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[center]The Rating System:

Looks -- How does the game look? How does it sound?
Gameplay -- Is the game any fun? Is it easy to play?
Value -- Estimated amount of time you could be playing the game.
These are all done on a scale of 10. Here's a little chart of what is what:
0-4 Sucks. It's flat out bad, might've been better if it wasn't there at all
5-7 Decent. It's a passable game, nothing new, nothign great, but nothing that bad either.
8-9 Great. A must check out, has some interesting or well done features.
10 Perfection. It's, well, perfect.

-=Guide=-
~Page 1~
Prince of Persia
True Crime: New York City
Shadow Of The Colussus
Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition


Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Players: 1
Rated: Mature - Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is the final installment to the trilogy of the Prince of Persia series. If you haven't played the first two games your not really missing out on much. You might not understand all of the plot but you can catch on. The series has been known for two things, combat and platforming. That stays present here but the combat isn't seen as often as some fans would like.

I first played a Prince of Persia game when the first one "The Sands of Time" came out. I have to say I enjoyed it, there was some cool platforming and frustrating battles so when I found out that the new 3rd game had a lot less fighting, I was glad as hell. But don't that make it seem like the game has nothing to do. You take the role of The Prince of Persia, he's gone back to his city in Babalyon (spelling?) to find that the Sands of Time have been released on his city. It's your job to save your city and return the sands.

If you haven't heard yet the 3rd installment shows a new side to The Prince known as the Dark Prince. He comes in rather early in the game and is a great installment to the series. Dark Prince has some advantages and disadvantages. As said before battles are less frequent and mostly only happen when Dark Prince is around. The Dark Prince gets fueled with health from fallen enemies when sand comes out of them, or crates and boxes smashed open. But his health ticks down a little every few seconds which makes platforming sequences with him a lot harder.

The game isn't that challenging, there are a lot of pick up from points so if you can play for hours at a time you'll love this game. But there aren't as many save points as you'd like there to be, so if you can only squeeze in 20 minutes of gameplay now and then this probably isn't a good game for you.

Platforming as mentioned before is also back, and it's better than ever. The puzzles and tricks are easy enough for you to figure out after a few tries but hard enough to make you seem totally awesome when you beat them. There are a few sequences with the Dark Prince which get annoying, but there are a few sequences with The Prince which can be frustrating as well. However the bad is overwhelmed with the good points of this game.

Finally, there are a total of 3 boss fights in the game, which is a pity. They all use interesting mechanics like quick kills and dark prince powers. The first boss takes use of your platforming and quick kill skill. The second takes up the Dark Prince's skill and the 3rd boss uses your platforming and quick kill skill once again. They're all creative in their own way and are fun to play.

I forgot to mention quick kills so here's a short paragraph on it. They're basically stealth kills, when the dagger flashes grey you press the button and a sequence will start where you quickly kill an enemy or boss. Sort of like the mini games in God of War.

How it stacks up:
Looks -- 9 -- The dialouge between characters is the highest point, there are some clipping issues and bad models at times keeping it from perfection
Gameplay -- 8 -- While the new features are great, they get frustrating at times. However the platforming is better than ever.
Value -- Decent -- First time through the game will at least take you 10 hours, there's not MUCH of a reason to go back and play the game, but you can't find this platforming anywhere else![/center]

ROFL Everyones doing reviews now? I KNOW someone stole my idea from GSF...anyways, I got this game. Havnt made it far but find it rather good so far.

mmm ive never played PoP, maybe i should try it...


btw ice i love that sig wit rikku in it

Lol what is up with you and Prince of Persia, Fist?

Well...Nice review and I think that is pretty accurate too. I like the way you rated it too...But I couldn't read it that good

Haha, he called you fist.
[/insidejoke]
No replayability factor
I don't like platformers. Good review though.

Because you can't do backflips off enemies and slice their throat in any other game ^_^.
If there's any improvements you'd like to see please tell me, until then. A new review:

[center]True Crime: New York City

Players: 1
Rated: Mature - Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs.

Due to everyone saying this game sucks ass, I decided to review it. I bought True Crime: NYC knowing that it had been getting bad reviews, but I liked what the first game did (Streets of L.A.). It took the role of a cop which I haven't seen before, along with a representation of Los Angeles. There aren't any huge changes on the idea of the game in this new segment. You play Marcus Reed, you start the game in some guys house who apparently tried to kill you, so you repay the favor by killing everyone in the house. An old friend appears after what you did and says he can get you out of the ordeal. The time frame switches to 5 years later. Marcus is now a cop in New York City. After a few training levels the friend that helped him gets killed in a planned explosion. Since you're part of the force now you have to investigate the crime but there's also some vengence in it since he was your friend.

