26th
November
2007
Hudson Soft’s Mario Party series has had several poor outings in the last few releases. Mario Party 7 on the Gamecube was rather uninspired and while the microphone use was new, didn’t add much. Mario Party 8 for the Wii used the Wii remote fine, but the minigames were uninspired, and for a next-gen title, it really didn’t look like next-gen that much. Fortunately, Mario Party DS does attempt to correct those poor titles – the gameplay has a bit more strategy to it despite still being based on a lot of luck, and the minigames are enjoyable, and having multiplayer over local wireless is a nice feature. However, it is still a Mario Party game, and will not change your opinion about the series if you dislike it already.
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(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in mario-party-ds, nintendo-ds, party-games, review |
25th
November
2007

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 by Ubisoft follows up on their party hit from last year, and does a good job of introducing new games and fixing a few problems that were present in the first game. While the overall game experience isn’t much from the single player standpoint, it’s a good game to have in your virtual backpocket to have available should you be hanging around with friends.
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(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)
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posted in nintendo-wii, party-games, rayman-raving-rabbids-2, review |
24th
November
2007
posted in review, rhythm, rock-band, xbox-360 |
22nd
November
2007
After the rather disappointing Super Mario Sunshine, word of a new true Mario title for the Wii got a lot of people excited about it, particularly once the theme of Mario-in-space was established. Now that that game is here as Super Mario Galaxy, its amazing how much this game has exceeded expectations – not only making up for what felt lacking in Sunshine, but perhaps even going beyond some of the best Mario titles already out there like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Bros. 3. It is amazing how well all the elements of the game, not only in gameplay but in presentation and difficulty, are pulled together to make one of the best video game titles to date.
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in action, nintendo-wii, platformer, review, super-mario-galaxy |
22nd
November
2007
Assassin’s Creed, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, definitely has some of its roots in the previous Prince of Persia series also created by Ubisoft Montreal. But rather than continue to focus more on the challenges of using acrobats to move around obstacles, Assassin’s Creed uses those moves as part of routine needs to be an assassin at the latter end of the 12th century during the Crusades. Combining several interesting aspects of gameplay related to that, without turning this completely into a stealth-based title like Thief, makes the game extremely well done, despite the fact that the story itself has a significant blemish on the game.
Note that I do go into some spoilers (ones you learn 5 or so minutes into the game) as its necessary to describe them to talk about some of the features of the game.
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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posted in action, assassins-creed, review, third-person-shooter, xbox-360 |
16th
November
2007
I’ve gotten through the “tutorial” sections of the game (about 2-3 hrs of gameplay), and so far finding this interesting. It’s definitely got the feel of the new Prince of Persia games (and I have to admit I didn’t make the connection until I noted that both this and the POP games were done by Ubisoft Montreal, which would explain why they’re so similar) when considering the acrobats of climbs up and around buildings. I do like that the game, while using stealth, seems more “active” about it compared to the “wait and wait and wait” stealth in games like Thief or Metal Gear Solid - I would almost say its closer to an arcade feel of stealth as in Sly Cooper. Basically, it’s not so much standing in the shadows that will hide you, it’s either the blending in with the crowd while still moving, or getting to higher ground to ditch attention. The story is a bit interesting, I’ve got an idea where it’s going, but its good to see that they push the key twist of the game early (as to review that game without talking about the twist would be near impossible).
Not so sure I’m great with the size of the world yet - I’m still early enough in the game that there might be things to do or find in the rather large cities or the landscape between them, but traversing the game world without bringing up alarm levels is someone on the tedious size.
posted in action, assassins-creed, initial-impressions, third-person-shooter, xbox-360 |