King of Fighters XII (Console) Impressions

King of Fighters has always played second fiddle to Street Fighter, at least in the west. Still every arcade in my city still has a KOF98 cabinet while its contemporaries are nowhere to be seen so I guess Capcom can suck on SNK’s flakey nut sack.

The series has a place in most hardcore gamer’s hearts and so, after the revival of the Street Fighter series earlier this year, it is no surprise that SNK have upped there game for the twelveth 2d entry in the KOF series.

In a kind of SNK does what Capcan’t fashion, the newest entry is 100% 2D. No polygons here. Every frame of animation has been painstakingly hand drawn and rendered in HD. In action, the game looks beautiful and the good people at SNK Playmore let the staff of ForwardSlashAwesome (and whoever the fuck else decided to show up) have a good two minutes of playtime with one of the test builds.

For those new to the series, King of Fighters combines characters from all of SNK’s other series into one fighting game. Since the majority of SNK’s other series are fighting games it has always had a very natural and organic feel. KOF pits teams of three against each other rather than strictly one against another with the match only reaching conclusion when all three team members drop. The home version of the game will feature twenty six characters, one of the lowest the series has seen, featuring characters from Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari as well as many others developed specifically for the series.No Mai though... where's the sex appeal?

After being reassured by the company rep several times that we were only playing a test build and that the final version would be much different, we were released into the KOF world.

After selecting the available characters, it became apparent why we were given such a blatant warning: The load times in this build of the game are obscene. They aren’t just terrible or unacceptable, after sitting through these load times you literally feel sick to your stomach. I had enough time to film the load screen, walk over to another booth, chat to a colleague and return before the match loaded. We were assured that these would not be in the final build of the game, so we can only pray that that is true.

When the match began however it seemed to all handle like a dream, we got to demo series favourite Kim, the Korean TaeKwonDo expert, SNK’s pseudo mascot, Athena and series veteran Clark Still who recently appeared in Metal Slug 7, word up Clark.

All the characters handled pretty much as they did in previous versions but now in glorious HD. All their moves have been admirably converted from the dodgy pixilated mess SNK had been using since ’99 into fluid beautiful chains giving even the simplest quarter-roll punch move a fantastic feeling of satisfaction.

It’s not all just cosmetic buffs though, KOFXII seemed to add a new mechanic where if two attacks of equal strength are made by opposing characters at the same time, then the characters would repel each other, undamaged. On top of that Guard Breaks make a return as well as leader supers.

All in all it felt very much like previous KOF titles, and that is not a bad thing. If you are looking for the brilliant depth of SFIII or the recently re-released Mark of the Wolves then KOFXII will be right up your alley.

Curiously, the version which we played showed each of the characters composed of, what looked like, giant pixels. I assumed this was some kind of reference to the retro feel of the earlier games as it still looked kind of cool however the rep assured me it would not be in the final version.

While it had already been announced by SNK, the rep confirmed that there would be no story to this version of KOF acting more like a Dream match up title. The representative stated that (of course) future KOF installments are on the cards and will tie up the lose story threads from previous games.

All in all KOFXII looked fantastic but doesn’t seem to be bringing much new to table aside from a paint job. With only Arcade and Online modes confirmed and a lower character roster, hardcore gamers will likely be a bit disappointed considering the amazingly deep home release that was KOFXI however the new art style and iconic figures may finally break the series into the Western mass market. All the details of the game’s release have yet to be confirmed so we will just have to wait and see whether this entry in the series rises to be king… cheesy right?

NA release is on the 20^th of July while the EU version will appear whenever the publishers get around to it.

Now with correct numbering

11. Castlevania: Dawn of Souls. DS. 2006.

This one was a toughie... there were several DS games I wanted to put in this spot: Mario Kart for it's awesomeness. NSMB for it's old school gameplay... though the game did decieve me into believing that there was a mega goomba. Super Princess Peach for it's suprisingly addictive gameplay. Kirby: Canvas Curse for it's individuality and difficulty. Metroid Hunters because everyone says it's the best game on the ds etc.

Castlevania gets it though.

The original Castlevanias were straightforward platformers however that all changed with Symphony of the Night which made the game more like metroid (acquiring skills and such) and pretty much turned the franchise on it's head. There are three GBA games (all good) and three DS games Dawn of Souls being the first. While the second and third games are great, this one really gave me the feeling that I had missed a great series and as a result, got me interested in unlocking the secrets of the Castlevania universe.

This game was packed full of crap: bonus bosses, hidden levels and the ability to play through the game as a different character. What did it for me though was that every enemy you killed had a 1/100 chance of transferring it's individual power to you... making it so exciting to see new enemies.

