Blue Dragon

Back when I was seven I remember losing hours upon hours of my life to one of the best fighting games I have ever played. Final Fantasy VII was deep, with well developed characters and a plot that kept you hooked right up until the rewarding finale. In those days I was madly in love with JRPG's. I've always been a fan of Japanese culture, and their games were no different. But if that's the case then how have all my beliefs changed around like the flick of a switch? Why do I now see JRPG's in the same light as hernias? I blame one game. Blue Dragon.

Picture the scene. I'm standing in this GAME store, holding Blue Dragon in one hand and Stuntman: Ignition in the other. Both games are pre-owned, reduced to around £20 and I'm spending ages deciding which one to get. In my moment of weakness a clerk comes up to me and asks if I'm having trouble. So I say to him, 'I'm not sure which of these to get, which would you prefer?' I'm not sure if the man was an idiot or he was punishing me for my insolence, but he said that Blue Dragon would be his choice. So like the lemming I am I bought the game and trundled home to play it.

Now I should really start the review section of the review, and as the story has gotten to the point of me playing, I think it would be a good place to start. The game places you in the shoes of a pre-pubescent brat called Shu, who is completely un-stereotypical in the fact that he lost his parents and lives with his grandpa in a village that is under constant threat of attack in a world that is divided into islands which, for some reason, all have drastically different climates. Shu and his two friends; Jiro (the smart one) and Kluke (the girly girl one) are the main protagonists, but are soon joined by Marumaro (the obligatory animal one) and Zola (the tomboy one). Together they make Team Trope, defending the world from the evil Nene, a villain who looks about as scary as cardboard box. A really old cardboard box. With glasses. To be honest that's pretty much what he is. His personality isn't as deep as a puddle and as far as I can tell his motive for being evil is because he can.


Team Trope, to the rescue!

After about 20 minutes that might as well have been cutscene the characters are granted magic powers in the form of their shadows becoming super animals that fight for them, and also give a name for the game. Yup, Shu's shadow is a Blue Dragon. Hooray, now I can start playing the game properly. It turns out there are two types of levelling your character, you level the person and the shadow. The person controls health and MP and the Shadow controls abilities. But wait, the shadow can also be upgraded in nine different classes to open up loads of different combinations. It sounds like a good idea, but the different classes are open to all your shadows, so after a while there are no defined characters. You don't have a good melee fighter, or a magic fighter, or a healer, because all of the shadows can do everything.

It's a shame, because this game could have been so much more. It had an all star cast of developers, and yet it failed. The story was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi who penned the first five Final Fantasies, Akira Toriyama from Dragon Ball doing the character design and the creatures developed by the person from Chrono Trigger. It reminds me of X-Men 3. They had an amazing cast of actors, writers and producers and they produced that pile of horse manure. It's almost as if they thought "stuff it, with a team this good we can't lose. Let's put no effort in, it doesn't matter. No matter what we throw out, it'll be made of gold".


'You know, we'd be buggered if we didn't have these deus ex machina shadows!'

Visually it's very good, with the graphics and sounds polished and easy on the eyes, and I could sit and listen to the music for hours. The soundtrack reminds me so much of Final Fantasy VII, that if I closed my eyes and tried really hard then I could probably believe that I'm playing that game, but then the question arises of why I'm not playing that game. I want to like the monsters, because most of them are original and interesting. Like when you fight a Fire Wolf Ghost and an Ice Wolf Ghost at the same time you dont just fight the monsters, they react with each other and turn into ordinary Wolf Ghosts. And another thing they've added is the gimmick that if you get in a fight with certain enemies, then they'll attack between themselves, like a food chain. But those points are destroyed by the ridiculous, childish crap that they have put as some of the enemies. Poo snakes? I'm not even kidding. The game can't be good if it hands out 30gamerscore for 'Finding and defeating the rare monster, King Poo.'


A screencap to prove that I am not making his name up.

