Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth -- All in One.

I never could justify owning an original Game Boy. I didn't jump in until the Game Boy Advance. In doing so I missed just a handful of games. The Mario Land series, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Metroid 2, and some Castlevania games. I've since rectified Link's Awakening and now Wii Ware has allowed me to sort of rectify Castlevania: The Adventure. Castlevania: The Adventure was originally released in 1989 for the Game Boy. The Rebirth version of the game has some rather drastic changes. Beyond the great looking updated graphics which now of course feature color, and the newly arranged best of series music approach, they've changed the core mechanics of the gameplay as well as added an extra stage. The original game featured four stages to Rebirth's five. The original game didn't have any of the series' trademark stairs and it didn't feature any of the sub-weapons. You also couldn't mess with the momentum of your jumps as you now can in Rebirth. Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth plays like a classic Castlevania of old, they've brought the game more in line with the traditional games. So you're left with a great looking game with one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a while. The controls are spot on for older Castlevania games. The gameplay might frustrate some who aren't used to how Castlevania used to be before Symphony of the Night. The game offers up some fun bosses. There are hidden paths leading to optional mid-bosses in every main stage which extends the replay value a far bit should you be interested. Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth, like Contra Rebirth and Gradius Rebirth before it, has been developed by M2. They've really established themselves as the team to beat with any updated retro game. They're the ones who created the Fantasy Zone sequel on the original System-16 arcade hardware for SEGA some twenty-one years after the SEGA Master System original. M2 has done another great job in Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth. I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with the game. I feel I should point out that the game can be completed in less than hour. It's meant to be played in one sitting. I'm giving Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth an 8.5.

Dragon Age: Origins -- Final Opinion.

