King Weavilian's Reviews

[King Weavilian]

Yes, I know the last thread was barely read at all, but I find this sort of thing entertaining so... I'm back in business. I'll post my other reviews below and then write a new one tommorow.

[King Weavilian]

Week 1:-
Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story


Platform: Nintendo DS
Players: 1
Genre: RPG
Release Date: OUT NOW
Average Length: 20 + Hours

Basis:-
Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is the 3rd game of the Mario and Luigi RPG series; and like the previous two, it follows the same battle mechanics, level up mechanics and of course, the dialogue. One thing that is great about the Mario and Luigi series is the humourous dialogue scattered throughout, for once, it's an RPG that isn't afraid of making fun of itself. With each new game though, there's been a quirk added, so what is the quirk for this installment in the series? Why playing as the King of Koopas, Bowser of course! That's right, Bowser is a playable character in the epic adventure and it doesn't fail to dissapoint.

Story: -
An epidemic has swept the Mushroom Kingdom as various citizens of Toad Town have came down with a hilarious illness known as the Blorbs; in which the vegetables become bloated and turn into gigantic versions of themselves and looking rather obese. Various members of the Mushroom Kingdom including Princess Peach decide to hold a meeting to decide on how to deal with the situation, and who do you think they call in to help? Mario and Luigi! But instantly, "King of Awesome" Bowser crashes the party and attacks Mario; but of course, Mario wins and sends Bowser packing. As Bowser angers over his loss against the portly plumber, a mysterious figure who states "a winner is you" (no really) offers Bowser a free mushroom to eat that will help him defeat Mario. Of course being the moron he is, Bowser trusts strangers and promptly eats the mushroom and gains a vacuum power that lets him eat anything. So what does he do after eating this mushroom? Attack Peach's castle! Bowser storms in and swallows everyone in the room within seconds, trapping them inside his body. I won't spoil anymore, but from this point on, we follow Mario & Luigi at one time and also Bowser.

The plot itself is pretty standard for a Mario game so don't expect many twists and turns. It is rather straight forward and easy to follow however.

Graphics:-

The game is enriched with colourful environments and a large variety of sprites. The graphics are what make it a Mario game really, colourful and eye catching. The detail on the sprites as well is gorgeous; it always brings a smile to my face to see a wide eyed Koopa King get toppled over by an enemy. Speaking of them, the variety of design on the enemies as always is phenomenal, you'd think they were high when they created most of the enemies. Mushroom Kingdom... Mushrooms... High... Yeah...

It's nothing much since it's only on the Nintendo DS but the simple touch is usually the best and it is clear that Nintendo have attempted to push the DS since the graphics are a vast improvement over Partners in Time, also on the DS.

Gameplay & Controls:-

Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is chock a block of various touch screen minigames all of which involve the Mario Brothers inside Bowser's body; this can include hitting adrenaline at his muscles or stimulating his butt to make him grow giant (no... really... 4 times...) Unlike most DS games, the touch screen controls are not tacked on and control superbly with no difficulties. Only one minigame will fall under this category but one out of around eight or so is hardly an issue.

In the overworld, Bowser or Mario & Luigi are controlled with the D-Pad and can use various actions on the field; for Mario and Luigi, this ranges from basic jumping to digging underground whilst on Luigi's shoulders. For Bowser, this can range from punching, breathing fire, body slams and turning into a ball to scale walls. This is the basis for most of the game and it also controls excellently allowing for easy movement and access to commands are easy as well.

The battle system is fluid and easy to understand. As Mario & Luigi you control Mario's actions with A and Luigi's actions with B; when playing as Bowser, his button is X; This includes attacking, countering, selecting commands and so on. The battle system is speed based wherein the fastest character (generally Mario) will attack first. It also uses action commands so timing jumps and hammer hits results in more damage than usual or in the case of special moves, attacking even more. When an enemy attacks, you can counter or dodge their attack via jumping or using the hammer. Evidently, you could potentially complete the game at Level 1 if you are skilled at dodging everything (I'm almost there myself ) Bowser also shares a similar style but instead punches or ducks beneath his shell to protect himself.

Touch screen controls also are present in the battle system but only for Bowser where he uses his poor minions; including Goombas, Bob-ombs and Magikoopas to attack his foes. This ranges from tapping the rushing Goombas to set them alight or drawing lines for Magikoopa Magic. Just like the minigames, these handle superbly and there are no problems with how any of them work, in fact, they're all rather easy so expect Excellent hits a lot.

A final note on touch screen controls, they are also present in the Giant Bowser Fights in which you slide ths stylus to punch or exhale into the microphone to breathe fire. These are very responsive and you don't need to knacker your lungs just to set something on fire.

