will become the world’s first artificial life form. A human clone.

SI-COPS has spent many years investigating the activities of the Knackamiche Corporation and now has enough evidence to send in an agent. The mission: to seek out and erase sensitive project data and eliminate key personnel.

Due to the sensitive political nature of the Knackamiche investigation, the mission will be classified under the SI-COPS Black Book funding program and will never be acknowledged or publicly sanctioned by SI-COPS directors.

If you screw up, you are on your own.

As a cover story, you and your control team will be working as members of the hard-line environment terror group known as ECO. The group has a history of assassination, hijacking, and violent publicity stunts against biotechnology research centers and scientists that specialize in the field. No one will suspect the involvement of SI-COPS personnel.”

Okay, that’s a lot of mumbo jumbo but it means is that a corporation has been illegally cloning humans and as Hawk, you have to destroy their labs and all evidence of wrongdoing. Instead of erasing evidence, why doesn’t Hawk collect it and take the corporation to court? Whatever at least this story during my Fighting Force 2 review isn’t as crazy as the previous entry.

Fighting Force 2 Gameplay:

For some reason, they took away co-op multiplayer for Fighting Force 2 which was a big mistake in my opinion. It was fun to roam streets and buildings in the first game with your friend and smash bad guys together. I’m not sure why they omitted this feature from the second game but it hurts my Fighting Force 2 review score.

Hawk gives off a Duke Nukem 90s vibe with his commentary and cutscene retorts. He comes off as a douche with this personality. Let’s start with the good about Fighting Force 2. Hawk can now carry multiple weapons and sometimes up to about five. Weapons are now the norm. In the first game, you might have picked up a weapon, bashed some bad guys with it, and went along your way for the next few minutes punching and kicking. In Fighting Force 2, I felt very naked without a weapon. There’s a big emphasis on guns now too. Guns were a scarcity in the first game but during my Fighting Force 2 review, I fought my way through each level with numerous guns in my hands. Levels were generous with giving you ammo and different types of guns. Hawk was toting shotguns, machine guns, uzis, pistols, bazookas, and crossbows in the game. You don’t need to horde your ammo, but don’t go shooting away at everything if you can instead kick the enemy to death. It was a notable change from hand-to-hand combat to gunfights.

The graphics and textures have improved. I especially thought the blue flames and electricity that shot through computers, control panels, and vending machines when you broke them looked very realistic for the PlayStation. There’s also a fair share of secrets and hidden rooms to find on each level that will give you health and more weapons. Levels show a nice variety of scenery. There are snow bases, ancient temples, skyscrapers, computer labs, factories, and more. Fighting Force showed improvements in a few sections but there’s also a lot that frustrated me during my Fighting Force 2 review.

Boss fights are a joke. In the first game the bosses were pushovers, and that trend, unfortunately, follows in Fighting Force 2 review. The first boss looks like he is straight from World of Warcraft with a giant hammer and cartoonish muscle build. He has a large health bar but I just punched and kicked him a few times and he went down like a sack of potatoes. The second boss resembled Doc Oct from Spider-Man and he was even more of a pussy than the first boss. Bosses were a big whiff by the programmers. They were either too easy or just plain stupid. One boss was a beefy man on the end of a spring, like a jack-in-box. You pushed buttons to drop food in front of him and punched him when he ate it. His health slowly drained, and even when I filled him with lead from by guns he took five minutes to kill.

Fighting Force 2 is very unfair without warning in sections. I despised the snow base level during my Fighting Force 2 review. I hated it so much, not because of its difficulty but because of the ways, it would kill me without any warning. Throughout the game, you destroy every object and item for bonus points and items. In the snow base, I marched on through it punching and kicking items with no worries. When I was almost done with the level I started punching what I thought was a giant pipe on the wall. After hitting it a few times the entire base exploded killing me. It turns out that the pipe was a missile. There was no warning about it and made me hesitant to punch any other objects which reward you with items. I had to replay the entire section which took about 15 minutes to get back to that section. I resisted the urge to punch the missile but in the next room, a guard threw a grenade and blew up another missile killing everyone. Again, I marched 15 minutes through the level to get back to that part, carefully took out the guards avoided the missiles, and then reached a control panel. I smashed it up to take down the shields of the generators that they were protecting and went on my merry way. About 20 seconds later I was dead from a massive explosion. Infuriated, I looked up what the hell happened. It turns out that after you take down the shield you have a short amount of time to run out of the base through hallways you’ve never explored before to find the exit before the base explodes. There’s no warning of this at all. That snow base level was poor design and was unfair.

Fighting Force 2 has some great ideas but they don’t fully come together. It’s like giving a novice chef, five-star ingredients and cookware. He may be able to put something together but it doesn’t come out the way they hoped. My Fighting Force 2 review had moments of fun, even some boss fights are clever in the way you defeat them but with few checkpoints, I don’t care to play games that have unfair deaths.

Memories:
For some reason, I asked for Fighting Force 2 when I was a kid. I must have played it on a demo and thought it was cool that you could destroy objects and all the weapons that came with the game. I never got very far, I think at best I was able to make it halfway through the game. It entertained a 10-year-old, and I’m sure that’s all my dad cared about. It wasn’t until almost 20 years later that I completed my Fighting Force 2 review.

Fighting Force 2 Review Score:

Fighting Force 2 has short bursts of fun with the destruction of objects and weapons to choose from. The gameplay never changes though, defeat everyone in the room, and the last guy will drop a card to use on the door, repeat until the end of the level. After the first few missions, it gets old. Death will find you not by combat but by poor-level design. Hawk is not a likable character and he comes off as that guy that tries to impress everyone with his edgy catchphrases. The first Fighting Force was mediocre, even though it looks better, Fighting Force 2 stumbles along the way to a repetitive ending. Fighting Force 2 was not received well by critics or gamers and resulted in the game being the last in the series.

Fighting Force 2 scores a 5.9 out of 10.

