roymcgeeters

Ico may be a little bit un-attractive at first glance. The box art features an ugly little kid on the front holding a stick, and on the back it says "solve the puzzles or join the tourmented souls forever." It embraces the fact that it is a puzzle game, and you might dismiss it for that. Even if you are a fan of puzzle games, you might turn your head and look at all of the other puzzle games that might possibly be good. But I will tell you right now: ICO is a truly immersive, rewarding, magical experiance that you will remember for the rest of your life. Indeed, its games like this that make people go into deep thought at what they experienced, and very few games have ever effected me emotionaly; made me care about the characters; made me feel so satisfied; made me so awe struck. ICO is truly an experience that no developer could ever duplicate. The story of ICO is very minimaland barley there, but is so intruiging and mysteryious that I can say it is one of my favorite video game plots ever, right up there with Final Fantasy VII, and Shadow of the Colossus. You play as ICO, a boy who was born with the curse of horns on his head, and is considered a bad omen among his village, and so he is banished to a castle as a sacrifice left to die, but a small tremor sets him free of his prison, and he tries to find a way out of the castle when he meets Yorda, a girl who was trapped in a cage before Ico rescued her, and is being hunted by shadow demonds, who plan to kidnap her. Ico and Yorda go about the castle together and try to find an exit and escape the castle. You might think that this story is really simpilistic, but the story goes on after that point, and I won't say anything because spoiling the game is the last thing I want to do to you guys, and the story is just as good as you make it out to be. As you play the game, you start to build some sort of connection to Yorda and feel the need to protect her. It's things like this that make me truly care about the charcaters, instead of finding them annoying and uninteresting (*coughahemfinalfantasyXcoughahem*). The chracters are as deep as you want them to be. Take ICO for example: He is a boy who is looked down on as a cursed child, hated and feared by everyone, maybe even his parents, and having to go through life with all of this must have been a nightmare for poor ICO. I could go on and on, but I think its time for the gameplay. ICO is a puzzle game, with platform elements in the mix, and you have to examine the enviorment around you to solve the puzzles to succede. While doing this, you also need to find a path for Yorda, as she cannot do athletic things that Ico can do, and you need her to open certain doors that Ico cannot. Each puzzle is well designed and requires a lot of examination and thinking to solve, although some puzzles can be really stupidly annoying just because the game didn't explain how the controls work. How was I supposed to know that I had to press O to swing on a chain? It is satisfying to complete a puzzle that had you stumped for so long, and then you find out what to do gives a great sense of accomplishment. Occasionaly, Shadow demonds come out of holes in the ground and try to capture Yorda, which leads to combat. I'll be blunt for the sake of time: Combat is button mashing, but you do get a sense of fright when these mosters come, and it works. Moving on. The graphics for the game are breath-taking!!! I'm serious, it's suprising that Sonic UNleashed, a PS2 game that was released as a wii port in 2008, doesn't compare to ICO, a game released in 2001, a year after the PS2 launched. The lighting, camera angles, animation and detail all combine to make one fantastic looking game. I spent a good amount of time stopping and staring at the game's backgrounds, and getting lost in the scenery. The music, while like the plot, is small and barley there. A majority of the time, all you'll hear is the clmaping of your sandals, wind or birds chirping. But the rare moment music does appear, it's well done. I love the saving theme music, the acoustic intro music and the main ending theme, "You Were There". But ICO, in my opinion, didn't really need music in it's levels. I would have much rather have the silence that the game provides me, and it works remarkably well. However, ICO isn't as perfect as I make it out to be. I already mentioned the combat, but the control feels a bit clunky, and jumps feel floaty. Its not that big of an issue though, the control is tolerable. However, the lack of replay value isn't ICO took me a good 9 hours to beat, which is a satisying length, but once you beat the game, there is no reason to ever pick it up again. There is no unlockable artwork, sound test, nothing. I probably won't pick this game up again until years later when I've forgotten most of the puzzles. Bottom line, no game has affected me more than ICO has. It touched me emotionally, and no game has ever done that before. You will be amazed.