One flaw with the gameplay is that it is incredibly easy. Since the ability to literally counter everything and deal a lot of damage fast is present, the enemies and bosses go down fast. Some gimmicks with the enemies also make them even easier to beat which is a major dissapointment (although it is funny to see a toothless crocodile get K.O'd by a bean it tries to eat).

Overall, the gameplay is very similar to that of the previous Mario & Luigi games so will be familiar to fans of the series or those who have played the prior games. For those who play this as their first, the battle controls are extremely easy to get to grips with due to the ease of the system and the easy controls.

Music:-

Ok, not many of you may like video game music but I do... The music is very upbeat and the game is filled with catchy tunes that will no doubt be embedded in your mind even when you put the game down. The Boss music certainly got stuck in my mind and the final boss music is very epic. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I asure you that the music is one of the game's strong points.





Watch in High Quality!

Length:-

The main flaw with this game, the length of this game is probably up to 20 hours, if that. My first playthrough was around 14 hours, I was rather dissapointed to have completed the game within 3 days of purchase; the game's difficulty doesn't make it any longer either. However there are challenges that can be completed for perfectionists such as the Madame Broque Massage Challenge for Bowser or the Gauntlet and Cholestorol Challenges for Mario & Luigi. Despite the ease of the overall game, these will put you to the limit and match the word challenge.

For added length, try equipping the Challenge Medal all the time. Go on. I dare you.

Score & Conclusion:-

93/100

A quirky Mario title that shows the world that the plumber still has it in him. Playing as Bowser is a whole new experience and is a great addition. Everyone will love the humourous dialogue and animations, loving every minute of it.
The game however was let down by incredibly short length, easy difficulty and one unresponsive minigame. Despite the terrible controls for one minigame, the others make up for it and keep the score at a stable 93/100.

Do I recommend it though? Hell yeah! Buy it NOW.

[King Weavilian]

Week 2: -

Borderlands



Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Players: 1-4
Genre: FPSRPG (First Person Shooting Role Playing Game)
Release Date: OUT NOW
Average Length: 20+ Hours

Basis: -

The RPG genre has recently been made popular within FPS games creating an unusual yet surprisingly good hybrid of genre, thus resulting in the First person shooting role playing games that have now come to exist in the gaming world. These games can include those that just borrow elements of RPGs such as Call of Duty or ones which flat out use the general RPG system such as levelling and stats like Fallout 3. Borderlands uses RPG elements fully so there is levelling your character, weapon profiencies and placing skill points into various skills to create your own variety of class. Being a newcomer, Borderlands is going to get a lot of spotlight, but how will it fare against the other FPSRPG's of our time?

Story: -

"The Vault is not real!" Set in a post apocalyptic wasteland, Borderlands is focused on your character of your choice and their quest to find the fabled Vault on Pandora, although, motives for finding the Vault are unknown... Arriving immediately on Pandora via a bus, you control one of the 4 protagonists, Roland the Soldier, Lillith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter or Brick - dubbed by the game as himself - the Berserker. Upon stepping off the bus, you are contacted by a woman who calls herself your guardian angel as she instantly tells you the Vault IS real and that she will help you find it. Although we were told to never trust strangers, regardless of your character, you will follow her instructions anyway and thus navigate Pandora in your search for the Vault.

Without spoiling any of the story, it is generally a standard, generic RPG story with little to no twists or turns and an ending that can baffle the mind or cause minor annoyance, I'll let you decide but it was a mix of both for this reviewer; I felt cheated after completing the game. Since RPG's heavily rely on story - at least in this day and age - to become big hits, Borderlands falls flat on its face as the story has less twists than a fairy tale. Any attempts at becoming unique also dwindle as they slowly turn into something that we've seen before, many, many times before.

Aside from the story, RPG's generally have a wide cast of characters that are memorable and develop as the story goes along. Not in Borderlands, it suffers from what I like to call "Generic NPC Syndrome" in which the NPC's refuse to blink and say one line of dialogue such as "Hey you know when the water's gonna come back on?" or "Can I help you?" Our protagonists also are very one dimensional and say little unless they are on a mass killing spree or open a chest. You can get a basis of their personality from their lines, Mordecai the Hunter for example seems very psychotic, Brick seems bloodthirsty and so on. The bosses themselves also have little personality and are as one dimensional as Mr. Game and Watch, and he even oozed more development than they ever will. I will give the game props for having memorable lines and good voice acting for the main characters however, except for one. You know the one...

Graphics:-

The game's strong point, the graphics are reminiscent of a comic book or in the style of the game, a (debately) mature movie. Despite being in a post apocolyptic land or being of the FPS genre in general, Borderlands actually manages to use colours other than grey, brown or black. Mixes of green, red, blue and even yellow are present on Pandora and each of the characters oozes colour. The main characters themselves despite their one dimensional personalities are vibrant and can be stylised to suit your preference; so if Brick wearing a pink tank top is your thing, then you can do that, he'll be the brightest person in the wasteland and bandits will mess themselves when they see the pink hulk of doom pounding their skulls in with his fists.

