Wanna talked mind blown as a kid? From the n64 era I got a few glimpses at the size a video game can be, but Spyro the dragon for PlayStation was the very first game that swallowed me up in it’s world. A coming of age story about a young dragon whose left after all the bigger, more powerful dragons are turned to crystal and his quest to free them from Gnasty Gnorc who got pissed watching them bad mouthing him during a TV interview (God bless the 90’s). Spyro and his dragonfly companion, Sparx are freaking awesome. Spyro mainly charges and bursts fire, and can hover a bit except for the epic flight stages. The scenery is beautiful and the characters inside are detailed excellently for there time. It handles amazing and with so much loot, enemies, and new beautiful realms to explore, it’s hard not to love this PS1 classic.
Category: Retro Review
Act raiser Retro Review
Act Raiser is an old Super Nintendo game where you play as a god who has lost his powers thanks to the people no longer believing in you. So you take control is a side-scrolling action segment in order to rid the land of a powerful enemy so the land becomes inhabitable again.
After the side-scrolling event, you will start on a sort of Sim City-type gameplay where you guide your village to grow and discover new technology, such as wheat or bridge building, which you can then give to your other towns. This simple formula actually makes for a great and fun game as your villages grow, find you new spells and items, and even help other towns grow. This is definitely one of those games you would be doing yourself a huge favor to try out. Thanks for your time, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Shining Force 2 Retro Review
Another classic Sega RPG, Shining Force 2 is a grid-based strategy RPG, with dozens of characters to build your team from. The battles play out on the world map shown here.
The battles take place in between the story about a thief that steals magical jewels that sealed a great evil from the world by the name of Zeon. as you fight the battle, switch from the world map to a close-up view to see your attack. Below you can see the main character attack the aforementioned Zeon.
The graphics for this game’s time were pretty solid, and so was the sound. This great game can also be found on Sonics ultimate genesis collection on the PS3 and XB360, and is worth checking out if you have the means. The story is well paced and compelling, with characters you will easily get attached to. With a few solid twists and turns and more than one difficulty level, you will get your money’s worth on this one. Best of luck, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
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Phantasy Star 4 Retro Review
Phantasy Star 4 is one of those nostalgia games i’d love to see get another release, but largely be untouched like in previous collections it was in for the PS3 and XB360. The game mostly takes place on the planet of Motavia in the Algol star system, but you did travel to multiple satellites and planets. The turn-based battle system offered lot of strategy with spells and skills that could combine to create entirely new abilities. The story itself was pretty standard for its time, a group of people who meet under various circumstances must save the solar system, with the main character, Chaz, being revealed to be the chosen one. The art style was great, with cut scenes playing out in a comic storyboard manner.
I have played through this game more than a few times over the years, and I have to say it holds up extremely well. The controls still feel nice, the story still fun and the combat still engaging. Any RPG fan should absolutely try it out. As usual, may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Star Wars, knights of the old republic 2
This game is rather weird. 1st it was made my Obsidian rather than Bioware and second it was basically released with a lot of bugs and largely unfinished. That being said, the game itself isn’t all that bad really. It takes place about 5 years after the end of the first game and with mostly new characters. At the very beginning you will be asked how the first game ended the game mostly play out from there. It looks and plays mostly the same way as the first except this time most of the supporting characters can also become jedi but only if you are on the correct side of the force. While the first game let you see how the others felt about you, this time around it also effects how they act towards you and even to an extent their combat ability.. As always thanks for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic
This game takes me back. Its probably the first Bioware game I ever played,and was also the first time i really played game that had any sort of karma or good and evil system. I vowed to myself i’d be the Jedi in game I would want to be in real life. So about an hour later i quickly realize i veered off somewhere and quickly becoming an evil prick, using my light saber to mow down everything in my path. So I try to get back on the right path while i’m traveling the galaxy trying to save the place from Darth Malak that somehow has an army of sith troopers and ships. As I’m doing my thing and building better weapons and learning about the amazing worlds and characters I once again notice i’m rocking a red duel saber force choking the life out of people many times for no damn reason at all. Turns out that in this time frame, 4000 years before the original trilogy, I am definitely a sith and nothing I could do would change that. See part of the fun of this game, beyond the one of a kind story and the great worlds and characters, is you can pretty be whatever you want, and that’s why I will always have a special place in my heart. Thanks for joining me on my nostalgia trip, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Area 51
I must admit, when it comes to this game I’m pretty bias. I love aliens, government conspiracies, zombie plagues, The X Files, and Marilyn Manson, so to have a gave that encompasses all these things hooked me. It’s the only game I’ve ever collected 100% of the hidden collectibles. Of the PlayStation 2/ XBox era, I feel Area 51 is a well overlooked title that at the very least deserves a PlayStation 4/ XBox One re-release.
