The Redcafe Video Game Review Thread

[Boothy]

GEARS OF WAR(X360 Exclusive)

Premise: Follows the story of ex-prisoner Marcus Fenix and Delta squad in the battle against the evil Locusts.

Rating: 9/10 One of the best games I have ever played, The over-the-shoulder camera view appealing to many games, giving a new feeling to the game. The graphics were the best graphics in video gaming, shitting all over Halo. Yes, Gears of War is a bit light on story. You are a soldier. There are bad guys. You must kill them. But the story, if you chose to read the instruction manual is quite interesting. The online play on it was good, although only 4v4 was availible, and a lot of cheaters used glitches, it was enjoyable. Tactics had to be used. The cover system in game was good, and unprecedented. Also, the game gave chance to use a chainsaw on the end of your gun, which was popular, as the blood from your victim splattered onto your screen. Still a very popular game, despite the fact there is a sequal, with a better story but shite online play, and the fact that it was released in November, 2006.

If you've got a Xbox 360 recently, and do not own GoW or GoW 2, Get GoW1, its better, but definately buy one of them.

 

[WeasteDevil]

The scores in here are way too high (on a 1-10 scale), but I suppose that you all simply copy the crappy style and rating mechanisms (for example almost always using a 6-10 scale - what the feck is the point of that?) used in the modern gaming press. Why film reviews are generally much more accurate and honest than game reviews I really don't know.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

The scores in here are way too high (on a 1-10 scale), but I suppose that you all simply copy the crappy style and rating mechanisms (for example almost always using a 6-10 scale - what the feck is the point of that?) used in the modern gaming press. Why film reviews are generally much more accurate and honest than game reviews I really don't know.

fanboyism.

 

[R.N7]

Tbf most of us have chosen our favourite games, and some of them really deserve their ratings.

 

[mexos]

Tbf most of us have chosen our favourite games, and some of them really deserve their ratings.

exactly

all though I can see how my elasto mania rating was a bit high

 

[Xander45]

The scores in here are way too high (on a 1-10 scale), but I suppose that you all simply copy the crappy style and rating mechanisms (for example almost always using a 6-10 scale - what the feck is the point of that?) used in the modern gaming press. Why film reviews are generally much more accurate and honest than game reviews I really don't know.

I think the thing is most of us are reviewing games that we like. I could review some of the absolute shite i've played if you'd like but it probably wouldn't help anyone.

Ah feck it.

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

Premise - Your uncle runs a movie studio and you have brought in to try and finda mole that is trying to bring the place down Oh yeah you are also a huge pervert and seemingly so is everyone else!

Rating 2/10 - Awful, awful game. Run in fear and fright at the very sight of this monstrosity. After playing for half an hour i had a head ache from the constant swinging of the camera and awful platforming. You can't jump properly, walking is a chore, driving is tedious and the music is dull to say the least. The voiceacting is ok (fans of family guy will find one voice familiar) but this doesn't make up for a very shoddy game indeed. The graphics aren't bad, but are anything but great, the shading looks terrible. The humour is meant to be the selling point of this game, but even that gets old pretty quick. You can only laugh so much at a guy getting turned down in various different ways.

There are movie scenes where you transport yourself into the movie you're acting in and create some fantasy world in your sleep. These are too big and too ridiculously awkward to navigate due to the piss poor platforming and combat mechanism. Also in one scene i had to get in a drinking contest to try and pull this prostitute (?), leading to the screen spinning furiously and my feeling very ill. Even after that min-game was over the screen continued to spin, it was a horrible experience. Needless to say i never finished it, i got pissed off with the headaches and loading times. Shite game.

 

[R.N7]

Lylat Wars

Premise: You play as Fox McCloud, the leader of the Star Fox team. The evil monkey scientist Andross has launched an attack across the Lylat system. Your task is to travell to different planets and asteroid fields and try to defeat him.

Rating: 8/10 - One thing that really stands out in this game is the voice acting. The crew members have lots of funny and sarcastic conversations with each other. The gameplay and level design is great and the multiple storylines increases the game's replay value. It's a really fun scrolling shooter game that also has a multiplayer mode.