Man I wish I could play it now... but my DS is out of battery.......
Awesome Character Profile: Julius Belmont

This character is just made of awesome. First appearing in the bonus mode of the previous game, Julius awakens in Dracula's Castle with no memory and knows himself only as 'J'. Over the course of the game it comes to light that Julius was the Belmont who finally and definitively killed Dracula in 1999.
Why is that cool?
Because that game hasn't been made yet.
These hints, that have been dropped in the extras of both Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, are portents of a yet unannounced game which presumably will put the player in the boots of Julius. The newest console iteration is said to star Alucard once more so it seems Castlevania fans will have to wait to see if the final hours of Dracula are ever played out.

10. Resident Evil 4. Da Cube. 2005

It is cool that three of the Capcom 5 (one of which was cancelled... or at least postphoned to Wii) appear on this list.

I thought it was cool anyway.

Resident Evil 4 was the reinvention of the RE series. Turning a survial horror adventure series into a third person shooter. Pretty much this game copied the things that made Deus Ex and System Shock great (having to manage inventory of ammo, having to individually pick up every item not just run over it, environment interaction ect.) chucked in the main character from one of the other RE games and added alot of blood... which may seem easy but since those two games were such masterpieces it would have been a feat in it's own right.

I purchased this game at Parramatta EBgames (the upstairs one) along with Jak 3 and the final R-type. At the time Re4 was the first game that I had spent one hundred and ten dollars on and came in a deluxe pack along with a gamecube video disc that contained the making of and some trailers of other RE games.

Tell you the truth, at the time I really didn't want RE4 though reviews everywhere were saying that it was like getting a blowjob from a the prom queen you never got to do it with*.

I remember that day I got home unwrapped the packaging... and put on Jak 3.
Now that I think about it none of the Jak series are in my top 25... well I fucked that up didn't I. Anyway, later that night I put on Resident Evil for a few minutes, shrugged my shoulders thinking to myself 'It seems alright' then got back down to Jaking... and then later playing Jak 3.

As I recall I acquired RE4 in the period that existed between girlfriends. So I had no counterpart to enjoy it with. The ex at the time was a horror freak (as in she liked horror movies not that she was an escapee from a carnival of deformos.) so I'm sure if she had been around we would have had a great time playing through it together. Playing the Cube was the best fun the ex and I could have together... you know what I'm hinting at... yeah, it was better than our reverse razorwire fingerbang position.

Anyway she would have loved to be privy to the playing of the Resident Evil-ness. The next girl I dated on the other hand could not stand even the littlest of frights and said that when her dad played Wolf3d (wolfenstein for those who didn't have it.) she had nightmares as a kid.

WARNING: The image below may traumatize some viewers.








AHHHHHHHHHHHH....


Soooooo pixelated!!!!!!!!

Seriously, how is this scary? (it's not even running at full screen... buy a 386!.)
Though she was (and still is) Russian and these guys are German so maybe she was just having flashbacks from Operation Barbarossa.

Back to Resident Evil:

The game was actiony when I put it on which was a definite positive in my book. You could keep yourself safe temporarily from the infected masses by finding houses and barring the doors, pushing bookshelves in front of windows and other crap like that. It really felt like you were in the game not just in some random room (When in reality I was just in some room and not in the game. Think about it.). Supplies were limited though you still had enough bullets to blow most infected, or los plagas as they are called, new orificies (I blew your mum's orifice... alot of blood came out.). RE4 was also one of the first/ the first, couldn't be bothered checking, to have complete location damage. Shoot a guy in the leg and he tumbles. In the hand he drops his weapon. In the groin he gets angry.

The bosses were quite clever and the storyline kept you interested. But the reason you were playing was so you could modify your guns, earning money to make them that bit more powerful. Once again borrowing from the almight System Shock (gee, I wonder if that will be on the list.) variations of pistols were the main weapons of choice in this game. The game focused on small scale killing not army reducing one man war, so your chacter mainly just had access to different small arms and was not able to duel wield chainguns:
as you could in Brute Force... which was shit. DAMN YOU IGN you lied to me... straight to my face.


The later part of the game had you escorting the president's daughter. When I heard that this was a key element to the game it nearly turned me off completely. Usually escort missions in any game are terrible, hard and terrible... again. However this was so well programmed that Ashley (the P's daughter) didn't feel like a burden but rather like a real person who was tagging along (and as one of the characters says 'she comes equipped with ballistics too.' talking about her boobies. Why is the word 'boobies' so much funnier than any other name for da titties?).


Ashley would help you solve puzzles and, according to a well informed and twisted friend of mine, if you tried to look up her skirt she would call you a pervert.


For an action game the game was fucking long. Clocking in at about 40 hours on my first play through, RE was suprisingly enjoyable all the way, and varied as hell. Ever since then if I play a action game that goes for about eight hours or so I really feel disappointed as, after this release, the developer 'we spent most of our time developing the engine' excuse can't be used anymore.