Oh, the achievements. You get most of the gamerscore through grind killing enemies so you can level up your shadows to level 99. All of them. Then you have to level them to level 99 in all nine of the different classes. Now that might not sound too bad, but let me put it into perspective. I've been playing the game for around six hours, and my shadows are around level 8ish, in 3 different classes. Now I can't even be bothered to do the maths to work out the time it would take, so you can be sure that I wouldn't try all that. Also, there are achievements for mashing the A button as fast as you can. I tried the first point around ten times, I mashed it so hard that my finger bled for god's sake, and I couldn't get it right! There are also some points to be won for collecting some stuff, fighting all the enemies in the game and generally spending every waking moment of your life wallowing in the glow of the tv rather than being in the sun and meeting real people. Actually, I wouldn't do that anyway, but at least I don't play this game when I'm locked up inside!




So all in all, I think if you want a taste of JRPG's then don't go anywhere near this shooting games If you are a big fan of JRPG's, then don't go near this game. In fact, only touch this game if you spend too much time playing JRPG's and you want to stop loving them. If so, go and play Final Fantasy VII, then you'll know what a real JRPG is like and you'll never want to play another again. Hey, maybe that's why I don't like them.

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Xbox 360 Fighting Games with Sucess

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been around forever, and their games have always seemed to be targeted for their key demographic, younger fighting games (go figure). TMNT
is no exception and has some seriously easy achievements to unlock. Almost all of the achievements can be unlocked just by completing the game one time, but there a few that require you to do special things like replay a level to unlock a special collectible coin, or finish a level without taking damage. The good news here is that even these "additional" achievements are incredibly easy. You can beat TMNT in about 6-7 hours and unlock all the achievements and all 1000 gamerscore. An incredibly easy 1000 gamerscore.

Peter Jackson's King Kong

Based off of the movie with the same name, Peter Jackson's King Kong was one of the opening games for the Xbox 360 console. The story line strays a little from the movie, but for the most part all the important scenes are there. Regardless of how true the game is to the film, this is a great game for those who want to boost their gamerscore with only a handful of hours played.

First off, before you start a new game go to the main menu where you can choose between play, options, and extras. Hold LB+RB++LT+RT and press down, up, Y, X, down, down, Y, Y. A cheat menu will appear. Go into this menu and input the code:

8wonder

With this code, you will be invincible in all of the levels you play as Jack. As every level begins however, you will have to re-input this code from the pause menu under cheats. This cheat unfortunately does not work on the levels you play as Kong. This code also does NOT stop the achievements from unlocking, so use it every chance you get.

With that handy bit of advice, just play through the levels one at a time unlocking the achievements as you go. All 9 achievements, and all 1000 gamerscore points are awarded just for beating the entire game through from the beginning. Talk about easy.

College Hoops 2K6

Much like NBA 2K6, College Hoops 2K6 has some seriously easy achievements that can be completed in a single exhibition game. First of all, lets start by turning the difficulty to Walk-On and set
the mode to arcade. This will allow your players an unlimited amount of stamina so you can substitute in and out as you want without your best guys getting tired. Next, set the half length to 20 minutes. Finally, go into the difficulty sliders and max out all of your sliders while minimizing all of the computers sliders. All of the achievements are quite easy to get except for the six blocks with a single player in a game achievement. Since this one is tricky I suggest starting an exhibition game as the Wisconsin Badgers and playing against the worst team you can find. The reason we want to use the Badgers is because they have a plethora of giant, shot blocking players on their roster. All of the achievements are extremely straight forward and need no explanation, but here is a quick tip on how to unlock the Block Six Shots with a Single Player achievement:

Make sure one of your big men is alone in the post covering his man. Take control of the guards and run them out past half court to get them out of the picture. They will continue to come back to cover their man after you switch off of controlling them, so you will need to keep doing this. Eventually the computer will dish it down in the post, let the AI maintain control of your big man and just let him get the blocks himself.