 

[Brwned]

Wonder Pigeon told me to pass this on:

"Hey dude, could you do me a Caf favour? Go to my video game review thread in the entertainment forum and tell them not to only do reviews of great games. Nothing but 10/10s wasn't exactly what I had in mind for that.

Cheers!"

 

[Xander45]

Wonder Pigeon told me to pass this on:

"Hey dude, could you do me a Caf favour? Go to my video game review thread in the entertainment forum and tell them not to only do reviews of great games. Nothing but 10/10s wasn't exactly what I had in mind for that.

Cheers!"

Check my post above Lylat wars. That game was awful, i'll do more bad reviews shortly.

 

[SharkyMcShark]

Is proud that he gave the one game he reviewed an honest and frank score.

 

[Kaos]

Shenmue and Shenmue II

Premise: You are Ryo Hazuki, set on a long quest to avenge his father's murder by the hands of Chinese criminal, Lan Di. The game takes you through an epic journey starting from small Japanese villages, and further into the buzzing streets of Hong Kong, as you seek out leads, making friends and new enemies along the way.

Review 10/10 Terrific gem by Sega which is sadly underappreciated. Both titles are packed with a terrific storyline, lots of unrelated diversions and an amazing eastern world you can explore and really submerse yourself into. Currently my favourite games of all time and it deeply saddens me that a final conclusive third game seems out of the question now that the Shenmue mastermind Yu Suzuki has retired . Those of you who havent given it a go then I urge you to seek out the xbox remake.

 

[Mockney]

OK, As a not very avid gamer...and by that I mean generally only two player beat em ups, racing and football games....I'm quite glad (and annoyed) to have just completed 2 games in 2 days...So I thought I'd review them

The games were...

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Or Wolverine: Escape from Africa, which is clearly what it should have been called since you seem to spend the entire fecking game there. After a nice and brilliantly gory little cut scene set in the future, we flashback to our hero Pre-Wolverine-ness and find him roaming Africa trying to find his team mates after their chopper is shot down....It's a good little level and immediately engrossing but the problem is, you never really leave it...Your still playing bits of it 5 or 6 hours later. For anyone who's played the demo, this is essentially it but longer...much much longer.

Basically the game is set up in two narrative strands. One pre-wolverine, and one just post. We flash between the two at regular intervals. The problem is that rather than have us flash to lots of different bits of pre-wolverine-ness, we're only stuck with one. So while the present day narrative skips along well and brings up some nice boss fights, interesting abilities etc, the past narrative is just the first level over and over and over again....Someone obviously had a lot of level maps left over from Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and thought they'd go fecking nuts with them....

The fighting mechanics are great at first and showcase a lot of stuff (you gradually gain the ability to perform better and better moves, there's slow motion kills, plus you can jump on helicopters and boats and big robot things) but the programmers obviously thought the best way to pad out the running time was to make you fight thousands of enemies every 10 seconds just to keep you interested...this eventually gets very very boring, most notably in Africa, where the villians are basic and only require the standard set of moves to defeat...but since you get so many of them this takes forever and you actually get fecking bored of killing the same fecking people in the same fecking temple ruins when your on level fecking 5.

With the African bit confined to level 1 and the amount of repetative enemies thrown at you reduced this could have been a very good game. In fact it is because they've thrown a lot of cool little bits in there and showcase pretty much everything Wolverine should be able to do (well, from my very limited knowledge of Wolverine anyway)...

The repetitiveness is a shame for me cos there are some great playable set pieces in here.... From jumping between helicopters to bring down agent zero, to fighting Gambit on a massive collapsing neon sign and trying to fight a 60 foot killing robot whilst falling through the sky with it....I just wish they'd've stopped going back to fecking Africa and made the enemies a little less fecking dull and repetative to kill....

I'd give it a 7 cos I did have fun playing it....but by level 4 (there are 5 levels, but they're split into lots of little sub levels if you get me ....mostly in fecking africa to be honest) I got very fed up and just wanted to finish it.

