Category Archives: 5 Star Games

Pro Wrestling Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another old NES classic. This time we’re entering the Wrestling sport and I haven’t played one of those before so this was certainly going to be interesting. It’s a fun enough game where you get to really barrel into your opponent and pull off some moves. As with most NES games the only real option is to just go in there and play a few rounds so it all depends on how much fun the gameplay is. It isn’t quite as innovative as the Dodge Ball game but it makes for a reasonable playthrough. It’s fun to run and around and see what the opponent does.

When the match starts the idea is to get the opponent to the ground and keep him there until the ref says you’ve won. You can also throw your opponent out of the ring and try to prevent him from getting back inside for a few seconds. The latter seems really difficult if you ask me but I’m sure it’s possible. I let the opponent do that to me a few times for fun. You can also jump from one of the corners of the stage and fall into the ring for maximum damage and salt. It seems like a fun move to do on an unsuspecting opponent but the computer will never fall for it. The best thing you can do is knock them down first and then do the pounce. Even so, it’s incredibly hard to keep them down.

Perhaps there is a trick to it that I’m missing but my opponent just wouldn’t stay down. He did everything in his power to rise up over and over and over again. There also aren’t a whole lot of different attacks so it can get a bit repetitive very quickly. I found switching characters to help extend the game a bit. You can play as a cool reptile fighter who actually starts biting into his opponents which is pretty cool. The rest of the characters don’t really have fancy attacks like that but even just one of them being like that was pretty cool to me.

To switch things up you can also run into the net and bounce back to try and hit the opponent with an elbow or a flying knee. You can also throw them into the net and as they bounce back land a solid hit. These little gameplay elements help to switch things up and make the gameplay a little flashier so I certainly enjoyed that. The graphics hold up pretty well I’d say. It’s still NES of course, but the colors are bright and you always know what is going on. Those are the two things I always look for in a game and as long as they are there I feel pretty satisfied with myself. I didn’t really notice much of a soundtrack if the game even had music. I’m assuming it did, but I really didn’t notice while going through the matches.

Overall, Pro Wrestling is a pretty decent game. There’s not a lot to do so you will find yourself back to square one pretty quickly. That being said, if you want to duke it out in the ring it’s still a good way to buy yourself some time. Then by the end of the adventure you can say that you’ve now played a Wrestling game. This one is probably overshadowed by the boxing rival Punch-Out which makes sense but does have a bit to offer in its own right. Give it a shot and see if the game holds up well enough for you.

Overall 5/10

Ice Hockey Review

Posted on by
Reply


I’ve been playing a ton of NES games lately but to the point where I hadn’t actually reviewed them yet. So it’s time to quickly take a look at what some of those titles were and first up is Ice Hockey. It’s a pretty straight forward game that gets you right into the action. As with most of these old sport games there is a certain charm to it although I don’t expect you would be playing this title for very long with all of the newer editions out there.

When you jump into the game you get to go right into the thick of it. I enjoyed around 4-5 games here although I did lose most of them pretty badly. The game is surprisingly high scoring for Hockey as my opponent scored around 20 in one game. In most hockey games I played previously it would be rare to get into double digits much less 20. I also felt like I was blocking pretty well for most of the game as I must have stopped close to 100 shots. It clearly wasn’t enough, but it shows you how fast paced the game is. You can also effect the speed level which is pretty cool. When it’s on its max setting you’re really flying across the field.

The gameplay has aged pretty well except for the passing. Shooting the ball into the net is easy enough but I just couldn’t get the puck to my teammates. They would eagerly stare the puck down by beyond that they would just end up falling back and I would start to get steamrolled. The graphics have definitely aged pretty well considering how old the game is. There was a good amount of effort put into the game and this is the kind of gameplay that just works pretty well for all times.

What ultimately keeps the game back from more of a positive score is definitely the lack of content here. There isn’t a ton of replay value with only one mode to play and after a few rounds you will feel like you’re pretty much playing the same match. This game is perfect for multiplayer so that’s when you should bump up the score another star or two. If you’re on your own then as I mentioned you’ll probably be tired after an hour or so. Considering that the game is free with Switch Online that’s not really a bad bargain though.