Despite the praise however, Borderlands also suffers from another problem of post-apocolyptic RPG's; the environment. Aside from wasteland and desert, what else is there to show? There's one particular area with snow that is on a mountain but you won't see that unless you prevail to the end of the game, and even then, it's not very long. I understand that it's meant to be a post-apocolyptic world but I fail to see the graphical charm in dirt, dirt and more dirt. I will give them props for using more colours to paint this land however.

Overall, it is a very colourful game with a unique graphic style that is very appealing, but suffers from bland environments.

Gameplay & Controls:-

Controls can be customised so there is little to say other than that is the standard procedure, however, one gripe that I had when first playing the game was that you control the vehicle by moving it forward or backwards with W or S (For PC) and directing it with the mouse. This could have been made much easier by giving complete W,S,A,D control. However, this is merely one nitpick so it easily gets high marks for controls.

The gameplay is standard, shoot anything that attacks you and you gain experience points for it, nothing too ground breaking, but the simplicity is what will keep you entertained. After gaining experience you will obviously level up, at Level 5 you can then get skill points for levelling and these are put into your skill trees. With 50 potential points avalible and over 20 skills for each class, you can easily customise your character in a variety of different ways. Just an example, Mordecai can be made to be more sniper efficent, or you can focus on pistols, it's entirely up to you and the ability to reset your points is a nifty feature meaning you can essentially adapt to any situation regardless.

Even though the characters could all be faceless peons with similar builds, they all play differently, so playing Mordecai as you would Brick will result in a quick trip back to the "New-U" Station. This again is a standard gameplay feature for FPS' so it is expected, but is done very well if you place skill trees into the equation. Mordecai will always be best with revolvers and pistols, Lillith will always dominate with SMGs, Brick is best with Rocket Launchers and Melee and Roland can just die.

However, the main gameplay feature with Borderlands is its enriching multiplayer (providing you can get it working!). With 3 friends, the game instantly turns up the awesome factor and becomes brilliant fun with the loot becoming rarer and enemies becoming stronger. Try to play with those you know well and make sure they share loot. This is just from personal experience, your mileage may vary.

Music:-

Not much to say on this topic really... The music is forgettable with only a few tunes really sticking out and these are generally battle themes rather than overworld themes. I found the calming music in Oblivion better to listen to than most of the tunes in this game for the overworld.

There is one tune that really stuck out for me, and this was at the intro, but alas, it is not an original song.



RPG's are generally very well known for their awesome music, Borderlands however... Not so much.

Length:-

Most games these days have become shorter (or we have become better), Borderlands is one of those games and is around roughly 20 hours from beginning to end. This was from personal experience however and I completed the game within 20 hours including all side quests. Once you complete Playthrough 1, you get the original Playthrough 2 in which the enemies become much stronger and wield stronger weapons, but so do you! You keep all your loot and your prior level. Playthrough 2 is for completionists and for those who want to reach Level 50 and have the best damn weapons that money can buy - or in this case, best weapons that you can find on the ground. -

Score & Conclusion: -

60/100

Yeah, I'm going against the rest of the reviews and giving it a 60 out of 100. "But Bowser you negative nancy, why 70?!" Well, it fails to really stand out as a video game and generally follows generic trends and doesn't do much of its own thing. The graphics are what keeps it on its high pedastal and I think we all know how I feel about graphics over gameplay. It doesn't always hold water!

From seeing the trailers and hearing the information on Borderlands, I was rather excited for this blend of FPSRPG, but it just doesn't live up to its expectations. The NPC's are bland and forgettable, the environment is rather boring and unoriginal and the music doesn't stand out at all. Borderlands however will get props for its graphics which look crisp and are effective with the style of the game (like a movie) and for some of the lines that the more common NPC's spout every so often. It also gains at least 50 marks for being a multiplayer co-operative RPG, one of the few. It however loses 20 points for failing to even adopt a decent online system!

So overall, high marks for graphics and multiplayer, low marks for bland story and forgettable music.

And no matter how many times you ask me, I will never know when the bloody water is coming back on!


Disclaimer: Do not be offended by what I have said, it is merely my opinion, please criticise if you disagree.

Tommorow will be Left4Dead2. Keep your eyes peeled!

[King Weavilian]

Apologies for the lateness loyal readers. Ha ha...

Today I am going to be reviewing a personal favourite of mine and game I am playing at the moment. I will also attempt a different review style just for practice. Enjoy!

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness and Sky.