Another thing that made RE4 stick was the bonus features. On completing the game you would unlock a host of new shiny things. New character costumes... Ok, those were lame but you also got a extension to the original game where you played through part of the game through another character's perspective which redesigned old areas and had you face a new boss. Also on completion of the game you would unlock a game called 'mercenaries' which could have been released on it's own. The game allowed you to select from six playable characters (most of which had to be unlocked.) and had you fighting for survival in areas of the game that had been completely redesigned. The only way to rack up any kind of real points was to get kill combos, difficult since ammo is limited, within set amounts of time. Doing so unlocked other characters (most of which played totally different to the others) and some unique weapons for the game.


The final weapon that could be unlocked was the hand cannon which required the user to finish all Mercenaries levels with a rank of 5 stars which pretty much is the equivalent of completing the original Quake on Nightmare difficulty.

I was the envy of all my imaginary friends when I achieved this.

In a reference to Killer7, Leon (main character) would hold the gun so that it rested on his shoulder... in another reference to Killer7 there was a gun called Killer7. yup.
So good was this game that when the PS2 version of this game came out I had to go and buy it for the additional mode (on top of the others) that allowed you to play through the game from a different perspective once again. Unfortunately I have to unlock everything again and couldn't be fucked.
Possibly the coolest thing about this game was that it gave people hope and made other developers reinvent their series (onimusha, Final Fantasy.) and showed us that classics can still be made today.
In an interesting side note for a while you could buy RE4 with a bonus controller that was in the shape of a bloodied chainsaw which was the only weapon in the game that would kill you instantly.

Resident Evil 4 rightfully takes it's place as number seven on my top 25 games and serves as the best game the Gamecube had to offer and the second best game of last generation.

*For the record no site actually said that.

Awesome Character Profile:

Ramon Salazar



Wow, when you type in 'Salazar' in google a hella lot of pictures of naked women come up.
Anyway Ramon Salazar is neither nekkid or a woman, which is probably a good thing. A stunted Napoleon type dude Salazar is a member of a noble house who has become twisted into serving the wishes of his master Saddler.
Salazar uses his wealth to create all manner of traps to impede Leon and Ashley from escaping back to America.
It would have been easy to put Leon or Luis in here but they are too commerical. Salazar serves his purpose of being the annoying minion without ever being so annoying that you don't take him seriously (like in Code Veronica) and so you feel relief when you put the final bullet in his head rather than embarrasment for yourself and the makers of the game.
Salazar baby, you a'right.

Continued.

16. Jeanne D'arc. PSP 2007

Within the space of a month we got Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics and Jeanne D'arc. Three brilliant strategy role playing games.
In the 16-bit era there were about three SRPGs period, across all consoles. In 2007 we got three on one console over the course of a month. I thought of it as a mighty blast from a horn indicating it was the beginning of great things to come but instead it was a bellow of Gabriel's trumpet signalling the end of all things PSP.
With magnificent anime cutscenes, a brilliant twist on an age old story, colourful rich graphics and a simple yet deep combat system, Jeanne D'arc stands me as the best original (that is, non port) game on the system and with the Metal Gears, Syphon Filters and afore mentioned SRPGS, that is saying a lot.
The closest any game has come to a revisioning of Shining Force, Jeanne D'arc has a story and world that sucks you in and won't let go until long after the ending credits roll.

Awesome Character Profile:

Rufus/ Jeanne

While the game is based on the 'true' life of Joan of Arc, it is set in an alternate world where demons, monsters and animaloids exist.
Jeanne and her posse eventually come across a dogman who talks like scooby-doo, I always put him on the sidelines as, quite frankly, I was embarrassed for the designers that they decided to put him in the game but still I admire their gumption.

Jeanne is given, by God, the power to transform into a type of Super Saiyan, similar to Sonic 2. Using this power she drives the evil King of England to his knees.
I wish more stories would be rewritten like this. Imagine how much more interesting it would have been if Napoleon could charge up and fly around Europe shooting beams out of his eyes. Or if Reagan could unleash a power blast that left a five mile crater in its wake... I'd know a lot more about history if that were the case.
Stupid laws of reality.

15. Tales Of Eternia. PSP. 2006.. or 2002.

This game is a port of a PS1 game but it's still one of the best games on the PSP. Really this game represents my love of the entire Tales series but this one gets the trophy.

Why?

Is it because of the epic story and lovable characters?

No.

Is it because of the fantastic battle system and hours of side quests?

No.

Is it because you can dress the female characters up in skimpy bunny suits?

.....well maybe that helped a bit but...