Area 51 is the story of a monstrous outbreak in the deepest depths of the legendary facility; something is loose and spreading a mutagenic alien virus that turns it’s victims into vicious mutants. A Haz-mat team is dispatched to quell the outbreak and discover the secrets of Area 51 and the deadly Pact man made with the Greys. You play as Ethan Cole, voiced by David Duchovny of the X-Files, a member of Bravo team and soon to be lone survivor. One by one Cole’s team is killed gruesomely by the forces at hand. When he finds Delta team, there almost seems to be hope until in a final stand against the mutant horde, the creature that began the madness emerges, invulnerable to gunfire, strong and armed with unhuman technology. Again, Cole manages to nearly escape Area 51 until a trap is sprung, his body comes crashing down stories, and Cole awakens to a mutant biting him and suddenly Cole ceases to be fully human. Mutating horribly, he sees a green light surround the body of one of his dead teammates as it levitates and begins speaking to him in a eerily distant voice, that of Edgar, amazingly voiced by Marilyn Manson. Edgar guides Cole towards his only salvation while dragging him through the lies we’ve been raised to believe.
The best part of the game is the voice acting by Duchovny and Manson. Cole begins and ends every chapter with a intimate account which drives the story forward and sets a grim, desperate tone to the narrative. Manson as Edgar is creepy as hell and his presence is ambiguous, not knowing even up until the end if his intentions are for good or evil. The human weaponry is meh but the primary alien weapon, the BBG, is fun firing bursts of alien energy bubbles that latch onto its target and pop; for aiming there’s a niffty feature where you can pull a special laser sight that can bend around angles and corners and ricochet the shot from behind cover. Best of all, it doesn’t require ammo, it recharges fairly quick on it’s own. Being a mutant is fun- increased strength, ability to launch parasites from your hands to steal health, and even the ability to spread the plague, and these abilities stay as long as you slay everything around you with your clawed hands. The hidden myths of area 51 are original and weird ( like aliens being responsible for the JFK assassination with super soldiers created from telepathy and matter manipulation-yep) So what’s the flaw you ask? Well the ending sucks…pretty bad. No real final boss, just a quick beat the clock rush and a cutscene and that’s it. You will have questions but good luck getting those answered 12 years later.
I love the hell out of 90% of this game and I definitely at least recommend watching a play through at the very least. As always may the gaming gods shine glory on you and you’ll know the truth of the moon landing after this shit.