What would you write in your Fighting Force 2 review? Have you played both Fighting Force games? Do you want a series revival? Which level did you like? Which level did you hate? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Zillion II Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

In 1988, Sega released the follow-up to Zillion on the Sega Master System in North America. Dubbed “Zillion II: The Tri-Formation” the game completely changed the formula of what made the first Zillion great. Instead of exploring an underground base on foot, our hero J.J. must survive eight side-scrolling levels. Would Zillion II be able to compete with the fantastic debut of its predecessor? The White Knights are in trouble again in this Zillion II review!

Zillion II Plot:

The story picks up from where the first game ends. A quick recap for you…You control J.J. a member of the White Knights who protects their planet from the evil Norsa Empire with the power of their Zillion guns. The Norsa Empire is a race of masked aliens who seek the destruction of all beings in the galaxy.

From the manual of Zillion II:

“When we last left the White Knights, J.J. had rescued his friends Apple and Champ who were being held captive deep inside the Norsa Empire’s labyrinth on Planet X.

Together, the three bravely searched the catacombs of the mothership and found five floppy disks which contained the key to the labyrinth’s destruction. The White Knights located the laster computer and used the floppy disks to trigger an explosion that would destroy the base.

The trio made their way back through the maze of tunnels to the surface and escaped just as the base exploded in a great ball of flames. The Norsa Empire’s labyrinth was destroyed and the Planetary System was saved!

Or so the White Knights thought.

Little did the peacekeepers know that Baron Ricks’ evil plans had only just begun. The worst has yet to come!”

There you have a nice little recap of the first game. It was just as fun as it sounds, and no I’m not being sarcastic, it was a terrific game!

But alas, just like the manual says, there’s a new mission.

“A faint distress transmission, barely understandable, was received at the headquarters of the White Knights. Sent from a distant outpost at the extreme edge of the Planetary System, the garbled message told of a new, gigantic Norsa Battle Fortress at the edge of the Norsa Galaxy. Apply and Champ, two members of the elite White Knight special peacekeeping force, immediately set out on a reconnaissance mission to investigate the Norsa Fortress.

The last words that anybody heard from Apple and Champ were: “Help us J.J.! Baron Ricks has…”

You would think that Apple and Champ would learn their lesson and not be so headstrong to charge into another Norsa Base again, but here we are. I will also point out that Baron Ricks is possibly one of the worst evil villain names. He’s a nine-foot evil alien with badass armor and a sick mask and he calls himself Baron Ricks? Come on!

Zillion II Gameplay:

I’m not sure what game companies were doing back in the 80s, but they loved change. Remember how The Legend of Zelda and The Legend of Zelda II featured such drastic changes between the two games? Well, unfortunately for Zillion fans like myself, the second game took a completely different route than the first one.

In the first game, you explore a huge base, searching for five floppy disks and your teammates Champ and Apple. The game is one large maze with tons of secrets, puzzle-solving, and a unique computer system in which you can input commands. There’s none of that in this Zillion II review! Instead, you’ll cruise through eight side-scrolling levels.

The levels alternate between J.J. being on his motorcycle and him on foot. When you are on the motorcycle, you’ll be forced to ride to the right side of the screen, jumping over enemies, and pits, and shooting anything in your way. It’s difficult, and you’ll die a lot. I need to emphasize this because I shouldn’t pretend I can beat these games without some help. I use emulation for most of the games I review for the SMS, NES, Super Nintendo, and Genesis. That allows me to pause the game and save it when I want instead of having to wait for save points or passwords. It makes the games much easier and if I die, I can reload my last save which was hopefully just a few minutes ago instead of having to replay full levels over and over to get to the point of where I died. My Zillion II review was a suicide mission without emulation.

J.J. will be able to pick up small power-ups throughout the level to increase the power of his gun or refill his health bar and boy, did I need those during my Zillion II review! They come at midway points throughout the bike levels and helped immensely. The bike levels were difficult in part because you didn’t have much control over the bike. Sure, you can speed up and jump but no matter what it keeps on rolling. In the last two missions on the bike, you can transform into something that resembles a Gundam machine when you collect enough power-ups. This gives you the ability to fly and you’ll need it when you are crossing areas that are filled with electric spikes.

The levels where J.J. is on foot are much easier. You’ll be able to control where J.J. goes and can walk left and right on the screen to make your way through the level. The enemies here have patterns and once you learn them you’ll be able to defeat them without much trouble. For example, the Norsa Jetpack guys always swoop down in front of you, fire their weapons, and then zoom behind you. I liked these levels much more than the bike level as they had a small resemblance to the first game. On foot, you’ll also face bosses at the end of these levels. I liked this a lot, and that’s something I wish the first Zillion had. It featured just one boss at the end of the game, but Zillion II has one at the end of each level on foot. You’ll rescue Apple and Champ again, but unlike the first game, I didn’t get to play as them during my Zillion II review, which was again disappointing.

Memories:
I just beat the first Zillion a few weeks ago and found out it’s an anime show from the 80s. I couldn’t help but look into it and I’m hooked. I love it! It consists of 31 episodes and it’s fun to connect the characters from the show to the first two Zillion video games. I have hundreds of memories playing the first Zillion as a kid but the second one I never played until this review but you can bet I watched the anime as I played it.

Zillion II Review Score:

Zillion II is a decent game if it was a standalone game. Unfortunately, it’s the sequel to an amazing game on the SMS. In my humble opinion, the developers went backward on this game. They had such a unique formula for the first one with the exploration, puzzles, and computer system. Zillion II feels like a game made only for the arcade with its high difficulty and simple mechanics of jump and shoot. It’s really hard too! I wish Zillion II would have kept the formula of the first game, perhaps we would have been treated to a Zillion III if that was the case.

Zillion II scores a 7.3 out of 10.

What would you write in your Zillion II review? Have you watched the Zillion anime? Which levels did you like more, the bike or foot levels? Have you played both Zillion games? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Call of Cthulhu Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

Just in time for Halloween, developer Cyanide and publisher Focus Home Interactive teamed up and released “Call of Cthulhu” on October 30th, 2018 for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The “interactive” game is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s 1928 short story “The Call of Cthulhu”. Today, I’ll be reviewing the game on the Xbox One as it was a free game for Xbox Gold Members. Warning ahead, there are octopus men in this Call of Cthulhu Review!