It's because of a fucking annoyingly fucking addictive fucking card fucking game that is fucking part of the fucking game farkin'.

That card game was heroin laced with caffeine... I put an extra twenty hours in the game just playing it. I remember I had to turn off the sound though because every time the computer won it would say 'Hwel! Meredy wins' which sounds less annoying than it actually is.

I remember this game was listed to come out on a particular day and I somehow got a bunch of guys to come along to Dick Smith Powerhouse, we all waddled up and there it was in all it's glory. However on going online that night I discovered that it hadn't been released anywhere else in Australia and some RPG geeks (read: Daniel, all of them, the name is a synonym for RPG geek... just like Geoff is one for poofter and Mrs Jackson is for the title 'abode of much cock'... that is an in joke btw, just insert the name of one of your friend's mums instead for similar effect) so I felt extra special to have the only copy, apart from all the people who had bought it on the PlayStation years ago.

On that note the PSP has a couple of PSX RPG ports (whoa easy with the abbreviations) and for some reason they look better on the PSP then they do on the actual PSX. I guess it's because everything is smaller but still. PSX games seem to have a graininess about them which looks fucked up.

Choice.

Awesome Character Profile:

MAX!

There was a character in the game that was always referred to as 'MAX!' so you would get exclamation-heavy lines like:

'We should ask MAX! what he wants to do for dinner.'

Cracked me up...

I need to get laid.

14. Independence War. PC. 1999.

Ah, This is another title from the golden year 1999. Independence war, which you are unlikely to find anywhere ever again ever, was a space simulator that used Newtonian physics, had a 39 minute intro and was expansive as my anus was after I 'fell' on the toilet plunger. Seriously the game was well good shit. An ex picked it up off my desk the one day and I felt ashamed that I had it...

You know that makes it good.

Seriously, this game had a lot of little quirks that made it feel all the more real, certain ships had shields but due to the polarity of the engines the shields wouldn't cover then, the strategy then was to always target a ships engines as it would be the only vulnerable part.

You were also able to use every console that would have been on the bridge of your ship, if you wanted to transfer power from your weapons to engines you would start off configuring everything at the weapons station and then switch to the engineering console to channel the power through your sub decks.

The developers had even gone to the trouble of mapping out the circuitry of your vessel so if your right side was hit and that happened to hit a circuit that was transferring energy to your weapons, the would go offline and you'd have to reroute the energy through an alternate pathway.

Totally Geek, Totally Awesome.

This is also one of the few games where I played the demo and just knew I had to go buy the game. The more you know.

Awesome Character Profile:

None

Unfortunately the game was character lite and no one is really fit to get a mention, that's why I put two characters in number 15. See, that was part of the plan all along.

13.Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. PS2.

It was a tough choice between 3 and 4, really I don't think I could live without either.

I first (and...really only) picked this up at Penrith EB Games before they moved next to JB Hi-fi.

The guy over the counter was a twat (who has since moved to Blacktown... and is still twatesque.). I remember I bought it in a bundle of six games including the great Beyond Good & Evil, the good Mercenaries and the bad Capcom Fighting Jam. The counter dude was impressed and said something like 'Whoa! I bet you're going to go home and just lock the door to your room for a couple of weeks.'

To which I responded 'No, actually I'm going to go home and introduce a fat cock to your wife's ass.'

I didn't really say that.

Anyway, so impressed was the dude at my extreme awesome/lameness that he chucked in a free guide to Beyond Good & Evil that currently lies in my bedroom fully shrink wrapped.

I spoke for a while, shooting the shit with the dude and then headed home. I slammed on Capcom Fighting Jam and discovered it was shit. Metal Gear Solid however was THE shit. it was the only game I've played that truly gave the impression that you could do whatever you wanted... you couldn't but it was pretty damn close.

Shoot the enemy, sneak past the enemy, throw a beehive at the enemy to scare the bejesus out of them. The game had a great story and played like I do with your sister... really well and with a vague aroma of sealife.

*ahem*

Set years before the Metal Gear Solid games following the missions of Solid Snake's father before his rise to power and fall from grace, MGS3 takes the player through Soviet Jungles to see firsthand the fateful events that created the world of the first two games.

Not to spoil anything but the last two hours of the game may be the most action packed and exciting moments in the history of gaming.

Metal Gear Solid is also known for trying to be really realistic, featuring a lot of 'Zelda pig in water' devices... as in brilliant spectacles that you probably will never notice when playing through the game. For instance there is a battle with a nemesis who is made of electricity, if you use one of the early guns from the game (highly unlikely) and you are hit with electricity, not only do you go into shock but the electricity sets off all the bullets in the chamber/clip, exploding your gun and making bullets fly everywhere.

That's just awesome.

