User Reviews

All Reviews by BootScraper

Medal of Honor: Heroes - PSP

Boom, Boom, Ping!

One of the many complaints thrown at the PSP is its inability to play first-person shooters because of its one analog nub. Many 3D action games have felt the wrath of critics and consumers alike by being constantly trampled on by bad reviews and some less-than-stellar sales. Medal of Honor: Heroes, however, changes that notion by having some of the best FPS controls this side of the consoles. Medal of Honor: Heroes is the newest addition to the long-running WWII franchise. Lately, the series went from the top dog to underdog. Games like Call of Duty and Brothers in Arms have left this war-hardened franchise in the dust. MOH has changed a bit to better mimic its more competent competitors in European Assault, and that change has also found its way to the PSP with Heroes. You play as different soldiers across battlefields in Belgium, Holland, and Italy. The missions are all very loosely pieced together and at the beginning of each campaign in a new country, you get a nice montage of WWII stock footage and good narration. The game takes other gameplay mechanics from Call of Duty as well with the ability to aim down the sights and have A.I. controlled teammates by your side. And of course you get the biggest reason why WWII games are so prevalent: the weapons. Favorites such as the M1 Garand, Thompson, MP40, BAR, and other classic weapons we just cant get enough of are here and accounted for. Each level, however, feels much less epic than their inspirational source. Basically you either pick up something, destroy something, or wait near a flag until you have captured it. After that, you really dont have any other fun in campaign mode other than upping you rank or completing a couple of extra objectives. Its extremely shallow and would be considered death on a console. This, however, does just fine for short, pick-up-and-play gaming sessions of tight WWII era combat. Its exactly what a handheld shooter should be. The place where you will be spending most of your time, though, is in the fantastic multiplayer. Every level is set for the optimum amount of WWII action and the gameplay holds up as good as it does on the consoles. The graphics also hold up surprisingly well on the PSP, too. The lighting, details, and textures closely match that of other PS2 titles and are as easily as good as most Dreamcast games. You definitely wont be distracted by ugly graphics on this 3D handheld game. The sound also matches its console counterparts with a great orchestral score and realistic gunshots and explosions. Nothing beats the ping of an M1 Garand. What this game will probably be most noted for is that its the first game to get the FPS controls right on the PSP. Movement and aiming is very precise and becomes second nature with only a few minutes of play. My personal favorite setup is using the face buttons for movement and the analog nub for aiming. Again, its something that makes this game feel closer to a console experience. Unfortunately, however, this game does not last long nor does it have a lot of variety to keep the average gamer going. FPS and history fanatics will undoubtedly want to pick this game up, but for the rest of you, Call of Duty: Roads to Victory is coming soon to the PSP and will most-likely be worth the wait. Its not a great game, but it is a step in the right direction for future handheld FPSs.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops - PSP

Finally! No More Cards!

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is the latest in the long running and great Metal Gear franchise from Konami. It is also the third outing on Sonys PSP, but what makes this game different is how its stayed the same. In the last two Metal Gear games on the PSP (Metal Gear Acid 1 & 2) the incredible stealth action from other games in the series was replaced with turn-based card combat. It was basically Metal Gear: Yu-Gi-Oh. It made absolutely no sense and was dumb as hell. Thankfully Konami regained their sanity to make this great iteration into the long running and beloved franchise. You play as Snake and start out in a prison in the year 1970. You break out and find a Green Beret named Roy Campbell and from there go on a mission to stop the people that captured you from launching a nuke. Its pretty standard military action fare, but it has that unique Metal Gear flair that makes it seem original. The game plays like the Metal Gear Solids on the PS2 with the ability to go first-person for better aiming. The one thing that separates this game from other entries in the series is the ability to recruit unsatisfied enemies that you encounter and have them fight on your side. Basically you knock them out and drag them to a truck and they will become playable later. It really helps and never feels like a gimmick. If you end up getting Snake killed, one of the recruits that you have hiding in a cardboard box somewhere will become playable. You can also put some on a Spy team and have them do recon on a certain place so you dont have to go in blind. It feels very organic and is a welcome edition to the gameplay. Another great element about this game is the graphics. The PSP continually surprises me with what it can do and Portable Ops is no exception. The game looks very close to its PS2 counterparts. The character detail is amazing and the particle effects look like they should be on a big screen, not a small piece of hardware in your hand. The explosions are the pinnacle of this statement as they are every bit as good as those found in Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2 which were some of the best explosions in any game ever. The one thing I wouldve liked to see more of was the cinematics. In this game the story is told through moving comic book-style cells, and although theyre cool, they really arent as good as the amazing cinematics in past Snake adventures. Especially considering that the cinematics take up a lot of the game. Its also strange that the only spoken dialogue was during the comic book-style cut-scenes and only text shows during everything else. The dialogue that was spoken, however, was well done as with all of the other sounds. The orchestral theme was as good as its ever been in a Metal Gear game, and the little audio cues like being spotted and evasion alarms brings back great nostalgia and reminds you that you are playing in an epic franchise. The controls are also done very well done and in some ways better than its console big brothers. All the controls are the same as other Metal Gear games, but it has the addition of being able to move around while in first-person mode. In other Metal Gears, you could only aim in first-person. With that addition it has made the game much more fluid when you just wanna stop sneaking and shoot people. The only bad that can really be found in this game are the flaws that all the other Metal Gears carry. Mainly that comes down to some controller difficulty. People that have played Metal Gear games before will feel right at home, but to gamers just beginning, they will probably be turned off before they start to have fun. Games like Splinter Cell get the controls for stealth games down so much better. With all said and done, this is just yet another reason why you need a PSP. Games on the PSP dont feel or play like handheld games, but more like big blockbuster events. It is flawed, but it is also a true Metal Gear game in you hands.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - Xbox 360