Overall, Ice Hockey is a reasonable game. It’s a good way to spend an hour or so, but in a way you’re just checking off a box as you play through all of the NES classic games. Once it’s gone you’ll forget about it pretty quickly. It’s not exactly Madden or Mario and to an extent some games just aren’t meant to last the long run. Titles like Pac Man and Mario will always be a blast no matter in what era you play them and that’s a testament to the amount of detail and design put behind them. To the average game, once 20-30 years have passed it’s probably just going to feel dated.

Overall 5/10

Smash Tennis Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at a SNES game from a while back. I’ve always been a pretty big fan of sport titles because you really get to feel what it’s like to play the actual sport. You feel energy and excitement while scoring points and claiming victory. Really the only way a sport game can go wrong is if the controls aren’t all that good or the sport it is based off of is one that I’m not really a big fan of. This one suffers from the controls.

There aren’t a lot of modes or anything here but as it is an SNES game that should be expected. You really are here to play some good tennis and have fun along the way. You can play against a friend locally or against the computers online. That’s really it so just keep on playing for as long as you’re entertained. The game is free with the Switch Online anyway so that’s always a good benefit. The gameplay is pretty straight forward. Be sure to hit the ball when it gets close to you and the goal is to hit it in a way where the opponent can’t counter it. Furthermore, you can’t hit it too far out of range or it’ll be “out” and the opponent will gain a point.

Typically this is fairly easy to not do, but in this game it is pretty challenging. You’ve got to be very careful in what direction you are tilting the control stick because it’s very easy to hit the ball out of bounds. It seems like holding in any direction will bring some issues with this. At the same time if you just hit the ball straight then the opponent will certainly hit it back at you so as always there has to be some balance here. I played 5-6 games as each match goes by very quickly. Unfortunately I was only able to score a few points at best as the opponent would thoroughly take me apart in each round. He was really not holding anything back here.

You can take solace in the fact that this game is not a walk in the park. You are going to have to play seriously if you want to beat the computer even on a standard setting. They react to the ball very quickly and are totally comfortable with returning the ball even from rather complex angles. The graphics are fun enough. I like the fact that we have background elements in all of the levels which make them pretty unique. You can go from playing inside of a mall to being on the beach to resting at the park. There are a reasonable number of stages and they’re all pretty different so that’s pretty impressive. I can’t say that I was expecting a whole lot of variety here.

Overall, Smash Tennis is a fairly standard tennis game for its time, but compared to modern ones it’s pretty lackluster. I don’t really mind the lack of content so much as that is perfectly understandable, but the gameplay could have been a lot tighter. A lot of times you’ll feel like you hit the ball in time and it’ll still get past you. It feels like a losing battle from the start. No game is impossible because they are play tested and all, but a little more refinement would go a long way. As it stands I’d definitely say to check it out because it’s free so you may as well. At the same time I don’t see you spending more than an hour or two here. Not when something like Virtua Tennis exists.

Overall 5/10

My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie’s Party Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at one of the games I got for my Birthday. This one was definitely a very short one though. The gameplay is actually solid with fun visuals and such, but the whole experience will only last you around 30 minutes. No matter how high budget the game is it’s hard to do much with 30 minutes. I’d like to see the developers give this one another shot with a bigger budget.

The plot of the game is pretty straightforward. Pinkie Pie’s birthday is coming up so the other ponies have decided to get her a lot of gifts and such. Unfortunately they’ve lost them all so now Pinkie Pie has to ironically track them all down herself. Can she save her own birthday and prove that finding the gifts can be just as fulfilling as receiving them all? Then we can really just settle down and enjoy all the nice snacks.

I figured that getting a birthday game on my birthday was pretty fitting. This is a game I’ve known about for a long while, but I wouldn’t exactly go out of my way to grab it. It’s not exactly known as a AAA title so right from the jump you know not to get your expectations too high. It was a bit of a blind buy as I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The gameplay mainly has you walk around from area to area as you tap on any presents of puzzle pieces you come across on your journey. Once you have obtained them all then the game ends. Most of the items are just lying around. Once you’ve found those then you have to talk to the other Ponies and they will give you a present upon clearing one of their mini games.

The minigames are all very short and you shouldn’t have a problem completing them. Some are titles where you can’t lose and others try to at least make things a little more challenging for you. They aren’t quite as inspired as the Mario Party minigames though and you probably won’t be tempted to try them a second time. It’s not like there are any high scores to try and improve so the replay value just simply isn’t there. There are a number of things you can do instead but if you really like the games you can replay any of them at any time. The Hub world is fairly short which is good because the map only helps you out for one gift at a time so you’ll be running back and forth a lot.