When Sonic Unleashed first came out, I thought that it was only for the HD systems and the wii, systems I dind't have at the time, so Sonic Uneashed was another game I could not get because I had outdated systems. It wasn't until a few years later, and I saw some copies of Sonic uleashed for the PS2 on ebay, and I bought it right away. Sonic Unleashed is one of the most talked about in the entire series. Why is this? Well when the trailer was first shown, it showed sonic running through loops at mind bending speeds and such, and it looked like the hedgehog was getting better. but, however, a gimick had to be unleashed, and so we got the werehog, somthing that people call the wrost character ever to play as since Big the Cat. First off, lets start with the story. the story is unintersesting, but still cartoony and fun. Sonic infiltrates DR Eggmans base in space,and turns into super sonic to foil his plans, but Eggman Ctaches him, and ripps the power from the chaos emeralds to release a Power called dark Gaia within the planet. Upon doing this, Sonic turns into a werehog and falls to earth, and meets Chip the Chiwawa, who can't remember who he is, so he goes and helps him try to regain his memory, as well as stop dark gaia and Dr Eggman's plot. like I said, uniteresting, but the staory never takes itself seriously like Shadow and 06. Sonic is back and as cartoony as ever; the way it should be. The game is seperated into two different parts: Daytime, and Nightime. daytime stages have you playing as regular sonic, on your linear path at high speeds. This is incredibly fun. Boosting through enemies and running through fast paced loops is like a roller coaster. They'll have you drifting, quick stepping, and homing attacking to the end, and it's almost always fun. They aren't perfect though. Sonic feels incredibly stiff in this game compared to others. he was obviously meant to control as if you're always going forward. It's incredibly awkward to make sonic turn around, and it's unsatisfying. Basically, if you're not going at super high speeds and instead running into walls and stopping dead, then the fun can dim. but overall, daytime sonic is the whole reason you'd want to play Sonic Unleashed. then the sun goes down, and sonic turns into the werehog. I'll say it right now: No, the nightime levels DO NOT **** ENTIRLEY!!!! The werehog takes away the speed of the game and instead replaces it with button mashing and platforming. These levels have you fighting several enemies and grappling to poles to reach the end. The more you fight, you'll level up and gain more moves, however one move will kil you over and over again: the dash attack. Whenebver you are moving and press the attack button, you will dash forward,and somtimes off a cliff. The werehog can get a bitt reoetetive and boring after sometime. it puts me to sleep sometimes, but they're not horrible. Platforming is here, but its mostly just grappling from pole to pole. However, fighting these guys can be satisfying sometimes if you enjoy chaining together the attacks, although they'll all just die by mashing buttons. Overall, I had a lot of fun with Sonic Unleashed, and I highly reccommened it

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The crash series has lost its luster in recent years. While the Playstation games could have possibly created a rival for sonic and mario, Naughty Dog left, and the PS2 games, while still fun, didn't have what the other crash games had that made them so good. And the last crash game for the ps2, does it live up to what the originals, or does it follow the trend? Well first off, there were no holds barred when representing the bandicoot this time around. Huge amounts of fan service can be found in this game. I mean, tell me, when was the last time you saw N. Brio in a mainstream crash game? That's right. The characetr that 67% percent of you won't remember is in this game. Presentation quality is top notch. The game's graphics look well done, and the greatness excells even further in the writing. What some of the characters have to say in the game are hillarious. Over 8,500 lines in the game, and a majority of them being funny. Cutscenes are animated in several different styles, which is a nice touch, and you can replay them whenevr you like, although you can't replay CG cutscenes for some reason. Voice acting is top notch, and they even had the money to get voice actors from some of the most famous cartoons ever. Tom Kenny who voices Spongebob and Ice King, Richard Horvitz from Invader Zim, and so much more. HOW DO THEY SPARE THE MONEY TO GET TOM KENNY? YOU'D IMAGINE HIM TO BE A BUSY GUY! But however, as fantastic and fan worthy the presentation of the game is, so much was put into it that they forgot to focus on the gameplay, which is what you should be doing. The game is in a full roaming world instead of levels. And once again, crash is redesigned for this game. It's basically a beat em up platformer. The Titan mechanic from last years game has also made a return, although, can I ask why? Sometimes, It feels like the whole game revolves around the titan mechanic

The Sonic Riders Series is a series of racing titles that have been bashed by critics for reasons I don't understand. I've never owned Sonic Riders, but I do have Sonic Riers Zero Gravity, and got it as a gift, and my brother and I enjoyed the heck out of it. In fact, I remember fondly one day, my parents and sister (for some reason) went to New York, and me, my brother and my other sister were left home alone with the Playstation and guess what we played? We had a little petend tournaament with that game, and we loved it to death. Picking it up again was as frsh as it was years ago,and just might be one of the few enjoyable 3D Sonic game on the PS2. The story of the game, I could never rap my head around. It revolves around these metorites that fell to the earth, and soon after, robots from a company called Metotech go on a rampage. Tails finds one of these metorites and plans to investigate it at megelo station. The robots attack him, along with Sonic and Kuckles which eventually lead Sonic falling 300 stories down, but by using the power of the metorite the Tails handed to him, he was able to float. Then some sort of tie-in with the babylon rouges, ancient babyloneans, its all very confusing. Maybe its because I never played the first game, but I could never rap my head around it. Its a dissapointment to see that not a lot was put into the campaign mode. Each level you go through, they come up with some fancy goal in disguise as"just come in fist place". Its not too bad, but there just feels like theres not a lot to do. The campaign is short and sweet, and after I complete the first campaign, I unlock the Babylonean story, where you get to play as the baylon **** amy for some reason. Theres a track in the baylon story that wasnt in the hero story the contains the true ending to the game. The game is short. but it delivers. There are 8 areas in the game, 2 tracks in each area. Each of them are different, and have their own set of short cuts for different types of gear to go through. Each gear has a certain ability on it that you can either equip with rings during a race or youll have it from the get-go. Some gears can fly, some bash through objects, others fly, and some grind. Those are the three ways of a short cut in the game by regular means. You can use the gravity dive to stick to walls, or go on other platforms while doing a trick. The ways you can get to the finish line is quite exlirating and fun. During a race you collect rings that can upgrade your gear during a race. Everything from Speed up, ring sheild, get through certain short cuts, increase GP guage, and Its amazing how many gear you can get in the game. You have no idea how long it took me to get all of the gear in the game. During the race, there is a GP guage at the bottom left the limits how much you can use the gravity powers which come in handy if even your short cuts arent getting you anywhere in a race. You can use the gravity dive and gravity burst. The gravity dive allows you to make tight turns, or stick to some short cut walls. Doing so will give a slight boost of speed. Nothing to special, but a nice touch. The gravity burst allows you to go at maximum speed and the ability to fly in the air to crash into objects to get a HUGE burst of speed! It's quite exhilerating, and using it will decide wheather you loose or win a race. Now beware, the control in this game can throw some off. Its not somthing to pick up and play. During the race you're canstantly being pushed forward, and crashing into a wall is enough to leave you in dust, If you screw up once, you have to get back on track or else YOU WILL loose the race. You have to know what you're doing. It might be bumpy at first, and maybe a bit frustraighting, but give it time and practice, this game can be a blast. But once you do master the games controls, it may become a bit too easy for some players, and all challenge will be lost, becoming a bit boring. That's when survival mode comes in. You can participate in battle, gravity ball or a relay race. They are a nice touch, but gravity ball is again too easy if you master the controls. Battle mode is fun, but again, too easy! However, If you have four friends over you'll have a blast with relay race. In fact, the games boredom is eliminated during multiplayer. It suprisingly serves as a decent party game. The graphics are nice and detailed. I never experience any slowdown at all, no matter how fast the game goes and it just looks great. Although cutscenes could use some work. Voice acting is...decnt. Better than past Sonic games. Jasson Griffith is not completely terrible. Shocker. The soundtrack is great, but while the two main themes are great, theyr easily forgettable. All in all, Sonic Riders Zero Gravity is not a bad game. If youre getting a 3D sonic game, get this one, and save yourself from disasters like Sonic Heroes. If youre willing to give time, you will enjoy this game.

