PecoTheGreat

This is one of the products that people like to hate just because it makes them feel better. The only criticism I have read is that the game is not a total revolution, does not elevate gameplay to another dimension and does not have a humor that will satisfy 15 year old boys as much as college professors. But does that make it a bad game? I don't think so. The setting of this game is as easy as it is brilliant, the day begins with the main character Juliet waking up in her room and heading off to school, just to realize that all her classmates have turned into zombies. It comes in handy that Juliet belongs to a family of zombie hunters. The action begins just like that, Juliet takes out her chainsaw and begins her spree. This is a hack and slay game, and one that does not take your hand. With various combinations of chainsaw attacks and pompom-bashes (she is a cheerleader, after all) that stun the enemies. Basically, combat is all about killing as many zombies as possible at once, which requires some timing and knowledge of the combo system, so no button mashing allowed here. The combat is no revolution, but fluid and satisfying enough. The game consists of seven different areas, each of them with a different setup (school farm, etc.), so the zombie bashing never gets boring. Additionally, there is a number of mini-games, shooting challenges, "zombie basketball", "zombie baseball", ****. The game is short, but due to a number of achievable costumes, moves and power-ups as well as several ranking modes, it definitely has a high replay value. Music is just great, humor a little dumb at times but consequent enough to make sense. This is a great, fun and challenging game, tone and artwork different from everything else I know on this console, that alone makes it an outstanding experience that I can highly recommend.

I had that game catching dust on my shelf for a while when I decided to pick it up again. In the beginning, this game does give a "been here, done that" feeling, resembling DMC in many aspects, such as the overall "demonic" theme and the shooting/sword-fighting mixed game-play. Then again, the game does not deny that one bit. In fact, it deliberately takes things from DMC and makes them...better. The game-play (meaning moving Bayonetta herself) is pure fun and highly addictive. Once you get familiar with timing and movement, fighting goes smooth, flashy and makes you feel like you are in control. Some of her moves are so over the top that they made a small miracle to actually make it perfectly playable. Defy gravity, transform into animals, kill opponents with your hair that turns into a giant raven or dragon. Apart from the moveable camera that can be confusing sometimes, there is nothing about the game-play that should be considered other than brilliant, hit detection and avoiding enemy attacks is near perfection, even though as mentioned earlier I did need some time getting used to it. You have witches, demons, VERY intentionally lame jokes and fantastic level design plus millions of bad guys to defeat that come in a great variety. Several additional weapons, costumes, moves and accessories to buy will keep you busy for a while. If you are into Hack'n'Slay and Action, this game is a must.

Instead of pumping lead into the undead or blasting a zombies' brainless head clean of the neck with a shotgun, the protagonist in Fatal Frame forces his or her way through a huge number of ghosts and spirits by taking...pictures of them. Four years after the original Fatal Frame, the 3rd installment was released, starring the 23 years old freelance photographer Rei Kurosawa. Her fiancee was killed in a car accident, and she was drawn into the Fatal Frame premise because she could see his image appearing on one of the photos she had taken during a "haunted house" assignment. There is a major change in the game-play compared to the first two games, being that the actual adventure that takes Rei through and old Japanese manor only takes part in her dreams. While being awake, you can walk freely through her own house, interact with people and pets, check all kinds of books and tapes you find during the game and even develop photos in a special darkroom. With the whole day and night setup, the game is divided into "hours" that can be regarded as missions and "nights", basically a new night begins every time you go to sleep. In certain missions, you may even leave the dreamworld and continue the mission during the next night if desired. Another change is that you take control of different characters (unlike Fatal Frame 2, only one at a time). Regarding the control scheme and overall interaction with the surroundings, items and ghosts, nothing about the formula has been changed. There are always those complaining about too little innovation but I say if it ain't broken don't fix it. As known from the first two games, all playable characters sooner or later get hold of the "Camera Obscura" that can be used to see things invisible for the human eye and actually deal damage to hostile ghosts. So basically you have to make your way through a very old and very dark and creepy Japanese manor and defend yourself against a huge number of ghosts that want you dead while trying to find out the secrets behind the incidents that took part at the manor and the reason why you are there. Taking all that, the Game is inspired to a huge extent by Japanese history and culture. The very well thought about story is not only told within the game itself, but also through various forms of writings such as newspaper articles, diaries and so on. Let me say it directly, there is a LOT to read, and the game really develops its full potential when you take your time to fully dive into its world and actually read the very interesting material that gives a lot of background information and links between the characters. On a different note, you might as well skip all that and just play the game, and still enjoy it. The enemy design in this game is fantastic and contained what I love most about fighting in video games: Getting my ass handed back to me on a silver plate the first time around and come back with a new strategy (or several ones if necessary) to become victorious. The harmful ghosts appear in a large variety with different attacks and attack pattern. I got scared by suddenly appearing ghosts and creepy sound/visual effects many times, the tension when walking through the dark corridors of the mansion is constant and lets the neck on your hair stand up when playing alone or at night. The manor is old, it is dark and mysterious, and that makes it a great surrounding. The fact that many rooms and areas look similar to others gives you a feeling of being lost, which does become better over time since you will be walking back and forth collecting items a lot. You will feel alone and vulnerable, and that is basically what creates survival horror. Some enemies are very tough, this game is no walk in the park, you will have to adjust your strategies and keep up a good item management, even though the game is quite fair with re-spawning healing items and film rolls (the ammunition for the camera so to say, it comes in different types and strengths) in certain places that you might be visiting frequently for that reason.While you might chose to run away from some extremely powerful enemies, you will love to fight some of them again and again as the battle system is very rewarding for learning and improving it. The overall play time on my first walk-through was about 15 hours. I found it very well-balanced, and the way the climax is built up is nearly perfect. As in the first two games, a "mission" mode in which you have to defeat ghosts from the game as well as new ones in a certain time or with the highest score you can get in order to unlock new missions or items. You can also use the points achieved through good photos to buy additional costumes or gimmicks. And who does not want to see glasses or cat-ears on his favorite female (game) character?