Pokémon has been a huge hit ever since its debut in the 90’s; no body would have thought capturing small monsters and forcing them to fight each other would have been such a worldwide phenomenon and cult classic. Of course with many big sellers, spin offs of the mainstream franchise will be created; here is one of them, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness and Sky for the Nintendo DS.



Of course the title is not so long winded, rather, it is three separate titles aptly named Explorers of Time, Explorers of Darkness or Explorers of Sky; Sky being the most recent and updated of the trio. Unlike the mainstream Pokémon games, the Mystery Dungeon series actually contains a well constructed plot with developed characters, likeable NPCs and the ability to play as the Pokémon! You begin either of the games with a quick personality questionnaire to determine which Pokémon you will play as: this can range from Vulpix, Phanpy, Eevee or even Riolu, so there is at least a varied choice for any sort of player. Upon being selected your Pokémon, you get to pick your starter who serves the best friend role throughout the entire game; the selection for this remains the same.

Once these have been selected, the story begins as you are instantly thrown upon the beach after a heavy storm with no prior memory and… you are now a Pokémon! Not exactly the most ground breaking introduction to a story but introductions are generally very slow. The story itself picks up half way through the game like most RPGs and becomes very interesting full of twists and turns, although, you probably won’t be as shocked as the NPCs when these twists are revealed.

“Such and such is a villain!”
“WHAAAAAAT?!”
“Also, I’m really the good guy!”
“WHAAAAAAT?!”

This is just an example of some of the dialogue that occurs during a serious event which makes them rather humourous, I assume that Pokémon are very naïve and live in Cloud Cuckoo Land if every day things are a shock to them. Aside from this hilarity, the story holds up very nicely; the main characters are presented excellently, your partner has very good character development and you as a player kind of get attached to your partner hoping that everything turns out for the best for them. Whilst on the topic of the partner, let’s talk about how the characters are in the game.

The main character who will undoubtedly do the most talking (due to you suffering Mime Syndrome) is your partner; your loyal companion who would possibly leap off several cliffs if you said there was a cushy marshmallow at the bottom to stop their fall; you are indeed THAT trusting. The partner starts out as a spineless coward who can’t even stand up to some bullies or even get into the Guild (s)he has always wanted to get into, but your presence alone is enough to inspire the partner; pat yourself on the back, you did a great job. As the game progresses however, a bond builds between you and your partner and a feel of friendship becomes apparent. For those who pick an opposite gender partner, you’re in luck, they probably fancy you, for those who pick a similar gender partner, if you swing that way then it’s all good. The dialogue could be misinterpreted as either really friendly or they want to get into your Poképants.

Other characters include the guild members, all present with their own catchphrases – “Hey hey!” for Corphish and “yup yup” for Bidoof. Even fellow Guildmaster Wigglytuff has his own catchphrase – “YOOM-TAH!” These characters may occasionally be presented in a one dimensional manner, but as the story progresses, we learn more about them, how they feel about the situations in their lives and in the case of Sunflora, Wigglytuff and Chatot: their past explorations. No Pokémon game on the planet would ever give you that kind of development unless its for the main villain, and even then, Cyrus is possibly the one mainstream Pokémon character who has development aside from “I WANT TO RULE THE WORLD!” Yes that’s fantastic and everything but why…? It is a great change to see characters in Pokémon evolve from cardboard cut-outs to fully fleshed characters you actually grow to love or hate varying on how they talk to you or their past. Even with this, they manage to retain the cuteness that Pokémon is all about, which will either make your heart melt or punch their faces; this reviewer had a mix of both, especially for Chatot.

For the face punchers out there, this story is not for you then. It is evident from even the first scene with you and your partner that the game will feature strong references to friendship and kindness. On first glance, you may instantly dismiss this, but fear not, the game has very dark undertones, many filled with rich Nightmare Fuel that will surely get your heart pumping and your blood rushing. Not really, but for a Pokémon game, Mystery Dungeon is extremely dark; if it wasn’t for the cute characters and child friendly dialogue, this game would easily be rated a 12+ for the story alone.

What else is there to say on the story? Apart from how amazing it is… The flashbacks… You will frequently be bombarded with flashbacks, even from things you discovered ten seconds ago. This is rather annoying as it makes me wonder if Chunsoft thought the viewers were Goldeen. If I wanted to be a Goldeen I’d pick one! Apart from this however, the story truly outclasses the other Pokémon titles but it actually managed to make a mark on the good RPG story chart. The premise may seem a tad generic with the morals of friendship, but the overall dialogue and how the story presents itself to you is what gets you heartily enjoying the game, and if you have a heart, some tears in your eyes.