Sitting down to replay this game was bitter sweet, because as a kid, this was one of those games that I spend hours on and had som much stress over, and playing it again to review it didn't help me anymore, so I have come to the conclusion that Sonic Heroes ****. It's no wonder the series took a downhill turn after this game. The plot is non exsistnent, the contorls constantly lead me into bottomless pits, but most of all, it just isn't fun. This game has to have the 2nd most dumbest plot in any sonic game next to Sonic R, so I won't go into it much because I have a limited amount of what I get to type, but it is so dumbed down compared to Sonic Adventure 2, a game that came out 2 years ago. I get it's a kids game, but this is just stupid. Immediatley as I start the game, I run into a problem because the menu button for select has been switch to the japanese version, so if you press X when you meant to select something, you're sent back to the title screen. Turns out you were supposed to press the O button. Thanks Sega. Thanks for making one of the most simplest things in a game stressful. There are 4 teams to select from: Team Sonic, Dark, Rose and Chaotix. The only difference between Team Sonic and Dark is that Team Dark is the Hardest. Team Rose has got to be one of the most easiest team...almost insultingly easy, then team cahotix has a mission based style gameplay. Team Sonic is what you would excpect from a 3D Sonic game...except it ****. Control in this game is out of whack, and team sonic shows this to you full force. Everysingle formation has some sort of control issue. Sonic's control is so loose that sometimes, even landing on a platform below is enough to make sonic run off of it for no reason. And I'm only slightly touching to analog stick. Whenever I'm trying to get into a straight line, the control is so twitchy, it's almost uncontrollable. Sometimes, doing the light speed dash is enough to cause you to fall off a ledge. Shadow's control in Shadow the Hedgehog was better than this. Yeah, I said it. Shadow's control was someting you can get used to, but here, there are so many bottomless pits, I never get the time to! And for some reason, whenever I'm on a grind especially in rail canyon, I go slower, even though i am cleary holding down the button. Power formation suffers from the same problem: You will constantly fall down pits. Whenever ypou attack, the power character is propelled forward, so sometimes, I find it incredibally difficult to just get straight and attack the enemy I want to attack. And why is it that I need to press the attack button 4 time in a row to get the triangle dive working while I'm on a fan? Just wondering SEGA. Flight formation is a different story. Whenever you abruptly go to the flight formation, you will bounce up about 2 feet. Say that you really need to get to a ledge quickly, and you need to jump as high as you can before flying,but since you're already up in the air and you try to jump, you'll fly. You try to cross the ledge, but you don't have enough air time left to get to the other side, but you can't fly back either, so you might as well just kill yourself! The Thunder shoot is also hard to aim with sometimes. It's not to bad, but still, I need a targeting system. These problems are also prezsent in Team dark, except they're worse because the game is even harder. Team Rose and Chaotix are a different story. Since Amy Isn't going as fast and she has no Light speed dash, she controls much better than Sonic and Shadow. Big also is much better; since he isn't being constantly pro[elled forward everytime he attacks, It becomes easier to attack. All flight formations suffer from the same problem. The only problem with this team is that it is incredibly boring and easy and short. Playing as amy is more fun than playing as ****, that's just sad. Team Chaotix has mission base style gameplay, so you dont just go to the end and win. You have to complete a certain objective first. It's incredibly annoying when you miss one simple COMPUTER CHIP AND HAVE TO REPLAY THE WHOLE LEVEL JUST TO FIND IT! But it's not too bad. Better than Shadow the Hedgehog I'll tell you that. Team Chaotix is the best team. Sonic Heroes is a waste ****. When a game makes navigating the menus annoying, you know somethings wrong. Irritating voice acting, forgettabe music, bad controls,(the graphics are okay...) BOTTOMLESS PITS, anoyingly long levels, (Bingo Highway will break you) Impossible to control special stages, (You will constantly be pulled to the bottom of the pipe and just randomly stop dead) amd cheap deaths galore, I can't bring myself to enjoy Sonic Heroes. If you can get past the controls and camera (BTW, if you press the right analog stick, you will go into a fist person view point and have to move to get out of), then Sonic Heroes may be decent, but you might as well not try. Do yourself a favor, and don't buy Sonic Heroes

Playing Crash Twinsanity was a bitter sweet experience for me. I saw a preview for it on a Sonic X VHS and, being the Crash fan that I am, I wanted it so bad. But chance upon chance, I missed every single oppertunity to buy the game. Then I finally got it years later. Playing this game is a love it or hate it situation. There are a lot of problems in the game the bog it down and it is understandable why you would hate it, but down to the core gameplay, It's just plain fun. Twinsanity is the first game in the Crash series that seperates from it's roots. Up to now, Crash has been doing the same thing over and over again, so this is a breath of fresh air. Unlike...that abomination known as Crash Nitro Kart. The story revolves around Two evils creatures known as the Evil Twins trying to destroy the world for some reason that is dicovered later on. Crash and Cortex team up to fight these two and save their world. The story within itself is fine, but it's progression is just stupid. The appearence of The Evil Twins is just completely random and it just throws the player off guard. These two random characters pop out of nowhere and just start torturing Crash and Cortex and we have no idea why, and there are consistant plotholes, but nothing too big. This has got to be the most cartoony Crash game I have ever played in my entire life The whole world feels like a playable cartoon, and the music ****...different from the rest of the series...I'm glad that they just didn't take the Crash Warped theme and sticked it onto this like every other game before it. It's different and