On the Origin of Cheapness

As videogames evolve and become closer to interactive movie experiences, two things happen. First, the graphics become so close to mimicking real world physics, lighting, and textures that the aesthetic layer that separates us from the world we are playing becomes so minute that we become much more immersed in these incredible little experiences. The second, and much more important of the two, is that the challenges that await us become much more dynamic and challenging through intelligent game design and freakishly human-like enemy tactics. And the one thing I have been noticing is that most Japanese action games lack the second of the two needs of a next-gen title. Lost Planet is one of these Japanese action games that suffer this extremely frustrating fate. First, however, I will concentrate on the games good points. The graphics, for one, are phenomenal. The alien creatures are designed with great animations and the explosions blind the screen with oversaturated light and the smoke plumes into an impenetrable fog. The amount of action onscreen is often astonishing and the environments, especially the tunnel areas, are breathtaking works of interactive art. You really must see this game in action to understand how good this generation of consoles is going to look. The sound is also first rate work. The explosions are loud and thunderous and guns crack piercingly through the air. The sounds the Akrids make are also original and just plain fun to hear. Something about the sound of shotgunning a giant bug just makes me feel good inside. And for a surprising turn of events, the voice acting in this game is pretty damn good. Good voice-acting in a Capcom game? How did this happen? The controls are another one of the games good features, mainly due to the original handling of aiming. Its like a regular first person control scheme, but the aiming places your reticule in a kind of circular range of motion before you start to actually turn the screen in a different direction. It makes aiming incredibly precise in the middle of the screen, but gives you the ability to turn quickly around if need be. I havent seen this in a game before and I definitely hope to see more of it. And now for the bad. As I have typed above, this game does have a big problem. The problem is that a lot of Japanese action games of late have been relying on old, cheap ways to make a game more challenging. Back in the day, developers did not have a lot of processing power to push advanced tactics and A.I. into the games enemies, so they relied mainly on overwhelming odds, enemies and bosses with too much health, and limited aid to the player. Lost Planet is one of those newer games that rely on those old, cheap tricks to make the game challenging. In the first two levels, it is not apparent as the game is fairly easy, but after that you realize the developers werent too smart. In the game you have to constantly collect thermal energy dropped by enemies before your health runs out, yet you have to remain tactically sound or you will run head first into a rocket. The enemies become too many and too strong fairly quickly and after playing over a certain section of the game for the fifteenth time; you will begin to question your faith. Now Im not saying the game is too hard or too challenging. Its just poorly designed. Games like Gears of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Call of Duty 3 are very hard in certain parts, but they are hard because the enemies are smart and the game is designed very intelligently and not because the developers are lazy and put in cheap game mechanics to make the game hard. Now, there is a multiplayer option to fight against less annoying opponents, but this game was obviously made to be a single player game. The most frustrating thing about it is that there is a great game in here; you just have to go through hell to find it.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 - Xbox 360

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free!