However soon after a little searching for criminals who might know something you get a call from the FBI saying there's a rat in the station. The new thing to find out is to find out who the rat is, and you'll find who killed your friend. You take on 4 major gang strands. You can take the gangs down in any order you wish. Now departing from the story and moving to how you play the game. It's great, the reason the game gets bad ratings is because people are finding every little thing to say the game sucks. Their main point is that there are some glitches like you'll be across the room and throw a punch and end up hitting someone on the other side of the room. But you can see that stuff all over the place in GTA. People just compare the two too often. As for how you play you get 3 modes like you did in the last game. Melee, Hand-to-Hand, and Gun Slining. You can switch between them by pressing up or down on the D-pad. In the last game you could upgrade or get new moves by going to Dojos, Armoies, or other places like that. Unfortunaly that isn't the case in NYC.

The system they have is still cool but it makes the game lose the feel the old game had. Instead what you get is ranks, you start at rank 5. You work your way up the ranks and you get eventually get better weapons, but that's it. You can't get more stamina, or more health just more guns or better guns. You work your way up the ranks by arresting criminals in the city. The game is free-roam style so you can do little crimes or you can proceed with the story. When you arrest enough people you'll reach Rank 1 where you can buy more cars, guns, weapons, etc. At the police station you can buy a lot of these things. On the first floor you can collect your pay check and give evidence. You get more money in your paycheck by arresting more people. On the 2nd floor you can buy cars and change clothes. Your cars are acutally YOURS you can go to certain gargages in the city and ask for them to bring the car to you. So you don't have to worry about blowing 150,000$ for a sports car only to lose it a few minutes later. If you leave the car in the middle of the street and take a bus across town, the car goes to a garage where you can pick it up again.

Clothes, music, guns, cars, melee weapons, and car upgrades can all be found and bought in the city. Granted the music... isn't that great, there's a lot of rap but none of it is any good or that high quality. But there are a lot of clothes in the city, there are gun stores so you aren't restricted to what the Police Station gives you, same with the cars. If you haven't noticed already there is A LOT to do in the game, I've been playing it since christmas and it hasn't gotten boring yet. There are side missions like helping a taxi driver and his business, or help your dad do some dirty work since he's in jail. I could go on and on about all the cool features in this game, but you should just trust me, buy the game and see for yourself. It's worth it.

How it stacks up:
Looks -- 6 -- This game isn't a looker, the car models and character models look ok, but there's a lot of clipping, and werid glitches.
Gameplay -- 9 -- There are a few tiny things that aren't that great, like the bizzare vehicle mechanics, but it's not in a bad way, more of a "was the car suppose to do 80 flips in the air?"
Value -- High -- My current playing time is 26 hours, and I'm not even close to getting sick of this game.[/center]

Ehm...Ok nice review on one of my most favorite games ever. I liek the way that he was turned into a cop from his sentence. Now he fights his own doings.

Can I still review that? I liked TC: NYC also, but the video store version sucked. It crashed randomly when I became a level 2 detective.

Well I haven't gotten any new games recently so i'll just take one from my gamespot account:


[center]Shadow of the Colussus

Players: 1
Rated: Teen - Blood, Fantasy Violence

Shadow of the Colussus. Where to begin? Should I start off on a good foot, or a bad one. How about good: The game is innovative, beatiful to look at, and lots of fun. Learning how to beat down a colussus? It's great! Then acutally doing it? Even better. The colussi are all very huge and large scale when you look at them. But they somehow shrink once you start climbing, but still a lot bigger then most bosses. Let's start with the look of the game.

It's great. Everything is looks awesome, realistic, life like, and beautiful. It's one of those games that that makes video games describable as art. The only downside of all these great looking enviroments and creatures is the framerate which bogs down from time to time. But it's nothing that gets in your way.

The platforming of the game is also great. All the bosses have mostly a uniqe way of killing them (The 3rd and 1st colussi seem sort of simular, but you couldn't pick up on it right away). All the enivorments take into play with the exception of the first boss. The game picks you up very qucikly. There's no tutorial of any kind, no "Control Layout" or learning how to. The first boss is as hard as the next bosses you'll fight. There is a little platforming help for a few minutes, but it doesn't explain how to climb up on things or how useful the "Hold On" button acutally is. I'll explain how things are layed out.