Moving onto the matter of gameplay; the standard RPG scenario applies, you fight enemies that want you dead and for every defeat you gain exp; it’s a simple premise. Mystery Dungeon, just like the Pokémon games allows you to have four moves per Pokémon, however, these work differently due to the style of the game. You move around in these mystery dungeons and still partake in turn based battles, where upon K.O’ing an enemy, you gain exp and can move on to the next floor or for more exploring. This remains the same throughout the entire game so do not expect anything different. The game tries to mix it up a bit with the Billboard tasks such as escorting dead weight Pokémon, delivering items or fighting outlaws, but these all go back to square one of navigating dungeons and fighting other Pokémon. The gameplay is very repetitive, but I have yet to see an RPG that is not guilty of this.

Treasure Town – the main town in the game – acts as a hub of sorts where you can buy various items to aid in your dungeon crawls, store money and spare items, train in the Dojo or hatch eggs you have received from missions. No fighting partakes here and the layout of the hub is simple enough that even a Slowpoke could understand it. That is all that needs to be said about the gameplay, it’s simple and easy to understand but can get repetitive at times; this is generally balanced by the variety of Pokémon you see and the occasional traps and layouts of the dungeons.

Music is a huge factor of this game’s redeeming factors, it is indeed fantastic. I found myself hard pressed to pick even five tracks for this out of the potential… well… a lot. There are a lot of tracks that are catchy, memorable and flat out sound extremely cool or badass. In some cases, they even add to the mood; I would say the music is what really brings a tear to my eye during some of the later sequences. Enjoy these, I certainly did:











Finally, I will wrap this up with a brief mention on the graphics. The sprites used are crisp, colourful and down right awesome. Each individual Pokémon has their own text box and a picture of the Pokémon talking; depending on their importance also depends on the amount of facial expressions they can show. Many games with text box and character avatars are let down by a lack of expression when the characters are meant to be talking, where even during a scene where they are expressing a large amount of anger, a small smile remains on their face. Mystery Dungeon throws this out the window, jumps on top of it and then uses Flamethrower on it. Expect many different variations of Poké faces as you progress through the game; I’ll show a few below as they are a tiny thing that really stands out in this game. I chose Eevee because of how adorable the little thing is.



So to conclude, a Pokémon game like no other. An extremely good plot, great character development, likeable characters, fantastic music and colourful graphics. This game is mostly let down by the repetitive nature of the gameplay and I would consider the constant flashbacks a huge negative for the story. This however is cemented over and reinforced by what I’ve mentioned time and time again. The story is amazing, if the mainstream titles possessed a story like this, they would become even greater than they are now.

Pros:

• Enriching story.
• Likeable characters.
• Actual character development.
• Amazing music.
• Colourful, even in the future…
• Simple and easy to understand.
• Expressive characters.
• It made me cry.

Cons:

• Repetitive gameplay.
• Flashbacks.
• Overuse of the friendship overtone.
• It made me cry.
• Did I say flashbacks? Let’s flashback to it.

88/100

I know I said L4D2, well… TOO BAD.

[Lard Arse Michael]

Did I mention I'm the villain? Now sit there while I have a flashback about something I did 5 minutes ago and then have a flashforward about the flashback you'll have once you reach when this flashforward takes place.

FRIENDSHIP! *sparkley text goes here*

My brain hurts.

A good review though, maybe a little long on our puny minds, but if you've got something to say about something not much point in spending ages cutting it down.

[King Weavilian]

Did I mention I'm the villain? Now sit there while I have a flashback about something I did 5 minutes ago and then have a flashforward about the flashback you'll have once you reach when this flashforward takes place.

FRIENDSHIP! *sparkley text goes here*

My brain hurts.

A good review though, maybe a little long on our puny minds, but if you've got something to say about something not much point in spending ages cutting it down.

Well these are proper ones, if its too much to read, you haven't read many reviews.

[King Weavilian]

Hurr, so much for weekly. Expect one tommorow.

[Leo]

You are a pro review writer, keep up the good work !

[King Weavilian]

Thank you very much, that's very kind.

[King Weavilian]

It was inevitable that Game Freak would eventually churn out the highly requested remake of Gold and Silver; after the past success of the other Pokémon games, it is obvious that such a title would be regarded highly, especially if Pokémon Diamond & Pearl sold the highest of all Pokémon titles to date.


So what is the general idea of a remake in Pokémon? Well, we were adorned with Fire Red and Leaf Green some years ago, and both titles included updated graphics, remixed music and some new challenges to add to the length of game play, so does this follow suit in Heart Gold and Soul Silver? The answer is yes.


Heart Gold and Soul reuses the same engine and graphical style of recent hit Pokémon Platinum, where you play eerie eyed Whatshisname as you partake in the world of Pokémon, training to be the very best, get every single Gym Badge and eventually, stomp the Elite Four into a fine paste. Sound familiar? Well, it’s Pokémon, the formula rarely changes and occasionally, this can be a good or bad thing.