The game is full with hidden Easter eggs like this that just take a fantastic experience and make it all the more enjoyable.
Really there were moments in the game where I thought that I had probably stumbled across a secret animation that was so obscure that only I would ever see it. Of course I underestimated both how many people would actually be playing the game and the power of the internet but for a brief moment I felt special all the same.

Awesome Character Expose

Everyone/The Boss

Each Metal Gear game (with the possible exception of 2) has a cast of characters that are not only memorable but usually go down as pinnacles of character design. Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of the most solid (pun not intended) entries in regards to this... and everything else for that matter.

One of the most brilliant designs in the medium, The Boss was not as flashy as some of the other Metal Gear characters but she was certainly the most interesting. The mentor of Naked Snake (father of Solid Snake), The Boss is introduced as she defects from the USA to the Soviets. While she betrays her country there is always the sense that she is serving a higher purpose.
While at the time her actions seemed of fairly little consequence, it soon becomes obvious that different interpretations of the ideals of this one woman shaped fifty years of warfare to come.
An adversary and a friend, The Boss is as powerful a character and the one true Patriot.

Next Post

19. Leisure Suit Larry 6 - Shape Up or Ship out. 1993.

I said before in this string of articles that Quest of Glory 2 was the greatest game in the Quest series. Alot of people consider Leisure suit Larry to be apart of the Quest series (like Police Quest, Space Quest) however it isn't because it doesn't have quest in the title...see.

Anyway, where would we be without Larry... most likely I would have a symbol of peace attached to the back of my car instead of lodged inside my anus (that offended even me). I shudder at the thought.

My first experience with Larry was at my neighbours house as a kid. We struggled to get past the age checker (which, in hindsight was actually the best part of the game) to get access to the smut filled game. How we laughed when Larry was called a pervert by the Indian shopkeeper, how we cried when Larry died of VD and how we cheered when Larry was reassembled and returned to the surface in a weird tribute to Star Wars.

The neighbour I was talking about was a girl who was few years older than me and during playing through the game was hinting at engaging in some sexual exploration of our own, however I was (thankfully... the bitch ugly.) too young to realize what the fuck was going on and ended up just giving her a Chinese burn when she put her hand on my leg.

Serves you right scag. You got to pay fo' this shit.

Anyway, number six gets the choice mention today. I remember going over to Griffin's house (who also tried some sexual advances... and succeeded hmmmmm.... just kidding.) and he had the LSL collection featuring all six games and some bonus crap noone cared about. That night I remember powering through LSL2 with friends coming up every ten minutes asking if you could have sex with whatever female was on the screen. Good times... Good times.

The first three were considered to be the golden Larrys. The fourth was never released because someone on the Sierra staff lost the discs with the source code on it (which is funny) and so they went straight to releasing number 5. Passionate Patty which was rather forgettable. Then number six came out. Reviews were saying that Larry had overstayed his welcome, that it was less about a sleezebag and more about Al Lowe parodying himself... and that made it three times funnier. Come on, any adventure game with a option to unzip on every screen has to be good.

Since then Leisure Suit Larry 7 has come out which is famous for having a dildo hidden in every screen. After that Leisure suit Larry Magna Cum Laude came out which focused on Larry's nephew Jim... or something... it didn't matter anyway as the point was to look at bouncing boobs. What made this game both famous and banned in Australia was that when you talked to women a mini game r-type shoot em up featuring a sperm as the player's ship would come up and depending on how well you did in the game would translate to how well you talked the talk to the ladies.

Just like in real life.

I've seriously got to import this game.

Awesome Character Profile:

Larry

If the previous characters in the Awesome Character Profile section were kings of awesome then Larry is some kind of Awesome God... with Chlamydia.
While he emerged onto the scene composed of about sixteen pixels and four colours, the later games expanded on this primordial template to create the legend we see today. As the years went on he became balder, fatter and creepier and that's why we loved him. Though he swung with all his might he was never able to sink one in the hole 0.O which made him the people's champion and my personal savior, for in truth he was the only character in the world getting less than me.

18. Devil May Cry 3. PS2.

As mentioned before this game is pretty much Viewtiful Joe in 3d. Another one of those Zone games, DMC was originally going to be Resident Evil 4 but when it became obvious that the game was so radically different it became it's own series.

The Action/Adventure genre today is split between three titans, Devil May Cry, God of War and Ninja Gaiden. Alot of people argue that God Of War is THE game of the genre because of it's huge boss battles and visceral gameplay however I personally prefer DMC3 as it has one thing up on God of War. That thing is style. Where GOW focuses on brutal kills DMC focuses on over the top combat and awesome weapons. Throw an enemy into the air, then run up a wall slicing him while your at it, when he hits the ground ride his corpse down some stairs while emptying fifty clips into the air. Brilliant.

