Reviews

As you may have guessed I play a whole lot of video games. I feel I have a firm grasp on what's good, what's not, and the audience a game is targeting. This skill is becoming increasingly valuable, because video games are expensive.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that product reviews are helpful, especially with video games. Video games are expensive. It's an awful feeling when you buy a bad game, or a game you don't personally enjoy. I've personally made this mistake many times in the past. Being $60 dollars in the hole with a terrible game is no good. This is why I'm making it my goal from this point on to write up a review of every game I complete. I've started this off by writing up a review of Sonic Generations for the PS3, which can be found here.

I'm going to be rating games on a 0-5 basis, with 5 being the highest. I feel that this rating system is fairly self explanatory. With a 0-5 rating it's easy to see how good a game is at a glance, which is something I really like. If you want to see the base quality of a game it's a great thing to have along with my extended write-up and opinion. However, this number applies to my specific view of the game. When I look for game reviews I know what reviewers are more inclined to like certain games. It's important to know the tastes of the reviewer. It's even more important to believe that they are giving you their honest opinion of a game. While you may not always agree with the scores I give, please know that I am giving you my honest feedback. I hope that as this blog grows it will be increasingly easier to discern the kinds of games I like and how I react to certain things. 

I have written a great many reviews over the years, but most have been lost in the deep abyss of the internet. There are two reviews I'm quite proud of that I've written within the last few years. I originally posted them on the gaming website Giant Bomb as the user Drac96. Since they are already written I won't be making new posts here, but I will link to them. I will be posting all future reviews on the blog as well as on Giant Bomb. The reviews can be found below.

Review of Final Fantasy XIII

Review of InFamous 2

More posts and reviews will be coming soon.


     -Manny

Sonic Generations Review

This Review is based on my experience with the PS3 version of Sonic Generations.

Score 3.5/5

In 1991 Sega’s speedy blue mascot made his debut on the Sega Genesis. He became popular almost immediately spawning numerous sequels and spin-offs. In 2001 Sonic made his transition in 3D as most platforming heroes did. Now we’ve made it to 2011 and Sonic is 20 years old. It’s a common belief within the gaming community that Sonic games haven’t been good for a long time. Some believe that the original 2D games on Sega Genesis were the peak of the hedgehogs career, while others believe it’s Sonic Adventure 2. Regardless of where you stand on the peak of Sonic’s career, Sonic Generations captures the best and worst of both worlds. Sonic Generations has the right idea, but it doesn’t live up to its full potential.

Sonic Generations seems as if it’s meant to please longtime fans of Sonic and the deeper you go into the game the more obvious it becomes. The story starts off at Sonic’s 20th birthday party. All of his friends from the modern Sonic games are there to celebrate. As always things immediately go bad. A giant time monster comes and kidnaps all of Sonic’s friends. He tries to fight back, but is incapacitated. When he wakes up he’s in a mostly white world. After playing for a bit you find out that something is messing with time, which is how the game gets away with its main selling point, which is that Sonic Generations features both Classic 2D Sonic and Modern 3D Sonic.

Sonic's 20th Birthday party!

Classic Sonic looks and plays like Sonic did back in the early 90’s. You’re running to the right collecting rings, jumping from platform to platform, and defeating enemies. The Classic Sonic stages do a fine job of emulating the Sega Genesis games. Sonic can still spin dash. Holding square will allow him to curl up into a ball and zoom forwards at top speeds. Jumping works almost exactly like it did on the Genesis. You need to be precise. I found it easy to misjudge jumps, which often lead to Sonic falling to his death in bottomless pits. Overall I think that playing as Classic Sonic feels good. The controls are tight and there’s a good sense of speed. It feels like the classic Sonic games used to, which is refreshing after the extremely floaty controls of Sonic 4.

Modern Sonic is fast and a whole lot of fun to play. The sense of speed is something that is done very well with Modern Sonic. Killing enemies and collecting rings fills up a boost meter. When you hold square Modern Sonic will boost forward at high speeds running through enemies that get in his way. Enemies can also be defeated in rapid succession by pressing the jump button while Sonic is in the air to home in and smash them to bits. If the jump button is pressed too early or at the wrong time Sonic will fly off into the distance, which can be extremely frustrating. The same can be said for boosting. If you boost at the wrong time Sonic will most certainly fall into a bottomless pit. The pain of these deaths is eased by the liberally placed checkpoints in Modern Sonic’s stages.

Classic Sonic is a little chubby and he can't talk.

Like the stages in Sonic Unleashed, Modern Sonic’s stages will sometimes flow into 2D platforming sections. The platforming seems to be a bit easier with the help of Sonic’s homing attack, but the controls aren’t as tight as 2D Sonic, which can lead to problems. These sections seem out of place, because they take away from Modern Sonic’s speed.

Both Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic can buy and equip skills to make your trip through the game slightly easier. Whenever you complete a stage you will earn a certain amount of points. These points can be used to buy skills while in the hub world. The abilities do a wide variety of things from making Sonic faster to having you spawn with a shield. The system is interesting, but it doesn’t run very deep. There aren’t very many skills and they’re not always helpful.

Modern Sonic is  super lean. He can talk.

Generations features nine stages, three rival battles, and four boss fights that span Sonic’s twenty year history. The stages, rivals, and boss fights go in chronological order according to Sonic’s history. Each of the nine stages consists of two acts. In Act 1, you play as Classic Sonic and in Act 2 you play as Modern Sonic. It’s interesting to see how classic levels translate to modern levels and vice versa. They don’t always work out the best, but they’re still fun.
  