The other was

Army of Two - Which was a great game. Very impressive to look at. Great fun to play. Good story, interesting characters, good mechanics, good everything...I had nothing bad to say about this game.....

Until it ended.

I was playing it in co-op with my flat mate (for those that don't know it's a 2 player co-op 3rd person shooter, a bit like Kane & Lynch, about 2 mercenaries) we were getting well into this shit wondering what we;d get to do as the game went on, arguing about what weapons we were going to buy, and whether it'd be chavy to just pimp them all rather than actually upgrading their frontmounts...and then it ended. It just ended. They'd obviously spent so much money on the cutscenes (which were really impressive) that they ran out of enough money to make a proper length game....I was honestly shocked.

It took 2 not very avid gamers, certainly not platform gamers, around 5 hours in all, if that, to complete this game.

Real shame cos it was so good while it lasted

8 from me. A much better game than Wolverine, and would deserve a 9 if it had been longer but it was so short I actually felt short changed...

 

[Christofaux]

I can't review terrible games because i don't play them. I imagine its the same for everyone, hence nothing under 6 out of 10 unless your copying it off a gamespot website.

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

Iggy's Wrecking Balls

Premise: er...extremely disturbing looking balls race each other. They look like play-doh as possesed by the devil and protrude a strange long appendage to grapple from that haunts my nightmares.

Rating: 5/10 Aside from being bizarre and frightening, this game was just plain average, I'd only rent it when all the good games were taken, it was a choice between this and Chess Master 64 (If you are interested in chess at all you already own a chess set, why would anyone want such a videogame, unless they were a MUTATED FREAK?). It was pretty easy from what I remember, and it's graphics were quite boring. Yeah, average pretty much sums it up. Average and disturbing.

 

[R.N7]

I had that game! It was pretty disturbing but it was very fun to play, especially in multiplayer mode.

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

Glover

Premise: In a simpler time, when video game plots didn't have to make sense and involve frat boy space marines, a magic glove has to protect crystals that can be turned into a bouncy ball, a bowling ball, and a ball bearing. The enemy is the glove's evil twin, at the end of the game you and he pilot robots to fight each other. Hideo Kojima wishes he could write a plot like that. I think there's a wizard or something.

rating: 6/10 Was fun in bits, but if I remember correctly it was pretty boring most of the time. Repetitive gameplay, almost no music, plenty of fog and very annoyingly difficult levels are all balanced by the fact that it's about a magic glove with an evil twin moving around a bouncy ball that's really a crystal.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Released for the PC in late 2008 and for the Xbox360 and PS3 in April, 2009 Sacred 2 is a massive open world action/adventure role-playing game. Set as a prequel to the original Sacred, you take control of one of 6 character types in one of two campaigns. The game also offers online play and an offline two player co-op mode. A free mode (non-campaign) is also offered, which is good for testing out the different character types.

Character Classes
As usual in this genre your character is highly customizable through the allocation of skill points and additon of weapons, armor and assorted charms, etc. Evidently you can grow up to Level 200, but I'm not there yet.
Seraphim: returning from the first instalment of Sacred, the Seraphim embodies all that is good; a hot chick who ends up clad in metal wings, among other things.
Shadow Warrior: Your basic hack and slash character, he has the added benefit of necromancy skills.
High Elf: Wizard class, she's cute and surprisingly effective, one of the best wizard classes I've played in any game.
Dryad: Ranged physical attacker, with some magic skills. A hippy chick, if you will.
Temple Guardian: Half dog, half cyborg the Temple Guardian appears to be right out of Egypt. Equipped with a sword and energy cannon.
Inquisitor: An evil wizard, he can also use physical attacks.

All character classes have three special combat arts that can be upgraded, each art has five special skills that may be further upgraded, the catch being a limit on the number of upgrades to the combat arts. The combat arts can be offensive or defensive spells, physical attack modifiers, summoning spells, the usual stuff. Additionally, your character can upgrade a host of other combat skills to improve weapon attacks, defensive capabilities, riding skills, the combat arts, etc.