even catchy, but it can get annoying and the boss music is the best out of all! I can't exactly escribe it. You really have tpo hear it to see how different the music is. The graphics are indeed Crash Bandicoot. This is the one Crash bandicoot game I have played that has come oh so close to the presentation that the original Crash Bandicoot had. Lushoious, 3-D enviorments keep the game's cartoony charm, and with a wide variety of places to explore, it's hard not to appreciate the game's presentation. The game is open world, so It's different from the past Crash bandicoot games. While it's supposed to be open world, I feel like I can't go whereever I want for some reason. The world is large and there are 4 individual worlds to explore each with 5 places inside them, making the world large, but I still feel restricted. Now to the gameplay. This is definetley a mix bag. First off let's talk about one thing that you will encounter countless times: Cheap Death. The game comes up with as many cheap ways for you to die as possible, and since life boxes do not respawn, the only way to regain lives are by collecting wumpa fruit. Why are there cheap deaths? 3 reasons the could have been obviously fixed by TRaveler's Tales: 1. Nitros kill you in one hit. In every other Crash game, the nitro could only kill you if you didn't have Aku Aku, but in this game, an explosion of any kind IS GOING TO KILL YOU!!! EVEN IF YOU'RE INVINCIBLE, THE NITROS WILL KILL YOU!!!! WHY THE SUDDEN CHANGE? IS THIS TO RAISE THE AMOUNT OF DIFFICULTY THE GAME HAS? WELL IT'S NOT WORKING!! THIS COMES OFF AS CHEAP! AND TRUST ME, YOU WILL DIE BECAUSE OF THESE THINGS, WETHER THEY BE HIDDEN OR YOU'RE RUNNING AWAY FROM A BUS AND YOU FORGOT TO HIT A CRATE HAT WOULD'VE DESTROYED THEM BEFOREHAND, THERE IS NO ESCAPE!!! 2. Glitches. Everything from Aku Aku not appearing to ammo boxes not responing to falling off a cliff thats too high WHICH HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN A CRASH GAME BEFORE, FROM PHASING INTO A WALL TO just touching a charcater, everything is here. 3. Camera. The camer can seriously screw you up in platforming sections because it views you at awkward angles making you unable to see your shadow, and some platforms won't cast your shadow which is a must in platforming! Sometimes the camera will spaz out on you, and you'll run into A NITRO AND FREAKING DIE ANOTHER CHEAP DEATH!!! I MEAN...JUST...FDSCGESRAKHFVGSUHYFUHGSSGUJNHFCU ****...I'm good now... at certain times, you can control Nina and Cortex. Cortex is just pathetic. He just mostly consitis of poor shooting sections and you can't even jump over boxes with him. Plus, you only get to play as him twice. They must've knew he ****, since most of the game you'll be playing as crash. Nina is actually fun. They try to put her in platforming scetions, and they do it quite well. Sometimes, you'll controll both crash and cortex. This works, as well as the snowboarding section, although the control is ridiculouly awkward. I found myself in the air trying to turn, but i just rotate and NITRO BOXES KILL ME AGAIN!!! Wuth all of these problems, the best part is the core itself. All of these problems are small and if you can except the game for what it is, **** be a good game. I give it a 7.5

Sonic Advance 3 was the first Sonic game I ever got on the GBA, and it just might be the best one I ever got too. A perfect combonation of speed, platforming, and design, Sonic Advance 3 is the one game that you should have if you have a GBA. The story of this game is pointless. It's just an excuse to run around and beat up robots. Dr. Eggman has taken the master emerald and used it to break the world into 7 different parts, leaving Sonic and Tails seperated from everyone else. Now Sonic has to find his friends and stop Eggman once again. It's not important, but what I find cool is that Eggman to Emerl from Sonic Battle and turned him into Gemerl, an evil rovot who works for him. The game looks great from head to toe. colorful, dteailed enviorments and great looking sprites add to the games charm. Add nice music large levels, clever design and chao to look for, and you've got yourself a level. Unlike the other two installments in the Advance series, this one has the best balance of speed and platforming, so you never feel like you're only enjoying one part of the Sonic magic. A total of 7 world, 3 acts and a boss in each one makes for a decent lasting game. The biggest change is that you can choose a partner to help you out in the level, and for once the character isn't useless. In fact, it determines how you play. Depending on what different combonation of characters you play as determines your attacks, tag team move, jumping, speed and the ability to break certain walls it adds depth into the levels and with differemt characters, you can do different things to help you to get to Chao... and that's my only complaint. The chao. To get into a special stage you need to collect 10 chao in a world, then find a key hidden in one of the stages, then go back to the hub world, find the special stage spring and do the special stage to win. The chao are hidden in the most complicated of spots. You have to search EVERYWHERE if you want to find the chao. This is annoying, and I find myself replaying levels 17 times just to look for that last chao that I need, then going back into the same stage to find a key and then searching the hub world for the spring, and if I loose the special stage, I have to find another key! AAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!!! This take away from the fun of speed in the game, so now you'll just be slowly platforming. I don't want to hunt for chao in a sonic game, I just want to blast through as sonic. ughh..... another problem with this game is that when you turn off your syestem, any lives that you had before will automatically go back down to three, so if you had 10000000000 lives, and your battery dies, you'll go straight back to 3 lives. Also, only 9 lives are displayed at one time, so if you have 29 lives, you won't know because it only shows 9. Great... well the good thing is that these were the only bad thing I had to say about this game. The special stages are fun (but getting to them is a pain), the boss battles are extremely creative, as well for the regular levels. The character combo sytem is a nice touch and over all, this game is a must have for GBA users. I don't understand why you're still reading this when you could be playing Sonic Advance 3.

