AndrewTS

Reasons the SVR games blow: -AI is one, natch -horrid online play -terrible rosters -emphasis of presentation over gameplay -broken attribute system -CAW mode getting crappier each game. -SVR's 1 bright spot, the story mode, was ruined in 2006. -Controls are sloppy and detection is poor; attempts at running/diving moves leave you flopping all over the place when they're crisper and more accurate in Rumble Roses PS2 -They never, ever, ever fix the clipping. -Meters, meters meters for everything. The submission system sucks (and there's a tweaked version every game!) -Toe Kick is just about the only striking attack that matters, and most matches hinge on who hits their Toe Kick first. Toe Kick at the right time = match end. -The AKI games are a million times better. And honestly Rumble Roses on PS2 has a much tighter engine (although the graphics come at the expense of characters on screen). If 2007 basically used the same engine with more moves, we'd have a better product IMO. Then again, Yukes screwed up the sequel, so maybe they just got lucky.

Because frankly VP deserves its own thread, and 1up just posted a new preview. Since 1up pages hate you if you don't use Firefox, here's the text: From an earlier preview: the gameplay--

They should have released a super-uncut version with more scenes and more gore added in, just to cash in. With a super-secret ending where Dana is doing crack.

The Wicker Man was a really weird remake. Huge portions of the script are recycled, but the major premise behind the islands' pagan inhabitants are really screwed up and quickly become painfully obvious. The hallucinations were an awful attempt to get more "horror" jumps and scares out of what was originally a slow-building film. I liked Nic's performance, but the way the character was written--actually one way then the next scene going all insane and kicking ass was strange. The tacked-on "wrap up" scene was terrible. Of course, it was going to come out a loser anyway. The original movie had Christopher Lee and hotter women (with nudity).

It wasn't so much the violence, but also the slightly risque nature (OMG women in nighties!) too. Night Trap was a major sham in every way (especially as a game), so I don't see why that's so shocking. Night Trap was picked up as "that other game" to alarm parents and senators, because they didn't want to let the truth be known it was MK and MK alone they were going after. Thus they pretended that much more people knew and cared about Night Trap than actually did.

What an exhaustive analysis. Valkyrie Profile is excellent. The art and character designs are fantastic (although some of them draw on some obvious influences), the music is grand, and the gameplay is sweetness. The writing is very well done, and I actually enjoy all the cutscenes. Gameplay works like this: dungeons are essentially 2D sidescrolling, but with multiple background layers, doorways that travel into and away from the screen to go to different rooms, and higher and lower levels that you can jump to like a platformer, and you even can slide under low areas. Enemies in the field are visable instead of you having to fight random battles. Enemies can also be zapped in the field to stun/detain them. You can attack enemies first to gain an advantage, as well. If this sounds a little familiar, it should. In the field the game bears a lot of similarity to the Paper Mario games, except with wicked-good art and more mature storylines/characters. When you enter a battle, your partner characters appear, and they can essentially attack in real time--no turn-taking necessary. You can hit a pair of buttons at a time (or more) to gang up on an enemy and do wicked combos, or attack one enemy at a time. You can also activate special attacks where you'll dish out tons more damage. I don't know if I'd say it's worth 150 bucks+ (I haven't finished the game), but it's one of the best RPGs on the original PS1, and if you like RPGs at all it's an excellent reason to nab a PSP (or get a 2ndhand one, as I expect the prices on those to drop bigtime when the redesigns come in). The fact that X___g____ got a re-release on PS1 and it took this long to get a Valkyrie Profile re-release is a sin and a shame.

THQ: buuut...but.. sales of SD series >>>>>> DOR series. Plus it saves on costs I'm sure. I'm not terribly saddened because I thought DOR 2 just slightly above mediocre, although that put it far above SvR2006, which was lame. The N64 titles still beat anything released Stateside.

I was surprised to find out that Jurassic Park on Genesis has still held up really well. Played it over friend's yesterday, and ended up playing through most of the game. The raptor's game is more fun than Grant's, though. The raptor has an insane vertical leap--like, almost two full screens, *and* he can grab onto ledges, do a regular jump on enemies to kill them, eat little dinos, and rip you apart with a short range pounce and claw melee attack. Also played Castlevania Bloodlines--an incredibly underrated entry in the series. Like Super Castlevania, it's much easier than the NES games (and has adjustable difficulty; on the easy setting most of the game is a breeze). I was pressing Anya to try it easy--and she was worried about the difficulty. On easy, it's like SotN easy almost, with my first death coming on stage 3 thanks to a damn merman's cheap shot. Lecarde rocks, too, with the spear having great range and allowing him to vault to higher ledges. We played cooperative Golden Ax. Beat the game, too. Regular attack sucks, jumping attack owns nearly all. Liked the fire-breathing lizards, but the game isn't nearly as good as Final Fight, and isn't even close to SoR2. X-Men is hard but surprisingly very good. Jean rescues you from those annoying instant-death pits, there's levels where you actually travel into the background for hidden items, and the graphics and control are really good. My friend did have a bit of a problem, though, because when he dug out his old Genesis so we could play the games, his regular controller didn't work. I was fine because I had brought over my faithful 6 button...but he had to resort to...the Turbo Touch 360. What a piece of crap that thing was. Well, despite bad/inaccurate dpad controls and a spongy C button, we made due. Oh, Treasure sucks now. Making Gunstar Super Heroes 1-player ruined it. The original kills it in like a million different ways. Naturally, we did 2P coop on that. I'd began a new game of Castlevania Aria of Sorrow. I was trying to speed through the game, leveling up as little as possible--and I was doing really well until I hit the brick wall that was Death. Thankfully, a Giant Ghost Soul, plenty of positions and mind ups later, I finally beat the SOB, and at Level 26 too. Then knocked off Legion at level 28. However, it takes more *patience* than anything else. Oh crap tho--I have to fight Balore soon... Contra Speed Run- not tool assisted either, unless you count spread gun : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbPO6Kj10e4