Call of Cthulhu Plot:

My Call of Cthulhu review stars private investigator Edward Pierce who has fallen on hard times. He is a functioning alcoholic who drowns his sorrows in whiskey and sleeping pills. Down on his luck and facing expulsion from the agency that he represents, Pierce takes on a mysterious case from the father of a deceased woman.

The man presenting the case claims that his daughter, Sarah Hawkins a renowned painter has been murdered. As it stands, the police say the fire that burned Sarah, her husband, and her son to death was an accident. Pierce travels to the dingy foggy coast town of Darkwater to start his investigation.

Darkwater has been hit hard by the fall of whaling. It served as a hub for whalers in the 1800s, but now in the late 1920s, with the outlawing of whaling, the town has fallen into shambles. Pierce investigates the Hawkins’ mansion discovering numerous signs of cults, devil-worshipping, and signs of tension between Sarah and her husband Charles. Searching the mansion, Pierce discovers tunnels underground that are filled with mangled bodies of whales, sharks, octopuses, and other fish.

Pierce sees a vision of Charles Hawkins as a mutated man with octopus features like tentacles and his face turning red with coral. He then passes out and wakes up in a mental institution under the care of Dr. Fuller. It’s here that Pierce starts to put the pieces together realizing that Sarah Hawkins’ paintings are acting as portals to another dimension. One of the paintings is called “The Shambler”. This monster stalks people who have viewed the painting of it. Pierce manages to escape the institute and discovers that most of the town is in the cult that worships an entity called “Leviathan”.

The Leviathan came to Darkwater after three prominent members of Darkwater killed a large whale and dragged it back to the town to feed everyone. The Leviathan comes in the form of a strange sea creature that is devoured by the cultists giving them visions. Pierce continues to work on the case and discovers that Sarah Hawkins is alive and at the bottom of the mental institute. He breaks in and rescues her from her husband who was hiding her from the cult. The cult wanted to use her for the powers that her paintings have.

All of this nonsense is too much for Pierce to swallow and he starts to show signs of breaking. He sees the Shambler and speaks with the Leviathan. I had options throughout my Call of Cthulhu review on how I wanted to interact with NPCs of the game and my dialogue affects the outcome of the game.

The climax of my Call of Cthulhu review came as the cult is working on summoning a sea monster with Sarah Hawkins behind it. You’ll be able to choose a few different options but in my game, I refused to believe most of the nonsense and focused on reality. Sarah Hawkins kills herself, and Pierce is seen after the credits back in his office in Boston sitting alone.

The other endings include Pierce struggling with the events and foreshadows suicide. Another portrays Pierce in a mental cell being treated for his insanity and in the last ending you can actually summon the sea monster as it sends everyone into a killing frenzy.

Call of Cthulhu Gameplay:

“Gameplay” if you want to call it was rare in my Call of Cthulhu review. The game has been described as a role-playing survival horror game, but I’d say it’s more of an interactive game with decision-making centered as the main focus. It’s a walking simulator and as Pierce, you’ll walk around the town and buildings searching for clues. They are very obvious and alert you to their presence with a glowing icon.

The game opens with a strange intro that has you play a small portion of a level that you’ll play later on. I liked the setting of my Boston office and detective agency but sadly you’re only there for five minutes of the entire game. It’s too bad because I think that would have added a nice layer to the game with the ability to accept other small cases and use your office as the hub. Right away, I could tell that Pierce was an alcoholic and there were plenty of chances to drink booze in the game but I chose not to partake in any drinking during my Call of Cthulhu review fearing that it would compromise the sanity of Pierce.

You can earn character points by completing chapters and finding clues. Using the points you have earned you can build skills for Pierce. Some options include his strength, investigation skills, medical knowledge, cult knowledge, ability to influence others, and psychology of investigations. It all determines on how you want to progress through the game. I love leveling characters up and I enjoyed picking which points to use on what skills.

With each chapter completed, you’ll be met with a small diary entry of what just happened while the next chapter loads. Unfortunately, the loading times take forever. I was surprised at one point to use the bathroom, get a drink, and play with the cat to come back to find the chapter was still loading during my Call of Cthulhu review. Character animations aren’t as polished as they should be and you’ll notice some textures are a little rough around the edges. The animations are average, but for some reason, the fingers and hands of people don’t look natural to me when I played. The fingers seemed to move too much, like floppy french-fries.

There’s not a ton of skill involved in this game. You mostly just walk around from room to room finding clues and advancing to the next part of the game. Even when you are given a gun near the end of the game, there’s no aiming or skill. Just push the trigger and if your gun is pointed anywhere near your target they will die. For the game being a “horror” game, there weren’t many scares. I think it would have freaked me out if I was in middle school, but don’t expect the spookiness from Silent Hill P.T. or Resident Evil 7. This is more like a PG-13 movie with horror elements. There was one time that I recall that I was “scared”. It was a little halfway through the game where you have a lantern and you need to navigate the dimension portals while the “Shambler” may or may not be loose in the dark. It was a good scare but other than that my Call of Cthulhu review offered few moments of panic for me.

The finale had too much build-up for my taste. When I was walking to the ritual, I couldn’t go more than a few feet without being interrupted by a vision of a character telling me how important my choice is and how it’s my destiny. The payoff of the game was almost nothing. You are met with a few seconds of Sarah Hawkins reacting to your decision, the credits, and then a few more seconds of what became of Edward Pierce.

Memories:
I completed my Call of Cthulhu review in two days with a total of about eight hours of gameplay. Not a whole lot of memories made!

Call of Cthulhu Review Score:

The story is interesting and has a small window to capture your imagination but the gameplay requires no skill and the puzzles are solved within minutes. If you are into interactive video games with minimal action and dialogue choices, then this game is for you! If you prefer anything else, it’s probably best to move on or just play the first chapter to see if you would be interested.

Call of Cthulhu scores a 6.8 out of 10.

What would you write in your Call of Cthulhu review? What ending did you get? Did you buy into all the cult magic or did you stick to reality? Were there any puzzles you had issues solving? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Dead or Alive 2 Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

The fighting series Dead or Alive bounced its way onto the video game scene in the late 90s with releases on the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. Known for bouncing breasts and fighting, Team Ninja and Tecmo teamed up to release a sequel in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. It had big cups…er shoes to fill how does it STACK up? We set the age limit to 99 for this Dead or Alive 2 review!