The graphics are surprisingly good all things considered. The character designs are on point and the backgrounds are sharp. This is probably the most impressive element of the game and I’m actually a little surprised that such effort was included. It doesn’t feel like the rest of the game was taken as seriously. The soundtrack is also incredibly limited which doesn’t help matters either. At least it is a game that is nice to look at which is good. If the game could have even just thrown in an extra hour or two of gameplay then that could have really changed things.

Overall, as mentioned, the game is around 30 minutes long. There is no replay value as you had to collect everything to trigger the ending so that hurts a bit. The actual gameplay is fun, but with such a length there’s no way I could give it a positive score. The best I could do was give it a middle of the road number. If you see the game down the block for a few bucks then you may as well get it. For 15 or up it is really not worth it. You could buy some food combos that would last longer than this game. Even long time fans of the series will likely feel underwhelmed. I think the only way this one works is if you’re buying it for a very young kid who is an MLP fan, but even then I would make the case that there are better games that can be purchased.

Overall 5/10

Yugioh GX Duel Academy Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at another game that uses the dreaded day system. I still cannot fathom why games would ever choose to use such a system. All it does is force you to miss out on huge amounts of the game so it’s like the developers are wasting their time adding a bunch of features that we’ll never get to use. The core Yugioh gameplay is still good which keeps this from being a negative game in the end, but it is heavily limited.

The story (albeit it there isn’t much of a story here) is about a new kid who has arrived at Duel Academy. He’s looking to perfect his craft and become one of the greatest duelists of all time. It’ll take a lot of semesters and training to do it, but practice makes perfect. That’s the extent of the game. Every few months you get to take an exam to try and rank up, but the questions are surprisingly tricky. I did well enough in the dueling part…I actually had a positive record. The problem is that if you don’t do very well in the written exam you go down in rank anyway. I thought this was a bit iffy, but I suppose it is what it is. After a bunch of duels and weeks went by I figured it was time for the review.

In terms of gameplay it’s the usual Yugioh rules that you should be familiar with. In every turn you get to summon a monster and play some spells or traps. The goal of the game is to get your opponent’s life points down from 8000 to 0. Once you do that you will have won the game and you get to duel the next person. Everyone’s always got a bunch of trap cards to play so you want to work around those. For example, always attack with the weakest monster first and if you have more than 1, put the others in defense mode. That way when Mirror Force is played you won’t lose all of your monsters. As you play more and more duels you’ll see why it’s very important to protect your backup monsters. Each day seems to have 3 segments so you can plan out quite a few duels per day. You then get to watch the week days go by with nothing happening except a chance to buy some cards at the shop. Then you go back to fighting off more duelists.

One thing that slows down the duels here though is the fact that the characters like to talk a lot. It’s an interesting idea but I think it should be done without interrupting the flow. I suppose voice acting would have been out of the question for a GBA game, but maybe have everyone talk as an intro instead of during the duel. I believe that would allow you to really get in on the dueling and not have to worry about the rest. I was pretty satisfied with my starter deck though. It had a lot of fun fire monsters that I always like to have along with some good traps and spells. I made a few modifications here and there, but mainly kept it in tact.

When it comes to the graphics I’d say that the game was pretty solid. you could always tell what was happening and the illustrations were nice. The dueling effects were good and we got a nice amount of backdrops. The soundtrack is also pretty good. It’s not quite ready to take on the GX anime ost or anything like that, but it has actual variety which is important since you’ll be dueling quite a lot.

This game’s got a long amount of time if you want to truly complete the game. It’s hard to say exactly what beating the game entails but I imagine you would need to conquer all of the exams and reach Blue Rank. Assuming you have a great deck and don’t mind restarting the game during exams a few times maybe you would clear this game in around 20 hours or so. Technically there is a ton of replay value to be had here as well. Obtaining all of the cards feels like it would probably take a life time to achieve. Furthermore you’ve got to abide by the day system so you can’t just go to the shop whenever you feel like it.

