Despite having a name like an awful cake - or maybe a dangerous aftershave for old men - Baten Kaitos is, in reality, a very good role playing game. Namco may have to be banned from fox hunting after its mediocre efforts with Star Fox Assault, but they've made amends. And a cake for us all to share, however awful its name may be. We won't bother you with the plot; imagine the plot of every RPG ever, added up and divided by a million. It's likely that it's nothing you won't have seen before, in
With the last exciting titles for the dying GameCube now being transported to Wii (Super Paper Mario, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), Nintendo seems to be forcing their fans to consider just one option: buy a new console. These days, there just aren't that many games for GameCube-owning Nintendoholics to look forward to. Except one - Baten Kaitos Origins, an RPG sequel that plays its cards right by not only delighting fans of the first quest, but also welcoming newcomers with its
By
NGC_
posted July 12, 2005
Sometimes you just have to admit that you're not cut out for your career. Hate tweaking cows' nipples? Don't work on a farm. Afraid of heights? Don't be a pilot. Similarly, if all it takes to reduce you to a blubbering wreck is some scaffolding falling over nearby, you're probably not cut out to be a criminal. And if your natural instinct when you're really scared is to throw your away gun - the only thing that could possibly protect you from Batman - it's probably time to think about something
War games, above all else, need to make you feel like you're in the thick of a life-or-death struggle between bitter enemies. Battalion Wars wastes no time in bombing your skull into the charred, corpse-ridden ground, but its squeaky-voiced troops and cartoony presentation make it a hard game to take seriously.
Rather than sticking to the turn-based missions of Advance Wars, Battalion Wars puts you in direct control of your troops. You'll take to the skies with helicopters, jet fighters and
Atari's new, handheld BattleZone isn't related in any way to the phenomenal action-strategy PC games; it's more of a modernization of the arcade shooter from the early 1980's. Focusing on multiplayer action, it's can be fun with four humans facing off or teaming up against each other, but it suffers from a batch of annoyances that keep it from reaching its lofty
Beaterator isn’t a game. You know that, right? It’s a utility for creating music and sharing it with the world, based initially on a Flash application created by Rockstar Games. Yeah, the folks behind Grand Theft Auto are breaking into the music scene now, with some big-name help from producer/rapper Timothy Zachery Mosley, a.k.a. Timbaland.
Oct 30, 2007
Following in the cel-shaded footsteps of Dragon Ball Z and Naruto comes another cartoon-turned-game, Ben 10. And like those, this is an all out beat 'em-up featuring cartoon children. Playing as Ben Tennyson, you own an alien device called an Omnitrix - a watch-like object that when activated can transform Ben into all manner of interesting beings, each with their own unique abilities.
Among his repertoire of alter-egos is a four-armed beast that's strong as a box of bears.
Expectations, eh? While Black is technically flawless, painstakingly designed and probably the best single-player shooter on PS2, we can't help but feel a little disappointed. Why? Because it doesn't keep its promise to "do for first-person shooters what Burnout did for cars".
Burnout changed the way we looked at racing games, with its speed, hypnotic structure (one nudge meant an instant crash) and benchmark graphics. Black's victory isn't innovation, but execution.
Forget the plot - its
When you buckle down for an hours-long RPG quest, you automatically prepare for a certain amount of repetition, inconvenience and drawn-out tasks. Your rewards are usually an exciting battle system and engaging storyline that balance out the other shortcomings, making the tedious moments fly by. Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light is the exact opposite in every possible way.
After a good seven hours of running from seaside town to fog-laced woods, you're still killing the same monsters, talking to
Even on PS3, BlazBlue isn’t as brutally input-intensive as Street Fighter, making intuitive control possible on the notoriously fiddly PSP – turning the most haphazard d-pad stabs into something eerily, almost psychically close to your exact intentions...