There are few games that come around like Portal 2. A genius mechanic comes to an amazing mind, and is used the best ways one could. The people at Valve have created a game that topped any game I have ever played before in my entire life. The writing, graphics, gameplay, story, presentation, voice acting, lasting appeal and replay value; Portal 2 is a gem. A priceless gem. I just want to get this out there. We've all thought up of the idea of Portal befrore. Don't try to hide it. We've seen it on TV, thought about and made it funny when we were in 2nd grade, and it HAS been seen on shows like Looney Toons and Ed, Edd, n' Eddy. But none of us had put the concept into action. So when Valve did some observing, it hit them, and they created one of the greatest games ever made. Valve knows how to make a sequel. Other game deveelopers just decide to take the formula, and slap it onto the next game. But Portal does more than that. They added a beeter story, prettier graphics, and even made it funny. Valve knows how to make us feel good. They added Wheatley, one of the greatest characters ever to be apart of a video game. He is voiced excellently by british funny man Stephen Merchant, and I can't get enough of him. Sure, GLaDOS has some lines too, but Whetaley ultimatley steals the show. The classic portal gun is back, but 3 new mecahanics freshen up the experience. This time, there are 3 different gels to mess around with and help you finish the test chamber. The blue gell makes you bounce, the orange gell makes you speedy so you can fly off rails, and white gell allows you to shoot portals on previously portal resistant sufaces. Top that with excellent design an amazing difficulty curve and countless suprises in the chambers, you can't help but admire the beauty in it all. Since the events of Portal 1, aoerture science has been abandoned for decades, and there are a lot of green plants growing everywhere. GLaDOS will be moving panels, and tryong to clean the place up, and what she will do to try and kill you is unpredictable. You will not only hear GLaDOS and Wheatley throughout though. Even the narrator in aperture has things to say to you. The narrator is not always the same voice. I could be some one random, or it could be Cave Johnson, the founder of aperture himself. The variety is quit welcome. The puzzels themselves can have you thinking a lot. It's not trail and error here. It might look real hard at first, but yoiu'll never feel left behind because the difficulty increases at a steady rate throughout. The single player campagin can last about 5-7 hours, depending weather or not you rush. Then there's Co-Op. If you're friend is a socially stubborn ****, nothing will work out here. If someone just decides to stand in the corner and do nothing after an argument, you can't do anything. You HAVE to get along with your partner. It will take you thinking, team-work and trust to get through each chamber, and while it might stress you out sometimes, as the difficulty is tuned up, it is just as great as the campagin. Speaking of goin g through test chambers, that's the game's one problem. The loading screens pop up after every test chamber, change of enviorment and somtimes cutscene. They aren't too long, but they pop up frquenly, especially in the begining. But that won't stop Portal 2 from being one of the best games I've ever played in my entire life. It is so inventive and genius, you'll think about it for days. I don't understand why you're still reading this review. Go out and but Portal 2 NOW!!! You won't regret it.