Dead or Alive 2 Plot:

Fame Douglas has been murdered. Who is he you ask? He was the organization of the Dead or Alive tournaments. For some reason, his death has sent the world into chaos. Despite this, the second tournament of Dead or Alive is still on. The man behind the second tournament is a mastermind of evil, bringing terror to the world. That terror comes from another dimension in the form of a Tengu, a mythological creature. This tengu is named Bankotsubo and is a mass criminal in his dimension. He escapes to the human world and tries to bring disaster and chaos to Earth.

There are 14 playable characters in Dead or Alive 2, with 12 of them eligible for the story mode. Let’s take a look at the roster of fighters and their history.

Kasumi – She was the winner of the first DOA tournament but immediately after winning she was captured by a mysterious evil company that clones and experiments with the DNA of people to make super-human fighters. They were impressed by Kasumi’s victory over her evil uncle Raidou in the first DOA and have since cloned Kasumi before she was able to escape.

Ryu Hayabusa – He’s a shinobi who vowed to keep Kasumi safe in the first tournament as he was her brother’s friend. Ryu goes on to win the second tournament killing the evil tengu in the process.

Gen Fu – He enters the second tournament in hopes of securing more money to help finance his granddaughter’s mysterious but deadly illness. Her condition continues to worsen after the first tournament.

Tina Armstrong – She has used her sex appeal to become famous. After making it to the finals of the first tournament, she wants to leave the professional wrestling league that she stars in and becomes a supermodel much to the dismay of her father, Bass.

Bass Armstrong – He has grown tired of his daughter being a sex idol and becomes very protective of her. He sets out to stop her from becoming a super-model but his daughter, Tina is able to defeat him in the second tournament.

Zack – He gained fame from the first tournament but wants more money. He enters the second tournament in hopes of making more fans, fame, and money.

Jann Lee – He continues to work on his craft making each strike the most powerful he has ever thrown. He enters the second tournament to test his skills again as a fighter and test the power of his strikes.

Leifang – She seeks out Jann Lee again after he defeated her in the first tournament. She wants to prove to him that she doesn’t need him to protect her and that she is capable of doing it herself. For the second straight year, she falls to Jann Lee in battle.

Ayane – She was an unlockable character from the first tournament and is the half-sister to Kasumi. Ayane went searching for the missing Kasumi only to discover her clone and battle her. She was brainwashed by Genra, who ran the second tournament and set forth to battle Hayabusa and her half-brother Hayate.

Helena Douglas – She’s the daughter of the murdered DOA tournament founder, Fame Douglas. She seeks revenge on whoever killed him and her mother. As a famous opera singer, she was on the stage with her mother when a stray bullet killed her mother instead of Helena. She is somehow mysteriously connected to Project Epsilon who experiments on DNA.

Leon – He is a Russian mercenary who enters the second tournament to prove his dying girlfriend’s words true. As she died, she whispered to him that she loves the strongest man in the world.

Hayate – He’s the brother of Kasumi and half-brother of Ayane. He was crippled before the first tournament by his uncle Raidou but with Project Epsilon experimenting on him, he regained his strength but lost his memory. He is found by Hayabusa who encourages him to fight his sister Kasumi. The fight restores his memory.

Bayman – You can unlock him but won’t be able to play with him in the story mode. Bayman is from the first DOA and succeeded in killing his target, Fame Douglas.

Bankotsubo – He’s the final boss in DOA2. He’s a tengu, a mythological Japanese creature from another dimension. He’s unlockable as a fighter but you won’t be able to play the story as him.

Dead or Alive 2 Gameplay:

I immediately noticed that the controls for the fighters were improved significantly from the first DOA. In the first game, it felt like they inched their way toward each other but in my Dead or Alive 2 review, all movements were much quicker. Even the big boys like Bass and Leon moved with ease instead of inch-by-inch like tanks.

Graphically, I know that I reviewed the first game on PS1, and the second game is on the PS2, but it’s lightyears better on the graphic side of things. The animation is smoother and the texture of the characters is a hundred times more realistic. Yes, even the boobs realistically bounce and move instead of smacking the girls in the face. Speaking of the fun bags that this series is known for, there’s an option to set your age. I looked into what it was for, and I guess the higher the age you set the more bouncy the boobs become. I tested this out, and set my age to 99 during my Dead or Alive 2 review but didn’t notice anything unusual so perhaps they jiggle a little more but I couldn’t tell.

The music for the opening sequence was awesome, I enjoyed the hard rock nod and wish more games used rock and metal. The new Doom series has one of the best soundtracks and was happy to hear DOA2 use some good tunes too. The voice acting is in English this time too. I don’t know if there was a setting in the first game to change the voices to English or not but DOA2 starts in English so I was able to understand what the characters were yelling at each other during the fight and in the cut scenes during my Dead or Alive 2 review.

If you’ve read any of my other reviews from fighting games, you’ll know that I suck at them. For once though, I wasn’t bad at DOA2. I think the difficulty has changed vastly. I was able to beat the game with every character on “normal” mode and did it relatively easily during the Dead or Alive 2 review. The final boss is a joke, Tengu or whatever his name is weak. The key to beating him is staying as close as possible. Don’t let his wings or powerful bursts of wind get to you. I beat him most times on the first or second try with all characters.

I liked that bits and pieces of the story were thrown in during the campaign with each fighter. Instead of watching a cutscene after the final battle, you were given small doses of each fighter’s personality. The overall story was unclear and I had no idea why I was fighting most of the time, especially the final boss who had a stupid introduction. There’s a lot of DOA lore, and I wish they would have incorporated it better into the game, but the banter between characters was entertaining.

DOA2 is the first fighting game that I’ve reviewed that I would go back and play again just for fun. It’s tons of arcade fun and for once it didn’t beat me down every step of the way. It also offers new modes including survival which I played a few times when I completed my Dead or Alive 2 review. It’s fun and offers a different change of pace besides playing the story. In survival, you keep fighting until your health bar is gone. Each fighter you defeat will drop a small item to restore your health.