This is not a bad game, it is just not what I was looking for in an adventure game of this hype-status and here's why. The setting seems interesting enough, a random (not super-powered) guy goes on a treasure hunting experience and is facing expected and unexpected enemies. Graphics are very good, gameplay is not as brilliant as many people say, but decent. The major letdown for me was that there is no real exploring in this game. You climb through caves or make your way up castles, trees and whatnot. On your path, you will find treasures, but the feeling of exploration is not there. What really killed the game for me is the shooting parts. this is where all athmosphere and fun is killed in an instant. I was reminded of the (terrible) Resident Evil 5 when I found myself walking through an appearantly quiet passge, when suddenly (maybe an invisible switch) hordes of bad guys with guns started attacking me. This feels incredibly dumb, as there is no music of any kind, just the sound of shooting guys that never seem to stop coming. I stopped playing after the 3rd or 4th shootout and sold the game, as it was another "please all" mashup of some very limited exploring and a lot of unnecessary shootouts.

I didn't know much about the game except that the artwork on the cover alone seemed interesting to me. Many games have promised an "interactive" experience in which your decisions change the course of action before, so could Heavy Rain pull it off? The answer is a Stone Cold-ish "oh hell yeah." There is a very limited number of games that made me care about the storyline and the characters that much. The way the story builds up to its climax is excellent, graphics beyond believe on a home console. This game gives you pure freedom of choice, infinite exploration and a story that will stay in your mind long after playing this. The game is build on chapters, in each chapter you take control of one of four main characters, and everything you do can change the outcome of the game. These characters are different from each other and interesting, each one involved in the game's plot from a different direction. You will feel like you are actually taking part in the action, be it preparing scrambled eggs or fighting for your life. A true masterpiece without comparison.

There was no doubt that the combined efforts of Suda and Mikami (Yamaoka to be mentioned later) would create a game with flawless gameplay mechanics. Since RE4 has pretty much set the standard for 3D Over-the-shoulder-techniques, SOTD will feel familiar but still offers enough to stay fresh and new. Beside the gameplay and millions of jokes about testicles, this is one of the rare games that creates an own atmosphere that actually leaves me back changed even hours after playing it. SOTD operates in its own universe that will **** you in immediately. Many people like to call this game "weird" and "lolol", I call it an excellent action adventure with a unique style, fantastic atmosphere and gameplay, a close-to-perfect soundtrack by none other than Yamaoka himself and a new anti-hero-protagonist for eternity.