I am a huge namco fan. When I was six years old, I got my first Pac-man game, Pac-Man World (1). Played it, loved it. Years passed, and I missed the chance to get the other three Pac-man World games, but then Pac-Man Power Pack came out, and I gave it a whirl. While none of the other Pac-Man games will live up to the original, I found Pac-Man World 2 to be enjoyable. Pac-man World 2's story is as such: The ghosts have unleashed an ancient evil ghost known as Spooky by removing 5 golden fruit from the tree where Spooky was imprisoned. Spooky tells them that he will help them destroy Pac-Land, and so Pac-man goes out to stop them. It's a Pac-man game people! It's not supposed to have a deep plot, but it works for such a light-hearted game. The first thing you'll realize is that the graphics are pretty good. Bright, colorful, pleasing to the eye, it's Pac-Man. It's good that namco didn't stray too far away from that. The stages are well designed. They are challenging, and fun to play. Take B doing woods. Whenever you bounce on a B doing pad, it IS A BLAST!!! Combin it with careful platforming, catchy music, and solid controls make playing the game worth while. This game has a lot of replay value. If you want to get 100%, you'll have to eat every Pac-Dot, fruit, complete every maze, time trail, and collect all of the namco coins. It will last you hours. But the reason for this is how difficult it is to get them all. I'm not sure if this is a gltich or not, but there is a glitch if you go back into a level to get anything you miss and collect EVERYTHING in a level, but miss 1 simple fruit, your progression for the level will stay the same. Glitch or not, this is stupid!!!! The stages are challenging enough, why do I have to do everything picture perfect or else they just forget everything?!!!! The game gets even more frustrating due to that ****'s so **** will murder your family at **** menacing camera. Ok, menecing might not be the right word, more like stubborn. It's as if the camera is a solid object. If there is an object blocking it, it WIIL NOT move, not matter how hard you try. Say you're jumping from platform to platform. You miss somthing. If you try to go back, the camer will screw up on you all the way to the pit you fall down. Sometimes, the camera just won't move. Go ahead. Try to look around. You'll most likely end up dying in a firey pit of cheap death, and then the camer will move on to it's next victim. Then there are the mazes, which are completely pointless. They're nowhere nearly as inventive as PMW1's mazes. They just rip off the first Pac-man. It's a waste of your time. Also, the difficulty boosts up later on in the game. Sure, this is normal for platformers, but this is just stupid. Compare Crash bandicoot 1's difficulty curve. It was even and balanced. PMW2's is so horrificaly hard that it took me a whole hour to finish the 2nd last level. A WHOLE HOUR! WTF! You will scream! You will feel like you want to kill yourself and you will DIE!!!! But eneough of the negatives. This game has several aracade games that you can play. The original Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack, Ms. Pac-man. They all work and are fun. However, you don't get any options to these games, and to unlock them, you need to get so mant of those freaking namco coins which are so hard to GET! UGGHH! Bosses work, but not alaways. WHY? THE DIFFICULY!!! THE CAMERA!!!! THE IRRITATING WAYS TO HIT THE BOSS!!! THE INSANE AMOUNT OF ENEMIES COMING AT YOU!!!! The earlier bosses do have some fun to them. They have a REASONABLE difficulty, and they're fun. But after the snowy mountain **** CAN'T I JUST HIT YOU WITHOUT BEING THROWN OF THE MAP BY YOUR FIRBALL? UGHHHH! When the game is not blisteringly difficult, the game is at its finest. Careful Platforming, solid controls, fun collecting, when it works, its like playing the original Pac-man back in 1980. However, it doesn't always work with IT'S CAMERA!!!!! or let alone THE DIFFICULTY!!!! or the THAT STUPID COLLECTING GLITCH!!!!(?) AND THE FACT that i get thrown off the map because clyde threw a firball at me!!! ughhh! WHY NAMC, WHY?!!!! THIS IS A KID'S GAME! WHY MAKE IT SO DIFFICULT THAT IT WILL LEAD TO KIDS BECOMING SUICIDAL!!! UGHHHH!!! The worst part is is that this game just doesn't feel like the first Pac-Man World which I came to love. Completionalists will blow their brains out, but those Pac-Man fans whoose main reason to play this game is to get to point A to point B and be done, you should buy **** no... not you... not the **** down that knife.... AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

OK, so I am re-reviewing this because I just didn't like the first review of the game I did. It was rushed, and I was just wrong about it. But I won't say anyything about that anymore. Let's move on. It undeniable how popular Shadow the Hedgehog has **** a character. He is emo, a nega version of Sonic, and he is just flat out cool. But what about his game? Those of you who had played Sonic Adventure 2 and enjoyed it will probably appreciate this one too, at points anyway. The opening cutscene and music in it is phenominal. SEGA has always excelled in opening cutscenes, and Shadow the Hedgehog is no exception. It pumps you up for the action you're about to face. While its not as good as Sonic Unleashed's opening, the main theme of the song, "I Am", Phenominal. The best song in any Sonic game, I don't care what anyone says. Then you start out the game with another cutscene that begins the game with Shadow having no recollection of his past, only remebering Maria and his **** how to breathe, and talk, and walk, and run, and thank god he hasn't forgotten how to be awesome. Then aleins attck Westopolis, and the leader of the aleins, Black Doom, tells Shadow that he knows him and to "find the seven chaos emeralds and bring them to me, as promised." What happends next is up to you. You enter the level with 3 objectives, each revolving around good, evil, or neutral. Depending on what missions you do determines what level and storry route you will take, encouraging players to play the game multiple times to unlock all of the endings in all of the levels. It's crazy fun to determine the fate of the planet and choose your route. There are ten possible endindgs and to see how Shadow treats the other characters is just plain fun. But what you have to do to get them is where everything goes downhill. The first level in the game, both evil and good missions are exactly the same: kill all of the enemies, except what mission you're doing, you have to defeat either the aleins (good) or GUN soldiers (evil). EVERY SINGLE ENEMY! The first time I played the first level, I wanted to kill all of the GUN soldiers, but then, I used chaos control. The chaos abilities in the game were, indeed, a dissapointment. First off, Chaos blast doesn't have a very good range, and it will be much more fun if you just home attack them. Second, chaos control has got to be the worst move EVER in the whole series. OK, mabey not if you're doing a neutral mission, which just requires you to get to the end every time, but if you are doing a good or evil mission, you have to take your time, and find and/or kill everything, but