For starters, the battle system is the same as it always is, you take it in turns to bonk the other Pokémon on the head until (s)he keels over and you reign over them victoriously. In Platinum, they added a special/physical split so moves such as Thunder Punch actually were physical attacks instead of being special based which was a great move and actually made some form of sense. However, nothing else has changed, the battle system is exactly the same, controls are the same, heck, the story is very similar to other Pokémon titles; you must get every Gym Badge and beat the evil team; you can catch them all but that lost all meaning the second they added new Pokémon.


Of course, since this is a remake, this review should primarily focus upon how well it has remade the classic Gold and Silver games in this update. Well, the first thing you may notice is that your Pokémon now follows you, so your lost found dreams of having that tiny ally of yours follow you can come true; however, this is merely a fruitless gimmick at best, there is rarely an instance where the Pokémon following you is of any convenience to the game, it is just there to look good. However, Game Freak did actually get to work and create a new form of contests; the Pokéthelon in which you command your beasties to participate in athletic events regardless of how puny they may be, so enjoy the fun as your Caterpie is forced to break bricks against an Aggron, Charizard and Snorlax. Finally, they create a worthy substitute for contests, which were not very popular in general... at least they spawned Milotic potentially but that is all really.


So what changes about the story in the remake? In Fire Red, there was a new island where Team Rocket hatched evil schemes and... that was it. In Heart Gold there is small instances where the Kimono Girls will bother you in an attempt to become plot essential and we are introduced to your non rival opposite gender friend who serves no purpose other than to annoy you. Even when I am done with the Gym Leaders and ready to challenge the Elite Four, she has the nerve to ask “Where do you think you’re going?” as if the adventures of Weavile and Co has come to a halt just because of one little girl. Pokémon generally is not known for being an incredibly wide open RPG and in some instances can be very linear, however, this is crossing the line of FORCING you to just carry on with something plot wise. Generally, when you finish all the Gyms, you want to rush right to the Elite Four and demolish them. Not anymore! Thank you Lyra...


The renowned Battle Frontier makes a ret- Wait a minute. Is that the exact same Battle Frontier as before? GAME FREEEEEEEEEAK! Yes, in Heart Gold and Soul Silver, they somehow managed to steal the Battle Frontier from Platinum and transport it all the way to Johto just so you can partake in battles against the Frontier Brains. I am all for the Battle Frontier but at least put some form of effort into it... Heck, even Palmer says the exact same dialogue as he did in Platinum; at least your character has some backstory? I don’t know.


But what we love about Pokémon the most, is the cutesy graphics and the wide variety of critters that can join your team. The new first gen and second gen sprites are superb, except some (Scyther, Jolteon...) and are beautifully animated; however, I draw the line at the laziness of importing the same third and fourth gen sprites. Game Freak, why no love for Lucario, Weavile and Hippowdon huh? There are plenty of Pokémon to catch so to “Catch them all” you will need a lot of Mountain Dew and crisps, you’re gonna be there all day.


Finally, it wouldn’t be a remake with remixed music and my gosh, it is one of the best yet. Your mileage may vary of course but some of the newer tunes are amazing; and for those with the nostalgia glasses, you can get the Gameboy Player from Kanto and turn all the music into classical tunes.


What I want to mention quickly before wrapping this up, is the new application, the Pokéwalker. This at first, I thought was just a stupid device designed to get kids into exercising by ‘walking their Pokémon.’ Sounds stupid on paper? Maybe... But it is one of the greatest devices ever. Pokémon can level up and potentially find items while you go for a job or even walk to and from school/college/uni/work/the farm/hell/etc and in return, your Pokémon will want to tug at your clothes aching for more. It’s cute if its a tiny thing like Pikachu but if a Lugia is tugging my clothes, I’m kind of surprised that I’m not dead. You can even connect with your buddy and they can have adventures, although, they only last five seconds... The idea is that you can then battle a version of your friend’s team in Kanto for practice or to find out their strategies; sneaky.


All in all, Heart Gold is indeed a fantastic remake and well worth the money, especially if you are buying the Pokéwalker with it; however, the laziness of some aspects such as sprites, Battle Frontiers and lack of noteable story changes hurts it quite a bit. I’m hoping for Gen 5 we get to be involved in a Poké crisis where Pokémon of all races and ages join forces to combat a higher oppression of evil, dictating all our actions and forcing friends and foes alike to fight against each other in an epic battle of blood and gore. Or, I could just read a Fanfiction on FF.net, it’s all the same.

Pros:-

+ Great music
+ Pokéthelon is an awesome addition
+ So is the Pokéwalker
+ The new sprites are really good

Cons:-

- The same freaking Battle Frontier
- No love for 3rd and 4th gen sprites
- Plot additions are useless and unneccessary


90/100

Update: Music!