Awesome Character Profile

Virgil

DMC3 also brought Dante's brother and rival Virgil into the foreground. Basically a quite blue version of Dante, a full retail priced special edition was released that allowed you to play through as this katana wielding badass. Obviously Capcom knew they had a winner on their hands.

17.Shadow Hearts: Covenant. PS2. 2004.

This pretty much represents my love of console JRPGs the best. Compared to all other RPGs though it stands out as an oddity and that's what made it so great. First of all the game was set in an alternate timeline during World War one which is practically unheard of in the genre. Second the game featured some of the most disturbing creatures ever conceived by man, including a penis monster, never saw Cloud fight one of those. Top of it all off with a quirky sense of humour and an upgrade system that REQUIRED you to procure gay porn and you have a winner in my book.

One of the main characters was a Gay wrestler who had contracted vampirism and was also a superhero.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant is the second in the Shadow Hearts series and focuses on protagonist Yuri who is aimlessly wandering the earth after the death of his soul mate. He teams up with a bizarre cast of characters after being targeted by the church as a heretic with demonic powers. Through the game you'll actually go on two separate adventures in both Europe and Japan. The game truly feels like it has it's own sequel contained within the game with each part clocking in at roughly forty hours.

What makes Shadow Hearts is the diversity of the characters. Each character has their own separate way of leveling up their abilities. Your faithful canine has to develop his abilities by entering into bouts with other wolves and dogs ranging from a wolf possessed by demons to a Space Pooch who communicates only in emoticons. This brilliant system keeps the player interested and engaged the whole way through and believe me, it is hard to return to the old grind method of leveling afterwards.

Awesome Character Profile:

Grand Papillion.

How can you go wrong with a gay, wrestling, vampire superhero? Seriously, how???

Playing

Lost Odyssey
Pros:
Kaim’s Character,
Numera
1000 years stories
Date Rape
Uematsu

Cons:
Cooke’s voice
No time skip.

Sam & Max


News, Releases

Square Enix Took over Edios
Super Robot Taisen Endless Frontier (monolith)
Marvel Vs Capcom Hinted

Indie

New Game: D-Pad Hero

Free game: The Suffering

Discussion

Prediction

R. Gaming

Cho Aniki

Bargain:

Gametraders

Addition: SMPS

That's like soooo last gen.

22.Okami. PS2/Wii 2006

The best way to describe Okami is as a combination of Kingdom Hearts and Zelda set in a mystical Japan. Also you're a wolf. *cough*
As a corporeal incarnation of the God of Creation it is your task to make the people believe in you once again by performing miracles to gain faith from your followers.
While the Zelda esque adventure should be a selling point by itself, Okami also throws in an interesting mechanic where at any time you can collapse the world into a 2d drawing and then draw ontop of this drawing, adding devices into the game. For example, early in the piece an old woman cannot do her washing because she ain't got no line going on, so you collapse to 2d, draw in a line and then the world is saved. Thrilling stuff, no?
Obviously as time goes on the standard of the miracles increase until it culminates in an apocalyptic battle of galactic proportions. ZOMG Spoilerz!!!

Production values are through the roof. While the game was overlooked there was obviously a lot of green spent on the art style, world design and writing. Every single character you encounter seems to have a deep personality that is excellently conveyed, even if they only have one or two lines. The game has all the tropes I love, the false ending (where the game makes you think you've finished but then you discover an even greater evil), rival battles and humour. God is there a lot of humour in this and, for the most part, it is laugh out loud funny.

Most reviewers critiqued the game for being too long clocking in at one and a half times longer than Twilight Princess... which was no slouch in this area either, even though the game remained fantastic throughout with little to no padding. Stupidly enough the same people who said it was too long are now asking for a sequel.

Clover Studios have now collapsed and moved onto not as great things, so the chances of seeing an Okami 2 is very slim. On top of that the creator stated that he would only do an Okami 2 if he thought something fantastic could be added. Okami was designed to be self contained with every part of it's history fleshed out and every question answered, which they were... except the ending which, while insane and ridiculous, was cool and satisfying anyway.

Awesome Character Profile:

Issun.

A lazy wandering artist the size of an ant, Issun is pretty much as worthless a character that ever existed. Despite his lower social status however he has no qualms grabbing the ample bazoogas of mother nature, wise mouthing off at demonic gods and bossing around the God of Creation.
Issun is basically a perverted freeloading flea. He has much to teach us.

21.Guilty Gear X2 #Reloaded. PS2/Arcade/Xbox 2002.

Even with the emergence on MUGEN where you can hypothetically put every character from GG against those from capcom, this still stands as an excellent release. This game wasn't just a good fighter, it was a release that rivaled AAA games in terms of length and production values.