It really all comes back to that system. Not to be repetitive, but I don’t like having the game force me to only be able to do certain tasks at specific times. I like being able to choose what to do next. While games don’t have to be linear I also like to have a concrete goal so I know exactly what I am supposed to do and when I am supposed to do it. Things like that really go a long way in my eyes. I prefer the retro Yugioh style where it used to be that you would fight 5 duelists, beat all of them 5 times to unlock the next row and then rinse/repeat the system. At least that way you always knew you were making progress.

Overall, This is one of the weakest Yugioh games. It’s a shame because I love GX and really wanted it to have a solid game to fall back on. Unfortunately this is not the game to do that. Tag Force would end up being a better option to represent GX. This one feels more like a cash-in and there is little that it can offer in place of other titles. I would highly recommend getting one of the World Championship games instead like 2006 which is still my favorite one. Those have more direct goals and the gameplay is completely streamlined. That’s all I really need in my Yugioh games and then I’m a happy camper.

Overall 5/10

Beyblade Metal Fusion Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at a recent Beyblade game I got. We own the final 2 games in the series after this so I had been wanting to get this installment so we could finish the series. Unfortunately it is definitely the weakest title I’ve played from the franchise. It takes all of the fun and creativity from the earlier titles and replaces them with pure RNG and microphone mechanics. I’m already not a huge fan of the stylus controls so throwing in the microphone is overkill. There are some decent ideas here and the graphics are solid, but the negatives kept this game from going into the green.

The basic plot is that the main character has entered a Beyblade tournament as usual. He is ready to win, but quickly discovers that something shady is going on. It turns out that a villain group has entered and they aim to destroy all of the beyblades they fight. The heroes don’t like this and aim to stop the villains, but is the villain group really doing this or are they all getting played by a new character? One thing’s for sure, the world of Beyblade won’t be safe until all of the villains are thrown out and justice prevails once and for all.

So the gameplay is the problem with the game and I will describe why that is here. Each match is a best of 7 set against the opponent (Why 7? This just drags out each fight) and the goal is to either break your opponent’s Beyblade, knock it out of bounds, or hit it enough times where it stops moving. Each method of victory is worth a different amount of win. 3, 2, and 1 respectively. Each stage is a small circle where your beyblades spin around and whack each other. You can’t move your Beyblade, but you can determine where it charges by swiping with the stylus. Additionally you can tap the stage to recover health, tap really quickly to jump, or tap on your Beyblade to activate your shield. Then you’ve also got the two special abilities at your disposal which you can equip prior to the battle.

Your Beyblade will start out at rank F and as you fight it will improve. Additionally whatever support equipment you have on will level up as you play more games. Eventually your stats should be high enough where winning will be easy. It’s a long process though and you lose all of your progress when you leave the game aside from your rank and possibly the equipment upgrades. The story mode is structured like an arcade title so you have to beat the 8-10 levels in one shot. You get infinite continues so eventually you should be able to power your way through, but you do have to make sure that you don’t leave. It should only take around an hour so if you’re having fun then you’ll be okay.

Part of the problem with the game is your Beyblade is completely outmatched from the start. Even if you get a perfect launch and all you will lose in a straight up fight. Towards the end of the game the only way to win is to knock the other Beyblade out of the ring. Winning straight up in any other way appears to be impossible. Then to give yourself a little extra health at the end you have to blow into the microphone which is pretty odd. I’ve rarely seen games force you to use the microphone like this and it definitely didn’t award Beyblade any extra points. I’d rather not have to use that thing unless 100% necessary. It just feels like a gimmick.

So for most of the levels you are really just focused on swiping every which way until your Beyblade knocks the opponents out of the ring. You have to do this twice in each match to get the necessary 4 points to move on. If you do decide to fight head on, I’d recommend the Power Slam move which does a good amount of damage and the healing ability. Those make for a good pair and do work pretty well until you get to the final 2-3 fighters. At that point things get pretty dicey so get ready to focus on knocking the Beyblade away. I went with a full attack set of equipment, but there are a lot of different options so you may want to experiment.

In terms of the graphics I thought the game did a pretty good job of looking sharp. The illustrations were definitely on point and made the game feel dynamic even if there wasn’t much of a story to look at. Having more cutscenes definitely would have been very helpful to the game if you ask me. It makes the whole thing just feel more engaging. The bits of story we did get were pretty fun too. The villain was solid and his final line of asking the main character to be friends was definitely wholesome. It reminds me why the franchise looks so cool.