chaos control blasts you through the stage which means you missed some of your objectives which means you have to back track. I don't have a HUGE problem with this, but you don't really know WHERE you missed your objective and somtimes, you'll be forced to start over, and in doing so, you also get a lower chance of an A rank. It took me 15 minutes just to kill all of the enemies in the first level, and if you use chaos control near the end of the level, you will just go straight to the goal ring and there is now way to stop chaos control in mid air, you will accidentalyend up doing a neutral mission instead of the one you wanted to do. Also, the melle attack is completely useless. Shadow already has the homing attack. Why does he need to use his fists? And why does he need to use vehicles if he moves faster than them in the first place? UGHHH! However, if the next thing in the game weren't present, I wouldve hated it: The level design. Sure, the first level and some others are too simple and require you to go slow, but stage like Lethal Highway, Carnival Park, Final Haunt and some others were just made for running around; FAST. When Shadow goes fast, it is fun, although he is a bit slippery. The level: They're big; and theres lots of them. There are some framrate issues, but nothing to big, except for mabey in levels like The Doom and Lost Impact. The guns in the game are just...well...guns...nothing specilal. The bazookas are worthless as you can bar;ey aim with them, not a lot to be said here. The in-game cutscenes are attrocious. There's NO being nice on this one. It is as blocky as Minecraft (although Minecraft looks a whole lot better), and for some reason, it take several loading screens to load a cutscen. 10-15 seconds, a cutscene loads, and no matter how long it is, it will always take the same amount of time, and more time to load a level. This is true in the begining of the game and in the last story. Also, some of the endings of the game are unstatisfactory. There are like 3 or 4 i which Shadow just concludes that he is the most awesomest Hedgehog in the world and others, he literaly KILLS Eggman...okay then... Shadow the Hedgehog won't blow your mind, but it is worth buying it used from GameStop. The missions lack in variety, not enugh bosses, chaos powers ****, t

I got Sonic Colors as a gift, and the game is nothing short of a dissappiontment. Sadly, all of the other critics out there are totally wrong about this game. Its not the best Sonic game to come out in years, but it DOES manage to be a better game then Sonic 06. First of, lets talk about speed people. This game is, indeed, a fast Sonic game, as a sonic game should be. But unlike the daytime stages of Sonic Unleashed, nothing feels spectacular or special about this speed. I just didn't get that feeling of adreniline. The only direction you'll be going in this game is right. You'll be holding down right the whole way through. The game just holds your hand frokm point A to point B. Regular stages are as simple as simple can be. As you progress through the game, you'll receive more wisps and powers to use whenever you find one. But going back to another level just to see what else it offers has little reward. You will get to find some sort of red star, but you need to find all of them through the whole game if you want to get a cheat for unlimited boost. By that time, you've probably already beat the game, and there is no purpose in going back. If you do get a wisp power to explore another area in the game, it will lead you on the same destinated path if you never found the wisp in mere seconds. This completely eliminates the joy of exploration in Sonic Colors. But however, what IS good about this game are the missions that appear throughout the game, 3 in each world. All of these are excelently designed. Instead of having a simple goal as just point A-to-B traveling, It will give you an objective, like get a certain amount of rings, clear the stage in a certain amount of time while collecting boxes the give you more time, defeating enemies, etc. Now I know what you're thinking: "Wait, if you don't like the levels to begin with, then why do you like them if they just give you an objective?" Remeber, adrenaline rush is absent in the regular levels. But these actually have challenge. You need to do the mission orderly well to pass. Its not terribly difficult, and you can pass it with effort. Its a terrific difficulty curve that this game needs. The missions are the only spots in the game that feature any real challenge, all the rest are just boost boost boost and win win win. The boss battles are great, but are still pretty easy. I felt like I had to challenge myself just to make it fun, which IU shouldn't have to do. The boss fights in which you are chasing after a ship are the best boss fights ever in a sonic game that I never thought I would be playing. The length of the game is fairly short. The level design is actually pretty good and fun, but you zoom by it so fast, its hard to recognize it. Sweet Mountain is tremendoulsy boring and irritating. The fireball wisp is incredinly hard to control, and the music in the stage is just plain horrible, and the boss fight is completely cliche'. But the missions with Blaze and Silver are fun. After you beat the game for the first time, theres no reason to pick it up again, unless you decide to try and get all S rank, but guess what? There's no expert mode this time around. Usually, whenever you get all S rank, there is an expert mode to pplay, but you don't get it this time. The two final boss fights aren't anything special. Sure, they might have SOME fun, like Sonic in Super Sonic form charging at Mother Wisp while avoiding red balls of fire. But The Terminal boss fight is nothing special. It goes by way to fast for a final battle and it is simple. Too simple. The special stages aren't anything special either. They are simple as well. Collect the orbs...sigh... Other Sonic games have you runnig through loops and have you having so much fun doing the platforming in the middle of the game while getting to the end. But in Sonic Colors, getting to the end is the entire point!!!! It goes by way too fast, and it is just a hold-down-right-and-hold-down-the-boost-button fest that lacks anything truly rewarding. You will have some fun times running around SOMETIMES, like when a dinasaur head is after you, but you can't survive without the boost. I can describe Sonic Colors 3 words: Right, Boost, Repeat. The missions and bosses are fun, and the music is impressive (ecept for Sweet Montain), and Sonic is fast for once, but in this case, that isn't very good. This game took me about 8 hours to beat. If you take your time and not boost a lot, you'll have more fun, but this will usually lead to sections when SEGA thought you were going to boost, and you just run into enemies going down that ramp. It's not comp[letely awful, in fact, the speed somtimes works, but this is only in the begginning. When you've gotten used to it, extra wisps will only worsen the experience. If you just want a game that will kill 6-8 hours, then you should give this a try. It's not pain ful, it's just too simple. Everyone else should pick up a Genesis game.

