Games I’ve played in 2012 – Review Listing

I have played a lot of video games this year and often check in using GetGlue when I do. What I have done is gathered up a list of what I have played and will review each game I have played on my blog. I will update this list each time I post a new review. I have already reviewed some, which are linked in their text below. I intend to have them all done by the end of 2013. In the meantime, please read the reviews already there and let me know what you think.

- My Pokémon Ranch
- Final Fantasy I
- Pokémon Sapphire
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Pokémon HeartGold
- Pokémon White
- Pokémon Pearl
- Wii Sports Resort
- Jetpack Joyride
- Smash Bros Brawl
- Pokémon FireRed
- Wii Fit Plus
- Castle Age
- Words With Friends
- Hanging With Friends
- Scramble With Friends
- Draw Something
- Angry Birds
- Pokémon Diamond
- Temple Run
- LEGO Star Wars
- Mario Kart Wii
- Animal Crossing: Wild World
- The Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion
- Pokémon Black
- Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
- Pokémon Emerald
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
- Final Fantasy VII
- LostWinds (iOS)
- Pokémon Platinum
- The Sims 2
- The Sims 2: Apartment Life
- Final Fantasy XIII
- Final Fantasy X-2
- Pokémon Pinball: RS
- Pokémon Battle Revolution
- Angry Birds Space
- Pokémon Ruby
- Dissidia 012
- Final Fantasy IX
- Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time
- Prince Of Persia: Warrior With
- Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
- Secret Of Mana
- StreetPass Quest
- Mario Party 4
- Mario Party 5
- Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City
- Civilization III
- The Sims 2: Mansion & Garden Stuff
- Angry Birds Seasons
- GodFinger All Stars
- Pokémon Channel
- Pokémon Colosseum
- Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
- Kid Icarus: Uprising
- Tombi
- Pokémon SoulSilver
- Pokémon Blue
- Flower
- The Sims 2: Bon Voyage
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Super Mario Bros
- Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
- Tekken
- Tekken Tag Tournament 2
- Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King

Animal Crossing: Wild World Review - DS

Animal Crossing: Wild World is a life simulation game for the DS, and the second Animal Crossing in the series released in Europe, being on GameCube before now, and eventually having the third iteration released on the Wii. It was released in 2005, but I forget when I purchased it.

StoryMan, this is hard. Animal Crossing’s story is very limited, what with it being a life simulation game. You could either see that it has a continual story, evolving as your village goes on, or that the story essentially ends once you’ve finished paying off the loan on your house. I choose to view it as the latter. Once you move in to the town and create a character you are given a house, which you have to pay off and expand as the game goes on.

Gameplay

The controls are absolutely sound for a DS game, but the gameplay element depends on what game you want to play. I use it as a “collection game” as there’s tons of stuff to collect ranging from fossils to t-shirts and there’s also great rare items that may take you years to amass as well as bugs and fish that appear and change monthly. You can also visit other people’s towns to trade villagers and things, which is always good fun to do.

Graphics

I can’t knock the graphics, they’re very similar to the GameCube version but I suppose they could have made certain elements better.

Soundtrack

There’s not much of a soundtrack to speak of. You decide the town tune, and there’s little stings of music here and there, but the main attraction is K.K Slider, who performs many songs on a Sunday night at the town’s coffee shop. You get to keep these songs and play them on your CD Player/cassette box/stereo in your home provided you’ve purchased one.

Replayability

Let’s see, it’s 2009 and I’m still playing this in spots. The community behind it is great and collecting all of the items takes a damn long time, it just depends on whether you can bothered to play at least every other day for a bit to keep your town in good shape.

Story: 3.2/10
Gameplay: 6.3/10
Graphics: 5.5/10
Soundtrack: 7/10
Replayability: 8.7/10

61.40%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Mortal Kombat: Deception Review – Multiplatform

This is a review of the sixth Mortal Kombat game in the series, which was released on various consoles in 2004/5. The version I’m using for this review was the PlayStation 2 PAL version.

Story

The Mortal Kombat story has always been the best of the main fighting games to me (Street Fighter, Tekken etc.) and the characters remain interesting. The Konquest mode in which you control Shujinko and play along an interesting storyline to save all of the realms, and interact with a large amount of characters and learn their attacks and special moves is the best aspect of the game to me.

Gameplay

Gameplay doesn’t differ much from previous Mortal Kombat games, save for in the Konquest mode, which I’ll state once more is the gem of this game. Your basic kick, punch, combo breaker style of play, with blood and gore mixed in.

Graphics

Graphics here obviously vary a lot depending on what console you’re actually playing this on, but for the PS2 version, the graphics are certainly up to scratch, but I can’t help but feel that certain things could be smoother, such as entering buildings, and juggling.

Soundtrack

There’s no official soundtrack for the game as far as I know, but the soundtrack’s solid, and certainly aids the flow of battle. With Konquest, the music’s a little lacking, but it’s where you get most of the soundtrack from.

Replayability

This is where, like with most fighting games, Deception falls flat on it’s face. Yes, the multiplayer is fun, and Konquest is long, but you could never really redo Konquest and enjoy it fully again. It’s fun, but won’t keep you occupied for long after you’re done.