The first Tony Hawk game was an amazing pop culture sensation that sparked up interest not only in video games, but also in the sport that it portrayed. The game was so fun and influential that a whole new generation of skater wannabes took to the parks. The second Tony Hawk game came around and solidified its glory as the pinnacle of extreme sports titles. After that, though, it seemed as if developer Neversoft had run out of ideas and just started recycling the same game every year. I dont know how, but it seems Neversoft has finally come out of its creative rut and put out a great new skating game that everyone will enjoy. The game is fairly similar in structure to the other games with a career mode that has you travel around a city with many odd characters asking you to perform tasks with your skating skills. You start out as a new skater with something to prove. You are trying to get into an elite group of eight skaters Tony Hawk is putting together and you are at number 200. By completing the tasks and skating competitions, you not only move up in rank, but also receive new sponsors and new areas to skate in. One of the best additions to a Tony Hawk game in years is the nail the trick mode. You click both analog sticks and go into slow-mo where you control each individual foot and perform some outstanding combos. Its easy to get it down, but extremely diverse in what types of ways you can use it. Its a great gameplay mechanic that never once feels like a gimmick. Forget about that American Wasteland crap. This is the true next-gen Tony Hawk. The graphics got a major overhaul that has ever bail make you cringe in agony. The characters are well detailed and the environments are loaded with interaction. And although we keep hearing that the PS3 is supposedly way more powerful than the 360, I did not catch one bit of difference between the two platforms. What system you by it for should come down to which controller you feel more comfortable with. And you will need a comfortable controller because this game can be tough. You can get most of the amateur rankings pretty easily, but to get the sick scores, you will have to pull off some miracles. This is one of those games that appeals to every type of gamer because of its good difficulty balance. While most will just want to get through the games career mode with the minimum requirements, the hardcore gamers will find themselves spending sleepless hours just trying to get the perfect score. And as for those social gamers, this is a Tony Hawk game, so multiplayer is always good. They also didnt skimp out on the sound design. While most is just status quo for a skating game like bails, bone cracks, and your board scraping against concrete, things like the soundtrack and voice acting are great. All the crazy characters are brought to vivid life by the often hilarious voice acting. And the soundtrack is phenomenal with great acts like Slayer, Primus, and Bad Religion. And if you dont like those bands, this is a next-gen title, so just play music from your hard drive. This is the greatest entry in the series since Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2. Long time fans will be pleased, and people who bailed out after THPS 4 really need to take notice.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - Xbox 360

And Deadpool Too!

We all know what happens when you put badass super heroes in a videogame: it usually sucks. From Superman, to Batman and even Spawn, most super heroes dont make the virtual transfer so well. Lately, however, there has been a formula arising in the Marvel universe to crush this crappiness in comic book games. It started with X-Men: Legends and has now become perfected with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The formula is quite simple. Take one part Baldurs Gate, two parts comic book, and throw as many heroes and villains into the mix as you can. The result is perhaps the best mix since peanut butter and chocolate or first-person shooters and demons. The game has you pick one-to-four people in your party and go hunt down the villains in many different and unique locals, such as underwater, Valhalla, and even Hell itself. There are a total of 20 super heroes to choose from to put in your party. You got Blade, Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, and even one of my favorites; Deadpool. Each character has his or her own special power attacks (all of which can be upgraded through experience) that can be used by holding a trigger and pressing a face button. And you can also put together your own default team that will gain extra experience and reputation points by completing quests. This is all the more fun when playing co-op with three of your friends. The controls have really been streamlined to the point where you dont even notice them. Doing combo attacks and using you special powers become second nature well before the end of the first mission. Like I said, this is a formula that has been perfected. Raven software (who did the extremely graphic Soldier of Fortune games) made both X-Men: Legends games and this one. So they know what makes a great comic book game. The audio in the game, although nothing special, does have some high points. The explosions and body hits in the game are nice and thunderous and the voice acting is done very well. The lines of script in the game are also very entertaining. If you want a laugh, keep Deadpool on your team and listen to what he says when he levels up. The one thing I was surprised to be amazed at in this game was the graphics. Since this is a top-down style game, you really cant see the awesome visuals as well as most, but if you zoom in the camera you will notice the amazing detail that went into every texture in the game. They way every material reflects light in its own way and how the specials effects fill the screen, it is just simply amazing. The in-game cinematics are as good, if not better, than most other generations computer generated movies. Its just too bad it isnt more noticeable. Maybe they should have added a third-person camera angle option. If you were to ask me what my favorite game is, I would not lie. I would say it is the Punisher game that came out a couple of years ago. However, that is only my favorite because he is my favorite super hero, and its gory as hell. For general audiences and comic book diehards alike, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is your safest bet for best comic book game of all time.