As far as the actual fighting controls go, DOA2 made it easier to pull off combos and throws. I didn’t counter or block much but I used the direction of my punches and kicks better than in the first game. The environments were interesting to fight in. Instead of the square ring featuring a “danger zone” where you get shocked if you are outside of it, there are destructible levels. You can send opponents flying through windows or fences as they fall 10, 20, or 50 feet below to another floor. It was awesome to pull this off and brought a new level of gameplay to the fight. I focused on sending them through the railing not only to do extra damage but to watch their body fall through different dangers during my Dead or Alive 2 review.

My favorite fighter was still Leifang, her kicks were deadly.

Memories:
DOA2 along with DOA1 was one of the first games I bought on eBay giving me confidence in buying games from others on the internet.

Dead or Alive 2 Review Score:

A great soundtrack, improved graphics, destructible environments, and more make DOA2 a competitor in the ring. With this installment, it didn’t just make the game about boobs, it made it about fighting.

Dead or Alive 2 scores an 8.3 out of 10.

What would you write for your Dead or Alive 2 review? Who was your favorite fighter to use? What did you think about the final boss? What did you set your age limit to? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Kid Icarus Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

God of War may have popularized Greek mythology in video games but it wasn’t the first series to wade into the pool of Greek gods. In 1987, Kid Icarus was released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Developed and published by Nintendo, the action-platformer introduced us to the character Pit and spawned several sequels. Today, we get our angel wings in this Kid Icarus review!

Kid Icarus Plot:

The game and series are called Kid Icarus, but why that name is included I have no idea because I have no idea who Kid Icarus is! There’s no mention of this person and frankly, I’m confused! But anyway…

Earth was once ruled by Palutena the Goddess of Light and Medusa, the Goddess of Darkness. With titles like that, it was only a matter of time before the two started fighting which is exactly what happened. Palutena gave the gift of light to the humans on Earth while Medusa grew angry with the humans and turned them into stone. Upset by this cruel act, Palutena curses Medusa into a monster and casts her into the underworld.

Time passed as Medusa plotted revenge against Palutena. The Goddess of Darkness raised an army of monsters in the underworld and unleashed them upon Earth and the Sky Palace where Palutena lives. The monsters steal three treasures of Palutena, a mirror shield, light arrows, and the Wings of Pegasus. With her treasures stolen, Palutena’s powers grow weak and she is imprisoned by Medusa in the Sky Palace. In her final moments of defense, Palutena sends a bow and arrows to an angel named Pit.

Pit takes these and sets off to retrieve the three treasures that Palutena has lost to restore her power. He must transverse the underworld, overworld, and the skyworld searching for the items while battling Medusa’s monster army. Once these items are found, Pit faces Medusa in a showdown to free Palutena from her prison. With her rescue complete, Palutena transforms Pit into a full angel.

Kid Icarus Gameplay:

The gameplay is quite clever for the game being from 1987. Instead of being a side-scrolling level from the beginning, I started my Kid Icarus review by climbing up platforms and avoiding enemies as you try and escape the underworld. The first few levels are much tougher than the final ones. Each time you kill an enemy you get a heart, which to my surprise didn’t raise your health, but instead, gave you points. Now, I really didn’t care about points, I just wanted to beat the game and complete my Kid Icarus review but that was my first mistake. If you intend on beating this game. GET THE POINTS. As many as you can.

After each level you complete, your points get tallied and you are given boosts in health and power. I didn’t know that so heading into the final level my character was relatively weak due to my lack of point collecting during my Kid Icarus review. Kid Icarus (I have no clue why it is called that) is challenging. Enemies come at you from every spot on the screen, hordes repeat and it takes more than one arrow to kill them.

Each level is filled with little stone statues of Palutena’s soldiers, once again I didn’t do my research so I didn’t know you could free them with a hammer. The hammer is a secondary weapon that you can only use a few times so use it wisely. The reason you want to free Palutena’s soldiers from their stone imprisonment is that they help you battle the bosses when the stage is done. Whoops, no one told me that so I was left fighting the bosses by myself until the third level where I figured it out.

Kid Icarus has many different things about it that make it a good game. For one, it has a shop in the middle of the level where you may purchase upgrades, weapons, and health. I did so a few times during my Kid Icarus review. Besides the levels being extremely difficult, they are complete mazes. Don’t believe me? Check out the layout of a level from the game.

A level layout from Kid Icarus…better get a pencil and paper.

As you can see, not only do you need to avoid and kill enemies for points, you must navigate your way through a maze while stockpiling on points, weapons, health, and allies. It’s quite the checklist from a game so old. I imagine before the internet back in the 80s and early 90s, gamers who played this probably mapped out the levels on a piece of paper. How nostalgic.

Once you climb out of the underworld, the levels become a little bit easier, it’s more side-scrolling instead of jump, jump, jump. Reaching the final level during my Kid Icarus review I was excited to meet Medusa and end her reign. Oh, how I was so unprepared. At this point, you are given all the power-ups, including the Wings of Pegasus granting you the ability to fly. Well, I reached the end of the level and it looped back to the beginning. I thought to myself, “What the hell?” Maybe I had to do this twice, I know a lot of Nintendo games back in the day were quirky about that kind of stuff. Well, I once again got the end and it looped again. I was pissed this time so I looked up why it was doing that. Well wouldn’t you know, you have to kill 50 enemies in that level to reach Medusa, so the level loops over until you defeat 50 bastards. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, except because I didn’t collect a lot of points, my weapons weren’t very powerful so it took about five shots from my arrows to kill one enemy and to top it off, you glide through the level so you can’t stop and wait for enemies, you have to shoot nonstop all over the screen hoping you hit an enemy five times before you fly off. It was extremely challenging. I was mentally drained, frustrated, and pissed at how stupid this was.

Finally, I reached Medusa, and while it was difficult I managed to defeat her by drifting in one spot while avoiding the snakes that she sends at you. Medusa also looks…like a green bean with facial hair?

There are multiple endings in this game (once again to my surprise). There is the good ending in which Pit is transformed into a full glowing angel, and there is the average ending in which Pit is given headgear from Palutena. I’d like to see them all but feel like there are too many games out there to play, so this is my only Kid Icarus review.

