The result of this team up allows you to switch between four different play-styles (to change things up between stages), and you can also choose the order in which you play the levels within a given act. But this latter freedom really only serves to make the already weak story feel more disjointed. Each level feels completely separated from the others, and it's only during the final act that there's any sort of communication between each of the Spider-universes. With a plot penned by comic veteran Dan Slott, it's a shame that the generic story is one of the game's largest shortcomings.

Kingdom Hearts has gone nearly five years now without a console iteration. The portable titles, like Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days have attempted to change or imitate the main series, though both felt more like little siblings than true successors. But in Birth by Sleep, Kingdom Hearts finally finds a portable home that builds on the series' existing framework, and even surpasses the console games with a few clever ideas.

This prequel revolves around the Keyblade Masters (Jedi Knights for the Kingdom Hearts universe). They're tasked with guarding the balance of light and darkness that keeps the worlds in check, but infighting among the leadership throws three up-and-coming apprentices -- Ventus, Aqua, and Terra -- in wildly different directions. Graciously, the context of a prequel keeps this story easier to follow than some previous games; rather than keeping track of different characters who share the same name (like Ansem and Ansem the Wise) or single characters who occupy two metaphysical identities (like Sora and Roxas), we get a new batch of characters who are mostly free of complications -- though Ventus' uncanny resemblance to Roxas is sure to raise eyebrows.

15 Vote(s) ]]> http://www.gamesitefun.com/Video-Game-Reviews/kasaka-says-world-of-warcraft-is-the-perfect-mmorpg-about-world-of-warcraft-for-pc/ http://www.gamesitefun.com/Video-Game-Reviews/kasaka-says-world-of-warcraft-is-the-perfect-mmorpg-about-world-of-warcraft-for-pc/ Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:03:26 PDT admin Video Game Reviews http://www.gamesitefun.com/Video-Game-Reviews/kasaka-says-world-of-warcraft-is-the-perfect-mmorpg-about-world-of-warcraft-for-pc/
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12 Vote(s) ]]> http://www.gamesitefun.com/Video-Game-Reviews/batman-the-brave-and-the-bold-wii-review/ http://www.gamesitefun.com/Video-Game-Reviews/batman-the-brave-and-the-bold-wii-review/ Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:00:39 PDT admin Video Game Reviews http://www.gamesitefun.com/Video-Game-Reviews/batman-the-brave-and-the-bold-wii-review/



























































Something that people often forget is that Batman isn't all just grim and serious, with moods that range from "angry in a satirical world" (like Dark Knight Returns) to "angry in a realistic world like" (like in a Christopher Nolan movie). He's been around for about 70 years, and it was only the 1980s that popularized his "current" mood -- before then, Batman was downright goofy. And it's this bygone, "Batman wouldn't look unusual wearing rainbow-colored armor while fighting a guy dressed up as a psychedelic quilt" era that's reflected quite well in Batman: The Brave And The Bold.

Like the cartoon it's based on, The Brave And The Bold is a series of breezy, retro-goofy Batman episodes -- each one begins with Batman and his buddy-for-that-episode taking on a supervillain in a quick boss battle, followed by a series of traditional 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up levels. The situations, dialogue, and animations are pretty much lifted straight from the show -- so expect such lovable nonsense as Catman turning everyone in Gotham into cats, or Batman and Hawkman fighting Clock King inside Big Ben. These production values help give the game a great aesthetic, to the point where it legitimately feels like playing an episode of the cartoon. In fact, the character sprites and general 2D artwork are so gorgeous that the occasional 3D background or render stands out as looking sub-par by comparison.

It's not always the easiest thing to explain a present-day shoot-em-up, given that their appeal to fans lies more in their scoring systems than anything to do with a story or even graphics. You can look at one screenshot of DoDonPachi and know what to expect: half a screen or more of bullets rushing toward you, and mere pixels of space to dodge them all. And on top of that, lots of glistening gold score tokens to collect before they disappear; it's an insane challenge, but with butter-smooth touch control and your own incredible waves of bullets or super lasers to fire, a game like DoDonPachi becomes weirdly fun, almost casual at times.