Imagine what would happen if a bad Jak and daxter game were made? Imagine if Naughty Dog just completely screwed up? What if the next Jak game **** beyond belief? Well, we'll just have to wait for that day and hope it never comes, because Jak 3 is here, and it couldn't be better. Taking place after the events of jak 2, Jak and Daxter are sent into the waistland after Haven discovers that the metal heads have survived and the palace has fallen. Everyone blames Jak for this, and they leave him and Daxter out to die. They almost do, but then they find Spargus city. That's where Jak 3 unfolds. You then take on the role as Jak and do crazy fun missions. Whether they be platforming, driving or shooting, the missions in Jak 3 are designed amazingly. It's fun. Really fun. Extreamely fun. Each misiion is varied in several differant ways. You'll barley feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. If you ARE doing a mission that was the same as one before, you'll most likely not have a problem with it because it was flat out fun to begin with (with the exception of a mission in which you're in a car collecting artifacts...boring). You'll travel through the sewer sometimes, but you'll only be able to travel through them section by section through each part of the game,so that barely counts as rehashing it. Speaking of sewers, these sections are a blast!!! It is specificaly made for platforming, and Jak 3 suceeds. It comes up with the most unique mechanics that are just so much fun. Sometimes, they go to use the clkassic aproach too. In one mission, it is a challenging, overhead shooter beat-em-up that I played over and over and over again because it was just plain fun. But don't get me wrong, the game has its problems: The game begins slow and unbalanced, especially for those who haven't played the first two games. Also, the plot isn't presented very well. It's told in bits and peices throughout cutscenes. The plot isn't really worth mentioning until the end, which I won't spoil. Also, the game expects you to play out each mission perfectly for some reason. Just hitting a rock is enough to cause your car to just tip over, leaving you strugling to get back up, leaving you dead last in a race with little hope of catching up. This is especially true during the first race, where it is difficult to win. In addition to Dark Jak, this game now introduces light Jak, a Jak that uses light eco instead of dark. Light Jak is used for defensive manuvers, and each one works well.They never go to waste, except for the light sheild. It's useless, since you could just use light regeneration to get all of your health back. And yes: The option to buy cheats is back and better than ever. Everything from gun upgrades to the classic Big Head Mode, you'll have crazy fun with this one. The graphics in this game are flat out amazing compared to the previous installments. It features the best framerate ever, cutscenes are crisp and clear, and its just a treat. This game has got to be one of the best PS2 games ever made. If you see it on shelves in a drug store where they keep 1000 year old games for some reason or you find the Jak and Daxter HD collection, DON'T LET IT PASS YOU BY. IF YOU DON'T BUY THIS GAME,THEN YOU MUST HATE **** puppies

Remember back in the day when all we young whiper snappers used to sit down in front of our Genesis and just play some good old fashioned sonic the hedeghog? I know i do. But now with that 3-D crap, sonic just isn't what he used to be. But don't you just miss him? Do you cry at night because of it? Than today's your day. Sonic Mega Collection Plus is your game. You can't ask for a better Sonic collection (Except for mabey Gems collection. Sonic CD anyone?) for 20 bucks. Sonic Mega Plus contains all of the games that the original Mega Collection did. Insread this time, they added a few more Game-Gear games to the mix. I guess if they wanted to sell another Sonic collection, just add MORE games, and call it plus. Sure, why not? We don't mind. The Collection contains the following instantly: Sonic the Hedgehog (No, not the crappy sonic 06. Thank Jesus.), Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Spinball, DR. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Sonic the Hedgehog (Gamegear). Sonic Chaos (GameGear), Sonic Drift(Gamegear), Sonic Labyrinth(Gamegear), Sonic Blast(Gamegear) and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (Gamegear). That's 13 games. But the fun doesn't stop there. You can also unlock Knuckles in Sonic 2, Blue Sphere, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Ristar, Ooze, and Flicky. That's a lot of games for just 20 bucks. I just find it a bit ridiculous that You have to play a certain game a certain amount of times before unlocking the other games. For example, to unlock Knuckles in Sonic 2, you have enter Sonic and Knuckles and Sonic 2 about 30 times. This doesn't mean that you have to literaly play the game, just get to the screen where the game starts, turn off, repeat. Its repetitive and boring. If you like the game the first time around, chances are you probably like them again. They haven't dated much, especially Sonic 2, which remains a timless classic. If you didn't like themm, however, theres little chance you'll like them now. Sonic 3D Blast is still as bland as bland can be. Mabey it foreshadowed Sonic's future with 3D. Not a lot of changes have been made for the game either, except for some graphical improvements. Also, if you play the game (or just leave it at the pause screen) for 3 hours, you can unlock hints for the games, which are actualy cheats. Fun cheats. Debug cheats. These cheats are fun. Crazy fun. Extremely fun, and it'll just be a blast for those who just love to screw around with the game. Also, the game gives you several extras. You can view movies from Sonic Heroes (Why?), view chracter art work from other games, and even read some of Sonic's first comic book installments. Trying to find a rare issue #1 of Sonic the Hedgehog? It all virtually in here. It even has character profiles. SWEET! Any Sonic fanboy (or girl) would go nuts over this. Now take heed, there are some bad games in this collection. Sonic Drift and Labyrinth for some, and the addition of blue sphere is completely worthless. But that won't stop you from getting this sonic collection. If you see it on shelf, give it a shot.