Games Cheats and Reviews

"What’s up God of War addicts?! Many gaming sites have already received their copy of God of War III (like TheGamerAccess.com) and many others have already posted their review after the embargo was lifted yesterday. This has led to a rapid increase of anticipation and hype for the sequel of one of PS2’s legacy franchises, God of War. As more reviews come out, more hype is established and gamers become extremely impatient for one of PS3’s largest titles. Well TheGamerAccess.com has some exciting info to bring you guys that they have just received from Eric Levine, Manager of Product Public Relations for Sony."

-TheGamerAccess.com

This has happened before, and it will happen again.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4. I want you to say it slowly. SONIC. THE. HEDGEHOG. FOUR. The eight-year-old me just got so excited hearing that. That we were getting a new 2D-only, no-bullshit Sonic game on the consoles was cool enough, but Sega had the stones to actually go and call it SONIC THE HEDGEHOG FOUR? *THE* game that I’ve been waiting for all this time? Sign 8-year-old Carter up!

Unfortunately, I’m 22 years old now, and I’ve matured…slightly. VERY slightly. I know better. I’ve had my heart broken way too many times by the promise of new Sonic greatness. I know better than to look forward to a new Sonic title with reckless anticipation. I’ve learned…a little. I still keep coming back to the series despite my better inclinations. As such, I anticipate Sonic the Hedgehog 4, but once again, I see only despair down the road.

First, let me introduce you to the Sonic Cycle, created by some anonymous internet citizen who too has seen the heartbreak of crappy Sonic games come and go, but has been smart enough to know that there’s a pattern to this. The image is self-explanatory:

It’d be funnier if it wasn’t true. Pretty much every Sonic game in this millennium has seen the Sonic Cycle come into play. The early details come out, things seem awesome, Sonic fans who have just gotten over the latest abomination in the series forget why they despaired so much and only see the good in the early details. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is following this exact pattern.

Act One: The Hype

To understand why 2D is the proper evolution for the series, one has to understand why 3D Sonic simply has not worked. For one, Sonic Team can’t make a proper 3D camera to save their life – or they can’t leverage the demands of a Sonic game with the principles of 3D gameplay. Sonic Adventure, back on that fateful day of 9/9/99, had plenty of promise to it. It had plenty of speed, big event set pieces (the whale chasing you in Sonic’s first level is still one of gaming’s most notable moments) interesting non-speed platforming sections, and a good soundtrack. It had plenty of good going for it, especially for Sonic fans who hadn’t played a ‘true’ Sonic game in 5 years; Sonic 3D Blast doesn’t count, and let’s just forget Sonic R and its godawful soundtrack ever existed. However, it showed a lot of growing pains as well – the controls were often very loose, the adventure sequences required way too much backtracking, and there was a distinct love for bottomless pits in later levels. Oh, and those Knuckles emerald quest levels? I vomit thinking about those.

Sadly, Sonic Adventure 2 was no steps forward, and a LOT of steps back. The emerald quest levels? Now 2 characters have them! The camera? Still sucks! The music? Now with more awful vocals! Of course, this was after a great early demo that came with Phantasy Star Online that had only the fun initial Sonic level. Sonic Heroes got rid of anything that wasn’t point A to point B gameplay, but still didn’t fix the camera issues inherent with the first 3 games. There were plenty of great set pieces still, and the 3 character idea was unique (like a logical progression of Knuckles’ Chaotix) – although it was mostly just excuses to get you to play the game several times, and to revive characters not seen since the 32X days. For that matter, I actually had a 32X and played Knuckles’ Chaotix. That’s how big of a Sonic fan I am. Shadow the Hedgehog…let’s not talk about that one. Sonic on the 360/PS3? Let’s talk even less about it. The Sonic Wii titles? I’ll cover those, but I don’t want to remember. Sonic Unleashed? After the previous Sonic game, I didn’t even care about this one, despite the inclusion of 2D sections, but the werehog segments just…um…moving on.