Red Faction 2
COD before COD (sigh). First, Red Faction 1 and 2 have almost nothing in common except that they are first person shooters about rebellions and the tiny thread of nano experimentation. Red faction 2 is about a mad tyrannical dictator named Chancellor Sopot who is making a army of Nano-tech super soldiers and the band of his of enhanced soldiers gone rogue join the Red Faction. You play as Alias, the demolitions expert of the squad. The first half of the game is pretty routine, get to evil guy and blast his ass…which Sopot’s death is hysterically over the top, especially considering the fact Sopot is a spiting image of Sadam Hussein (this game came out somewhere between late 2002, early to mid 2003). Second half of the game is a split between the squad, when Molov, the head of the squad plans to take over the Commonwealth where Sopot left off and it’s up to Alias and the remainder of the Red Faction to stop him. Red Faction 2 is an inferior sequel. Whereas the first game had more freedom to jump into vehicles and go, the second limits it to a few stages here and there. Also, the first game saving was totally up to player and could be saved anytime, anywhere in the game. Two breaks the game into lengthy stages, which makes saving kind of tricky. The only ability you get as a android is the ability to activate night vision which doesn’t really come in handy too often and can hurt your eyes after a while. The weakest feature is the karma system, you get green stars for good deeds or hidden things and red stars for just killing random people like a dick. I’ve never seen the good ending; the bad ending is kind of funny. As for the goods of the game, Lance Henriksen voices Molov, which is the best voice acting of the game. The shooting is solid and the Battle Armor is a fun ride. Overall it’s a meh game. Fun once but the replay value ain’t really there.
Red Faction
Red Faction, a game ahead of it’s time, holds up remarkably well remastered on PlayStation 4. Red Faction is the story of Parker, a minor on Mars working for the oppressive company Ultor. The minors are slaves under the heavily armed guards, living in crappy conditions while dying of a mysterious plaque. Revolution strikes in the name of the Red Faction led by Eos, aided by technician turned traitor against Ultor, Hendrix. Parker takes part in the rebellion, and the struggle to survive everything Ultor has to throw at him.
Many of the mechanics of the game still hold up great today, including the shooting, driving, and platforming. The graphics can be ify, even after a touch up. The voice acting is meh to fair with the exception of Dr. Capek, creator of the plaque and the monstrosities you come across later, his brief performance is genuinely creepy. There are genuinely pain in the ass parts of the game including a boss battle against a giant asshole robot that rivals the difficulty of the bosses of Dark Souls- warning he’s a pain in the ass. Gryphon- screw him too. The ending is a tad disappointing but not the worst. If you see Red faction on a Psn sale, pick it up if not for the good story but for the great couch Co-op multiplayer, sometimes it’s just better the old way.
Alien Trilogy
People that know me best know I’m a humongous Alien fan. Aliens scared me out of bath time as a kid, and screw your boogeyman, I was afraid of a nine foot tall, drooling, acid blooded, phallic two-mouthed monster that wanted to lay eggs in my chest…also the people that know me best would tell you this explains a lot. When my dad bought me a PlayStation, I received three games with it- Tomb Raider, Spyro the Dragon, and Alien Trilogy. By today’s standards, Alien Trilogy’s graphics are complete dogshit. Watching playthroughs on YouTube, I laughed my ass off as a full fledged adult. The gameplay runs similar to classic Doom, not very original but trusty at the time. The motion tracker is a nice addition to to the HUD, even making that iconic, chilling beep when something comes at you. So what’s the story of Alien Trilogy? Well, it’s a disjointed clash of environments either from the Alien Trilogy or inspired by it, which rationally ain’t such a bad thing. Alien and Alien 3 only had one Xenomorph each and no weapons to real fight with, whereas Aliens there was a horde of the bastards and ammo aplenty; what sick bastard would want to try playing Alien: Isolation on a PlayStation graphics and mechanics? Cheat Codes were a fun addition to the game, giving you unlimited ammo, unlimited health, unlocking every level which gave us the Queen’s liar. So many memories man… what sticks out to me even a decade and a half later are the death scenes. The screen turns to a screen of running blood and every each means of demise changes the foreground: alien death- alien mauls Ripley, roaring at the screen with a bloody face. The Queen stands behind Ripley, tearing her savagely in half with it’s four arms. Trilogy is not the best but if your a huge Alien fan with a PlayStation , give it a try and may the gaming gods be with you all.
Savior Gaming 