Yeah, no DOR3 right now. It was said since SvR07 is going "multi-platform" there's not going to be any more platform-specific titles (at least for right now). So unless they announce SvR07 for GC, that's it. No DOR3. Also there's been no announced WWii titles either. There's a *rumor* that there's a Wii version of SvR07 on the way: http://gonintendo.com/?p=4989

Yes. The focus group is Vince and a 12-year-old gamefaqs poster with Cheetos powder permanently stuck his fingers. I can't muster much to care about this game. The gameplay keeps getting worse, the online play gets exponentially worse (one would hope XBL will make all the difference in that version, though), and while production values tend to get top billing over improving the gameplay, there's still rampant laziness in the finished product. I guarantee you the final game will have clipping issues.

Time to completion in hours:minutes?

So Disgaea 2 is so easy you don't have to do hardly any fighting to finish the game?

... I was wondering this too. But the answer is obvious. Flik is a witch.

That's just the way console RPGs were; probably the extensive cost of localization, plus trying to make the most money out of the games when at the time it was an extremely niche market for RPGs. After all, Final Fantasy "2", "3", Chrono Trigger, and even Super Mario RPG were all hella-expensive when they were released. And don't pretend the silliness of FFX-2 was limited to the first 10 minutes.

True, it's not bad, and I got it too. But then I had to go put Star Fox back into my SNES, and now I'm thinking "Why the hell can't we have another one of these today?" It's shockingly still playable despite the dinosaurian frame rate and flat-shaded polys. Plus, since you're on a track, you don't suffer from the disorientation that other early 3D games with weak framerates suffer from.

Yeah, but as I said, likely *something* called Assassin's Creed will be on Wii, but I hope it isn't crap. I'd bet your sweet ass that the new Prince of Persia game being announced for Wii doesn't mean it's exclusive, either. Likely that's the first version that'll be revealed and they'll downplay talk of any other versions. I thought the almost nil gameplay of Ep. I, plus the crappiness of II would be considering a greater insult. The T rating is a *desperate* attempt to hope more people buy it, because on paper you can see a lot of 13-16 year olds getting it when otherwise they wouldn't/couldn't. It's why we get PG-13 horror movies. Of course, that's exec logic, and it's the type of overt stupidity that got Streets of Rage 1-3 omitted from the US Sonic Gems Collection. You should just get the DS Xenosaga I + II, Flik.

Except that 1) it's by Rockstar North, who aren't actually the folks who made the GTA titles and Manhunt, 2) it's supposed to be actually extremely positive, charming, and funny. 3) there's no blood at all in it, weapons break easily, and if you attack people you're more likely to get busted and punished than in any GTA title. Count me in on the "GTA3 was alright, but I think I've had my fill" panel.

Assassin's Creed 360--worst kept industry secret ever. What I'm *really* interested in is that if the Wii version is for real. "Project Assassin" showed up the leaked Ubi release list. Ubi's been pushing how the new tech allows them to have all of the crowds respond realistically--which seems like it would be something Wii couldn't do. However, that doesn't necessarily mean a visual downgrade wouldn't make it possible. Though, we know Ubi isn't completely opposed to massively toning down a game just to say that released it on a system (some of the non-xbox splinter cells, for instance). A PSP release was on there, too. I got Disgaea 2 as well, although I don't know why exactly. Has Jesus ever made an appearance like this is in a game before? (OMG SPOILERS!) Wisdom Tree loved them some Moses, that I know. lol xenosaga is retarded 2006

Lots of things went awry on that deal. RE4 didn't sell all that hot, ditto VJ, PN03 was meh on a cracker, Dead Phoenix looked fantastic but was cancelled, and Killer 7 was...well, not exactly a game with wide appeal. However, that vid makes me actually look forward to a new Mega Man Legends game--or better yet, a new Tron Bonne. Like that's ever going to happen...

"And as I watched him...playing these violent games...powerless to do anything to stop it....I couldn't help but wonder...where the system has failed."

I wouldn't entirely rule it out, but Capcom's been giving Sony and MS each their own (current) exclusives. I doubt Wii, but we know PS3 can handle it. It's just a question of how easy a port it would be. I'd expect it to be a "timed exclusive" at most.

Awesome:

When you've been unable to sleep, usually you'll at least hop yourself up on buttloads of caffeine so you can be awake when you absolutely have to.

It takes organized crime to whole new levels if done properly. I'm sure the parents groups will love that. "Our little boy joined a St.'s Row gang, and before you know it, he was running with a horrible crowd of online ruffians. He was a Level 67 Pimp with +28 CHAR before we finally cancelled our internet service to stop him!"

I'm sure it's a little more complicated than this--but they weren't published under the Psygnosis/Sony label; Midway published. So I guess it came down to $, and likely Sony got a chunk of the change without having to directly take on publisher costs. So think about it. Some Sony Europe exec was probably approached with the idea to take a IP waning in popularity, develop a version for a system that posted little threat to Playstation at that point, and without Sony having to risk being stuck with the costs of publishing and marketing the thing. At least that's my theory.