The point is, it’s been a near steady downhill on the quality of Sonic games since Sonic 3. Each new 3D release seems to keep picking away at the goodwill the series has developed thanks to childhood nostalgia. That Sega is wont to re-release the games every so often helps to remind us – these games were GREAT. And they have stood the test of time. The Mario series still relies on its nostalgia to sell, but the fact is also that the games that do come out with the Mario name on them aren’t colossal disappointments – pretty much anything with the Mario name on it is guaranteed to at least have some degree of quality to it (though Nintendo has run Mario Party into the ground with 79,001 sequels) – Sonic fans no longer expect the same from the blue hedgehog’s game. In fact, expecting mediocrity is the order of the day. Sonic’s become the classic rock band that was huge back in the day, but now it feels like they’re just coasting on their success, and you want to think that when something new comes out, that it would be just like the old times, and occasionally you get hints of it, but then you’re reminded that they’re merely a shell of what they’ve been.

Sonic’s become AC/DC.

However, Sonic fans still cling to the excitement of a new Sonic title because they know that greatness can come from this series; they’ve seen it before! They still occasionally see flashes of brilliance even in the modern games, although the flaws and errors in design fluster them. They want to love Sonic, they just can’t. That it appears that Sega and Sonic Team are getting back on track with a 2D-only Sonic on the modern consoles, a return to the basics and to what made the series so exceptional back in the heyday of the great 16-bit console wars, Sonic fans should be excited. Yet, I look on the horizon and I see the next phase of the Sonic Cycle already in play.

Act Two: The Truth Slowly Comes Out

You could say that Sonic 3 was the harbinger of doom for the Sonic series. The first two Sonic games were simple – Dr. Robotnik (he is NOT Eggman. He will never BE Eggman. You will NOT call him Eggman.) is up to some nefarious plot and it’s up to Sonic to save the day. Sonic 3 added in more of a story with Knuckles hero/villain involvement, and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all having slightly different abilities and playing styles. However, this was all good – it added depth to the game, and rewarded exploration, the true hallmark of the Sonic series, not speed. Speed is a deception – the multi-linear levels of the Sonic series have always been what make it great. Of course, playing the 3D Sonic games, you might forget this, as they seem to focus on the Blast Processing lie and the idea that people love non-Sonic characters, so they gave us more speed and more buddies. No one needed Big the Cat. Was Shadow really all that much of a better nemesis for Sonic than Metal Sonic? Rouge the Bat? Meh, I say! And the concepts for the games just seem to be getting dumber – WEREHOG?! Human love interests?! LOVE INTERESTS, PERIOD?! Sonic and the BLACK KNIGHT?! Sonic and the Secret Rings was the least offensive in concept, but its excessively on-rails gameplay coupled with mediocre tilt controls made me want to forget it. I don’t even know if I still have that game. I think I sold it, or paid someone to take it from me.

Of course, Sonic games keep giving us unnecessary sidekicks. This doesn’t mean that all sidekicks are bad – there’s just a limit before it gets to be too much and you forget that the name of the game is Sonic the Hedgehog, not Sonic and Tails and Knuckles and Charmy the Bee and Vector and Espio and Mighty the Armadillo and Heavy and Bomb and Shadow and Cream and Amy Rose and Rouge and I Could Probably Do This All Day If We Started Including Characters From The Comics, Which I Read Back In The Nineties. The gameplay needs to be focused around quality platforming with Sonic as your core character. You can add in other characters IF they fit – there’s only so much you can do with extra characters before you just start clogging the game up. We’ve only seen Sonic in the limited  Sonic 4 media released so far, but I’m sure Tails and Knuckles will be revealed soon. And then Shadow will find his way in, I bet. And who knows who else will wind up showing up for this affair.

