Terminator is a pretty solid movie franchise and it should be noted that the Terminators are still some of the greatest film antagonists out there. That being said, could the video game really match up to the films? In theory, it should be easy to make an incredibly awesome game based off of the films, but not everything is as good as it should be. I guess you’re about to find out!

The game’s plot is pretty simple. The resistance has been fighting the Terminators for a very long time and both sides are weakened. The planet is running out of resources which has heavily affected both sides. We decide that it’s time to finish things once and for all and quickly head to the main base to finish things. Unfortunately, the master A.I. has the same thought and begins his final plan. Things quickly heat up as we’re met with drama, betrayal, and epicness!

Now, there are only 10 levels in the game which can be a cause for panic. That’s not usually a very filling amount of time and you may figure that the game won’t last for long right? Well, the levels are decently long and while they’re not as long as Shattered Dimensions or something like that, they’re all right. It is still a negative since the game can definitely be beaten quickly. Luckily, the rest of the game is still good enough to warrant a purchase. 10 levels is the bare minimum of what I would consider legitimate and not an unfinished game, but it is still cutting the whole thing a little too close for comfort.

There are only two big negatives that I would really care to mention and they are pretty unique. One is the fact that the camera can be supremely annoying. It will shift at the worst times and sometimes moving from one door to another can be pretty time consuming. There’s just no stopping the camera and it seems to have a mind of its own! It doesn’t go around switching the opponent that you’re locked on too by itself like Armored Core 2, but it definitely moves around way too much. That can definitely get a little tedious during big boss fights where a slip up can mean instant death via infinite (and unavoidable) grenade attacks.

The other negative would be the poor lighting. If you play the game with a high setting for brightness, then you’ll be okay. Otherwise, it can get really hard to tell what is happening and you could get lost since the map is not helpful at all. This isn’t the first game to suffer from lighting problems and Indiana Jones is the main one that comes to mind. I’ve only come across this on the PS2, but I personally just blame it on the games. The PS2 is too awesome to be at fault.

The actual gameplay is still really great and it should be the main selling point for you. It’s basically a 3D Shooting game that plays our like Freedom Fighter, but with much cooler opponents. You’ll quickly get spoiled on the rockets, but the laser blasters are fun as well. After the last few games that I’ve played, it was fun to have such intense action. This is definitely my kind of gameplay and it essentially guaranteed that the game would at least get a 7/10 rating. This gameplay is not found in a whole lot of games and I’m always happy to run into one of them. The boss fight in level 7 was extremely intense and did a good job of making you feel the danger and suspense.

The Soundtrack is easily 5 stars and it was a lot better than I ever could have imagined. Nearly every theme used is fast paced rock music and it really puts you into the game. I doubt that I would have enjoyed the game quite so much if the soundtrack was not present. I dare say that it’s one of the best soundtracks for an American game. I definitely won’t be forgetting the themes anytime soon!

You play as different characters as you go through the levels. We’ve got the main character who is equipped with a good ole gun and some other standard weapons. We’ve got the Captain, who comes with all of that plus a rocket launcher. Finally, we’ve also got the lady who is likely the sub commander and she has the same weapons as the main character. For the final level, you get a cool ray weapon which does massive damage to the enemies. It’s pretty fun, but you won’t have much of a chance to really use it. I would go more into the characters and say how cool they are like with most reviews, but this just isn’t one of those. It’s like the Prince Caspian game. If a game is totally based off of a movie then it may not need character bios, but there can be exceptions. On the other hand, if a game is as short as this one and the characters don’t really get much character….then I won’t really talk about it either. The only names that you’ll walk away remembering are Reese and John Connor. Needless to say, they were decent characters at best.

I nearly forgot to mention that there is also a level up system. You can upgrade health, ammo, etc. Upon beating the game, I’m not even close to upgrading everything. It would probably take quite a few playthroughs for that so I have to wonder what the actual point of it is. I just don’t think that it was really balanced enough. Sometimes, you can go a whole level without getting any upgrade points. Perhaps you get more if you play on the higher difficulty levels, which would make sense. Still, it was an interesting thing to add and I definitely went for upping my health. That never hurts after all!

Overall, this was a great game! It may look like a cash in at first and maybe it could be called that. Still, once you start playing it, you will realize how much fun it can be. It just doesn’t get much better than this and it has only helped me to become an even bigger Terminator fan. The ending is pretty great (Although, not fighting in the past as the final boss was a missed opportunity) and while you will be expecting it, it doesn’t take away from the coolness factor. I know that there is another Terminator game for the PS3 and I plan on getting it soon, but it’s going to be tough to match up against this one. This is definitely one of my shortest reviews in a while, but there’s really not much more to say about this game. I highly recommend it and you should enjoy the game as long as you like shooters. There isn’t really any replay value though and if you don’t like shooters, then you don’t really have a reason to play this one. Still, how can you go wrong with such a low price? (Got it from Best Buy for 5!)

