SmackDown! 2 Knows My Roll

I've said before that there are only two wrestling games worth playing: WWF No Mercy for the N64 and WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role for the PS1. While the former is technically a better game, the latter has always been my favorite. It was made by Yuke's, whom make most all the wresting games since 2000, as well as UFC games, Berserk games, and the strange Evil Zone. SmackDown! 2 is fast paced, has a lot of wacky shit, and also happens to come from the era in which I watched the stuff. My opinion is no doubt clouded by nostalgia, but I contest that it is a fun game, with lots of entertaining things to do. At the very least, it is the only game I can think of that let me create a horrific effigy of Mega Man.

Countdown Vampires: Creatively Bankrupt Survival Horror

With Halloween not far off, I feel like I should write about some survival horror games. Thankfully, the late nineties have left behind a massive amount of poverty horror games meant to cash in on the success of Resident Evil. Probably the most egregious level of copying can be found in 1999's Countdown Vampires, the first game developed by K2 LLC. There is a certain sense of comedy about the fact K2 was acquired by Capcom in 2008. Of course, being unoriginal is only one of a multitude of problems, which I will attempt to document henceforth.

A Brief Look At Gundam Games

Video games based on Gundam have a terrible reputation, and it while it is not entirely undeserved, there are a great deal that goes completely overlooked. There are a lot of games that are awful, a lot that might be good for fans of certain genres, and some that are incredibly satisfying for fans of the series. As a fan of the franchise, I can understand how readers may not consider me a reliable source, but there are good Gundam games, and it bothers me that people seem to completely dismiss any game with the Gundam on it. This is by no means a complete guide, but I think it covers a good deal of important titles.

(C-12) Final Resistance

For a system that has so few good third-person shooters, I was surprised that I had never heard of (C-12) Final Resistance, which is an unusually decent for a game on the first Playstation.. As it turns out, I probably hadn't heard of it because, in the United States, it didn't come out until 2002, nearly two years after the PS2 was out. It was made by SCE Studio Cambridge, the same developers responsible for the MediEvil series and the version of LittleBigPlanet for PSP. It was originally released in the EU in 2001, which seems more reasonable than when it came across the ocean more than a year later. I don't know why it took so long. Certainly, a game from a Sony studio released by Sony themselves could have been released sooner.

Armorines: More Armor and More Marines

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Earth is under attack from an alien force of monstrous bugs or something, and the only chance for humanity to survive is to fight back with some big scary marines. That may be the plot to a million shooters, but in this case it happens to be the plot of Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. I don't actually know what S.W.A.R.M. is supposed to stand for, but considering I only had the stomach to play to the second level, so I can't say with certainty that Acclaim Studios London didn't bother to come up with one. Acclaim Studios London is probably better known by their other names, Probe Entertainment which was the name the company went by when they ported the Mortal Kombat games to the Genesis and when they made Die Hard Trilogy.

Independence Day: Hardly Deserving Of Fireworks

Independence Day for Playstation was one of those games somebody left at my house. It has been here for years now, and since I hadn't played it, I didn't know why my friend left it. After having seen the game played, I feel like he owes me for keeping this crap in my collection instead of his. Notice how I said I've “seen the game played,” that's because, for the first time I am writing an article about a game that I have not played. It may seem rude to slander a game that I haven't even played, but having seen a friend foolishly put the game into my Playstation and play it for at least two hours makes me think I've been tortured enough. I can laugh about it now, but my friend who played it still seems angry.

Gundam 0079: The War for Earth

It's a sad thing to be both a fan of video games and Gundam. There just aren't many good Gundam video games. There are lot of mediocre ones, a few good ones, and some that are so awful that they make the very notion of a good game seem laughable. Can you guess which I'll group the one I'll be writing about today comes from? Gundam 0079: The War for Earth is easily one of the worst Gundam games out there, and probably one of the worst games period. If I had to choose one word to describe this game, it would be abomination. If I had two, I'd say hilarious abomination.

Road Rash: '90s As Fuck

If you asked someone what game makes them most nostalgic for the nineties, they'd probably tell you some great game that came out in the nineties, like Streets of Rage 2 or Chrono Trigger. While these are both amazing games that were released in the nineties, they are not games that contain the essence of the nineties. The one game that does this better than any other is Road Rash for the Playstation. Playing this game is roughly equivalent to taking a shot of apathy and shooting up a hit of grunge. The only game that is anywhere near this nineties is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Mega Man X4: What Am I Writing FOOOOOOOOOOOORRR!?

I love Mega Man X4. There, the review-oriented readers don't have to read the rest of this post because you now know whether I give the game a plus or a minus. For those of you still with us, thank you for being the type of person that I write for. Anyway, I don't think I have to into detail on the basics of the game, everybody should know that X4 is Capcom's first Playstation game in the Mega Man X series. A lot of people didn't care for X4, but I have my reasons for loving it, and I will explain them.

Tenchu: Stealth Tanks With Swords

This is a sad post for me to write because it is about a game that I enjoyed a whole lot when I was younger but has not stood the test of time. I rented Tenchu: Stealth Assassins numerous times, but I didn't get around to actually owning a copy until years later when it had passed the initial Greatest Hits phase and became a bargain bin game. I fell in love with the game because, along with Metal Gear Solid, it was a game that challenged the idea of how you play an action game. Use stealth and tricks to defeat enemies, it was revolution. I didn't have to play as some “fake” ninjas like Shinobi who just run headlong into battle, I could sneak around and kill people like a “real” ninja.

Battle Hunter: Battling and Hunting

Battle Hunter for original Playstation is a peculiar game for a lot of reasons. The title is sort of a misnomer because you do not play a character that is hunting battles, but is actually hunting for items, and you just sort of get into battles along the way. Wikipedia defines the game as a tactical role-playing game, but that is a massive overstatement of the content of the game. It is essentially a board game with video games' ever present “role-playing elements,” which is to say, stats and items. It qualifies as poverty, because I clearly recall seeing stacks of this game in bargain bins at Big Lots years ago.