I have fully completed Dragon Age: Origins. I say fully as I've earned the eleven-hundred Gamerpoints available for the main game as well as the download expansions The Warden's Keep and The Stone Prisoner. That amounts to completing all seven origin stories, witnessing all four endings, recruiting all possible allies, and getting all three class types to level twenty. That might not sound like a whole lot, but it took me eighty-five hours plus to achieve. It's safe to say I really enjoyed Dragon Age, but will you? That depends on a few factors. Dragon Age is a BioWare game. So if you've played a BioWare game, then you should know exactly what that is, because in all honesty, BioWare only makes one game. I can't speak for their PC efforts of old, but if you've played a game from Knights of the Old Republic onward through Jade Empire and Mass Effect, then you know exactly what you're in for with Dragon Age. The same pausing action battle system, only this time further fleshed out with options, abilities, and AI macros. Dragon Age provides a large amount of diversity in its character progressions. For example, you're able to play a rogue as either the typical backstabbing assassin type or you could play the rogue as a ranger or any mix and matched combination in between. Would you rather your warrior be a Templar with some champion mixed in? Or would your rather the warrior be a pure berserker? You're able to shape the playable characters to be what you want them to be within their classes. The game features a robust macro system similar to that used in Final Fantasy XII. You're able to preset their actions along the lines of having your mage heal another party member when their health drops below thirty percent for example. While the battles can be chaotic, they're really about the management of everything going on. Just like every other BioWare game. Another factor in your possible enjoyment of Dragon Age comes in your love and or tolerance for fantasy. Dragon Age is a world of dragons, elves, sorcery, dwarves, and every other fantasy cliche. If you hate wizards and trolls and everything else fantasy, then Dragon Age isn't going to win you over. No matter how good the story is. And like most BioWare titles, the story and characters are very well done. Dragon Age offers up a wealth of lore to sink yourself into should you be so inclined. There isn't anything original about it. It's standard fantasy through and through. The main story however is well handled. It's more about the politics of everything rather than defeating the Darkspawn hordes. The characters are great, although they are still the standard BioWare archetypes. They do have enough twists to surprise you from time to time however. And the character interaction within the party is often truly funny and always great. Still though, I'd have to say that BioWare really needs to start shaking things up with the character archetypes. How many times can we play through their games with the same basic characters? Graphically Dragon Age looks rather good in game. It's in the cutscenes where the game looks a little less than stellar. And surprisingly it's the cutscenes they decided to use to show off the game. Musically the game has a stirring fantasy cinematic score that somehow remains rather subdued. For most of the game the music is low and out of the way of the ambiance of the sounds of the city and the like. It's good stuff when it soars, otherwise you're not hearing much of it. The voice work is great all the way around. Professional voice actors from top to bottom. The game features Simon Templeman as the villain, who provides probably the best voice ever heard in video games as Kain from the Blood Omen series. I really enjoyed Dragon Age, as I have Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic before it. BioWare has made their one game again. Their standard battle system and great characters and story are all in place. I happened to enjoy the traditional fantasy overlay. Others have not. It'll all depend on your tastes for setting, and your previous opinion of their battle systems and storytelling style. I'm giving Dragon Age: Origins a 9.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is the latest Zelda game for the Nintendo DSi, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. The game is the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Hopefully the game won't carry over the faults of Phantom Hourglass. Mainly I'm hoping they don't repeat the disaster of the central dungeon you had to repeat over and over. The game has replaced the sailboat with a train, so there won't be a proper overworld yet again. I'm at least hoping this time around there will be something a little more eventful and interesting going on in the overworld. I'm also hoping that the mandatory stylus controls will be a little more on target this time around with fewer instances of failure. I'm also hoping that the dungeons and puzzles are a step up from those of Phantom Hourglass. Some challenge would be nice. I have played the game up through the first full dungeon and boss. From the time I've spent with it so far I can say that the graphics seem improved. While they're still slightly barren Nintendo DS 3D they come off as cleaner than those of Phantom Hourglass. The music seems of better quality as well. Again it appears to be offering a clearer sound, although that might be a product of the DSi's improved speakers. I'm also liking the pairing of Link and Zelda through the adventure. It's providing an interesting dynamic and at least initially offering up a very interesting and feisty Zelda. As always we'll see how it turns out in the end.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Silent Hill: Shattered Memories through three of its five endings. The game provides a major twist your first time through that actually provides some weight, and the story is stronger the second time through the game because of it. However the story doesn't really ever approach being good. It probably would have had there been no connections to Silent Hill, however flimsy. In fact, the whole of the game is pretty much just messing with the Silent Hill fan, playing off their experiences and expectations. Normally that can be great, and it's even been used within the Silent Hill series. Just see the opening sequences of Silent Hill 2 and it's long walk without combat for an example of playing against expectations effectively. Overall the story ultimately fails for me. I will say that Shattered Memories' UFO ending is well worth the effort though. The puzzles are another area in which Climax failed. There are only a handful of real puzzles in the game. They're too few and far between. Most of them aren't even puzzles. They're just finding the key to the door and they all involve the Wii Remote. Need to open the back door to a ranger station, just use the Wii Remote to open the first aid kit on the wall. A first aid kit that happens to have a glowing white arrow pointing down over it in case you didn't notice it in the fifteen square foot room. Everything in the game you can interact with has a glowing white arrow pointing to it. You can see them from a great distance away. So there isn't any exploration at all really. You're just walking from one telegraphed hotspot to the next. It's not like you could explore anyway. This version of Silent Hill is beyond linear. You're literally corralled through the entire game. I found this version of Silent Hill to be boring and ugly. I'm not talking about the graphic capabilities of the Wii here, I'm talking about the aesthetic design of the town. It is just so utterly devoid of anything of interest or note. It's so boring and plain as to be criminal. So you have very few real puzzles and no exploration at all through the supposed exploration segments. The chase sequences can't be summed up in one word. You need a few words. And those words are shitty. They are awful. They are hideous. They are an exercise in tedium. And the biggest offense is they aren't scary. They are as poorly handled as could be. Initially you're just running from point A to point B, occasionally picking up a flare to ward off the pursuing creature. Later you're running from point A to point B through a looping maze. You just run and avoid the creatures while picking paths until you find the right way through. It's made worse by crappy controls. Especially in the Wii Remote waggle needed to shake off the creatures. The control is just unresponsive and unpredictable. Every Silent Hill game in the series has been scary. The first three had this omnipresent sense of fear and dread. The other entries at least had their moments. Shattered Memories has nothing. I understand horror is highly subjective, but it was so bad that I didn't even get the sense they were even trying to scare me. I went through an entire game of Silent Hill without the slightest inkling of fear, or tension, or creepiness. And that in my opinion is criminal. As I stated in my initial impression the graphics for the game are awful. Nothing looks good. We're talking a step or two above House of the Dead levels, but without that game's charm. The voice work isn't awful, but it isn't exactly good either. It doesn't sound professional. It sounds like they are voiced by team members. The music is from Akira Yamaoka and is up to his usual Silent Hill standards. Although it's probably his most ambient score. It's very subdued. And as I've already mentioned, the story and puzzles failed. The chase sequences outright suck. I have a feeling this might be the final nail in the coffin of Silent Hill. And if this is what it's come to, then good riddance. I'm giving Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a 5.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories -- Initial Impression.