Overall 7/10

Narnia is immensely popular and I finally got around to reading the book series a while back. Prince Caspian was a decent book and the film adaption was intense since it had more action than the other titles. That being said, I doubt many people had high hopes for the game. It’s a movie tie in and the production values didn’t look very good. The Narnia game for Gamecube wasn’t that good and when a Gamecube game isn’t very good…you’re usually doomed. This game was about what I expected and maybe slightly better…maybe.

All right, the plot is pretty tricky through the game, but I’m sure that you’ll get it as you watch the cutscenes. Prince Caspian is told to flee his castle because the villains want to destroy him so that he won’t be the heir to the throne. Caspian escapes, but things aren’t looking good for Narnia. Before he is quickly knocked out, Caspian uses the legendary Horn to summon the 4 Kings of Old. Peter, Susan, Lucy, and Edmund. They may just be 4 kids, but they are ready to defend the kingdom. The time to rise is now!

A solid plot on paper, but the video game doesn’t really do it justice. For one thing, let’s talk about the graphics. They’re laughably bad and possibly the worst that I’ve seen on the PS3. Some of the cutscenes are actually scenes taken from the movie…and the movie was live action. So, you’ll have a live action segment and then back to the animated features. The Narnia game for GC did this as well, so I was not greatly surprised. That being said, I don’t consider this to be a good method. It’s essentially the easy way out, since they don’t have to worry about the animation. The actual animation just doesn’t feel like a PS3 game and you’ll feel like it’s a really old Playstation 1 game.

The soundtrack is incredibly generic and it feels like they probably just ripped it from the film as well or just opted for public domain music. It just doesn’t seem like they put any effort into any part of the game. The camera can be difficult since you can’t really move it, which limits your field of vision. You can walk all the way around an object to fix the camera or just shoot blindly. The latter saves time and usually works, so I recommend that method.

Usually I would have started talking about the characters by now, but there’s really nothing to say. Their only character is from the live action segments or the few cutscenes where they actually talk. None of the characters are likable and it’s just hard to root for them. They really don’t seem to know what they’re doing and are way over their heads. 4 kids can’t take down an army and the villains are just too numerous. Caspian’s accent is a little thick and he seems to have a very weak will and nearly jeopardized everything because he forgot how to move! The kids don’t believe Lucy even though you would have thought that they’d have wised up by now. Lucy’s response is to ditch them and find Aslan on her own.

I should also mention that the game only contains 6 levels. Not quite as long as you might have expected eh? 10 levels is really the minimum amount of levels that you can really afford to have in a game. That is still short, but at least you’ve cracked double digits. Having just 6 levels can be a little insulting. If I had bought this game at its original price, I would have felt cheated. I got it for 10 dollars, but that’s still pretty short. There are bonus levels and things to unlock, but why bother? I like to complete things myself, but there’s just not much incentive to finish everything in this game. I would do it if there was nothing better to do, but there will always be something better.

The gameplay is just as underwhelming as the rest of the game. If the gameplay had been more fun, I can guarantee that the score would have been higher. How do you mess up a generic hack and slash gameplay? Well, this game pulls out all of the stops in that regard. We’ve got infinite lives to take away all of the danger. There are a lot of puzzles that are easy to solve, but very time consuming. Finally, we’ve got a decently large amount of glitches. There’s nothing worse than having to start a boss fight all over again because the enemies forgot to appear and start the cutscene. (Similar thing happened to me in Star Trek the other day)

For combat, you really only have two buttons with the sword. Just keep hitting the square button and you’ll beat everyone. Arrows are also good to use and you can beat just about everyone very easily. There aren’t any real bosses until the final pair of levels, but they’re easy enough. Slash and dodge, rinse and repeat. There are a lot of enemies, so it can feel like a beat em up at times. That would be fun if it weren’t so easy. Plus, the fight scenes are pretty scarce and we don’t have almost any for the first half of the game.

Not being in combat can get pretty dull at times. The characters don’t run very quickly and there are a lot of things to do. Usually you’ll be putting wheels together or turning spindles. You just operate the devices and move on. You keep on doing that dozens and dozens of times until you’re finally set. Sound tedious? Trust me, it gets very tedious. The loading times for the game can also be pretty long so don’t look for that to save you!

As mentioned earlier, there are only 6 levels. One thing that I should mention is that the levels are longer than the average one. I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to masque that fact. Each level can take you around an hour or more, so this can still be considered as a 6+ hour game. That being said, I would rather 10 short levels than 6 extremely long ones. The game auto saves for you, but you’re never even sure when you’ve beaten a level unless you exit and check. The way that they made the game just wasn’t that good.

For “Replay Value” there are chests that are scattered through the levels. They aren’t really hidden and you may actually find them all as you are going to the end. You open them with keys that you find and they unlock things. That being said, I ended the game while holding 91 keys because I just didn’t care enough to go and open a lot of them. Going to open one would take precious seconds and those seconds add up. The game just feels long while you are playing it and perhaps I would go back and open the chests at a later time. If I ever replay the game, that it what I would do. If the chests part intrigues you, that can make the game more enjoyable.