Memories:
Kid Icarus was one of the first games from the NES that I sought out to review. For some reason, I was drawn to it, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. It kicked my butt numerous times.

Kid Icarus Review Score:

The game had many new concepts to a game from that time, it was very difficult, but if I had played it correctly then the game would have been a little bit easier. The story was cool, although obviously, there isn’t a whole lot presented in the actual game. If you like platform, side-scrollers with mazes, and a challenge I recommend it, if not. Move along.

Kid Icarus scores a 7.1 out of 10.

What would you write in your Kid Icarus review? Did Kid Icarus fly under the radar when it first came out? Why the heck is it called Kid Icarus, who is that? Did you make similar mistakes that I did when playing Kid Icarus? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Iconoclasts Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

How many video games do you know that were developed by a single person? Not many, right? In 2018, Joakim Sandberg developed the action platformer Iconoclasts and teamed up with Bifrost Entertainment to release the game for the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. It would later be released for the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch as well. With just one man developing, composing, and designing the game, how would Iconoclasts turn out? There are space worms and alien birds in this Iconoclasts review!

Iconoclasts Plot:

Iconoclasts takes a minimalistic approach to its story with very few cut scenes but enough dialogue between characters to understand for the most part the complicated story. You play as Robin, a cute blonde-headed girl who happens to be a mechanic. During my Iconoclasts review she carried her signature wrench around with her helping out others as she cranks away at machines for them.

The world that Robin lives in has been taken over by a religious cult called the “One Concern” who worship a mysterious god called “Mother”. The cult has grown over time and has since made its way into the government. The world runs on a power source called “Ivory” which is found underground. Think of it as oil. Only mechanics recognized under the rule of the One Concern are now allowed to crank the machines for people that allow Ivory to run their homes and power sources. Robin, being the helpful person that she decides to secretly help her neighbors anyway against the orders of the One Concern. Well, they get wind of this and label her a criminal.

Robin is forced to become a criminal on the run avoiding the government and the One Concern as they hunt her and her allies. The One Concern runs on this Ivory power source and begins to experiment with it including pumping it into humans which results in giving some supernatural abilities and powers. The ones who have survived the experiments become agents for the One Concern and hunt Robin as she runs from town to town.

Another religious cult called the “Isi” clash with the One Concern over the power source of Ivory and with each cult using Ivory, the world begins to crumble and dry out. The world is in desperate need of a hero, and that’s where Robin comes in!

Her father was murdered by the One Concern, and her brother works for them as a chemist against his will (I think). Robin helps out her brother (Elro) and his family but because she is an unregistered mechanic, the One Concern condemns Elro’s family to death.

Robin finds herself in various dangerous situations and fights but with the help of some allies comes out on top. In the end, she finds herself in the City One, which is where the cult started and where “Mother” lives. With help from her friend, Mina, Mother is killed. After going on a few more missions that are quite ridiculous, Robin finds herself fighting a giant starworm that has come to destroy the planet. During the battle, it’s revealed that the worm is actually a robot controlled by a giant bird. Robin kills the bird and the robotic worm causing Ivory to become injected into the planet restoring life to it.

I skipped over a lot of things that happen in the story during this Iconoclasts review because it can get hard to follow and I only realized what was going on by looking it up afterward. The giant worm turning out to be a robot being controlled by a giant bird is as stupid as it sounds. I was disappointed in that being the finale, but the rest of the game was fun as far as the gameplay.

Iconoclasts Gameplay:

You won’t find a more colorful 16-bit graphic game on the PlayStation 4. Iconoclasts sucked me in right away just by the nature of the game. The enemies and creatures are unique and each has different means of defeating them. You’ll die a few times and you’ll probably get lost in a few mazes or not know what to do next as I did but at least the game looks great when looking at it. I can’t emphasize enough how amazing this game looked during my Iconoclasts review. If I could make a game, I’d want it to look just like Iconoclasts with the vivid environments and bright colors and texture. It all comes together to make the perfect video game world.

Robin controlled great as I navigated her through various levels and terrains during the Iconoclasts review. The game is fair with its combat. When you die it’s your fault for being too reckless or charging at enemies before knowing how to defeat them. Some enemies will need different weapons to defeat them, some will need to be hit multiple times, and some are best avoided. It’s up to you to decide how you play through the levels. During your playthrough, you can upgrade certain abilities and weapons to make it easier for Robin. Some of them are required, while others you can craft to your style of play.

Boss fights were great during my Iconoclasts review. Each of them being challenging and fun. Even the final boss was fun to defeat, I mean, it was completely stupid with how the story unfolded but the battle was satisfying.

There’s a small cast of characters in Iconoclasts, but other than Robin I didn’t really care for them. They were unique in their own ways, but I prefer the strong silent type like Robin, even though she bounced around all cute on the screen. If you ignore the story and just play the game it’s even better as I did during my Iconoclasts review.

Memories:
Iconoclasts was a free download for PlayStation Plus members so I scooped it up one month. I was instantly drawn to the colorful graphics and cool characters that populated the game. I didn’t get too into the story but the gameplay and environments kept me glued throughout my Iconoclasts review. It took me about a week to beat it.

Iconoclasts Review Score:

It’s incredible what one person can do when they put their focus on their dreams. I applaud Joakim Sandberg for creating Iconoclasts as it’s beautiful on the PlayStation 4, even if the game overall isn’t perfect.

Iconoclasts scores a 7.2 out of 10.

What would you write in your Iconoclasts review? Did you like Iconoclasts and were you able to download it for free? What game do you find as beautiful as I did with Iconoclasts? Can you think of a worse final boss as Iconoclasts featured? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

The Borderlands series went from a cult hit to being a fully-fledged mega-hit with Borderlands 2. In 2014, 2K Australia which hadn’t worked on the series before teamed up with Gearbox Software and 2K Games to produce Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Would the series continue to soar to new heights or should we send this Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Review back to the moon?

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Plot:

Like the other two Borderlands before it, the pre-sequel features four playable characters each with different traits and classes. Again, I completed my Borderlands The Pre-Sequel review with my wife as we had both loved the previous two installments. I chose to be Wilhelm who can summon a pair of drones and my wife picked Nisha who can increase her gun damage and speed.