Gather up six blocks with the same guy and unlock the final achievement.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe seems like a game targeted for a younger audience, but if you can get past this feeling there is an excellent gaming experience to be found. This game focuses on action and forgoes the usual intense story of similar themed movies and play games. The story element is light and funny, the action is fun and fast paced, and the achievements are easy. All of the achievements are pretty self explanatory and need no real description. The Fury's Fourteen achievements can be a little time consuming but the best way to unlock it is to beat the game and continue to replay the last level over and over. Every time you beat the last level you will be rewarded 3,000 credits for beating the final boss. You may need 10-15 replays of the last level to do this, but each run only takes about 15 minutes. Another seriously easy 1000 gamerscore points.

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Video Games Arcade Guide For Xbox LIve

It's a side scrolling mindless blastathon, which was very much en vogue then in both the gaming scene and in popular culture, when the market for "well armed muscly guys shooting things to hell with vaguely patriotic
overtones" was at it's most robust. It doesn't hold up very well now - two player mode is sloppy due to one player being able to scroll the screen forward while the other is caught towards the back (leading to a lot of instant deaths), and if your bag is virtual fantasies about blowing holes in hordes of people with high powered weaponry you can do that in much more advanced graphic style these days with Halo and Ghost Recon and all those sorts of murder simulators. Contra is repetitive, has not aged well and is not recomended, not even for $5.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : Available in the Konami Arcade Collection for Nintendo DS

TIME PILOT
Published by : Konami
Original Release : Arcade, 1982

On the subject of mindless blastathons, we next come to Time Pilot.

In the far future, not only has time travel been developed, but it's been commercialized. One of the most popular pastimes for the privileged is to travel back in time in a well-armed spacecraft, picking fights with the air forces of primitive nations and using the advanced weaponry to blow hordes of them to shreds. For bonus points, you can pick up parachuting fellow travellers who incompetently got themselves owned!

Time Pilot was a bit of an innovator when it came out in 1982, though it uses a relatively simple gimmick. Instead of the usual flat left-to-right horizontal or bottom-to-top vertical scrolling plane, your ship is centered on the screen and can fly in any direction. Enemies come at you from all angles, so it's sort of like a scrolling Asteroids. You plow your way through 56 of the current type of craft you are fighting, then a (usually not impressive) Boss shows up that takes seven hits to kill, then you move on to next time period for more indiscriminate slaughter.

Unless you've got some personal nostalgia tied to memories of this game or something, it's probably not worth bothering with.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : Also available in the Konami Arcade Collection for Nintendo DS; also can be found in the Konami Arcade Classics compilation for Sony Playstation

MUTANT STORM RELOADED
Published by : PomPom
Original Release : PC, 2005

Continuing on this theme of mindless shooting games that I've accidentaly developed .... Mutant Storm is a more modern entry in the field. It basically pilfers it's gameplay from the Robotron - Smash T.V. lineage of games,
where you can move in one direction and fire in any other, and you progress through a series of small enclosed arenas wherein hordes of foes come at you from all directions. Coincidentally, Robotron and Smash T.V. are both available .... so what's to distinguish this one? Well, mostly the trippy visuals, which really are pretty cool ... it's a nice little casual game you can pick up whenever and leave whenever, but I think you only really need one of these types of games in your life at most.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : The original Mutant Storm for PC

NEW RALLY-X
Published by : Namco
Original Release : Arcade, 1981

New Rally-X has a lot more in common with Pac-Man than with racing. You're some car rolling around a sort of Pac-esque maze, trying to pick up all the flags that are scattered around. Meanwhile one or more suicidal red cars are chasing you and trying to slam into you (first time I played I thought we were supposed to be racing to pick up flags ... then they veered into me and killed me).