Overall, what more can I say about the game? It’s not a bad game per say, but they did a bad job of handling it. Technically, it should have been a good game. The battle style has potential and the plot could be interesting. They just didn’t put any effort into making the characters likable and there’s really no excuse for such animation. The soundtrack isn’t exactly a good one and the game is far too short. I don’t really recommend this game since there are literally hundreds of games that are better, but get it if you are a big Narnia fan. You will need to be, if you want to enjoy the game. I think that the developers also stopped caring the ending is extremely abrupt. One second, the heroes are chasing after a villain. The next second, they’re being thanked and then the game ends. It just hits you in an instant and the game is over. Personally, I’m just going to go ahead and play a Terminator game and just forget this one for a while. It will go into the vault of many games…destined to be forgotten! For a true war game, I recommend checking out Dynasty Warriors Gundam!

Overall 5/10

Ratchet and Clank is easily one of Sony’s best game series and I have to admit that it does defeat the other two big ones. (Sly and Jak) Don’t get me wrong, Sly and Jak are solid gaming series, but Ratchet and Clank is just so much fun. I love the whole weapon leveling up system and the plot is always a lot of fun. This game was also on the PSP so it’s a lot shorter than the average game in the series, but was it still able to live up to the older games?

The plot is pretty simple as a little girl asks Ratchet to do “Heroic stuff” so that she can take pics and show them to her friends. It’s such a noble request that Ratchet takes her up on it and he takes on a lot of robots. Unfortunately, the little girl isn’t actually human and she is prepared to take over the world with an army. Ratchet and Clank must embark on their most dangerous quest yet as they quickly go into action. It’s too bad for Ratchet since he had been enjoying such a nice vacation. Captain Quark also has a subplot where he wants to find out the truth about his parents! Get ready for an “I’m your FATHER!” plot twist coming up!

The game is very easy to get into and you’ll find yourself hooked immediately. I ended up playing it for much longer than I had planned when I first played the game because I could not tear myself away. (I had received other games and wanted to beat some of them first which is why I didn’t have time for this one) Even if you have not played a Ratchet and Clank game for a while, you will quickly remember how epic Ratchet can be. He’s still one of the better main characters out there.

He starts out the game in an epic fashion as he is relaxing on the beach. He quickly goes into hero mode when the little girl appears and he proves that he hasn’t lost any of his skill. He has a “Rage” moment once he finds out that he’s been cloned and the scene is pretty epic. It reminded me of Jak’s big change from game 1 to game 2. Ratchet goes back to his lighthearted nature again, but the moment is not something that he will forget. Ratchet doesn’t seem to mind “Crossing the line” as much as other protagonists, but perhaps he is kidding at times. He definitely loves to mess with Captain Quark and his methods usually lead to the galaxy being saved.

Of course, Ratchet does have help from Clank. I’ve always found Clank to be a much better sidekick than Daxter, but Bentley may still be the best. Clank has his cool mecha titan mode which enables him to fight some pretty tough customers. His boss battle on land is fun because it definitely has a Godzilla feeling to it. He always speaks in a monotone voice which makes Clank easy to root for and he always gives the job his best. He may have had an epic fail moment when he short circuited due to a virus, but he looks pretty good beyond that scene. He’s a good companion for Ratchet on his adventures.

Captain Quark is the third main character and while he is not playable, he has a big impact on the game. The plot twist about who is parents were may be pretty emotional for fans and you almost feel bad for him as he keeps on falling for the villain’s tricks. His character design also makes his scenes pretty funny and he’s definitely one of the better characters in the franchise. I dare say that this may have been his best appearance yet.

I won’t go too in depth about the little girl because her plot twist is intriguing. Ratchet takes a shot at her when she first shows her true colors, but beyond that..she seemed to have the edge. In a true fight, Ratchet would definitely win, but they never get to have that match. The true main villain shows up at the very end and he’s intense. He can be a little generic, but he admits this and doesn’t try to hide it. He just wants to beat people up and take names. Soon, he will conquer the galaxy!

One of the big positives of the Ratchet and Clank series is how original it can be. In one level, we get to go into Ratchet’s dream world and it’s very intense. Captain Quark’s have buzz saws and they aren’t afraid to use them. We also see a flower that grows Quark’s head and you can use it as a bomb. The whole level is very trippy and also very awesome. The whole game could have been on that level and it still would have been awesome.