There isn’t much of a soundtrack to speak of. Meanwhile I wouldn’t say that there is a lot of replay value to speak of. I suppose you could work on beating the story mode with all of the characters. There are around 30 or more to choose from so that should definitely take you quite a while. By the time you’ve done that I think you’ll be ready to part with the title. Each story is around an hour to 90 minutes so you’re looking at a 30+ hour game. Hopefully there would be enough of a story mode there to justify it for you though because that’s a lot of Beyblade matches for this kind of gameplay.

Overall, Beyblade Metal Fusion was one of the harder games I’ve played, but not in a good way. The levels weren’t well designed or anything like that. It’s just that the gameplay was hard to wrap my head around and the opponents always had superior specs which didn’t really allow for the matches to be fair and balanced. Ideally the Beyblades should be around equal so then you can win with your own skill. I do have high hopes that the next game should be better. The series still does have a solid track record aside from this game. Unless you are a huge Beyblade fan I’d recommend buying one of the older ones instead or just taking a pass on this one. It really doesn’t have much to offer you.

Overall 5/10

Yugioh Duelist of the Roses Review

Posted on by
2


It’s time to look at what I’d say is easily the strangest Yugioh game. For starters the game has nothing to do with the actual characters from the series and the plot seems to be based on a war from a very long time ago. The story definitely isn’t very interesting and there isn’t much of one in the first place so the gameplay will have to hold the game up on its own. Will it be able to make this title a success?

When you start the game you are summoned as the legendary Rose duelist by the Red Rose army who are currently losing the battle against the White Rose. You are their last hope to try and turn the tide of the war. Seto, who is the leader of the White side shows up and asks you to join him instead to rule the world. This is where you make your choice of which faction to play as. The game is around 10-11 duels long and the path you take determines which array of fighters you will be contending with. The goal is to get all 8 of the cards by beating 8 guardians and there are some extra fighters along the way.

When you first start the game you get to choose your starter deck. All of them are pretty awful if you ask me and you can expect to lose quite a lot of duels at first. Your opponents have everything whole you’ve got basic cards that aren’t strong enough to win. What I was surprised about is that the computer already has significantly more powerful monsters at 2700 from the start while your guys are limited to 1500. Anyone who was able to beat these guys with a starter deck right off the bat has my respect on this one.

Another complication is that the game doesn’t even follow Yugioh rules. I was surprised about this because of you don’t have the rules or the characters then why is this a Yugioh game anyway? I should mention that the main connection in the story is that the characters happen to look like Yugioh characters…that’s it. It’s like when a show does a Christmas Carol and they are all not themselves for that one AU episode. This is the same concept and I guess you’ve got the monsters even if the gameplay is different.

The gameplays a bit complex, but here’s my best attempt at a solid write up. You start out with your captain or vanguard if you will. You can move him one space a time along a board that is fairly large. Around 10 by 6 or something like that. The goal is to destroy the opponent’s guardian. Both guardians always start with 4000 HP but that can go up or down based on spell and trap cards. If you attack the opponent directly then your attack power will determine how much health is lost. You can summon 1 monster per turn and that monster can move 1 space per turn unless it has a type advantage and then it can move two times. All of the opponents you fight will have the type advantage so expect them to always be moving two spaces at a time. A spell card to change the terrain comes in handy for this although they have a very limited range so they aren’t always too great. It’s still a good balancer in the right circumstance, but keep in mind that playing this spell will prevent you from summoning a monster that turn.

You gain 3 stars each turn and monsters require stars to summon. The strongest monsters need 8 stars so you can choose to either wait a few turns and summon them or keep on summoning weaker ones. Usually you want at least one card to defend yourself with and then you start saving up. Then you’ve got all of the spell and trap cards to deal with and you can fuse some into monsters to make them stronger. You can also fuse monsters from your hand but the game doesn’t let you know if they’re compatible so it’s a lot of trial and error here. If you make the wrong call then you’ll lose the first card in each fusion which can be a bit tiresome. This is the best way to clear your hand out to get more cards though. Just smash all of the cards together and next turn you’ll get 5 fresh ones. There’s a lot more to this gameplay, but it’s so complex that the only way to really get it is to play the game first hand. That’s when it’ll all really start to make sense.