And speaking of affairs, Sonic Team isn’t actually developing Sonic 4. No, little-known development studio Dimps is. This is good, right? Keep our series away from the filthy hands of Sonic Team? Well, the problem is, any hope of Sonic Team catching on to their act and improving it is now gone – Dimps has already made 2D Sonic games this millennium. They’re the ones behind the Sonic Advance series and the DS Sonic Rush games. The first Sonic Advance was GREAT – it was a return to the Sonic 2 and Sonic 3-style gameplay, no filler here. You could play as 4 characters, each with their own specialties: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. It was a great game, and over 7 years after the last true 2D Sonic game, getting to play a new 2D game (albeit on a Nintendo system…what?!) was exceptionally thrilling, and I loved every moment of it. The series went down hill from there, though. Sonic Advance 2 was way too focused on insane speed rather than explorative platforming with speed elements – and the level designers LOVED bottomless pits. Looking back on Sonic Advance 1, it was noticeable in the later levels that Dimps was fond of the bottomless pit as a platforming challenge, but Sonic Advance 2 would throw random ones at you while you’re traveling across levels at insane speeds, where it would be practically impossible to miss them at times. The boss fights, which had you constantly running forward, trying to catch up to the boss and avoiding its traps, were supremely annoying. Oh, and to go to special levels, you had to find 6 coins in a stage – in a game that loved to send you flying at top speeds, mind you. Frustration is a light word for my feelings on Sonic Advance 2, despite the great music and fantastic art design.

Sonic Advance 3 toned the speed down a bit in favor of a Knuckles’ Chaotix-esque partnering mechanic…despite it being nowhere as good as that game’s. And there were still bottomless pits ahoy, and special levels that required far too much exploration. Sonic 3 got it right – the special stage rings were out of the way at times, but they weren’t wild goose chases, they were rewards for you finding them, for making tough jumps and taking challenging routes. They weren’t just random elements in a level for you to find, to force you to go against the game’s wishes of traveling at light speed and to take the routes it wants you to take, not the route you want to take. Sonic Rush forgot everything Sonic Advance 3 did right and made the game go extremely fast again, adding a turbo button of sorts – and the dual-screen use seemed force. Bottomless pits were still there, too! I sold this game, folks. I SOLD A 2D SONIC GAME. The 3D ones, sure, most of ‘em are shit. But a 2D one? GASP. I made the mistake of playing Sonic Rush Adventure – despite the platforming being slightly better in this one, all the non-platforming elements were sins against the Sonic series. What does boat warfare have to do with Sonic? WHAT?! WHY?!

So you will have to forgive me if I don’t quite want another Dimps Sonic game. They’ve pulled out too much bullshit and have shown far too little actual knowledge of what makes a Sonic game great for me to anticipate another Dimps Sonic game.

As well, the episodic download-only nature of Sonic 4 is kind of disheartening – I wanted a big spectacle, a disc release, something permanent to hold on to, and to say “This is Sonic the Hedgehog 4.” I wanted to go to GameStop and eagerly buy this game when it came out, the same way I was so excited on February 2nd, 1994 when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 came out, and I couldn’t wait until after school to finally play this game I had been so anticipating. I felt that same way in 2002 when Sonic Advance came out on the Game Boy Advance. I want to feel THAT again. Waiting until 3AM to download the first episode once it goes live on XBLA just won’t be the same.

Act 3: But What About The Final Product?

Of course, this is all speculation and at times fanboy rage. Sega seems to be showing some big boy cajones in making this a number release, maybe they see something here that us outside observers don’t. Maybe they’re numbering it because they need to tell us Sonic Skeptics that THIS is the real deal, THIS IS the game you’ve been waiting for since you were a little kid playing your Sega Genesis. Don’t let our failures this millennium, and the wayward directions that Dimps has taken with the GBA and DS Sonic games sway you – you should be excited for Sonic 4. Maybe that’s what Sega wants us to believe.

The Sonic series has fooled me before, though. Sega’s playing their last card with me, by making this Sonic the Hedgehog FOUR. They’re going all in on this one, and if their hand isn’t good enough, I will be done for good with this series. There will be no more Sonic in my life, because I have been letdown by it too many times to keep thinking it will improve. So, Sega and Dimps, re-earn my trust. Give me the payoff my eternal faith in the series deserves, or I will not be there the next time.