Every person that has played Final Fantasy XIII will have some questions about its story, given that XIII was best at throwing a bunch of information (Fal'Cie,L'Cie,Cieth, etc) at you without really giving an explanation. So, with a sequel that includes time travel, they had all the opportunities to explain the story of XIII in detail. For example, let us fight along Fang and Vanille when they first attacked Pulse, give us details about Barthandelus and how he developed his plans. Background story about the other villains in the game, about the Purge, about why Cocoon was created in the first place (After all, they completely failed to explain what is bad so bad about Gran Pulse) and how the Fal'cie became so powerful. Instead, they chose to come up with another unappealing and shallow story about a seeress that dies everytime **** happens and another godess more powerful than the Fal'Cie. The time traveling in this game is absolutely meaningless. Collecting little flowers and guide books to take them to another time instead of changing the future and past. I know that this theme is difficult to pull off, but they did a terrible job. Since jumping between different eras is that meaningless in this game, they would have done better to give us a world map and a damn airplane for some FF-feeling. The whole story was build only for one purpose: so they could include Lightning. Which I respect, as she was the best thing about XIII. but the way they achieved this ridiculous. Some parts about the mechanics are quite nice, but what they promised us as "freedom" means needless complexity of even the tiniest bits. The Casino is no fun at all, the slot machine is a joke (most people hooked the controller up with duct tape to get the slot achievement/trophy) chocobo racing is no fun at all. All you have to do is build a perfect chocobo from a guide, let him win all the races and say bye-bye to fun. Fighting is still as good as it was in XIII and graphics are beautiful, but this game is pushing Final Fantasy as we know and love it even further away.

We all know that the PS3 is not the JRPG heavy hitter the PS2 used to be, so it took me some time finding a few that looked interesting to me. One of those that caught my eye immediately is Eternal Sonata. Why you ask? There is something about the game and character design that was appealing to me, much more than most other games I had seen before. Without spoiling too much, the games events take place in the dream world of a dying Frederic Chopin. Yes, THAT Chopin. Even if that was not the case, the world itself is easily one of the most beautifully designed settings I have seen in a very long time. The playable characters are simply adorable, from a young girl that is "cursed" with the power of magic, two "hellion" boys that fight for the poor kids of their town, Chopin himself (!)and almost a dozen of other unique and interesting characters. The story itself sounds familiar, the ruler of a kingdom is flooding the market with a new type of medicine that is tax-free (thus cheap) but has side-effects that I won't spoil here. On the quest to solve the mystery behind this, the characters join forces. The PS3 version is an enhanced port of the original X-Box360 game, with additional characters and different endings which, afaik, consist of different cut scenes only. What I like most about this game is that, unlike many other RPGs, it does not force you to grind or farm stuff for hours and hours. Instead, all important items you will need can be found through exploring the areas, which is actually FUN (yes!) because the areas are beautiful. What sounds so simple seems to be very difficult in fact, as more and more RPGs rely on farming the s*** out of everything. (Resonance of Fate, anyone?) Fighting in this game is a lot of fun, easy to learn but with some tricks once you go more into depth of the system. I am having a hard time finding negative aspects, but there are some very minor letdowns. What might be an upset for some is that there are no trophies in the PS3 version. I didn't mind, as many trophies only force you to do something that is not actually fun or necessary. Another thing is that you will find items in the game that you can use to interact with some NPCs. These are not numbered and sorted in order of the time you find them, which can be confusing. The last negative point is that there is no map of any kind. As some of the dungeons are quite complex, a map that you can complete by exploring (as XIII-2) would have been useful, or a percentage telling you how much of the map you have explored already. However, none of the above can change the fact that this is one of the best JRPGs for the PS3, a lovable game that every RPG-fan should enjoy.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

One of the most underrated games I know, but then again I think that is exactly what it wants to be. This is one of the very rare (and maybe dying out) games that create an own universe for itself, where its own rules and laws apply. At first glimpse, one might think it is just a rail-shooter with a very weird design, but only until you find that what you have in front of you is one of the most cleverly written, though-provoking and politically controversial game you might ever have seen. Add one of the most amazing bunch of playable characters and a completely immersing soundtrack, you get Killer7, a game that is certainly not for everyone and most certainly wants it exactly that way. A game for eternity.

It's hard to find something to say about this game that hasn't been said already, so I will just say this: this game is so good that it is almost hard to believe.

This is by far my favorite original game (meaning: no sequel) for the Playstation 3. Everything about this game is adorable, the characters are interesting and loveable, the setting is gorgeous and unique, storyline highly immersing and beautifully written. This game is considered an RPG by many, I would consider it a tactical Action Adventure with some RPG elements such as character classes and development of which. I have not seen another PS3 game (except MGS4) with such a high density in its atmosphere. You control a group of soldiers with different classes, such as scouts, snipers and shocktroopers that you can place freely in the battles that take place throughout the game. What starts out as a mission to defend their hometown, ends as a journey to save a whole continent. I have yet to play another PS3 game whose characters I loved more or whose gameplay and atmosphere had me more immersed.

As soon as people are willing and able to understand that what they call "tank controls" and "horribly slow place" is intentional to give the player a feeling of uncertainty and weakness, maybe they will be able to see what a fine game this is. Perfectly adapting all the elements that the original RE was known and loved for, and putting the interesting (and nicely done) mixture of two playable characters into it, this game is what RE is all about.