As for the graphics, the game has some pretty good illustrations. For the most part there aren’t too many cutscenes but we get a few paintings at the end and one at the start. I prefer animated cutscenes but there was a good amount of effort put into these pieces of art. In game the stages and effects are decent but not all that fun to look at. All of the stages are pretty similar and the whole thing looks pretty dreamy all the time. Better level designs would have been ideal.

I already spoke to the game’s difficulty level and I can assure you that it’s one of the toughest games I’ve played. Beating the whole thing with a starter deck is impossible so the idea is you beat the first few guys, take their cards and keep on beating them til you get a lot of good ones. Then you move on. It requires a lot of wins as well as rng to get the right cards. Then in the duel you need a fair amount luck to draw the right card at the right time. Ultimately I had to just grab some cards through the password mode to get through these duels. I recommend doing this if you need to save some time because otherwise you will be here for a very long time. It does help with the replay value I suppose. The game should last you for quite a while and once you beat it you get to play all over again as the other team.

Overall, Yugioh Duelist of the Roses is an odd game with a confusing gameplay system. It takes quite a while to learn how to really play the game and even then it’s hard to get invested into it. The duels feel like they take quite a long time although that’s normal for a Yugioh game. Once you turn the animations off it speeds up quite a bit. If you like a good strategy type game then this is the one for you. There are a few similarities to Fire Emblem after all. Otherwise I would definitely recommend playing a different Yugioh game instead. My top recommendations would be World Championship or any of the PSP titles. Those actually follow the Yugioh rules and have a better plot. (Note that some of the World Championships don’t have a plot so carefully choose which one you want to play)

Overall 5/10

Star Fox 2 Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to look at a pretty obscure Star Fox game. Not a lot of people got to play this game back in the day although that has changed to a degree since the game was included on the SNES classic and now it’s also available through the Switch Online. I can definitely see why Nintendo wanted to bury this game back in the day though. While I applaud Nintendo’s effort to make a new kind of Star Fox game, it really doesn’t hold up nearly as well as the original. The gameplay just isn’t that good and that’s always tough to get past for a video game.

The basic plot is that Andross wants to conquer the star systems once again. Fox and friends don’t want to let this happen, but at the same time it’s going to be really hard to put a stop to this. The team splits up and prepares to defeat the opposing planets while protecting their own. This takes you to the hub world which shows you where everything is at. It’s a bit overwhelming but you’ll get the gist of it after a few minutes. Corneria is your home base and if it gets destroyed then that is an instant game over. Your goal is to stop the missilles heading towards it and taking down all of the enemy bases. Personally I feel like the easiest thing to do is taking out all of the bases right away. The villains won’t have time to blow up Corneria if you do that. That’s what I did and the game is over within 40-50 minutes.

The actual gameplay is a 3D shooter. You fly through the air and try to blast the ships out of the sky. This is the worst part of the gameplay because it’s hard to see anything. Your sensor is oddly not in the middle of your screen so you have to find it and then shoot from there. It’s just not very fun and the gameplay feels like it was slapped together. It’s always hard to tell where you’re at or even just moving in general. Fortunately not all of the levels use this gameplay style but it would have to be one of the worst shooter gameplays I’ve tried.

The other style is your ground missions which ties into the final level. You get to run around as a walker and blast various objects. It actually feels pretty similar to Star Fox Assault which is good since that is still the best Star Fox title. You can also switch back to your Arwing if necessary but I don’t see why you would do that. The walker is way easier to move around in and the blasters take down all of the enemies very quickly. The final boss even goes down quickly like this and the gameplay is a lot more fun. This would be a whole different game if you could just play in the walker the whole time. It’s just really solid.

If I had to describe why the gameplay didn’t work, it’s just a little too unfocused. It can be hard to know what is happening right away and it’s just too hard to turn around. The boss against the long snake is a good example of that as he keeps flying around you and it’s so hard to keep up with him. He barely ever tries to attack you so the boss isn’t hard, just a little on the tedious side. I think the first person view is what tripped the game up, it should have been more of a third person camera view like the original Star Fox. That’s always a safer approach if you ask me.