Now, let’s not mistake gimmicks for talent. The levels may have had their quirks, but they were not a walk in the park. The game shouldn’t be too challenging because you have a solid array of weapons and gadgets at one’s disposal, but the final boss’s final phase is pretty tricky. He has a barrier that protects him for about half of his life bar and it keeps on regenerating after you break it. That’s why the first half of the fight is a lot tougher than the second half. During the second half, he has no barriers so you can just keep on firing at him. The main reason why the boss fight can be tricky is the fact that you’ll definitely run out of ammo. I tried to keep on refilling it, but that costs a lot of money for the rockets and laser tracer so I just had to keep on upgrading and leveling up until I could win. The boss battle took me several tries and a lot of play time. I would have beaten the game at least 1-2 hours sooner if not for that fight. Still, it is great to see the game make a tough final boss. Final bosses should always be challenging so that you can truly feel at peace when you defeat it.

The animation holds up pretty well on the PS2. It may not be spectacular, but it’s very good and will suffice. Captain Quark is awesome to behold with the animation and they did a great job on the dream sequence. I definitely give the animation a thumbs up and it does not hold the game back.

The array of weapons may be pretty small in this game, but they are fun to use. I obtained 9 of them and they were mostly cool. The Laser Blaster is my favorite weapon and while it does not deal a great amount of damage, it’s really fun to spam. The Incinerator is also a solid weapon and easily one of the most deadly. The Shock Rockets are a lot of fun since they home in on the enemy and also deal a lot of damage. The Suck Cannon lives up to its name and it’s the worst weapon in the game. There’s no point to it and I definitely wouldn’t use it. The Stealth Scope Gun (Close to the name anyway) is good, but hard to use in actual combat. There’s a long range cannon that is good once you have fully upgraded it, but the damage output is pretty low. The Laser weapon is pretty good, but also hard to use in a fight and you get it right before the end of the game so you won’t have much time to use it. One weapon lets you send out mini Clanks to get the opponent, but I didn’t find those to be very useful. There is also an Acid Grenade attack, but I don’t see why you would use it. All in all, the weapons are solid for the most part and I highly recommend the Laser Blasters and the Rockets!

Overall, this was a very good addition to the Ratchet and Clank series. It may not have been quite a match for Deadlocked, but it’s still an incredible game. The fact that you can beat it in a few hours may be a little disappointing, but these games always have a substantial amount of replay value. Collecting weapons, skill points, gadgets, etc. There will be plenty for you to do after Story Mode. There is also a very solid multiplayer mode where you can fight others with the incredible battle style. It’s like playing Star Fox Assault. You are definitely getting a lot of bang for your buck! Ratchet was portrayed perfectly and he also made sure to mention the R.Y.N.O. when the villain claimed that nothing could beat intelligence. Ratchet sure showed him eh? Nothing can stop the R.Y.N.O.! I look forward to playing the next game in the series and finally starting its PS3 run. I highly recommend this game and you will greatly enjoy it. There aren’t any real flaws in this game.

Overall 8/10

After playing the first Starfighter game, I knew that I needed to play the sequel right away. The first one was better than expected and I expected more of the same in the sequel. This game is mostly the same as the first, but they have improved it in one key area. That would be the plot! Let’s see how the game fared in the other areas as well!

It is good to be able to have a paragraph for the plot once more! This game also has 15 levels for Story Mode and it goes up until the climax of Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones. First of all, a Jedi is assigned to help out a group of Pirates because we’ve finally realized that they were correct and the Trade Federation is up to no good. The Jedi helps them fight a lot of battles and eventually we are the last stand against the Trade’s big assault. They have hex equipment and are going to incinerate the Jedi Warriors who are fighting on the planet. (AKA, Anakin, Obi Wan, and many other fighters) The main villain of the game would definitely be Captain Toth.

Captain Toth is a pretty menacing figure and he succeeds in destroying three key officials in one shot. That’s definitely not something that should be overlooked and he makes for a nice final boss. He may not have any Force Abilities, but it’s good to see humans try to fight once in a while. The main Jedi is named Adi Gallia. She is strong in the ways of the Force and she can make large shockwaves that can destroy a number of ships at once. It is really up to her to save the day as her allies also play critical roles. She’s a solid protagonist, although she may come across as a little generic. Yoda makes a cameo as you can hear him giving advice during the climax missions of the game.

The gameplay is mostly unchanged from the first Starfighter game, but there are definitely additions. Since Adi is a Jefi, we can use Force abilities in her levels. She has 4 Force abilities, but only two of them I have found to be useful. One ability is that she can make a barrier around the fighter. This can definitely come in handy, but you most likely won’t need the shield as your ship is very sturdy and will not be destroyed so easily.

Force Lightning is another ability and it’s one that I used for a while until the Shockwave came into play. It’s good for hitting a number of opponents, but it never seemed to finish the job. I did skip the tutorials for the game so it’s possible that I’m not using it correctly, but the lightning definitely wasn’t my favorite force ability. There was another ability that would slow down the opponents and increase the player’s reflexes, but I could never get that ability to work. Finally, we got the Shockwave which is easily the best ability. The Shockwave can defeat a number of opponents in a single shot and while you may not always hit the target that you were aiming for, you’ll likely take a few other enemies down. The Force gauge recovers very quickly so you don’t always have to defeat them all in a single shot.

