REVIEW: Fallout 3

Genre: RPG

Release: 2008

Platform: PC, Xbox360, PS3

Graphics: Mediocre. The setting itself was conveyed nicely, but due to the Gamebryo engine every face was fucked up and every animation was awkward. As a whole it was okay, but not something one would have expected.

Story: The player is born into a vault, your father breaks out of the vault, everyone is mad at you, you break free too and you start chasing your daddy.

The mainstory can be finished quite quickly, but what would a real rpg be without sidequests, right?

If the player really explores the whole wasteland around the destroyed Washington, he can be able to spend a fuckton of time in this game, just like in the previously made games by Bethesda, Oblivion and Morrowind, which are both black holes for time. But just like in Oblivion you feel never really "at home" in the capital wasteland. I can't put a finger on it, but I guess it's something about the characters not being fleshed out or something. The totally opposite was true for Morrowind. Just as I went off of the boat I felt "it". The game instantly caught my attention. Oblivion wasn't able to do this. And also Fallout 3 wasn't able to do so. Nevertheless it was a fun game, but the quests were just boring and not that fun. Bad writing on Bethesdas side I assume. (Hint: Fallout New Vegas is totally different. But since I haven't finished the mainquest yet I don't want to write about it right now. But just let me tell you this: IT IS SO MUCH BETTER) There was nearly nothing from the old Fallout games, except for stuff like the bobblehead-guy and the bloddy mess perk.

Awesome Fact: You could blow up a small town using an atomic-bomb-dud. Downside: that small settlement is one of the only places worth visiting to do some shopping/sleeping/questing/etc., on the bright side you get a permanent apartment in the highest building in the game.

RATING: 7/10

REVIEW: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Genre: Action-RPG-Jump'n'Run

Release: 2005

Platform: NDS

Graphics: Cool 2D. Nothing overwhelming, although the anime-intro-sequences are extremely cool. It's pretty solid, not the pinnacle of 2D-NDS-graphics, but still it's fun to watch.

Story: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow begins where Aria of Sorrow ends. Once again you assume the role of Soma Cruz, exchange student and slayer of Dracula, who somehow inherited the dark power of that batguy.

Now in this game a cult has formed which tries to create a new Dark Lord by killing Soma and using his power. Something like that. The gameplay is as good as usual. Once again you have the ability to consume the souls of enemies, leading to a variety of attacks and spells, again you buy items and so on and so forth. There are only two more or less big changes, one being the ability to obtain new items via transforming them using the obtained souls, the other one being magic seals which you need to draw on the touchscreen in order to permanently defeat bosses. Both changes sound cool on paper, but are rarely used ingame. Of course, they are used, but in my opinion they could have introduced more weapons which can be upgraded. But maybe it's just a case of bad memory and there are indeed many changeable weapons. Same deal with these seals: they are only used on bosses, but are also increasing in their difficulty to draw, which means once you figured out how to draw one seal properly (usually after the second try, but again, I may be wrong) it will never be used again. Nevertheless, cool features.

Awesome Fact:  Like in the previous game you are allowed to replay the game, keeping your souls and items. Or you can play again the so called JULIUS MODE, this time with a little change: instead of just controlling Julius Belmont, you get to play Joko Belnaded, a which, and Alucard. All these three differ regarding abilities, strength, defense, and so on, but that's no problem since you can swap between them on the go, which is often required to clear certain bosses. Much fun was had.

RATING: 8/10

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Genre: Action-Adventure (with some RPG elements. Also: Jump'n'Run)

Release: 2003

Platform: GBA

Graphics: Good. This was 2D as good as it gets on the GBA, the sprites were clear, the areas diverse, enemies colorful. Awesome.

Story: The story seems kinda uncommon for a Castlevania game, mostly because of the setting. Usually one would assume to hunt Dracula somewhere in the Middle Ages or whenever, at least somewhere in the past. Not this time. Aria of Sorrow forwards the story to the year 2035 in Japan, where the exchange student Soma Cruz is visiting some kind of shrine during a solar eclipse. Because of some sort of magic or whatnot, Soma and his friend Mina are teleported into the eclipse (don't ask me what that means, but that is the description of the events happening the game gives you :F) right at the foot of Dracula's castle. Somehow you get to know that Soma is in some way the heir of some kind of dark force which renders him able to absorb the souls of slain enemies. So you go on and try to get rid of Dracula.