Three separate story modes for each character. A mission mode full of FUCKING hard missions. Unlockable EX and EX2 versions of each character that would change every move (think Ken, Dan, Sakura etc).

Then you look at the game, at the time it was the only fighter that had HiRes sprites and still looks better than most of the 2d fighters that came after.

The graphics weren't the main draw though, the main draw was the gameplay.

GG took all the conventions of fighting games and threw them out the window. Instead of your same old Ryu fireballs, characters were given extremely complex moves that could be strategically used to rack up insane combos. Mines and defensive moves could be used to force your rival to fight in a particular way thus giving you the advantage. The game even contained special moves that could be countered by little platforming segments.

Truly, when all the moves and ideas behind the game were mastered it became more like playing a frantic game of chess than a regular fighter.

After playing the kings of the field: Street Fighter 3, Mark of the Wolves, King of Fighters. I can safely say that only one other comes close.

Most importantly however, transcending the brilliance of the gameplay and the majesty of the design is the fact that there is a character with a bag on his head... ON HIS HEAD... HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

Suck my balls.

Awesome Character Profile:

Dizzy

The character design in this game is truly phenomenal and really any character could be on the list, from Bag head (Faust), to the creepy possessed Zappa to the unfortunately named Sol Badguy and his Rival Ky. One of the best however is Dizzy.

Dizzy is really three characters in one, the girl seems to be lost, confused and scantily clad (of course) She has two wings, the right is an embodiment of a demon and the left an incarnation of an angel. Together they let her release the powers of Heaven and Hell on any rival that crosses her path.

Though utterly destructive and badass, the two wings will occasionally bicker with one and other, and that's just cool.

20.Viewtiful Joe. Da cube. 2003.

Represent.

This is one of those games that you have your personal favourite of the genre. And the genre here is something I'd like to coin as 'Zone Games'. Forget what actually is happening in the game, this is a game where your reflexes have to be so finely tune that you actually have to merge with the controller.

Everyone has their own (Bubble Bobble, Bust A Move, Peggle and Tetris come to mind). These are games that take over your lives, your higher cognitive functions are suspended as the extra split second the information takes to transmit to the rest of your brain could cost you your life.

So you operate on instinctual automation instead. When you are talking to your significant other you start going into withdrawal. While you are having lunch your fingers twitch and mimic hitting A Y and X. People walking down the street are all out to get you... to stop you from playing... and then back home into your dimly lit abode... come on come on ... boot up already... load game.... come on... fucking loading scre.....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh feel the calm.

It's about five dollars now too, go get it.

Awesome Character Profile:

Alastor

Existing for no reason other than to be Joe's Rival, Alastor is everything that is cool about Joe magnified to the twentieth power. Alastor is actually the name of Dante's sword in Devil May Cry and as VJ basically plays like Devil May Cry in 2d and was designed by a lot of the same staff, the director thought it was appropriate that there was some representation of DMC in the game.

While serving as a pretty awesome rival, Alastor, utilizing a completely different play style, moveset and storyline, is playable if you defeat the game on V-rated (Good luck with that, Six years on and I haven't done it.) giving hardcore players a reason to relive the game over and over again.

24-22 Edited to conform.

24.Jagged Alliance 2. PC 1999.

Released in the golden year of 1999, Jagged alliance 2 is one of a kind... seriously, no one has ever made a game like this. It could be described as a turn based Rainbow Six/Sims 2 game, the game focused on leading a group of mercs through a war torn country. The Mercs all had unique personalities and would form relationships between one another and comment on how everything was progressing. If a friend died they might leave the team while if their nemesis croaked it their efficiency would improve. Determining which team would work well together was a critical part of the game strategy.

When it came to combat nearly everything you could think of was implemented into gameplay. Ammo conservation, bleeding factors and environment destruction were all implemented in a game that is now hitting it's tenth year. Which makes it 896 in human years, so it is surprising how the old bugger can get busy like the best of them.

You could also tackle overthrowing the country in whatever way you felt worked. After being dropped at a static insertion point it was pretty much up to you how you wanted to proceed. You could destroy ammo dumps to disadvantage enemies. Cut off their supply lines to gain more income, take over towns to make the populace revolt, take over airports to open up new insertion points, it goes on.

It wasn't completely perfect however, the game featured an optional scifi mode that will good in the sense that it added different enemy types, really didn't fit with the rest of the game. Also, Until recently the game and it's excellent but brutal expansion pack was reasonably difficult to find. With the rise of sites like Good Old Games however, it has become more available. A DS port of the original reportedly is coming out in may though it has been delayed several times before.

Jagged Alliance took up weeks of my time and is replayable as hell. I booted it up today and became addicted once again. A true classic. The graphics are a little dated by today's standards but fans of games like X-com and even Full Spectrum Warrior and the Swat series should definitely check it out.