You basically get 3 buttons that you'll use in different sequences. Attack, Jump, and Hold On. Attack is for what it sounds like, there's only one stale plain attack for each time you swing but it's not like you'll be doing awesome backflips on a colussi. The jump button is for what it sounds like, the hold button is for holding on to ledges when you jump or when a colussus starts shaking to get you off. That's basically it, there's a switch weapon button and a horse mechanic which is, odd. The control stick is used for what direction you want the horse to go in (Left and right, not forwards or backward) pulling back on the control stick will make it stop and pressing X will move the horse forward. Now, let's move on to the bad things.

Staying on topic the controls are really confusing and take a while to get use to. And even after that all the colussi you fight, are next to impossible to figure out how to beat on your own. The first colussus is a given, you see hair, you climb it. Ok, the next one? Not as easy. I don't acutally remeber what the next one is. I believe it's the bull, this is harder, you have to use your bow to shoot at the things legs while it throws them up in the air. The only reason I know that is because I saw a video pardoding the game and used that part of the game. The next few bosses I all saw in the video review or had to use a guide after trying to do it myself for hours. Each colussus if your lucky will take you an hour to figure out what the hell your suppose to do.

I'm on the ninth colussus right now and I decided i'm never playing the game again. With the ninth one, you have to make it run over a geyser and shoot it's feet then go through another long process of climbing on it etc etc. But the thing just WON'T go over the geyser, and the poor controls doesn't help my situation at all.

As for the one liner I used as my hook. The bad game elements are all present here: Nameless Hero, Confusing Language Used, Bad Frame Rate, Confusing All Around, Bad Controls, and really no point. Yeah you have to slay the colussi for your love and everything, but that's it. It never explains why. This game is nothign past worth a rental I hate how I got this game for christmas I should've gotten anything besides this.

How it stacks up:
Looks -- 9 -- Pretty damn sexy, the frame rate DOES chug, but with graphics like this you have to expect it.
Gameplay -- 4 -- REALLY screwed up controls, the game gets boring, fast.
Value -- Low -- Some bosses are so hard you'll just quit, but I doubt I'd want to refight frustrating colussus again any time soon.
[/center]


Full review at: This link
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[center]Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition

Players: 1
Rated: Mature - Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence.

Where to begin with this game? There's so much to cover, and I risk of making a huge long post that no one will read. Well let's start with how it's friendly to new comers of the series. It's prequel! Which is always good for new people to the series like myself. When I heard about the first Devil May Cry I didn't really care that much (Mainly because it was a single article that's shorter then this post from this point). I saw this new DMC and everyone was talking about how hard it was, but very cool. So I had to check it out, since I have a problem with anger, a difficult game wasn't really high on my list of to get. So I thought I'd have to sadly miss out on DMC3. But luckily the new edition came out. I heard there was a new difficulty and the levels were set up differently. So i'll get into that.

From what I hear the original DMC had it so you didn't get any "checkpoints" and if you were to die very late in a level, you'd have to start it all over again. Even if you were fighting a boss. This new DMC gives you two options before starting the game Yellow or Gold. I tried out yellow first, but it seemed completely useless to me. With yellow, you collect yellow orbs, and if you have enough to can spawn at the cloest checkpoint when you die. Which happens anyway even if you don't have orbs, so what's the point? Gold orbs is if you have a single Gold orb and you die, you can ressurect right from where you died with full health. However these are expensive to buy, hard to find, and you can only hold 3 at a time. Also new is the "Easy Mode" so if you die 5 times in the first 3 levels, it unlocks. So you can start the game over with an easier difficulty, which is a good idea.

When starting the game you get to choose what "style" to go with. You start out with 4 and unlock two more when going through the game. The styles are Trickstar, Swordman, Gunslinger, and Royal Guard. These probably aren't the real names, but I'm trying to remeber them. I tested all 4 out in the first level (Which is just slashing easy enemies for 4 minutes). All the styles change one button which is the O button. With Trickstar it switches it to a dodging trick. Which makes it easier to dodge incoming attacks, it's helpful in boss fights but makes you go on a more defensive strike at first. Later on it unlocks more tricks like, teleporting to your locked on enemy and slashing him in the air. Or dashing around 3 times in a row instead of once. It also allows you to wall climb, but that's rarely used. I decided to stick with trickstar so the most I know about Gunslinger and Swordsman is that Gunslinger changes O to a gun attack that shoots at more than one enemy, and swordsman just changes it to a differnt (And rather useless) sword attack.