This entry is a bit late as I've been messing around with Silent Hill: Shattered Dreams for a couple of days. This is the first Silent Hill game for the Wii and it has been published by Konami with development by Climax Studios. This is Climax's second trip into Silent Hill following the very play it safe Silent Hill: Origins for the PlayStation Portable. Shattered Memories however could be classified as anything but play it safe. Shattered Memories is a rather bold re-imagining of the original Silent Hill, and even that description seems to be stretching it. We've all seen games with warnings about extreme violence and gore. Shattered Memories is the first game I've seen with a psychology warning. A warning about how the game plays you as much as you play it. What this really amounts to is the game will unfold differently based on your choices and actions. So far from what I've seen the game is wholly original except for character names being used here and there. Harry, Cybil, Lisa, Dahlia and the like all show up in name, but they're so far removed from the originals in design and purpose that they might have been better served without the Silent Hill connections. I'm sure you've all heard about the other major bold design decision made by Climax, the removal of combat. There isn't any combat in the game. Instead of combat, we have chase sequences where you have to run a gauntlet to escape. The rest of the game features the standard exploration and puzzle elements. From the time I've spent with the game so far I can say it's an ugly game graphically. There isn't anything that comes off as good in that regard. The controls are functional for exploration and puzzle solving. They get in the way for the chase sequences. The story is slow going. There are definately some interesting moments here and there, but I need to see where it goes. I understand that horror is entirely subjective, but Shattered Memories hasn't even remotely approached being scary as of yet. I'm really hoping the story and the puzzles can pull this game out of the fire because I'm not sure the other aspects will save it at this point.

Dragon Age: Origins -- Initial Impression.

I was actively avoiding starting anything the last few days with the hope of picking up The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and starting it right away. Finding a copy of the game proved tougher than I expected with a poorly handled release from Nintendo. So I ended up ordering the game online. Now I'm free to start something else, and so I have. Next up for me is Dragon Age: Origins for the Xbox 360, developed by BioWare's Edmonton team and published by Electronic Arts. Dragon Age: Origins has been a long time coming. It was first announced at E3 in 2004. The game has been described by BioWare as a spiritual successor to their Baldur's Gate series. The manual goes as far as to say "Dragon Age: Origins is a modern re-imagination of an epic party-based fantasy role-playing game, dense with story and tactical combat." It'll be interesting to see BioWare's take on that in a year where From Software has essentially done the very same thing with Demon's Souls on the Japanese dungeon crawler side of things. I think that most everyone agrees that the Dragon Age: Origins advertising campaign wasn't very compelling. The game seems to have sold on BioWare's name alone. It seems BioWare fans are getting exactly what they wanted. My main experience with BioWare has come in the form of Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. I'm simply expecting that same basic combat style with Dragon Age's high fantasy setting overlaid. I do have to say that Electronic Arts sure does make it easy for one to hate them. I bought the collector's edition of Dragon Age: Origins so I was entitled to some free download content. The hoops you have to jump through to access said content almost made me start something else. After jumping through said hoops it's safe to say I went in to Dragon Age: Origins actively annoyed. You would think that wouldn't bode well for my initial impressions. I have to say I came away from my initial playing actually impressed. I've played through the origin story for my character, an elven mage. Graphically the game seems solid and clean. The graphics are nowhere near impressive but I found myself initially pleased with their cleanness. At least initially in the elven mage story the music comes off as subdued. The voice work on the other hand seems strong. I'm not sure what to make of the combat system as I've not explored it thoroughly enough to get a strong sense of it either way. What I did get an impression of, at least initially, is the strong sense of gray in the choices when dealing with characters. I was impressed with the twists and turns of the elven mage's origin story. I also found myself rather interested in the moral questions being presented by the elven mage's origin story. The game seems to have a very rich and rather dark lore as a foundation. Of course we'll have to see how the game plays itself out. But initially I have to say I'm surprisingly intrigued by Dragon Age: Origins.

Left 4 Dead 2 -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Left 4 Dead 2 with the full one-thousand points. Left 4 Dead 2 is surprisingly a real mixed bag. For the most part it's an entirely superior game to the original. The graphics are about the same level as the previous game. That's to say they look decent and are fully functional but they're not top of the line. The sound quality is the same. Great voice work, great infected sounds, great weapon sounds and the same great musical cues only this time reworked with a southern flair. The control is identical to the last game. No problems there. The new special infected are great. They all work well within the game. They did a really good job differentiating between the campaigns this time around. They've gone a long way to make each campaign feel unique, especially in the crescendos and the finales. From Dark Carnival's rock concert finale to The Parish's mad dash across the bridge to Hard Rain's finale in hurricane level weather. The campaigns are truly distinct. The game offers up plenty of variety in its online modes as well. Campaign, versus, survival, and scavenge all offer up interesting things to do. They really handled that side of things well. They didn't do a very good job in a couple of other areas though. One of those is minor. And that's this group of survivors is less interesting than the original group. They're just not as funny or endearing to me. As I said, that's a minor complaint at best. The other thing they didn't handle that well is more of a major complaint though. The game is incredibly unbalanced. When playing at the expert difficulty level with four living players the game is nearly broken in how it just eternally throws numerous special infected at you with an essentially never ending horde. While I'm sure the campaigns are technically possible to complete at that setting there just isn't a single ounce of fun to be had doing so. At the normal and advanced difficulties the game is the same fun it ever was. Expert used to be fun, it's not anymore. The balance issue really mars what should have been an entirely superior sequel. I'm giving Left 4 Dead 2 an 8.5. I'm hoping for a patch that adjusts the balance issues before the inevitable download content packs arrive.