Posted in: Game Reviews by Michael Durr on October 12th, 2004
ESPN NBA 2k5 is the basketball game for the cool and low priced Sega Sports at a meager $19.99 price point. My copy was purchased for $14.95 in fact at the local Best Buy. By competing with people's wallets, they have established solid competition with NBA Live 2005 by EA before they even open the box. As shown by well placed titles such as NFL 2k5 & NHL 2k5, one would think Sega Sports would have a fine showing with their basketball title. They have folks, it is a great sports game and debatably the best showing...this season, but it comes with a couple of tiny faults which need to be explored.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on August 30th, 2004
The RPG market for the X-Box is really heating up. Within the last two years the X-box has arguably had the 2 best single player RPG’s out there – Morrowind and Knights of the Old Republic. And with Fable to make it’s entrance soon along with KOTR II in the works, it would take something truly memorable to make a serious impact in the RPG world of the X-Box. Sudeki is Climax Studios attempt to break into the upper echelon of the RPG market.
Gameplay
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on January 5th, 2004
When the PS2 and Xbox were released both promised to be full home entertainment units. No questions that they both shined with the cutting edge graphics and sound as well as performing admirably as DVD players with both Dolby Digital and DTS decoders built in. This year both systems have tried to push another venue into home entertainment : Karaoke. Love it or hate it Karaoke looks like it’s here to stay. Earlier this year, X-Box had the X-Box Music Mixer which provided karaoke features – with mixed results. Could th... PS2’s Karaoke Revolution outdo it’s X-Box rival?
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on December 30th, 2003
NHL Rivals is Microsoft's first effort into the hockey market, and you can easily tell this once you start to play this game. NHL Rivals had to battle with three other hockey titles (Ea Sport's NHL 2004, ESPN's NHL 2k4, and NHL hitz pro) and Rivals was also the last of the games to be released. Hockey fans are very pick about there hockey games, with most fans either going with EA's effort and ESPN's game. Microsoft would have to do something real different to win over the hockey gamer. Unfortunately they faile... in this area and hockey gamers are better to look elsewhere this season for their hockey gaming.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on November 24th, 2003
The X-Box Music Mixer is undoubtedly one of the most innovative ideas that has come out in the last few years. The emphasis is to turn your X-Box into a multimedia machine that will allow you to turn your living room into a dance club, karaoke bar or a homey environment in which flipping through traditional photo albums is passé because you can display all of your digital photos on your TV accompanied with music of your choosing to set the mood.
It comes packaged with a microphone to allow you to have a tr...e Karaoke experience. The disc itself has 15 Karaoke tracks that range from standard Karaoke fare – Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York to current classics – Lifehouse’s Hanging By A Moment and Len’s Steal My Sunshine. The microphone takes some getting used to as you have to hold it quite close to your mouth to get any sound out of it. That being said, once you get the hang of it, it works really well. The lyrics are displayed on the screen and light up in time to indicate when you are to start demonstrating your vocal expertise. To make the experience better, you can ever record your performances and share them with your fans. You can also import your favorite songs and remove the vocals so that you can improve on the original – but you have to provide your own lyrics. The problem is the vocals really aren’t removed but rather some of the dynamic range is removed to tone down the vocals. However, this also changes the sound of the song itself. To get the true Karaoke experience you can download new songs, at a price, from the Internet. I tried to browse what was offered through X-Box live but consistently got a message that stated “No new content available.” That might be because I’m in Canada and there may be copyright laws or something which precludes me from downloading from the Internet (this is apparently the reason why one can’t download songs from the popular iTunes store from Apple). So I checked out the website – www.xboxkaraoke.com and found to my surprise a huge amount of songs to download. However, be aware that it will cost $2 per song download. As far as karaoke goes despite these setbacks it is still pretty fun.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on November 23rd, 2003
Crimson Skies had a previous incarnation as a cult favorite PC game of the same name and was in development for a port to the X-Box that was being rushed for release 1 year ago. Thank goodness that they waited because you know what they say…”Good things come to those who wait.” And man, was this game worth the wait! The original version was a toned down, arcade style shooter that would have no lasting appeal. This final version is anything but toned down.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on November 3rd, 2003
The most popular skateboarding series ever to grace the realm of video games returns with Activation’s yearly installment of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Tony Hawk 4 continues to improve upon last year’s incarnation, tweaking in-game elements, changing the career mode and adding a new multiplayer mode.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on October 22nd, 2003
Tenchu 3: Wrath of Heaven continues the adventures of Rikimaru, and his ongoing battle with the evil sorcerer Tenrai, taking place one year after the original Tenchu. This time there is 3 playable characters, Rikimaru along with Ayame, and Tesshu (doctor by day, assassin by night). Fans of the first 2 original Tenchu games have nothing to worry about as developer K2 has improved upon every aspect of the game.
Graphics
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on October 22nd, 2003
K-1 is a nice change from the wrestling and tekken type fighting games. Once you learn the technique and how to pace yourself you will be knocking out opponents in no time, but by that time you really won't want to play this game much longer either.
Along the lines of UfC and Pride there is another promotion, K-1, which is actually quite different then the other two. K-1 has more rules, and is mostly restricted to one fighting style… kick-boxing. Fighters also wear gloves, and there is no grappling, subm...ssions. K-1 Grand Prix let's you take control of any 20 fighters and try and become the Grand-prix champion of the world.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2003
Written by Jason Franz
I can't remember the last time I've installed a game on my PC that had so many entertaining qualities matched with such brilliant gameplay. All too often PC developers focus on the eye candy and give gameplay little thought. WithGTA: Vice City, Rockstar not only avoided that problem, but they take us back to the glory days of fun PC gaming.