[BrittTheJoker]

training to be the very best - That Made me smile.. and then the theme tune played in my head for a few seconds

I didn't realise about the battle frontier.. That is stupidly lazy.. especially the dialogue.. I mean at the least they could've changed it =/ But I digress.

Nicely structured review that pretty much covers everything, is it laem I'm excited for the music now?

I'm gonna have to look up Jolteon, makes me Sad face =(

Love the mention of Weavile, I knew he'd be in there somewhere!

I am excited for hte pokewalker.. My Friend has one. I wanna connect with her.. It's like Tamagotchi all over again! =D

And I love the Dig at Fanfiction.net too. MAke me chuckle to myself

Great review though, and makes me wish I had Heart Gold all the more.. Albeit lazily made. Keep eet up!

[Rorschach]

Great review, I enjoyed reading it.

I have a Jolteon on my team, and I think the battle sprite animation for it is a large improvement from Platinum, but it's personal preference overall.

Platinum:


HGSS:


Jolteon's sprite is much cuter anyway so it makes up for any lack of anything

[King Weavilian]

Thanks guys.

I just didn't like the way it looked, it looks kinda... fat?

Scyther's is a definite ugh though.

Take a look:

Platinum:


Heart Gold/Soul Silver:


THOSE FEET

[Rorschach]

xD Scyther looks retarded, wide open mouth, big feet, no body.

Also, I'm glad you didn't mention the walking sprites. Jolteon looks terrible, as well as A LOT more.
As for what the sprites do, they can give you tips on where to go in the story, tell you their happiness levels, tell you how injured they are.

[King Weavilian]

True, but I did say they are merely a gimmick and aren't really neccessary, the other stuff was accessible before hand.
And don't get me started on Lucario's walking animation... Stick up the butt and looks like he has a huge rack.
I updated the review with music.

[BrittTheJoker]

Great review, I enjoyed reading it.

I have a Jolteon on my team, and I think the battle sprite animation for it is a large improvement from Platinum, but it's personal preference overall.

Platinum:


HGSS:


Jolteon's sprite is much cuter anyway so it makes up for any lack of anything

I prefer the Platinum one myself.. HGSS Looks more out of proportion. The ears look bigger and hte legs look too long, in my opinion.

The Music sounds like remixed and better quality versions of songs to me, And I like it a lot. The change is good! Thanks for sharing <3

[King Weavilian]

No really? I mean, seriously? Yes, if you know me very well, you’ll know that I am not a fan of the generic war genre, what with their lack of variety for colouring, unbalanced weaponry and generally an immature and mean community. Until today, I had that firmly planted in my mind; if it was not for my friend egging me on to download and play it, I called his bluff and decided to step into the world of:



What can I say, I am honestly surprised that I am even writing my thoughts on this game; I never thought I’d see the day where I’d go online and legitimately try to have fun without ragging on the game like a broken record. Unfortunately I could barely record commentary since I do not have that tacked down, but I can at least say what I thought when I first started up the game. First off, to avoid the nagging community and comments of “You’re a n00b” that I was expecting, I renamed myself to “It’s my first day”, that way, I would avoid negative slur and at least it would be a friendly game; this turned out to be successful and was rather amusing to say the least.

When I first played, Drewbinz and Dark Templar accompanied me into my first game in which we were in a free-for-all match with no limit on points or time; so essentially, we could kill each other forever and ever. [FP] Zelda was giving me quick tips over Steam chat and all I needed to know was: “What is the grenade and knife button?” Once I had found out my tactics, I jumped right into the game, attempting to foolishly slash away at my opponents in an attempt to just get a quick stab on them for an instant kill. It worked quite a few times, but I think Templar and Drewbinz were going easy on me just because I was new. Whilst in game, I would message Dark Templar with my antics, including most knife kills I got and one instance where our Russian commander (I assume) yelled “WE HAVE LOST ALL SIGNALS!” extremely loudly in a narmy fashion. I told him to calm down. He didn’t of course...

After a while, we decided to crash some proper public games, and here is where the stereotypes I have adopted just disappeared.

Sure the game was a bit bland in terms of colours, like the level with the Submarine for example, blue is predominant and you won’t see many other colours other than white and blue, but at the least, it was visible so I could shoot the opponent; and get knife kills! However, the stereotype that weapons are unbalanced is oh so true; many times was I watching my team be on the other end of a grenade launcher, me occasionally, but I thought I wouldn’t stand a chance or took a detour and got a knife kill...

The main problem with the balance lies within the prizes you get for killing streaks. Okay fair enough, the guy got six kills in a row, he deserves a clap. Not in Call of Duty, a helicopter might fly out and gun you down within seconds and you can’t do anything; I suppose you could blast it out of the sky but there’s the potential for being bullet ridden that I just don’t like; it ended up turning into me hiding inside a house until the helicopter was gone or someone else blew it up. There are also Stealth Bombers which caught me the once; I wanted to see how far I would fly but I ended up losing my lower torso...