Team Wolf shows up in this game, but they don’t really serve much purpose except to give you a quick dogfight. The level is okay but surprisingly Leon was way more difficult than Wolf. Wolf went down almost instantly while Leon actually beat me the first time. The difficulty level here isn’t as crazy as some SNES games, but it’s still tough enough where you can’t just breeze through the whole thing. You will have to think through your moves and be very careful about how you approach each level. One loss means game over, but the rewind feature on the SNES should help you avoid that.

Meanwhile the graphics are pretty good. In this area at least I’d say it keeps up pretty well with the original game and maybe even surpasses it. I was glad we got little text cutscenes even if the game didn’t have the most elaborate story in it. At least having a bit of a story is better than none right? The soundtrack is also decent I suppose. Not the most imaginative, but it’s got those classic Star Fox vibes that always work well. As for replay value, I wouldn’t really say there is much. You can try beating the game in a different way but there’s not a whole lot of reason to do so. I suppose if you just like the game enough then that’s not a bad idea. Since the game is free it’s not like you need the game to be quite as long though.

Overall, Star Fox 2 is a fairly weak Star Fox game. I have to say that the franchise has had a pretty tough time over the years. The original Star Fox game was decently good, but then we had this one which wasn’t very good. Star Fox Assault was amazing and Adventures was pretty good but then we had Command and Zero which really could not hold their own on that level. I hope the next Star Fox game we get is more like Assault and brings the series into the elite level. The concept is still so much fun and Fox is always a great character to have around. I don’t really recommend this game, but if you have the Switch Online then you may as well check it out. Otherwise I’d say you should just pick up Assault instead.

Overall 5/10

Major League Baseball 2K7 Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another Baseball game! This one could actually be the last one I review for a while which is pretty crazy. I have two more MLB games, but they haven’t been working. If they don’t start working soon then it’ll be time to cut my losses with them. Baseball is one of the few series where I actually tend to prefer 2K to the main line games. 2K7 is no exception and actually has the best batting mechanics I’ve seen yet. If you really like Baseball then this is the title for you. It’s still not really my sport when it comes to video games because I feel like there is too much RNG, but at least now I can hit the ball back.

There are a lot of modes as always here but the one you will want is the exhibition mode right off the bat. I just wanted to test my skills against another Baseball team and so I dashed over. Much to my surprise I actually put up a pretty good fight here. It started out badly as I was down 3-0 after a few innings. I just couldn’t manage to hit the ball. I checked the settings and the reason for this was that the game was using motion controls. You were supposed to tilt your controller in order to swing. This is all well and good except for the fact that my PS3 controller has no such feature. I switched the controls to what they listed as “Classic” which allowed me to hit the ball normally. It went back to a classic “Press X” control scheme which is way more my speed.

So I started to make my comeback. I was hitting balls left and right. A lot of them went foul but others would actually be home runs. Eventually the game ended with a score of 9-6. I may have lost, but I got really close compared to most games where I lose 18-0 or something like that. At least this one made me feel like I was in the game at several points. It still doesn’t really take away from my main issue with these Baseball games though. My problem is that none of it feels like it’s in my control.

When pitching, the guy will just hit the ball sometimes. It doesn’t matter if you hit the perfect pitch, sometimes the guy will simply be ready for it. Likewise when you’re batting you can be in just the right spot and still not hit the ball. Perhaps it was outside and it just looked like it was in. Even worse is when you hit the ball and it goes out of bounds or straight into someone’s mitt. I know there are ways to angle your hit better and if you don’t want to go out of bounds then you’ve got to work on timing but there is too much that is out of my control for me to enjoy it as much as the others.

Basketball, Football, and Tennis are my three favorite sports to play in video game format and that’s because RNG is kept to a minimum there. What you see is what you get. If you mess up then it’s all on you. Sure, there is RNG present in every game and those are not exceptions, but they don’t feel nearly as frequent as they do in Baseball. No matter how refined the controls get, I feel as though that will always be holding the series back to an extent.

As always the graphics are good though. The players all look lifelike and the Baseball field is very clear. A lot of effort went into this even if it’s not quite up to Madden level. The presentation is also nice with a lot of quick cutscenes showing up between plays or after the game. Even seeing everyone heading into the stadium was a lot of fun. Slowly but surely the games are all starting to have big presentations like this and I think it’s definitely a good thing. It makes the whole thing look and feel even more realistic.