The regular ships also get more abilities as you can fire Super Rockets, Mines, and quick rockets. The Super Rocket is a very good attack for hitting large vessels. It may be slow, but it can completely rip apart barriers and nearly take down the ship’s whole health bar in one shot. It’s a great weapon to use as long as the target is immobile. For moving targets, you’ll want to use the quick rockets. They are able to go right through a barrier and directly impact the target’s health bar. It’s definitely a useful way to save time if you have a lot of targets that you need to bring down. One shot turns into a flurry of many shots that deal some solid damage and spread over a decently large area. I can’t really say that the Mines are useful for anything and I just didn’t use them. There was really no need to do so at that point.

The rest of the gameplay remains unaltered from the first game. The ship that the Jedi uses can be difficult to navigate at first as he can turn much quicker than the ships in the first game. After a few minutes you’ll have adjusted and may find this to be pretty useful. It’s tougher for the minions to escape your field of vision with such speed. The gameplay is still very fun and definitely one of the definitive space shooters out there. You can do 360’s and hit opponents from very far away. I went into the gameplay a little more in depth in the previous game’s review. It’s essentially one of the ultimate shooting games and is definitely better than you may have suspected upon first glance.

The graphics are slightly better than the first game, but the change is barely noticeable. The humans on the ground still look like dots unless you zoom in while you are very close to them. Beyond that, the graphics are pretty solid and everything looks pretty good. This game has more actual cutscenes than the first one and they’re not bad. There is definitely more of a sense of danger in them than the previous installment in the series.

Overall, if you liked the first Starfighter, you should definitely enjoy this one. It’s essentially the same as the original game. There are things to unlock in this one which should help the replay value. That’s a good thing since the story mode is only 15 levels like the first game. The game was a slight improvement over Starfighter since it didn’t make anything worse and only made things better by adding new abilities/weapons and making the actual story a lot more memorable. If you like the shooter genre, then you will likely enjoy this game. It’s one of the best in the shooter genre so I highly recommend it! (Also, hopefully it gets a sequel because the game ends on a total cliffhanger. Someone may be in trouble!)

Overall 7/10

Star Wars has had many games in the past and they have all been decently good to great in the past. This one plays out like the Rebel Strike Star Wars game for Gamecube, but the gameplay is more refined. Could this game keep up the solid reputation of the Star Wars games or would it end up crushing out hopes? Only one way to find out!

Well, usually I would go into the plot right away, but that’s tougher than expected. There is definitely a plot, but you continue to switch characters are you go through the levels and while I do like the main, main character the most, the others are still cool. It’s just hard to follow the story and you’re really just focusing on the action. I’m sure that the story is very engaging and epic, but you won’t remember it by the time that you complete the game. Instead, we shall spend our time focusing on the gameplay and graphics.

The graphics hold up pretty well for the most part. The ships look good and the energy attacks are also solid. It reminds me of the retro N64 (Awesome) days while also throwing in some modern Gamecube action into it. The graphics are definitely a + and the only parts that don’t look very good are the humans. Still, they play a very small role in this and what really counts are the battles.

One of the reasons why I like the Starfighter series so much is that it finally takes Star Wars back to its roots. Originally, the whole concept of Star Wars was about how there would be climatic battles in space and how it would be awesome. After the first few Star Wars films, they started to diverge from that. In this game, fighting in space is all that you will do and it’s definitely a great experience.

The gameplay is essentially a 3D shooter. You can play it in first person mode or seeing from behind the ship. In this game, I find it a lot more convenient to use first person mode and you can attack foes that are incredibly far away. The game was definitely designed well because in most other shooters, you simply cannot attack from that far away. The blasts would just fade away into nothingness and you would have to wait until you are closer. There are usually dozens of enemies that continue to attack while you have to try and fend them off. You are able to lead your comrades into battle, but I never really used the function. By the time you tell your comrades to destroy an object, you will have basically finished the job.

Most of the missions involve destroying a lot of enemies and protecting your allies. There are 15 missions in Story Mode and it doesn’t drag on. The game could definitely be considered to be on the short side and it could have used some more levels. I’m not sure that 15 levels would have really cut it for me if I had bought the game at retail price, but for the bargain of 4 dollars, I’m all right with it. It’s still no excuse to be such a short game, but there is a decent amount of replay value through bonus missions.

You only have a few weapons to use in the game, but they’re all that you truly need. You have rockets which do heavy damage, but they do run out of ammo quickly and you cannot reload. There are energy grenades that automatically replenish and also deal great damage, but they are harder to aim as they cannot travel great distances. They are best used from a high point to drop on unsuspecting enemies. Of course, nothing beats the classic machine gun style energy bullets that you can fire to take down any enemy given enough time. You have complete control over your vehicle and you can turn it around as you dodge enemy attacks and counter. By turning it around, I mean that you can make your vehicle fly sideways or even upside down as you do 180s and 360s. Yes, this is one of the best pure shooters out there and the gameplay would usually make the game an 8/10.

