Linda: Blog

Okami. Score 10

Linda — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:30:11 +0000

It has been over two years since I first saw the pictures from this Capcom-game. The waiting drove me crazy and I even gave up at some point. I didn't think that it would get released because Capcom kept releasing game after game, hit after hit and leaving no news about Okami. So finally this year... I couldn't believe it! I was happy, angry and confused at the same time, but they released the game. I didn't even have a PS2 anymore, so I had to get a new console to try it out.

I didn't have high hopes about it though. I thought that it would feel old and look less attractive since they started to make it so long ago. But it's stunning! Absolutely gorgeous. Some game critics have said that it might be the the most beautiful PS2 game ever made, and I agree to the fullest! It just might be. It has got outstanding reviews from everyone, and not just because it's pretty.

The game play is good, very unique. Some might say it's a Zelda rip-off, and yes there are similarities, but it has its own soul. Okami is an adventure game and very easy to play, so it's as relaxing as watching a movie. I didn't die once while I played, but that's the whole point of the game.

You get to be a sun god in the shape of a white wolf. You wake up in a lifeless world and your task is to bring back life in to the world again. You have to defeat monsters and beasts with a little help from the locals. Each time you defeat an enemy you'll be able to restore a little bit of the environment, getting the grass to grow green and flowers to appear on the trees and ground and so on. You'll learn new fighting techniques in form of japanese brush techniques.

I guess I could have been a bit more enthusiastic when writing about the story but it's 4:30 in the morning and I'm hungry. You just have to trust me, it's good .

I think that every gamer should add Okami to the collection. It's already a classic.

Dead or Alive 4. Score 8.5

Linda — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:30:03 +0000

We are all familiar with DOA, one of the top fighting games. The latest one to Xbox 360 won't make you disappointed. The animations are better and faster and all the characters have great fighting skills. I'm fascinated by the breast animations. All the girls have big boobs which are jumping quite a lot.

The story is as always very dramatic and the cut scenes in the story mode are funny and beautiful. Not as serious as the overall story though. The cut scenes are in fact silly, but in a good way. You're supposed to laugh at it.

The reason I don't give DOA4 a full score is that I hate the boss Alpha-152, the shimmering clone of Kasumi. She's a piece of cake when you play Kasumi, but with some of the other characters she feels invincible. She's cheating! She suck the live out of you in just two attacks sometimes. It's really hard to block in story mode. Your opponent blocks all the time but you're lucky if you can block a few times per fight.

But if you don't mind getting pissed from time to time it's a keeper! The worlds are quite big and you can get hit by cars, attacked by wild animals and fall on monkeys.

I recommend it to all of you who likes the fighting genre. It's worth every cent. It's the ultimate fighting experience! But if you have crappy entertainment system you won't be able to experience how great it is.

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis. Score 5.0

Linda — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:59:51 +0000

This game came as a great surprise. Nobody could predict that Rockstar Games would make a game like this after the GTA success. It's a pretty small game and anyone can play it and have fun with it. The controller is easy to control so if your hands are big enough to grab the controller, then you're old enough to play the game.

I gave Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis a very low score because it's not the best of games, but it is cheaper than others. Rockstar doesn't think that the consumers should pay full price for a lower-budget-game like this (comparing to GTA e.g). So if you consider that fact, it's kind of hard to compare this game to the other high budget games, since there aren't any other new half price games out there.

It's worth the money, but don't expect FIFA standard.

What I like about Table Tennis is that it's fun to play... table tennis just like in real life, but with friends. So it's a party game. It's not so fun to play the tournaments and you get lots of shirts for your character in different colors, and I don't care about the shirts. And of course you get new characters. But it's not amusing enough to sit and play the tournaments for hours and hours by myself just to be able to get more characters to chose from when I play against my friends. I played one and a half tournament and didn't care to continue.

The over all quality of the animations and the lack of atmosphere and lively face expressions might be a bit tiring in the long run. But then again, it's a low budget game, so I can't really expect it. The characters produce lots of perspiration during the games and some guys in the audience shouts "kom igen Jesper!" when Jesper serves which is fun if you're Swedish, like myself.

So would I recommend it? Well, I already did and that friend got really mad and he even wrote to Rockstar Games to complain about making such a crappy game.

But I can recommend to download a demo on Xbox 360 Live and try it out, because it's free. My friends and I have had many hours of fun and some of them come to visit just because of it so it's a matter of taste really. You get what you pay for and you can't buy happiness, right:) And how picky can one be when there's so few Xbox 360 games to chose from anyway.

http://www.rockstargames.com/tabletennis/

Review of the Gamecube adventure Chibi-Robo. Score 9.5

Linda — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:12:23 +0000

Chibi-Robo is a very unique Gamecube adventure game, not like any other game really. You play Chibi who’s a house robot less than a foot tall, and helps the family around the house. It may sound like a lot of work but it’s actually fun.

This is a rather small game and it took me about three days to finish. It’s a perfect game to play with your partner or friend, alone or with your kid. It’s a game recommended from the age of 7, but I think it’s okay if you’re around 5 or so. The teddy bear Sunshine is very scary when he needs nectar, so watch out for that.

The family consists of an unhappy mom, and a dad who spends all his awake hours in the couch watching cartoons. He is unemployed and spends all their money on action figures. The daughter Jenny is cursed and therefore only speaks frog. She’s up all night crying outside her room because her mom is upset with her because of the frog-thing and upset with dad who won’t get a new job or help around the house, so she wants a divorce.

Your main task is to reverse the curse of the little girl Jenny and to revive the old robot in the cellar and to kill evil spider robots that appears around the house. (Yes there are some FPS moments.) Most important is to make the family and all the toys, eggs and critters happy. The story is great and the graphics are so pretty it hurts.

A few annoying things with the game are these; Telly who’s your manager, he talks a bit like Alison DuBois in Medium and that’s just super annoying. But you’ll hopefully get used to it. The voices of the other characters are great. Another thing that might be annoying in the beginning is that you have to charge your robot all the time, but be patient, it gets better with time since Citrusoft sends you better and more long lasting batteries. Your aim is to become a Super-Chibi with an alien light-ball battery that never needs to be recharged.

I give Chibi-Robo 9.5 out of 10. What I liked most was that I didn’t have to get stuck and struggle to move forward in the game. It felt like the story was adjusted to how I played rather than being a slave to its story.

I haven’t played Chibi-Robo for PSP yet but when I have, I’ll let you know.

http://www.chibi-robo.com/