Story: 7.4/10
Gameplay: 7.1/10
Graphics: 7/10
Soundtrack: 6.2/10
Replayability: 5/10

65.40%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII- Review - PSP

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII- is the PSP prequel to Final Fantasy for the PS1, where you take control of the rarely seen but often discussed Zack Fair as a starting 2nd Class SOLDIER, and see where it all started to go wrong.

Story

A new enemy in the form of Genesis is introduced at the start of the game, as Sephiroth has yet to begin his descent in to madness, and it deals well with setting him as a questionable villain and uses the play, LOVELESS, seen briefly in Final Fantasy VII well. Familiar faces such as Cloud & Yuffie are seen and new faces such as Cissnei are blended in well. By the end of the game, you don’t care about Cloud anymore in Final Fantasy VII and wish that he had died instead of Zack. Great story, even knowing the ending already.

Gameplay

That’s an example of a battle above, there are random encounters as usual and then battle flows by choosing your next attack from the materia you have equipped. Crisis Core allows you to break all the usual Damage & HP Limits, meaning you can deal 99,999 in a single hit later in the game with the right materia (Costly Punch). Outside of battle, you are usually wandering an area with a certain objective, there is no free-roaming world as you’re shipped off to certain locations by ShinRa. The DMW Limit system is great. The more people you meet in game, or items you collect, the more faces fill up. The reels roll each time and if three match up Zack unleashes a limit related to that character.

Graphics

The summons kick up some astounding FMV, even though the first time you see them, you know some great pain is coming your way. The other cutscenes are up to PSP-specs, but I don’t think it uses anywhere near all of the PSP’s power, which would have been nice to see, but I’m always harsh on graphics.

Soundtrack

The Crisis Core soundtrack has some great tunes and uses some variants of Final Fantasy VII tunes, which is in no means a bad thing as I think VII has a good soundtrack, and even has a theme song named “Why”. The best thing to do though, is make a playlist of all songs titled “Theme Of Crisis Core” and listen to them all.

Replayability

The “missions” section allows you to play about 300 missions of varying difficulties. Very Hard in these missions means, if you don’t have Phoenix Downs and Costly Punch, you will die. Crisis Core keeps up the Final Fantasy tradition of having a superboss, in this case, Minerva who has 10,000,000 HP on Normal mode and 20,000,000 on Hard. New Game Plus is also an option, where you will keep all items obtained, and also your level, if the missions were too tough for you the first time through.

Story: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Graphics: 8.5/10
Soundtrack: 8.7/10
Replayability: 6.7/10

84.5%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Review - GBA

  
I contemplated as to whether to review a six year old game, but I have been playing it a lot again of late, so figured it might be time for a review, as that’s what a lot of these posts seem to be.

This is an old game, by gaming standards, released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003.

Story
You take on the role of Marche, who is transported to a mysterious world, wherein he greets his friends but finds that the world has changed them all. He tries to correct it by destroying “World” Crystals, but is met with indifference from his former companions and your usual Final Fantasy monsters.



Gameplay
You garter yourself a crew (which is comprised of other species whom featured more prominently in Final Fantasy XII), otherwise known as a Clan and engage in turn-based tile-based tactical battles from the missions you take on. You make your own world map by placing locations where you like, so if you want to make Sprohm (the city with the prison) kind of like Alcatraz, like I did, there’s a small island to place it on.

Prison you ask? Yes, the world of Ivalice has a law system, whereby certain actions can’t be performed in battle and punishable by being sent to jail for a certain amount of battles.

Multiplayer also comes in with this via GBA link cable for either vs. battles or trading goods & characters.

Graphics
Graphics are never really too important to me in any game, but this is something that’s needed in reviews.

The graphics in FFTA aren’t bad for GBA graphics, but I wouldn’t have minded a cut scene or two for important events.



Soundtrack
The music in this game is not done by Square-Enix’s usually well-known musician, Nobuo Uematsu, but by Hitoshi Sakimoto and the sounds soon become familiar such as when starting a battle or entering a usual location.

There’s no memorable songs to me, but certainly not a bad soundtrack.

Replayability
There’s over 300 missions to do, and you can carry on after the main story has ended, there’s lots of missions to do, and plenty of job classes to keep you happy.

However, I couldn’t bring myself to restart the game and go through the main story mode again, but with all the missions to do and the quick dive-in gameplay style, you’ll find it hard to put down.

I do have to note, this game was damn near impossible to find even a year after it’s release, so you may not have much luck at all now.

Quick scores follow next in most reviews in case you’re too lazy to have read what I have spent my time writing.

Story: 4.5/10
Gameplay: 6.5/10
Graphics: 5/10
Soundtrack: 5.5/10
Replayability: 6/10

55%

• 0 – 19% Unplayable - why the hell did I even buy this?
• 20 – 49% Poor – Certain elements of the game hold it back
• 50 – 69% Average – More good than bad, but you might need to be a fan to really get in to it.
• 70 – 84% Good – A nice franchise or single game, that just misses out on being great because of a few flaws.
• 85 – 89% Excellent – You could play this for ages and be happy
• 90 – 100% Fucking Excellent – You should have this game and play it every single day.

Want me to review a game? Comment and let me know and I’ll see what I can do.