The only reason that this game does not crack an 8 is because the gameplay does not have enough support from the other modes. As I’ve mentioned, the game is pretty short and the story is completely forgettable. If the game had been longer and if the story had been more memorable, then I likely would have given the game an 8. It was just lacking something. Maybe an epic 2 player showdown mode would have added to the score and likely would have made the game an 8.

Overall, this is a fun Star Wars game. It’s not going to be hailed as one of the all time greats and you may not even remember it after a while, but it’s very fun and is that not the main function of a video game? Ultimately, having fun is the most important part of playing a video game and this one definitely succeeds. I highly recommend this game as long as you don’t mind the lack of length and you definitely need to like the shooting genre. If you didn’t like Star Fox Assault or Robotech’s aerial combat system, then this is not the game for you. This game only features aerial combat, but it’s some of the best space fighting that I’ve encountered. You will not want to miss out on this game!

Overall 7/10

Dream Trigger is a game that I wanted to get for a very long time. It just looked like it would be a blast! It had the right mix of action, scenery, and overall epicness. There was no way that such a game wouldn’t be an instant hit right? It was one of the first 3DS games after all. Well, let’s see if my gut instinct was right on the money!

The gameplay is pretty unique since it’s overhead like Marvel Alliance, but it is a shooter. It’s a shooter that is unlike anything that you have ever played because you don’t have guns and you don’t actually shoot anything. See, you Are the bullet in this game. You use the stylus to set off musical bombs that force the villains to turn tangible and that is when you strike. The more of your musical bombs that uncover the enemies, the more that your energy meter builds up. When you have enough meter, then you use the L or R button to get your character over the enemy and incinerate him. That’s the whole gameplay in a nutshell so you’ll really want to enjoy it.

Dream Trigger has 55 levels and they’re only a few minutes each so it shouldn’t take you very long, but they artificially extend the game through the challenges. You have to beat challenges to unlock more stages and to unlock the final boss, you’ll need around 65-70 challenges completed. That may not sound bad and it could definitely be worse, but I felt that it was unnecessary. A lot of the challenges aren’t hard, but they are guaranteed to take you a long time. (Ex: Defeat 10000 enemies. To put that into perspective, each level only has 100-200 enemies and a lot of levels don’t have quite that many anyway. I unlocked this one after the final boss I believe)

There is also an enemy who can make things difficult for you. The Tracker is a being of limitless power who can take away all of your life points if you get caught by him and then lose the challenge. I forgot to mention that your life points/DP Points are the only thing that allows you to move. When you run out of them, you must play the stage that you are standing on. It may be an old stage, but it doesn’t matter. You need DP Points to move and the only way to get more of them is to replay a stage. I’ll admit that it can definitely be disappointing when you have a bunch of points and then you lose them all in one shot.

I can’t really say much for the soundtrack because the sound effects are sooooo loud. You won’t really hear the soundtrack at all when you’re blasting enemies by the dozens. You can probably lower the sound effect volume, but I don’t count that since it isn’t the game’s default setting. So, the soundtrack is pretty underwhelming in this game.

The graphics in the game also leave much to be desired. There are a lot of colorful effects and things happening on screen, but it’s more chaotic than graphically intense. The graphics aren’t really bad, but they aren’t memorable either. It’s just the way that the game is set up, but you could find better graphics on the N64.

There is a lot of replay value or a little depending on how much you like the gameplay. Keep in mind that even though there are 55 stages, there are really only 2 stages. The Boss Battle stage and the regular stage that contains a mini boss. The rest of the stages keep the same formula and they don’t try to change it at all. The bosses and enemies may change shape as your avatar does throughout the levels, but nothing changes. The Final Boss didn’t even have a super gimmick that makes him a lot different than the other big bosses. That was a little disappointing. The gameplay just isn’t made to be played for very long periods of time and you may get tired of it. If you reeeeally like the gameplay, then you should have fun with the game. There are plenty of challenges to try and complete and you will definitely need to spend a lot of time on the game if you wish to complete them all. If you do not like the gameplay, then the challenges are going to seem unbearable at times.

Overall, this is definitely not one of the better games out there. 55 levels is pretty decent considering that this was one of the first 3DS game and that it’s not known as one of the big games. That being said, the lack of graphics and animation will probably start to let you down and after replaying the same level 40 times over…you may decide that beating the game isn’t worth it. I barely made it to the end of the game because the challenges were just so tedious. It certainly took me a while to unlock the final boss and it’s a little sad since the actual game is pretty easy. If you’ve played enough games in the past then your reflexes will be up for the job. I can’t really recommend the game that much since it’s so repetitive. On the other hand, it’s only 5 dollars at your average game store so it’s not that much money. It can be fun to play when you want to eliminate some time, but I don’t recommend it as you main time consumer. It just doesn’t have the replay value that other games have. Seriously, I cannot stress enough that you will be playing the same stage over several times and the “new” stages that you unlock as just recolored versions of the same stage as well. You can make customizations to the enemies and the effects, but they just change the design and nothing else. The game may not have been quite as impressive as I thought it would be, but considering the 5 dollar price tag, I think that the score is pretty appropriate.