It's kind of basic brainless fun but it gets old fast, and after the first level there's always some red car that's faster than you that inevitably catches you unless you drive some perfect pattern in each level. So it's kinda cheap too. And the sound is annoying. I definetly suggest you pass on this one.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : Available in Namco Museum Battle Collection for the Sony PSP, and Namco Museum Vol. 1 for Playstation

CRYSTAL QUEST
Published by : Stainless Games
Original Release : Apple II, 1989

Crystal Quest is a decent little "pick up and put down at will" game I used to play quite a bit on the Mac at my first job, when I was supposed to be entering stuff into databases. In my previous batch of Xbox reviews I looked at Mutant Storm, another game available for download that is essentialy the same as this one. Crystal Quest of course predates Mutant Storm, but this new upgrade of it employs the same basic technique to appeal to the player, which is sort of fractally trippy visuals. So it's the same deal with this one as with Mutant Storm - there's a surplus of these types of games available and you probably only need one or less to get by sufficiently.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : There's older versions of the game for Gameboy and Macintosh; there's also a new PC release that's the same as this version

GALAGA
Published by : Namco
Original Release : Arcade, 1981

Among the first of the brainless space shoot-em-up games, and still one of the most fun, Galaga is certainly a good game, but it's also been widely available on nearly every platform for a long time now. Even a few
bucks seems a high price for it. I don't see too many situations where someone would find this version to be worth paying for, though this version does have one unique quality in that it lets you continue from the stage you kicked off at.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : Available on Namco Museum 1 for the Playstation, Namco Museum 64, Namco Museum Dreamcast, Namco Museum Advance, the Namco Museum 50th Anniversary collection and the Namco Museum Battle Collection for PSP

SMASH TV
Published by : Midway
Original Release : Arcade, 1990

Earlier on I mentioned Crystal Quest, and it's similarities to Mutant Storm. Well, they're all basically derivatives of Robotron 2084, as is this game. So I guess the only question is what flavor you want, if any at all. Smash TV puts an interesting sort of dystopian future twist on the formula, with a setting similar to that of The Running Man. You're in this game show where you have to go through a series of rooms gunning down hordes of violent clones and other monsters, and each level culminates in a boss fight against some giant monstrosity. If you survive the whole maze you get to take home your pile of cash and fabulous prizes such as toaster ovens, sports cars, etc. that you've picked up along the way. During all this the perverted Wink Martindale lookalike host keeps popping up to egg you on with his digitized proclamations ("Big money! Big prizes! I love it!"). The graphics are not as spiffy as some of your other choices here, but the game certainly has the most personality.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : A very good port was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System

ASTROPOP
Published by : Popcap Games
Original Release : PC, 2004

Popcap's modus operandi has been to take old established game formulas, repackage and maybe add some small twist to them, and then plant these idiot-proof versions at mass traffic portals like
Yahoo where hoards of people are guaranteed to pass through, thus generating a whole bunch of money for them in advertising deals and such. Microsoft's modus operandi with Popcap games thus far on the Arcade has been to put up the "Deluxe" versions for download at around $8 a pop or so, even though the freeware Flash versions of these games have been (and still are) available all across the web for some time now. In most cases, "Deluxe" Popcap games don't add a huge amount to the experience - a few new levels, couple of little new character sprites, "enhanced graphics", all that type of thing. These games don't really seem to be an attractive draw for the Live Arcade - I don't know any longtime gamers who play Popcap games (presumably because we're familiar with all the original games that Popcap derives their formulas from and are either playing those or have run them into the ground by now), and the casual audience that makes up most Popcap players seem mostly to play them because they're free and on the web an can easily be loaded up while at work or school or at the library. So I don't know if Microsoft sees something that I don't here with dumping all these games onto Live Arcade, perhaps they're actually selling like hotcakes for all I know, but my tendency is to think that they're here as padding in the hopes of making the Live Arcade roster seem like it can compete with the spate of stuff released for the Wii Console .... but hey, I'm cynical by nature, so take that for whatever it's worth.

Anyway, this particular game is basically Magical Drop, with the usual Popcap few small tweaks to avoid being sued. Like nearly every other Popcap play games , it's basically OK but not very exciting, and really not something I'd reccommend spending money on.

YOUR OTHER OPTIONS : There's a free Flash version at various places on the web

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