There’s a lot of replay value to be had here so you don’t have to worry about running out of content. That’s never really been a concern in Baseball games though so I would have been surprised if there was a lack of content. You can play endless matches against all of the teams and there are a lot of modes to try out. Considering that the game is only about a dollar or two nowadays it’s really a great deal for sure.

Overall, Major League Baseball 2K7 is probably one of the best Baseball games I’ve played. It’s quite solid for a Baseball game, but still doesn’t solve the things that were issues for me. I think the games need to take a bit of inspiration from the Mario Baseball game for Gamecube. Of course they wouldn’t grab the special abilities or anything like that, but the batting mechanics were quite solid. There you felt like every ball went exactly where you wanted it to go and that’s a really good thing. I’m confident it will happen in a main Baseball game someday.

Overall 5/10

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 Review

Posted on by
Reply


Time for the next golf title. This is the final one that I own so I feel like the golf marathon will be over just as suddenly as it began. It’s still a pretty peaceful game and I dare say that I had more fun playing it than Baseball. Perhaps it’s because it’s less of a structured match here so I could just hit the ball around. I mainly played a bunch of the minigames and did some practice mode this time. I lost all of the games which was unfortunate since I was super close to winning one of them. Ah well, can’t win am all right?

When the game loads up it drops you into what’s effectively a normal match by yourself. You can whack the ball around for a while and practice on your swings. After that you can hop onto the main menu. I spent a little time here having fun even though I kept firing my shots into the lake. It looks like you can switch clubs and direction when you’re hitting the ball. Which club you use will determine how far you hit the ball and eventually you should be able to understand which club you want to use. I was getting the hang of it a bit, but at the same time most of my shots were still hitting trees and such.

After that I jumped into the minigames, but to be honest most of them were basically the same thing. You have to shoot at these rings in a lot of the modes and the goal is to get the ball in the ring. The closest person to the ring after each shot claims it. Whoever claims 5 first gets the win. The funny part with these was that even the computer didn’t know what to do. The two of us kept missing the shots over and over again. Eventually the CPU won, but it took an extremely long amount of time. Considering that this was the main minigame, I’m surprised it wasn’t programmed to do better shots. I have a sneaking suspicion that it scales down.

I think that because in a different minigame the goal was to hit 3 shots towards the flag and the closest wins.(You can see how all of the games start to play the same way) Well, I got startled or something on my first shot and hit it way out of bounds so the opponent won that round. Then I hit a hole in 1 and the computer matched my effort. I gotta tell you, I was feeling pretty good about that hole in one until he matched it. How do you match a shot like that? I should have been running away with the lead by this point so you can imagine that I was a little disturbed. If you ask me there’s no way that the CPU should have been even close to matching me.

So I lost all of the minigames. Still, it was fun to play them all. I think the best part about the game is how fast everything loads. I never felt like I was stuck anywhere for too long. When hitting the ball I liked seeing my player’s facial expression as he would quickly start to panic. He had a look of dismay about him the whole time which I thought was pretty neat. It shows up every time you hit the ball and the little animations that pop up each time are great. They really make the whole thing feel a little more realistic and presentation like this is nothing new for the EA crew. They always hit it out of the park in this regard. The graphics are just very good throughout. Everything is on point and you wouldn’t guess this was a game from back in 2007. At most the humans might look a little blocky but the atmosphere is everything you could possibly want in a modern game.

There’s definitely a lot of replay value here since you can keep on playing the golf matches over and over until you get better at them. While the modes are all pretty similar, there are still a lot to choose from which is important. I have always believed…and still do, that all sport games should have a lot of replay value. The whole point of sports is to keep on playing and playing so why should that change anytime soon? I think the only counterpoint for the golf game’s replay value is that you could buy a newer version for basically the same price so there isn’t a whole lot of reason to get this one in particular. It’s a very fair point.

Overall, Golf games aren’t really my thing. For me they work best when I don’t play it as a golf game and just play for the scenery. There’s something really calming about just hitting the ball and watching it soar. I think it’s due in part to the graphics but also due to the sound and interface. You just don’t feel stressed out playing the game and I think that’s definitely a good thing. It’s the kind of thing you want to see when playing any game because then you can really get back into a recreational spirit. If you’ve got a buck to spare then this is a good game to check out. If you don’t…then you’re not missing a whole lot.

Overall 5/10