Overall 5/10

Street Fighter X Tekken got a lot of hype when the game was first announced. Two of the biggest fighting series in the world would be fighting it out on the big screen! Who could resist such an awesome game in theory right? Well, it was a little underwhelming in certain aspects of the game, but the gameplay lives up and that’s the important thing….right!?

Well, let’s go back to the amazing hype before the game came out for a little longer. They actually released cinematic episodes to increase the hype and boy were they awesome. I could barely believe my eyes as I saw Ryu getting completely annihilated by Kazuya and also had to take a step back when Bison challenged Jin. I could finally see all of the big Tekken vs Street Fighter matches that fans had been dreaming about for years and it was in movie format. The cinematic episodes had pretty awesome animation and it was a perfect way to hype up the game although it was a bit of a mixed bag.

The flip side of this was that it hinted at a story mode that wouldn’t actually happen in the game. It’s not uncommon for Capcom to do this since we’ve also got Marvel vs Capcom 3 in that regard, but it can still be sad. If you have enough money to make such awesome cutscenes, why not form a story line around them? (Smash Bros 3DS could also learn a thing or two from that, although there is still hope) Still, it can be forgiven since it’s still awesome to have cutscenes to watch on Youtube. What can’t really be forgiven is the extremely lazy Arcade Mode.

When you have a two vs two battle system, then you should unlock both endings in one shot or at least one ending. In this game, unless you are the correct pairings that the game wants you to be, you are basically toast. That was pretty disappointing since it’s sad to play through an Arcade Mode and not be rewarded with any cool cutscenes. There also isn’t a theatre mode which makes you wonder what the point of playing Arcade Mode is in the first place. You can only watch the cutscenes when you replay Arcade Mode and that can get old fast. That was a pretty big negative for the game, but I guess that means that I’ll just need to ditch Arcade Mode and focus on the other choices.

One thing that you’ll be able to appreciate is the fact that the game is pretty difficult. Mission Mode is insanely hard and you’ll really want to have a lot of Street Fighter knowledge before you begin the battles that will change everything. Trial Mode is also pretty tricky if you’re not familiar with the correct buttons to use in Street Fighter. They do a bad job of translating the symbols into the PS3 controller scheme. Since every character has a lot of trials, there should still be plenty for you to do and it’ll keep you busy for a while.

The most important part of a game is always the gameplay so….how did this one fare? I’d say that it’s essentially Street Fighter style, but a little quicker like the Capcom Vs games. It’s fun to see how the Tekken characters fare in SF style and they’re pretty cool. This game also has the Pandora mode which sacrifices your life so that your partner can gain unimaginable power! It’s not a technique that I recommend since it’s highly risky, but the payoff can be pretty good as well. 2 on 2 is always fun because you can use team combos and use strategy to plan on how to fight your opponents. Switching out is the key to success!

The soundtrack is pretty forgettable, but it’s all right. While you’re fighting, the soundtrack will seem to be pretty good. You just won’t have any recollection of it once you are done playing. The stages are all right, but they seem to be lacking in variety. They aren’t exactly the next Tatsunoko vs Capcom in that regard.

The character roster is pretty good as well although this leads to a negative. First of all, it’s awesome to see Pac Man and the truly original Mega Man back in action. These guys practically invented the gaming industry and to see them in a modern fighting game brings tears to my eyes. It’s pretty disappointing that Pac Man uses a robot to fight in this version, but I guess that we can’t win them all. Cole MacGrath is also present in the game and his thunder abilities can be pretty fun to use.

The problem is the fact that a lot of the characters who are on the screen can’t even be used. You have to buy them as a DLC pack and that’s pretty disappointing. On disc DLC is even worse than regular DLC because you have to see them every time that you head to a character select menu. They shouldn’t be on the disc if you have to actually buy them.

Not counting the cinematic episodes, the graphics are only decently good. I’d say that Tekken 6 actually looked better in pure animation as this one just seems a little grainy or unfocused. There’s something about the game that just doesn’t look right and I intend to find out what it is! Considering that it’s a pretty modern PS3 game, the graphics definitely don’t impress me and I believe that they could have put more of an effort into that. Graphics aren’t immensely important, but it’s still fun to have good graphics.

Overall, this is a pretty good fighting game as long as you are getting it as a fighting game. You can’t really expect anything from the Arcade Mode and Trial Mode isn’t very interesting. Mission Mode is insanely hard, but definitely fun to play until you defeat the opponents. In pure gameplay, the game is a lot of fun and you’re bound to love it. Air combos are still epic and your tag combos can come in handy as well. The best part is still the fact that you can go online and challenge opponents to ultimate battles of skill and precision!