Awesome Character Expose:

There was a German character that kept saying 'Shizer', you can't teach that.

Next up: The only game on this list set in Arabia

23.Quest for Glory II: Trial By Fire. PC. 1990.

Quest for glory 2 is officially now the ugliest game in the series (as the first was remade) however it remains my favourite. It was ugly even when it came out I still remember a friend trying to convince me to start a petition to get this game remade. Graphics aside it was quite fabulous and had a quirky sense of humour. While it is from one of the lesser known series, of all the Quest games this is probably the best... though the original space quest is a serious contender.

Newcomers to the game will note that the game seems to play like Sierra's other early adventure games such as Police Quest, King's Quest and the legendary Leisure Suit Larry... which probably should have made this list but I didn't want people to say:

The major difference is that there is an a small RPG factor included within the game. You can choose from three different characters or import your character from the original game, which is pretty cool for the time it was produced in. As a result there are usually three different ways to tackle each situation which means you are not stuck, as often, trying to work out what insanely unobvious thing the developers want you to do (King's Quest V & VI, I'm looking at you).

The story follows the hero as he travels through the mystical lands of the the middle east, Djinn and magic carpets flood the land etc etc. The story is pretty predictable but at the time it was a huge contrast to all the other fantasy games which were usually confined exclusively the medieval Europe inspired locales.

There is a decent sense of humour in the game, sure it is not up to the level of humour in Space Quest IV where you travel in time through the different games in the series and the world was destroyed by a virus contained on a pirated copy of leisure suit larry... that's awesome, but it is still serviceable.

Again, QFG2 is graphically dated today, it was dated the day it came out, though while it has never been officially remade, fans have taken it upon themselves to completely recreate the game in a new engine, so head over here for some of the best freeware money can not buy.

Awesome Character Expose:

Aside from the main character there are few characters in this game who are actually memorable. The text based dialogue of the narrator probably carries the most wit of the entire game so I guess he gets the AwesomeLarsen thumbs up for the day. The designers themselves deserve an award for allowing you to kill yourself via an opium pipe. Going out like a rockstar.

Next up: The Final Frontier.

22.Freespace 2 PC. 1999.

The second game on the list to come from the golden year 1999. Freespace 2 brought atmosphere like nothing else. Small space flight fighters have never come close since, in fact, no one has really released one since... hmmm. Anyway this game was way ahead of it's time. Being the leader of a small squad, you were thrust into a war that your side was losing from, badly. This was one of the first games where it truly felt that what you were doing was inconsequential. No bad arse one man save the world and throw money at hookers here, you were fucked from the get go, pure and simple.

Principle Skinner described it best: 'They promised me a parade, instead they spat on me'

It was common to see and hear your comrades go down in balls of flame and as massive capital ships tore into each other you really felt like you were just annoying mosquito. I still remember being in shock when your home base (where you had to land every mission) was blown to fuck and I kept thinking I had failed the mission.

There were spoilers in that last paragraph by the way.

On top of a brilliant singleplayer campaign Freespace had some excellent multiplayer, Friends would call me up on the eve of a major assessment and convince me to play just one more game. Of course I did which goes a long way to explaining why I live in a syringe filled gutter today.

At times we even had a few other people join in, even though the game had been out for several years. I recall one guy taking it way to seriously and actually referring to us as his superiors and requesting permission to fire.

What a fag.

Oh wait, it was me.*

Freespace 2 still holds up ten years on, mainly because nothing of note has been released since then but also because the graphics were revolutionary for the time and since then, mods have been released to update the game to today's standards.

The developers of the game have moved on to developing, surprisingly, the Saint's Row series. While they may have gone, their legacy lives on with custom campaigns being released almost monthly... that sounds less impressive than it is as Starcraft has forty two mods released per nanosecond and there are TWO cable channels dedicated to it in South Korea (bless them) but compared to the majority of games it's age, Freespace 2's mod community is going fairly strong.

*actually wasn't but.

Awesome Character Expose:

The Lucifer.

While this behemoth played a much larger role in the original game, the Lucifer was still mentioned in FS2. Initially it was a Capital ship that could decimate planets within seconds. The vessel was three times the size of anything else in the game and was immune to all attacks.

In the second game the starship existed solely for comparison purposes with the designers of the game saying "You thought the Lucifer was huge?? Well the standard new ships you'll be fighting are 14x the size!'. What was cool however is that this vessel that nearly destroyed humanity in the first game turned out just to a probe from this larger amarda. It took everything Earth had to destory this demon, can they possibly win against a force even more powerful and epic?

The answer is yes.

Sorry, I just totally spoiled the ending for you.

Next Up: Cel-Shaded Twilight Princess.