The four characters are offered a job to find a vault on Pandora’s moon. They set off for the moon but are attacked by a militia called the “Lost Legion” who are former Dahl Corporation marines. Remember, almost all of the Borderlands universe is run by mega-corporations and Dahl is one of them.

They come up with a plan to defeat the Lost Legion but can’t get passed a jamming signal. Traveling to Elips to investigate the signal, they meet Janey Springs who is a junk dealer that decides to help them out. Meanwhile, there is a weird alien named Zarpedon who is after the vault hunters. The rest of the game revolves around Jack, yes he is handsome, helping the vault hunters take down Helios and Zarpendon, and opening a vault.

When the vault is opened, Jack enters it but finds nothing useful except for a vision of a warrior. The story arc revolves around Handsome Jack and his downfall to become a truly evil villain.

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Gameplay:

We noticed right away that despite the “Borderlands” name in the title, it just didn’t feel like the brand my wife and I had come to love. The game is mostly set in space and on a moon where there is less gravity giving your character the ability to jump and float throughout much of the game. This mechanic makes sense, but it doesn’t mean that we enjoyed it during our Borderlands The Pre-Sequel review.

Like the other Borderlands, there are tons of guns to collect and upgradable attributes for your characters which were welcomed. The guns are always the best part of Borderlands, it’s fun to collect them and constantly exchange them for better ones. At least the prequel-sequel didn’t disappoint there.

The story felt predictable and mediocre at best. The humor and overall direction of Borderlands started to slip in the prequel-sequel. It was cool to see Jack before he became “Handsome Jack” but aside from him, most of the characters including the playable ones didn’t offer anything but annoying quips and personalities. My wife and I didn’t find ourselves connecting with any of them like we did the first two games. The characters we interacted with felt forced and built to satisfy a small unique audience which unfortunately flowed into the third Borderlands game, but more on that when I review that game! You are given the chance to play as Claptrap, but we felt he was best when throwing himself pity birthday parties and a lovable outcast rather than a killing robot.

The gameplay is still very fun and there’s nothing like finding yourself in a gunfight surrounded by 20 enemies as you and your partner hide behind cover reloading about to pop out and unleash hell on the foes before you. That’s the magic that wasn’t lost during our Borderlands The Pre-Sequel review. Borderlands 1 and 2 felt like siblings, who you loved to hang out with. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel felt like that weird foreign cousin that you met once when you were a kid and are now forced to spend a week with them making small talk.

Usually, the boss fights are some of the best things about Borderlands but to be honest I can’t remember one boss from my Borderlands The Pre-Sequel review without having to look them up again on YouTube. That just goes to show how little this game drew me in with its story and characters.

Sadly, the best part of our Borderlands The Pre-Sequel review was when my wife and I were just exploring or having shootouts with small bases. When the story and nagging characters get left behind, the fun comes out. The best part of the story and I touched on this before was seeing Jack become Handsome Jack. He was always a dick, but it’s fascinating to watch someone evolve into who they become. With Jack’s story, you can even sympathize with him a little bit, and I mean a tiny little sliver.

In conclusion, Borderlands: The pre-sequel was developed by a different company than the first two games. It feels like that. If this game came out before the first two, I’d probably give it a higher score but with the brand on the line, 2K Australia took the series “down under” with disappointment. It’s still very playable, but just don’t go into the game thinking it will be like the first two in the series, because it’s not.

Memories:
My wife and I were excited to get this game and while we had tons of fun killing waves of enemies, completing mission after mission, and exploring the moon, we ultimately were a bit disappointed with the predictable outcome of the game, a weak cast of characters and an overall change of environment from the first two Borderlands.

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Review Score:

There’s plenty of fun to be had, but don’t expect Borderlands: The pre-sequel to be as polished as the first two. The game is not even essential to the story arc of the series so you could skip this and still be fine playing Borderlands 1, 2, and 3.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel scores a 6.8 out of 10.

What would you write in your Borderlands The Pre-Sequel Review? Did you like Borderlands: The pre-sequel as much as the others in the series? Which character did you choose to play? How did you like the gravity mechanics? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!

Syphon Filter 2 Review

Subscribe To My YouTube Channel!

The original Syphon Filter hit the shelves in 1999 for the original PlayStation to commercial success. Featuring a mix of stealth elements and action, Gabe Logan trotted the world trying to save it from the virus known as Syphon Filter. In 2000, Eidetic and 989 Studios were at it again just a year later and released the follow-up Syphon Filter 2 for the PlayStation. This game seems like a Michael Scott Production… but let’s get on with this Syphon Filter 2 review anyway!

Syphon Filter 2 Plot:

Sequels usually take place after a certain amount of time has passed from their former games. But not Syphon Filter 2! The second game in the series takes place only hours after the first game ends, and you know what? I really dug that. It was nice to see an immediate continuation of the story.

At the conclusion of the first game, our agent Gabe Logan defeated terrorist Erich Rhoemer and Agency Director Thomas Markinson who had secretly teamed up to work on a deadly virus called Syphon Filter. Gabe’s partner Lian Xing had been injected with the virus and is starting to feel the effects of it. Together, the two of them are portrayed as enemies of the agency by the media and agency. Now as marked terrorists, they must escape the corrupt agency and misinformed police units that are after them.

Gabe is flying back on a private cargo plane carrying PharCom data disks that hold the company’s secrets and proof of their connection to the Syphon Filter. The agency shoots the plane down as Gabe and the other agents on his side parachute onto the Rocky Mountains. Gabe and the others work together to get off the mountains as the agency has quarantined them and plans to gas the mountains to destroy any living evidence.

Meanwhile, Lian has been captured and is being held in a detention center for terrorists. She manages to escape in a helicopter and meets up with Gabe to come up with a plan. Gabe and Lian team up with a third agent who is still loyal to their cause named Teresa. With the help of Teresa, Gabe breaks into the same expo center from the first game to look for more data disks. With only half the information on the disc, they discover that a Russian director named Uri Gregorov has the other data. Lian and Uri know each other so Lian heads to Moscow to meet with him.