You choose which level you want to play by traversing a highly stylized 2D hub world. Only three stages are available at a time. In order to gain access to the next set of three stages you must complete Acts 1 and 2 for all three stages, gather 3 keys, and defeat the boss. In order to do all of this and run right through the story will take about four to five hours. For a $50 dollar game that’s not much gameplay. It’s extended by challenges and secret ring collection that will award you with art, music and skills. However these rewards will only appeal to the most dedicated Sonic fans.

The hub world is mostly white until you complete the stages.

Sonic Generations is a fun game, but at $50 it’s a hard sell. Frustrating deaths and a lack of content blemish an otherwise fine product. If you didn’t like Sonic before, Generations isn’t going to change your mind. I’m confident in saying that Sonic fans are going to want to pick this game up regardless of price. It’s got the best of both 2D Sonic and 3D Sonic and both are surprisingly fun to play. The soundtrack features a great mix of classic and remixed tracks that will bring the memories flooding back. Sega and Sonic Team have been trying to get back on good terms with their fans and I think that Generations is a good start.

Note: I have also posted this review on Giantbomb.com
Also, the text wrap around images isn't very good on blogger. When I post future reviews here, should I continue to put in pictures?

     -Manny

Into the Mainstream

I'm not going to lie, I used to be of those "Hardcore Gaming" kids. I fully and truly believed that people who played video games casually were a blight upon the industry. This has always been prominent with the gaming community, but I think the popularity of the Nintendo Wii made the gaming culture as a whole lash out.

While some may disagree, I think it's safe to say that the Wii was the first console to become a mainstream success. Everyone seemed to want one. They were sold out everywhere for months, which made them an even more prized possession. I personally had no trouble acquiring my Wii on release day. However, I did have to sleep outside of a Toys R Us to make sure I'd be able to get one. When I brought that thing home I was psyched for weeks. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but it only lasted for a few weeks. 

As soon as everyone needed a Wii I was already done with mine. After enough time with the console I realized that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The only game I really cared about was Zelda: Twilight Princess, which could have easily been a Gamecube release (It was also released for Gamecube, but in very limited quantities). The other games available at launch were poorly made, or they were mini-game collections. I wanted new games to play, but I couldn't seem to find anything that a gamer such as myself wanted. 

It was around that time that I began to feel betrayed by Nintendo. They had left me out, they had left all true gamers out. We were the ones who had brought them to their new found success, but they weren't releasing any of the games we'd want to play. All of Nintendo's ads for Wii games catered to people who weren't into video games, which was, and still is slightly annoying. Despite my adolescent anger, Nintendo was making the right decision. Whether I wanted to admit it or not video games companies are about making money. The video game market was stagnating and Nintendo was out searching for new blood.

Nintendo's approach to the Wii was brilliant. Most people who don't play video games either think that games are too hard to play, or they just don't want to play games at all. Nintendo fixed the problem for people who thought that games were too hard to play. Everyone knows how to move their arms, and everyone knows how to push a large button. With this target in mind Nintendo created the Wii. People who had never been big into video games were playing Wii games and loving every minute of it. SONY and Microsoft have now followed in Nintendo's footsteps with motion control devices of their own. 

To tap into this new market game developers have been trying to make their games easier to play and understand on all consoles. At the age of sixteen when the Wii first came out this would have infuriated me, but I've come to see it as a blessing. Games may becoming easier to understand, but that's a good thing. Video game developers can't get by on good feelings, so they need to make money. They need to try and expand the audience of their products. There are still many people who will try to tell you that casual gamers will bring about the death of video gaming, but I am no longer one of those people. The more money developers get the better the product I receive in the end. It's a winning proposition for everyone. Game developers and publishers get more money, casual gamers get their gaming fill, and I get more of the games I enjoy.

             -Manny

Power On!

"I received my very first video game console as a gift from my parents when I was in Kindergarden at the ripe young age of seven. I remember crying in the middle of Wal-Mart when the electronics clerk said he didn't think there were any Super Nintendos left. My father insisted that the clerk check to see if there were any more left in the store. Luckily for my parents the clerk returned with a brand new console for me to take home. We rushed home to hook it up to our relatively old television. It was a miracle that thing worked as well as it did. It was an old brown Zenith that had been passed down from my Great Grandma. It has since died, but it did its job for quite a long time. I put Super Mario Bros. in the SNES, hit the power, and from that moment my life was never the same.

Prior to that moment I don't know if I had ever played any other video games, but I fell in love with what I saw and experienced. I couldn't believe that I could control someone else in a different world."

The above quotation recounts my first experience with gaming. I can still clearly remember that moment, because as the quotation states once I hit the power on the SNES my life was never the same. That might sound corny from an outside perspective, but if you're an avid gamer you know exactly what I'm talking about. The concept of controlling someone else in a virtual world, being them, grabbed hold of me and hasn't let go since.

I am now twenty-one years old and about to graduate college a semester early. You might think that I would have grown out of gaming by now, but that is far from the case. I now own over four hundred games spread across at least ten consoles, and both of those numbers will be steadily climbing for years to come. As I previously mentioned I am going to be graduating from college about a month from now. I'll be graduating with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing. So needless to say I like to read and write as well as game. 

Over the years I've written a great deal about gaming, but I've chosen to keep most of it to myself. If I want to be a writer this behavior is unacceptable, which is why I am creating this blog titled Game Time With Manny. I've decided that it's time to get my thoughts and opinions about gaming out there and I couldn't think of a better place to start than the internet.

     -Manny