The game's sheer size makes it one I'd highly recommend. I've played it for just over a week and have barely scratched the surface. Players can focus on following the storyline or become immersed in the myriad of side-quests available. The only drawbacks to the game are the annoying voice overs of the characters and that it can take a long time to get from point to point as the teleport function occasionally leaves something to be desired. Overall I'd easily give this game an 8/10, though. If you liked the Diablo or Champions of Norath series this game will not disappoint.

Rating: 8/10

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

You're such a geek Doc.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

come on, Glover?

Do you have Michael Jackson posters in your bedroom as well?

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

I owned a Nintendo 64, there weren't a lot of options when I went to rent games as a kid!

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

I suppose. Did you ever play OgreBattle64 or Starcraft64?

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

I'm not sure either of those ever came out in Europe.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

That would be a shame, they are far and away the best games for that console.

StarCraft apparently came out for the 64 in Europe, OgreBattle was Japan and NorthAm only. Pity that, it was a massive game, took 60 hours or so to complete.

 

[Xander45]

Ok i've gone on a little ps2 binge. I've bought a few games i never played/finished when they first came out, can anyone give me a quick review on them?

Okami (i loved this game but my old ps2 broke before i could finish it)
Shin Megami Tensai: Persona 3/4
Shadow of the Collosus
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

 

[Solius]

Can't be arsed to review but Shadow of the Collosus is brilliant.

 

[marrakoosh]

Just bought FF7 on Playstation Store.

EPIC.

That's my work commute sorted for the next year or so!

 

[R.N7]

Ok i've gone on a little ps2 binge. I've bought a few games i never played/finished when they first came out, can anyone give me a quick review on them?

Okami (i loved this game but my old ps2 broke before i could finish it)
Shin Megami Tensai: Persona 3/4
Shadow of the Collosus
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone

There's a review on the first page.

 

[Xander45]

Oh yeah, that's the only game out of the lot i've played before so a review wasn't actually necessary anyway.

 

[Kaos]

Saints Row 2

Having been bored with the repetitive missions of GTA IV, id thought Id give this rival a shot and im pleasantly surprised by how brilliant its turned out to be! The game doesnt take itself seriously and is simply just crude and immature, but more importantly its extremely fun. On top of the varied missions, there's a LOT of diversions ranging from racing, to fight clubs, to hitman contracts ontop of more absurd activities such as spraying sewage on property and people, or acting as an aggresive bodyguard for celebrities. Miles ahead of GTA IV in terms of the fun factor and replayability.

8.5/10

 

[Kaos]

Mount and Blade

Having been recommended this title, I'd thought I'd pick it up at its budget price of under a tenner and give it a run. Now having read the reviews before playing this I can confirm that this game is severely underrated! I can best describe it as a sandbox RPG with no story or real structure, but instead you are free to customise your character and set off recruiting an army and engaging in battles as your fame or notoriety increases among with various kingdoms. You are free to join factions, become a feared warlord or simply become a bandit sabotaging caravans and vulnerable patrols. The combat system is one of the best I've seen in an RPG, especially the very well implemented mounted combat. For its budget status its well worth a try.

7.5/10

 

[SharkyMcShark]

Saints Row 2

Having been bored with the repetitive missions of GTA IV, id thought Id give this rival a shot and im pleasantly surprised by how brilliant its turned out to be! The game doesnt take itself seriously and is simply just crude and immature, but more importantly its extremely fun. On top of the varied missions, there's a LOT of diversions ranging from racing, to fight clubs, to hitman contracts ontop of more absurd activities such as spraying sewage on property and people, or acting as an aggresive bodyguard for celebrities. Miles ahead of GTA IV in terms of the fun factor and replayability.

8.5/10

Is a fecking top game.

I bought it two months ago and haven't put it down.

 

[Walrus]

Anyone played Demigod for the PC? Is it any good?

 

[Kaos]

Anyone played Demigod for the PC? Is it any good?

Its fun but theres absolutely no storyline! The online is ballsed up too.

Its still an addictive game, if you can get it on the cheap then I'd say go for it though.