The community lastly is barely even a problem; I don’t know where I got the idea that the Call of Duty community was so serious but it was barely visible at all in the game; heck, we got “GG” and I even got a “nice one” when I knifed three people for a killing streak. Many games have terrible communities, I’ve seen more abuse on Team Fortress and that’s supposed to be an extremely friendly community; indeed, it is friendly when I am called a “****ing n00b” just because I got a domination and taunted afterwards.

Grenade spam is one thing I was so wrong about. People moan about Call of Duty when you even utter the word grenade in a video game and tell you to go “spam it in Call of Duty” yet... I barely saw grenade spam, you can’t even spam a grenade in Call of Duty. This is probably because of my level, but I had three grenades, and two of them were smoke/flashbang/frags. So, 3 grenades constitutes as spam? I hope they never ever play Demoman in TF2, they’ll rage the second they empty their first clip of the grenade launcher.

I will say though, that since I was a much lower level than everyone else, it was a bit more difficult; yeah you get levels in Call of Duty and you can improve your loadout and have better skills and such because of it. This can be really hampering to a new player as they’ll have the default loadout (so... me) and everyone else will possess the Over 9000 Homing Harpoon Pumpkin Launcher of Destruction: The Sexening. At least new players get exp very fast and some of the default stuff is decent anyway, I took a partial liking to the Recon Scout set (I think it was that?).

Unfortunately the demo expires soon and that is disappointing because I actually did have a good time. Sure there are issues with balance and the difficulty online can vary between incredibly easy to nightmare mode, but I had a laugh regardless, it was good old fashioned shooting the other guys and throwing grenades. I know I will probably get moaned at by some of my friends who will say such comments as “You’ve gone to the dark side” or what not, but to that I reply; “play the bloody game first and stop ragging on stuff you haven’t played more than 10 minutes.” I did that and look what happened; I tried it for 2 hours and had fun.

All in all, I had a great time and I’d like to thank Drewbinz and Dark Templar for showing me the ropes and for putting up with me and for the first 2 hours I played of Call of Duty, I can at least rate it a...

80 out of 100.

It lost marks for bad gaming balance, difficulty for a new player and bland colours. Overall, a very solid game though however. Hm, hold on, my signal is going off- “WE HAVE LOST ALL SIGNALS!”

[BrittTheJoker]

Maybe I should have brought it ;P I got put off by being told it was over rated.

However I have been told without the online it's too short, Like this guy I know has it on PS3 and doesn't play it online, makes little sense.

And I had heard of Grenade spam, how ridiculous =S

Don't mind blandness myself, Borderlands was a bit bland.. But I loved that =D

Good review again Tom =D Keep it up MAH BOI

[Rorschach]

I would like to point out. The community of over the top antics and n00b slandering ways are the Xbox. If you play MW2 on the PC or PS3. (Any online game to be true) you may get a hint of it, but nothing like what is on the Xbox, which is where everything gets a bad name.

[King Weavilian]

I would like to point out. The community of over the top antics and n00b slandering ways are the Xbox. If you play MW2 on the PC or PS3. (Any online game to be true) you may get a hint of it, but nothing like what is on the Xbox, which is where everything gets a bad name.

Ah good point, thanks.

[Leo]

You’ve gone to the dark side!














Ok just kidding, the only call of duty i played was MW1 and it was cool but i was so heroic and i played it on the most difficult lvl and i managed to reach to somewhere but at the end i had to go down with the difficulty lvl in order to pass the game , i would also give it a 8/10 i guess! or 8.5

[King Weavilian]

You’ve gone to the dark side!














Ok just kidding, the only call of duty i played was MW1 and it was cool but i was so heroic and i played it on the most difficult lvl and i managed to reach to somewhere but at the end i had to go down with the difficulty lvl in order to pass the game , i would also give it a 8/10 i guess! or 8.5

Leave the reviews to the proffesionals son. Nah I'm just kidding, thanks all for the comments. I've been in a bit of a reviewing mood so tommorow, I'm gonna review yet another RPG. Secret though. I doubt anyone besides me has played it.

[Rorschach]

Here are some requests:

Grand Theft Auto 4
Fallout 3
Oblivion
Portal

[King Weavilian]

Never done requests... I can do that for you.

[BatinA]

Nice review mate! Keep it up!

I'm glad you had fun and enjoyed the game
After all, it's CoD ;D


As for now - I am sad.. Just look at the picture bellow and you'll know why :'(




But I have enjoyed every second! - Wish I had the full game

Here's a video of mE gameplay [Yes, I was the host and the others had some lag but who cares, I had fun xD]



PS - Here's a screenshot from yesterday, I loled hard at this moment - MAH BOI!

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