Lian tracks down Uri only to discover that he is an imposter sent to find the other data disc. He reveals to her that the real Uri is imprisoned and set to be executed soon. Lian rescues the real Uri but the virus has severely taken a toll on her body and she collapses from it.

With death on the doorstep of Lian, Gabe decides to make a deal with the agency. In exchange for the data discs that Gabe has collected, he wants a vaccine for Lian. The agency double-crosses Gabe but he is able to steal a vaccine in the process. Teresa meets up with Gabe and helps him track down the new agency director Lyle Stevens and kills him.

Together they head for the rooftop where Teresa’s helicopter is waiting for them. When they arrive on the roof, they find Agent Chance waiting for them. He was one of the original agents with Gabe on the Rocky Mountains. He betrays Gabe and kills Teresa. Wearing body armor, Chance is protected against any ammunition. Gabe finds a heavy shotgun and is able to knock Chance into the blades of the helicopter with the force of the shotgun shells.

In the post-credits, Gabe is able to give Lian the vaccine and the existence of the agency has gone public but a few high members of the agency meet and reveal they still have plans for Gabe.

Syphon Filter 2 Gameplay:

Are you a fan of “The Office”? If so, and you love Michael Scott and his ridiculous action movies then you will love the opening sequence of Syphon Filter 2. It’s over the top and made me laugh out loud with the animation and got my Syphon Filter 2 review off to a great start. Gabe somersaults on the ground shooting terrorists and all of their deaths are exaggerated. The sequence is a victim of the time, but it’s hilarious.

The gameplay is almost identical to the first Syphon Filter but I found I used the auto-aim feature far less as it just wasn’t as useful this time. The difficulty in my Syphon Filter 2 review was evenly played out. I didn’t find one level easy and another one extremely difficult, it was pretty much even throughout the game. The first Syphon Filter, I felt that the first few levels were super easy but the last ones were very difficult. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to program a game, but it was just something I noticed.

The one level that I really struggled in my Syphon Filter 2 review was the bridge level where you have to defuse the bombs in less than two minutes. I had forgotten that you needed to take out the commanding officer first before taking care of the bombs. When you do that, the time limit goes away making it a hundred times easier. I had to look up how to beat the bridge because I knew I was doing something wrong.

A plus in Syphon Filter 2 was the ability to play as Lian throughout almost half of the game. She doesn’t do anything differently than Gabe, but with her inclusion, she felt much more part of the team instead of just a voice in your ear giving you hints and tips like she did in the first game. Combat is just as fun as it was in the first game. The night vision was one of my favorite sections of levels as I became a silent assassin in the dark. Syphon Filter 2 makes good use of the surrounding environments. I found myself climbing more poles and walls to get around than I did in the first game. The environment also provides some unique weapons like when I was in the tunnel trapped by a swarm of terrorists. Gabe took a fuel hose from a truck and set it on fire as I sprayed hordes of terrorists in a ball of fire. It was a lot of fun!

My favorite level during my Syphon Filter 2 review was the dance club in Russia. You had to track down Uri playing as Lian. When you enter the dance club you are met with a ridiculous cut scene of “Uri” and others dancing. It’s just as over-the-top as the intro to the game with people spinning on the dancing floor and busting moves. I almost had a seizure fighting through some of the rooms in the club. There’s a strobe light that doesn’t stop unless you shoot it but it was tough to even look at. Going from the fun dance club, you go to a dark prison where women are beaten, thrown off the railings, and shot to death. It was a stark contrast to what I had just played!

Something that really frustrated me during my Syphon Filter 2 review was the item called the “camera scrambler”. You collect it from a locker but it’s not really mentioned and I forgot about it. I needed to use it on cameras to sneak around the clinic but even with it equipped and pointing at the cameras I didn’t know how to use it which led to me ringing the alarm numerous times. I had to look up how to use the camera scrambler which if I have to do that, then it wasn’t explained enough.

It was a bit of a surprise to see Teresa murdered, I thought she’d make it but by Chance, she died. (LOL get it?!) Anyway, speaking of chance I know he was wearing armor to protect him from ammo but I had saved up 10 rounds of the M-79 which was essentially a rocket launcher that sends enemies flying twenty feet in the air. I unloaded all ten rounds on him and nothing happened! He just kept coming, so him being able to survive that after using that weapon throughout the game as the ultimate power gun was surprising. Oh, and Gabe’s voice acting is still terrible.

Memories:
Demo discs were awesome back in the 90s. I used to love getting them in my PlayStation magazine subscription and I’d look for the newest “Jampack” demo discs in stores. Syphon Filter 2 was on one of them and I remember I played the train level hundreds of times on it. It was so awesome being able to climb a train, shoot terrorists, and throw grenades. The train level will forever be ingrained into my head. A few months later, my dad took me to Meijer and he purchased Syphon Filter 2 for me. It was my first and only “two-disc” PlayStation game as a kid.

Soon I was introduced to the air taser and that was that. I fried so many guys to a crisp with it. I’d tase them for five minutes just because I could and I thought the animation of them wriggling around and burning up was hilarious. I was able to beat the first few levels but I couldn’t get past the stage where the airplane is destroyed on the ground with a fiery red sky. At some point, I gave up getting past it. It wasn’t until this month that I got out Syphon Filter 2 and put it in my PS1. It’s always so strange revisiting games from my childhood that I haven’t played in over a decade. Like all the games from my childhood, I’m able to beat them now that I know what I’m doing.

Syphon Filter 2 came with multiplayer for you and a friend to shoot each other in different arenas that were cities. When I got this game my sisters were out of the house by then so I remember I spent hours just exploring the arena by myself and blowing up the dummy player. Haha, what a lonely existence!

Syphon Filter 2 Review Score:

Syphon Filter 2 is so similar to the original if they made just one game and packed it into three discs I think that would have worked for the PlayStation especially since the second game takes place hours after the first. The second game has more action and a few more gadgets to use. It also came with multiplayer and the inclusion of playing as Lian which was a plus.

Syphon Filter 2 scores a 9.2 out of 10.

What would you write in your Syphon Filter 2 review? Did you like Syphon Filter 2 better than the original? How did you feel playing as Lian? Which level gave you issues? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!