 

[Kaos]

Anyway currently bashing through The Witcher and Dead Space, will be sad enough to drop off a review here at some point.

 

[Xander45]

The start is great fun going in with all the powers and blowing up tanks and helicopters all over the shop.

After about an hour or so i decided to go exploring and then it hit me, i'd done this before. Running around New York, leaping from building to building, collecting "landmark" tokens, finding "hint" bubbles lying around, performing little side missions that mean landing in a certain spot, or getting over a set course in a certain amount of time.

This is Spiderman 2.

There's obviously a graphical change but gameplay wise there's not a whole lot different, Tanks and Helicopters aside. Imagine playing Spiderman 2 with the liquid terminator and throw in a tiny dash of Mercenaries and you have Prototype.

Now i love the game, which doesn't surprise me as i love all the sandbox games, it's great fun and trying to put together your past keeps you going. Graphics aren't groundbreaking but that doesn't matter, there is so much to do that it will keep you occupied and entertained for hours on end.

But there's always this nagging feeling that you've done this all before.

Rating: 7/10

 

[Xander45]

I'm so glad i didn't read much up on this game, i took it up on the advice of a mate, because if i read the line "in this game you only fight 16 enemies" i would have probably dismissed it as some crap slow game that only lasted a couple of hours at most. How wrong i would have been.

You start off with an eagle soaring over the world and meet our hero riding his horse towards a huge bridge. We find out that his love has died and he has heard of a way to bring her back, but at a cost. We are told to kill several Colossi(?) and after that is done your love will be brought back to life!

Easy enough, that is until you see the bloody things you have to face.

Yeah, that little guy on the horse about to get eaten? That's you.

These things are huge, ridiculously huge. The moment when you see the first colossus is, for me, one of the best moments in video game history. Thats when you realise what you're up against. And it's not as if they're easy to kill either, that would have ruined it otherwise. You have to jump, crawl and hang on for dear life until you find a weak spot to drive your sword into and spill the giant things blood.

It's all very tactical and the graphics, for a ps2 game, are stunning. The long rides over the plains are never boring as the anticipation of the fight keeps you engrossed. The musical score as well is fantastically done, not hearing anything but the sound of your horse until you reach the boss battles really adds an extra edge to it.

The only problem i have against it is, as i was playing this on a 14" tv (makes the graphics look much less pixelated than playing on a bigger screen) the map was nigh on useless. Luckliy it's not vital to finding the guys and a tiny blot on an otherwise, almost, flawless masterpiece.

Rating: 9/10

 

[Xander45]

Ladies and gents i have an announcement to make. The PS2 is alive and well. Released in March of this year this is another installment in the Shin Megami Tensei saga, but is of no direct link to any of the others.

You are the silent protagonist who has just moved away from home to live with his uncle in a town in the middle of nowhere. Not long after you arrive murders begin to happen and you and a group of new school friends learn of a mysterious midnight channel that seems to show the people who die on it before it happens. Whilst investigated you find out that you can enter this TV world and that is where the main part of the game kicks off.

You and your friends must fight through the victims subconcious and save them, literally, from themselves. The battles are good fun and well paced, you can decide to let your team mates do what they like or give specific orders if you prefer, most enemies have a weakness and finding out what it is is key to defeating the more powerful ones. Each party member has a "Persona" a strange entity that appears during certain battle commands that fights with you against the enemy, each character has their own persona, each with different abilities and strengths.

a large part of the game though doesn't involve any battling at all, but living your life and forming social links, which are key to creating better personas later on. You can become friends with all sorts of people from around the town and learning more about them and getting closer to them, especially your battle party, leads to big bonuses for the fighting side of the game.

The graphics are as you would expect from a later game on the PS2, very good but sadly it wouldn't match up to any next gen games, but i wouldn't expect it to. And the story and soundtrack more than make up for it and keep you playing. The music is very J-Pop, with some tracks, especially the opening and battle theme, being very catchy.