Moving onto controls... You use Triangle to attack with a sword, Square to shoot your guns, X to jump, R1 to lock on, and O for different style tricks. For other non attack controls you use R2 to switch between your melee weapons. You start out with a sword but you gain more as the game goes on. L2 is to switch guns again, you only start with one, but unlock more later in the game. L1 is used to switch into devil mode, which is like Rage. It makes you stronger and faster, but for a very short time. For the weapons, I found only a handful to be any use. Your beginning pistols called Ebony and Ivory are useful, and acutally most of the guns are helpful with the exception of a gun that charges itself and attacks, but hardly does anything. But for the melee weapons, I only used 2 different weapons throughout the entire game. The other ones were cool ideas (Like a guitar that shoots our purple bats) but are hardly any use in battle, which is a shame.

Speaking of battles, there are a lot of boss fights in this game. You fight your first boss in the second level, which is odd since the first level is hardly a level at all. However that "boss" ends up being a normal enemy later in the game. Your real first boss is in Level 3, which is also werid, and you fight an even harder boss at level 5, and a REAL hard boss in level 7. Which is odd, the game changes gears really fast. So there's a lot of re-doing of levels, just to get practice in fighting enemies, or collecting red orbs to get better moves or health upgrades. If you replay the first 5 levels 3 times you should be good.

On that note, there's a lot of backtracking and reusing of levels and other thigns. For instance, there's really only 5 enemies. The games has around 20 but 15 of them are exactly like other ones. There's a melee enemy, which just slashs at you, and there are 5 different variations of that. A long range enemy, some bird enemy, and a spawning enemy, which spawns other enemies on the field. You see different variations of these few enemies throughout the entire game. A lot of levels are reused, like the first 10 levels you'll be playing through again for the remaining 10 levels. If you don't catch on quick, there are only 20 levels. The first 2, and the last 1 are only 5 minutes long, but everything in between can be as short as 10 minutes or as long as 50 minutes (COUGH COUHG LEVEL 16!!!).

As for the soundtrack, it'd be great if it wasn't reused all the time. There's only 2 different songs you can get when fighting enemies. But all the sound effects in the game are pretty solid. All the voiceactors are also really great. Dante takes the perfect voice for a cocky young guy, the girl has a good despret voice, and Vergil and the other guy (I can't remeber his name) both have evil but mysterious voices.

Although I probably missed something the game is really great. I'm glad I bought it, the only thing I found werid was how it's hard to play it for a long time. You'll play one level, then just not feel like playing the game. You just don't want to, so it'll take around 2 weeks to finish all the levels if you play everyday. When finishing the game, there's still a lot of stuff to do. There's all different difficulties, and since you have the SE you'll want to prove yourself by defeating Very Hard mode or Dante Must Die. You can also play as Vergil (Though I haven't figured out how yet) there's Turbo Mode, and bloody palace, and of course just playing through it again with a different coustume and style. It'll last you a good few months, this game is really great and should be in every Action fans libary. As a side note, the story has a lot of twists in it, which is always nice!

How it stacks up:
Looks -- 9 -- If some enviroments didn't look so rushed and bland this would get a 10, also the cutscenes are REALLY AWESOME. Like the coolest cutscenes you'll ever see, awesome stunts and tricks are done.
Gameplay -- 8 -- A lot of the styles and moves are useless, but other then that, everything is fast paste and awesome.
Value -- Moderately High -- There's a lot of stuff to unlock, so it should last you a while.[/center]

My friend had DMC3 and I'd watch him go through the levels and wow, it was insane. It takes lots of reflexes to beat some of the bosses and patience as well.

I would play this, but I might throw it out the window along with Diddy Kong Racing (SILVAR COINS OF PAIN).

Also, GF, have you tried the other edition? It's only $15 and it has some extras in it.

Do you mean the Original Version? You do know I'm reviewing the speical edition right?
Speical Edition isn't that hard, you just get the idea it's hard because everyone says it is. But on easy mode I only died once.

Sorry everyone but I can't review on here anymore
I joined this new site that's starting up and needs 100% original content, you can find it at:
Here
They listed me as AJ Augustyn? My name isn't even AJ

Very unfortunate. What exactly do you need to do

I just review games and make walkthroughs. But the admin didn't like how I was using old material (I was lucky to get the 2/3 reviews I have up there). So if you really like my reviews vist the site
(AND CLICK ALL THE ADS)

make a review on FFX?..