Overall 8/10

Tekken has always been a pretty solid franchise and the battle style is fun. Kicks are a big part of a battle since they do so much damage and you may find yourself completely ignoring the punch combos. Tekken 4 and 5 also had fun arcade mode stories for the most part and they’re just fun overall. Could the final game in the main series end the series on a high note? (Until Tekken 7 comes out someday)

Unlike the previous games, Tekken 6 has an actual story mode aside from the Arcade Mode intros/endings. We follow a guy named Lars who has lost his memory and meets up with the android known as Alisa. Lars seems to be a good guy deep down and he’s ready to stop Kazuya and Jin from destroying the world through their fighting. He seems to be pretty outmatched as he’s just a human right? Well, a plot twist helps the fights make more sense as we realize that Lars actually has a lot of latent power. While teaming up with Alisa, he also seeks to restore his lost memories and find out who he really is. Looks like he has a busy day ahead of him!

The story mode is pretty fun and it has a cinematic feeling to it. There are several cutscenes that are full blown cutscenes while others are just retro text boxes. In the story mode, we get to see Jin take on nearly all of the main characters and Lars proves that he’s one of the cooler Tekken characters. He takes everything in stride and he’s definitely a powerful fighter.

Alisa is a decent character, but unfortunately..the fact that she is an android holds her back as it does for most androids. Androids usually have that moment where they lost their free will and must obey their creator. This happens to Alisa and she isn’t really able to fight it so that hurts her character development. I wasn’t a huge fan of her in the movie either. She has a lot of potential and she’s a powerful fighter, but she needs to strengthen her mind.

Jin Kazama is a very changed man and you can’t really call him the main character anymore. He now rules the Mishima Zaibatsu and he has been completely corrupted. Was it the Devil Gene or did he just turn to the dark side so that he could get enough power to destroy Kazuya? Either way, Jin is now completely evil and it doesn’t look like he will be turning back to the side of light. Just look at the cinematic trailer for Street Fighter X Tekken! (Jin is still trying to protect his friends, but while being the head of the Tekken Force and destroying all who oppose him)

Remember the whole, “I’m your FATHER!” line from Star Wars? Well, that basically comes into play with Kazuya, who happens to be Jin’s father. In this game you could say that he’s the character to root for, but he’s really the mastermind of another organization named G Corporation. He seems to think that he’s the only one left who can really oppose Jin and he gets ready to take him down in the tournament! He’s a pretty solid character and he can definitely give Jin a solid fight.

Azazel is the true final boss of the game and he’s one of the stronger opponents that the Tekken fighters have ever come across. He is the ultimate evil and once the negative energies of the world start to come out, he revives! This may have been Jin’s excuse for acting evil, but I’m afraid that it’s not a very good one. Azazel is definitely a pretty awesome opponent and he’s ready to judge humanity. He’s also a pretty tough boss so you’ll definitely want to block as much as you can.

This is a fighting game so I’m not really going to go into depth about all of the characters since there are so many of them. NANCY is a really cool kaiju/robot creature and is a pretty nifty secret boss. I can’t really say that I care for Eddy or the old man, but other characters like Nina, Asuka, Leo, Yoshimitsu, and Bryan are still solid characters. Tekken has a pretty interesting array of characters and I find them all to be pretty interesting for the most part. They are much better than the average fighting game cast like Street Fighter, Dead Or Alive, Virtua Fighter, etc. They’re no Smash Bros or J Stars Victory Vs, but those really shouldn’t count.

The animation is pretty solid and the music helps to make the whole game feel very modern and techno. It’s one of the main reasons why I really like the PS3. Everything feels so high tech on the console and aside from the Gamecube, it’s easily the greatest console of all time. Tekken 6 plays very smoothly and the gameplay is as good as ever. There is a lot to do in the game since you have arcade mode for all characters and a story mode as well. We’ve also got Survival Mode, Time Attack Mode, and the wonders of Wifi! You’ll likely be spending a lot of time online since it’s always fun to challenge other people and see how you stack up. It’s another reason why I love the fact that the PS3 can support online wifi so that you can play to your heart’s content.

You can also customize your character for Story Mode and it can be a gamechanger. I forgot to upgrade until the final levels and it definitely makes a world of difference. Of course, you can try doing the levels without upgrading, but I can guarantee that it’ll be very difficult. It would be a great feat for your gaming skills though so it is worth a shot.

Overall, this is an excellent fighting game. They made sure to increase the character count and added a lot of modes for replay value. The fighting style alone will keep you entertained for a very long time. The music is solid and I can’t really think of any bad things that hurt the game. This one basically got everything right and had a pretty cool opening cutscene as well. The trophies aren’t very unreasonable in this game and I’m happy to say that I got the Platinum! Lars is also a very solid addition to the franchise and I look forward to seeing him in future installments. I highly recommend this game to all fighting fans or people who are looking for a solid plot.

Overall 8/10