Like the prior games, Ring of Fates will support up to four players in multiplayer mode, as well as sporting the option to go it alone in single player. In the event one decides to play with some friends, everyone involved votes on a group leader, and then they get down to business. (more…)

Handheld gaming, which in time became the last bastion for this graphical style, has seen 2D games on the decline in recent years. That being said, they arecontinuing to fight the good fight in keeping this style alive and kicking, having recently announced that they are bringing the action RPG Odin Sphere to North America on the PS2.  It may be only one game, but the sheer level of detail in its 2D visuals is staggering. (more…)

Graphically, the game has a more arcade look and less of a simulation appearance to it. Think Daytona USA compared to Gran Turismo. The cars are rendered nicely using the muscle of the Xbox, but the backgrounds and levels themselves are average, not any better than what a PS2 can generate. When you start incurring damage on your car, the animations of your vehicle losing its parts like doors and hoods, (more…)

Viking is like a mixture of the God of War and Dynasty Warriors games. Most missions in the game simply involve eviscerating as many enemies as possible in a variety of brutal and gory ways. There are also impressive large scale battles that look great, but are more eye candy than they are challenging. (more…)

Mass Effect is an action-RPG made by the geniuses at BioWare Corp. who are also responsible for more recent classics like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire. In the game you play the role of Commander Shepard, who you can choose to play as the default character in the game or make your own avatar from scratch. You then can decide to pick their class and background. Now as you can see, even before begin to play this game, (more…)

Keeping with its roots, the game uses the same overhead view-now with a wider view area-and puts you right into battle to shoot everything on the screen that you can without dying. You are given the choice between three different ships, varied by speed / power / health. With only four levels to complete, Capcom ensures you will have to replay over and over to memorize enemy positions to get through such few amount of levels. (more…)

Final Fight- Streetwise picks up several years after the arcade series ended. The original heroes, Cody Travers, Guy (AKA Genryusai), and Mike Haggar, have gone their separate ways, and Metro City has subsequently fallen on hard times. Cody spent sometime in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Mike retired from his mayoral civic position and opened up a wrestling gym, and Guy fell into a life of organized crime and has risen to become a powerful underworld figure (more…)

Ordinarily, jacking up your player’s stats and powers might cause some balance issues, but the game’s reliance on blocks, fumbles and interceptions provides both fast-paced arcade action and a mechanism to iron out the difficulty. Unfortunately, the game’s simplicity is underscored by a flawed menu system. During play selection, there’s no field position marker, so good luck deciding whether to punt or kick a field goal. (more…)

Players familiar with the series can expect the same tight, responsive controls as previous entries, and making Soma run, jump, and slash feels natural right from the get-go. Fans of Aria in particular will be pleased to see the Soul System returning, albeit now referred to as Tactical Souls. For the uninitiated, Tactical Souls function as follows: when Soma defeats an enemy there is a random chance that Soma will take possession of said enemy’s soul (except bosses, who always give up their souls). These souls are divided up into four categories. (more…)

The game wastes no time with setup or character introductions but instead leaps right into the thick of things. In the opening movie Brotherhood leader Magneto and his lieutenants Mystique and Sabertooth are seen breaking into some kind of military controlled facility, only to be joined by three of the X-Men in what turns out to be a rescue of X-Men founder, Professor Charles Xavier. (more…)