The cutscenes are fantastic, presented in an anime style they look great. The story does go a bit slow at first but once you get into it you don't want to stop. As this is a j-rpg there are times when you have to wait nearly an hour before you can find the next save point so be prepared to take some time out if you want to experience this game fully. But all in all i'd say this is the best "traditional" rpg that has come out this year and one of the best for a long time, probably back to Final Fantasy X in 2001 in my opinion.

Rating 9.5/10

It's bloody brilliant, if you like rpg's and still have the old girl lying around i'd seriously advise you to get this game.

 

[Twisted_Woody]

I'm quite liking the old games being reviewed. Nice to see some N64 titles still being enjoyed.

 

[Xander45]

As you can probably tell from the picture this is a very odd game indeed. You are a pink haired boy who runs after a group of evil pigs that stole your grandfathers golden bracelet. You then have to defeat and ensnare the evil pags in evil pig bags and send them packing.

This game doesn't seem to be mentioned much, but it is a very good game with a bit more to it than jumping on the heads of evil pigs and plants that fart. There is a lot of puzzles to be solved and things to find around the world to find that help in your quest to retrieve your gold.

The game itself plays as a simple sidescroller platformer, with some underwater bits and the odd minigame. It's a good laugh to play and, as you would expect from a game where the main enemies are gold hording pigs, doesn't take itself at all seriously with some very silly moments. You can get extra weapons such as boomerangs, hookshots and other such things to help against the pig horde, but jumping on their heads and throwing them into a wall works just as well.

A fun little game to look into if you haven't already, and one to look up the rom for (you thieving swines) if you fancy a little bit of fun that's more challenging in places than you'd think.

Rating 7/10

Oh yeah the theme music over the opening video of the PAL version may sound familiar to some of you who are of a certain age. It's No Sweat by North and South from the obscure BBC tv show of the same name from 1998.


Please see this link as to why you should play this game, a cult legend, http://www.audioscribbler.co.uk/features/9788

Ps. One last thing, if you have a copy have a peek at ebay. You'll find that they sell for a pretty penny nowadays.

 

[Xander45]

The Orange Box: Part 1

See what i did there?

Valve put together three games on one disc and leave you begging for more, literally, hurry up and release episode 3 you bastards!

Half-Life 2 follows the fortunes of our favourite alien fighting physicist as he attempts to bring down the evil combine in City 17. The gameplay is very linear and you can't really do as much exploring as you would like to do in the City itself, but as a story it's very well done. The story moves at a good pace and you very rarely, if ever, are stuck with what to do next.

Onto a large part of the game, the weapons. Now the aiming isn't exactly rocket science, a large crosshair aimed at your target from even the most bizarre range can kill an enemy. I at one point managed to kill a soldier who all i could see was his head from a ridiculous range with a pistol by aiming in his general direction, this may not please the shooting game fanboi's but it works here as with the amount of enemies you will face, you need to know you can kill them quick if you have enough ammo.

Later on in the game you get access to a laser guided rocket launcher and meet some very tricky enemies in the Striders and Gunships. Striders are basically giant tripods that shoot lasers, and gunships are... well gunships. But the most fun weapon is definitely the Gravity Gun, picking up random objects and tossing them at your enemies never gets old, especially when said object turns them into a ball of fire.

Did i forget to mention you can also ride a hovercraft?

The voice acting is a joy to listen to, of course The Freeman is mute, Alyx, Eli, Dr Kleiner and the guy who's name i can't remember all sound fantastic and really add to the atmosphere of danger that surrounds you. There are a few down points, at one stage you get a group of followers whose AI leaves a lot to be desired and more often than not they end up getting in your way. But the main downer for me is the amount of time spent looking at a little bar saying Loading, every time you escape an ambush and are running into the next building to seek shelter BAM, loading bar. Just walked down a flight of steps and, oh goody another loading bar.

All in all though the main game of Half-Life 2 is great fun. The graphics look pretty good, and the extra attention paid to the main characters faces, including some interesting expressions from Alyx, really add to the experience. The story keeps you gripped and ammo and health is never in short supply. A great game to play as you follow a few days through the eyes of Gordon Freeman.

Rating 7.5/10

Loading times and poor AI knock it down a few, but don't miss this game if you get the chance to play it.