Hampton’s Video Game Review

A few 360 Quickies:

Final Fantasy XIII: The graphics are the best I’ve ever seen. The combat system is innovative, yet straight forward and easy to pick up. That’s where the praises some to an end for the most part. To say the cast is underwhelming is an insult to run of the mill, stereotypical casts everywhere. The character designs are simply meshed together from various previous characters. The main characters are Lightning who is basically Yuna and Tidus (FFX) merged together and Snow who is Irvine (FFVIII) and Wakka (X). Hope is Rikku from Kingdom Hearts but with short hair, and Vanille is a Aeris (FFVII) in Rikku’s (X) clothes, only with a red filter. While Fang merely looks like Rinoa (VIII) aged 10 years without changing her clothes. When you get to the characters, Lightning is a prick and constantly runs off, Hope is a whiny little kid, and Snow is the even dumber and more stubborn than Tidus. After 7 hours of gameplay, not only did I not know the slightest thing about what was going on, but I still couldn’t change characters, even though I often had 5 in my party. I still hadn’t been able to explore an environment, (nothing be beaten paths in dungeons to explore), and you aren’t allowed talk to other characters. Also Summons just kept ripping themselves from the characters body, and the process in fighting them is tedious and unforgiving. The 2nd one is Odin, and by the time you scan him (as you have to) you are dead. Focus on the aspects of an RPG that people who play RPGs don’t really care about (which is why we want revamped versions of old RPGS, not these new crap fests) and destroy all the immersible elements and you have Final Fantasy XIII.

3 out of 10

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Lost Odyssey: Is one of the least accurately advertised games on the 360. The opening battle is amazing, and the remix of White Rabbit in the title screen is great. Only by 2 hours into the game, the music becomes recycled versions of previous Nobuo songs, and the character dialogue is pathetic. The characters have already deteriorated into caricatures of themselves. The main villain who isn’t even to the same graphical standard as the rest of the characters is obvious from the beginning. The game forces you to do EVERYTHING. Every tedious task and even battles that don’t relate to your actual PCs. I limped through the first disc merely eying the 125 achievement points I would get for lasting that long, and by the end of the first disc, I reunited with my seemingly dead daughter only for her to die in the same conversation…. Then I had to gather sticks and flowers for her funeral…. Then I added my ~10 year old granddaughter as a pc, and went to look for my 8 year old grandson who became a member of my party after a boss battle that was stolen from Final Fantasy VII. Original on all scales after promising the most innovative RPG ever.

2.5 out of 10

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Dead Rising is the story of Frank West, an investigatory journalist with a tip that something serious is going down in the tiny town of Willamette.  He enters the town via helicopter to find the military has the town entirely quarantined.   The military intervenes as he is taking pictures from the sky and his chopper pilot drops him off on the roof of the Willamette mall promising to come back in exactly 72 hours.  So Frank has 72 to figure out just what is going on, while somehow fighting off Zombies, Psycohopaths, and the military in order to expose the story to the public’s eye.    Dead Rising has a great score featuring Hostile Groove and Drea, an intriguing story, interesting characters and several endings.   However on the flip side the controls are subpar for the most part and targeting issues plague several boss battles.  When Ottis contacts you via your two way, you have to have a tv the likes of which didn’t exist when the game was released to have the words be large and legible enough for you to read it.  When fighting battles time passes far more quickly than when you are merely standing idle, and trying to transport survivors is difficult enough even when people don’t just happen to not come through a door and get left behind.  What could have been a marvelous game was felled by launch issues, even though the game came out around a year after the 360′s launch.  While it is a must for any Zombie fan (don’t even attempt to play the Wii version though), I must recommend either renting or buying used for under $10.

6.5 out of 10

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Dynasty Warriors 6 is the latest in Koei’s line of button mashing Feudal Japan mayhem.  It however isn’t quite the best.  The new battle system is a step forward in spicing up the game, however the rest of the game isn’t quite up to the standard set by the latest entry on the regular X-Box.  DW 5 featured a “Dynasty” mode for every playable character giving you full incentive to max out every character, and fully taking advantage of the 40+ playable characters.  DW 6 however is missing around 10 or so characters and only features 15 different Dynasties, many of which contrast with each other instead of building one much larger story line.  While it is kinda mandatory for characters like Sun Ce and Lu Bu to have imaginative story-lines the likes of Zhou Yu have a bit more room for accuracy.  The game-play is a bit of an improvement and the music is still solid as always.  The graphics are the best yet.  While it wasn’t everything a fan may want, it is promising for the next chapter.

7.5 out of 10

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X Box 360′s must play games: (Detailed reviews coming soon.)

1.  Left 4 Dead  Franchise

2.  Bioshock Franchise

3.  Fable 2

4.  Borderlands

5. Resident Evil 5

6. Batman Arkham Asylum

7.  Call of Duty Modern Warfare Franchise

8.  Halo Franchise

9.  Crackdown

10.  Earth Defense Force 2017