Key-Feature in this game is the soul-absorbing. It is possible to get a soul out of every opponent, it only takes some time. Some enemies, like bosses, are always spawning their soul, because you need the soul to advance in the game.

Need the soul? What the hell?

Easy, every soul allows you to do some new stuff. Most of the time it's only a different attack you learn, but sometimes it's stuff like the double-jump or underwater-breathing or whatever. There are 3 different sorts of souls, one is the "active" sort, which can be used like normal weapons. These will always cost you some mana, or energy, I can't remember how it was called in this game. Then there are souls with a continuous effect, like transforming you into a monster, and stuff like that. These will suck your mana dry as long as they are activated. And then there are passive souls, which grant you stuff like "+10 Strenght". Always active, no costs.

At any point in the game you can always just have one of each type equipped, so this is where things get tactical.

This soul-absorbing is really more of a time-absorbing feature, since you get this Pokémon-like-feeling of GOTTA CATCH EM ALL, just because you think "mh, this monster looks cool, I wonder what kind of soul it has" and soon you'll find yourself grinding for hours on one spot, on one monster, just because you think it MIGHT offer you a cool ability. Sounds lame but in reality it is addicting and fun.

Awesome Fact: After you finish the game there is a possibility to start it anew, this time with increased difficulty. OR you can start anew playing as JULIUS BELMONT with different abilities. Pretty neat-o.

RATING: 8/10

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War

Genre: RTS

Release: 2004

Platform: PC

Graphics: Nice. Quite detailed and the effects were also cool to look at. Of course it isn't on par with todays graphics, since there is already a successor, nevertheless they are good.

Story: If I remember correctly some Orcs tried to conquer some planet and "you" are send to get rid of them. "You" being the commander of the Blood Ravens. So much for the campaign. There are also two other factions, the Chaos Space Marines and the Eldar, which are also in some kind involved in the story, but mh, I can't remember how. I guess I just played the multiplayer part of the game.

Which is really awesome. During that time I wasn't really into any kind of RTS-game, apart from Warcraft III that is, so I was really surprised how fun it could be. I really can't say anything about balance and stuff, but I still like the idea behind this game. Instead of the usual resources like GOLD or MINERALS or MONEY you have to collect some kind of RESOURCE-POINTS (RP from now on :F) by capturing certain special points which are spread out over the map. The more you control, the more RP you get, the more you can build. You capture these points-producing-points by moving a squad of marines or whatever next to them and if you are the only player around for a certain time the location will be yours.

Match-End-Conditions are interesting, since you can choose what the goal of a match should be. It could be the usual DESTROY THE ENEMY PLAYER, what we know from nearly every RTS like Warcraft, Starcraft, AoE and whatnot. It could also be CAPTURE XXX RP or HOLD MORE THAN HALF OF THE POINTS-GENERATING-POINTS-OF-WHICH-I-FORGOT-THE-NAME FOR A CERTAIN TIME or CAPTURE ALL RELICS or or or. Really funny. And since you NEED to capture these points in order to advance your army the matches are really fast paced and action packed. Personally, I really liked it.

Awesome Fact: There are three addons, which add a total of five new factions, so the overall number of playable races is now nine. Which is pretty cool, because if I remember correctly every faction is played differently. The Necrons are slow and pretty hardhitting, the Eldar are swift hit-and-runners, the Imperial Army is a meat-shield, dealing damage using big tanks, and so on. As stated, awesome.

RATING: 8/10

Mario Strikers: Charged Football

Genre: Football (aw wait, let me specify: European football, which is American soccer or what? WHERE YOU KICK THE BALL WITH YOU FOOT GODDAMIT)

Release: 2007

Platform: Wii

Graphics: Good. Funny effects, but not that much that you aren't able to grasp what the hell is going on on the screen.

Story: It's a fantasy-football-game. There is none. Teams play against each other. Each team has one captain, which is always one of the more iconic figures of nintendo, like bowser, mario, peach, waluigi and so on, and 3 team members, which are side-characters like koopas or drybones.

Every ingameplayer has different stats, some are slow but shot really hard, some are very good at getting the ball and passing, and so on. You can freely choose your team.

You can foul, you can do tricks, you can do hilarious cool shots, you can use items which spawn after good shots or fouls by your enemy.

It's much fun, go out and play it. Even better if you have a buddy who is also on your skill-level.

RATING: 7/10