Besides, I’m sick of that fucking plumber having it so well off. SEGA GENESIS 4 LYFE!

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

RespawnAction: " Remember back in 2007, where on that tuesday, September 25th, you anxiously sat in your chair at work or school? You looked at the clock every few minutes as time slowly ticked away? You knew that once you got out of the current hellhole you were in, you were going to do one of two things. Either go wait at your local Gamestop for eight hours until midnight, or go home and play Halo 2 on Live in anticipation for what was to come. This was the night Halo 3 was released, and millions of people were in the hype to, at the time, end the Halo series."

It’s finally here! The Box Art for Final Fantasy XIII, which releases March 9, 2010, features the character known as ‘Lightening’. It was released today by Square Enix, and we’re all a flutter with excitement and anticipation. Enjoy!

Christoper Ford of Nerdles writes: "Let’s face it; playing Video Games is an expensive hobby, so it is important that we spend our money wisely. By way of the internet and gaming magazines, most of the time we know what games are going to be released up to a year in advance. These games range from brand new ideas, to the annual installment of your favourite game.

Inevitably, this leads to much anticipation. A lot gets written about how good the game is looking in the development stage, but when it comes to the release date, far too often there is a feeling of anti-climax. This list contains a selection of games that left me with that very feeling. They are by no means the worst games ever made (some are actually rather good), but they are games I was expecting far more from when I played them. To put it simply, these games are over-rated."

FinalFantasyUnion.com writes, "On this past Friday the 13th, Square Enix announced Final Fantasy XIII’s North American and European release date in a promotional video featuring an unnamed host. Of everything the unnamed host said, one line was particularly interesting to hear, especially on the heels of Modern Warfare 2 having the largest launch sales of any video game ever, "…Final Fantasy XIII, quite possibly the most anticipated gaming experience of all time."

Yoichi Wada, CEO and President of Square Enix headlined the first day of the Montreal International Game Summit, and GamingUnion.net caught up with Wada-san for a brief interview to ask if the supposed highest anticipation for a game will reflect in the game’s sales. A recording of the interview is at the bottom of this article."

DualShockers writes:

"This question goes to the people who ran to their nearest game store of choice to pre-order Modern Warfare 2 as if their lives depended on it. And maybe even those who picked it up from "mom and pop" stores a little earlier as well. It has felt like an eternity waiting for this game since the original trailer debuted back at E3. Activision has spent millions upon millions of dollars to make sure that you, your family, your dog, your teacher, and your gay uncle Lucy know that it’s coming out. And every little teaser/trailer released since then with little to no details about the game have had most of us shaking in anticipation. Now, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade or anything but now that the game is finally here, is anyone still as excited? Or are you starting to get the feeling that (besides the new perks and care packages) it’s really just the same old Call of Duty…"

With the anticipation of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 release next Tuesday, I have been playing World at War to hold me over till release. World at War is a pretty good and best COD yet, but with the upcoming release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 IDK if its worth playing anymore (hehe).

In response to this recent surge in new PlayStation 3 owners, and in anticipation of what will no doubt be a steady rate of growth for the platform (particularly if it maintains an average of 100,000 units sold each week throughout the Holiday season) GamePro takes a look at the games that Sony is publishing itself to boost the overall PlayStation brand further. In this hands-on report with nine different first-party titles, they talk to producer Petro Piaseckyj about Quantic Dream’s ambitious Heavy Rain, and they look at the novel EyePet virtual toy, which features one of the most inventive uses for the EyeToy. They also take a look at some PS3 favorites that are making their way to the PSP very soon.

It’s the end of October 2009 and above all else for RPG fans Final Fantasy XIII looms on the horizon with the anticipation for that title eclipsing even some of the AAA titles of this holiday period making the wait agonizing for many.

Have no fear, though! RPGSite have rounded up our list of the very best PS3 RPGs that are on the market right now so you can go and pick one up to help tide you over. If nothing else, this is hard proof that the myth about the PS3 having no RPGs is just that – a myth.