Gaming Otakus Opinion

[Ellerby]

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Here it is. Just thought of this today. In this thread, we'll write reviews of all the new and old games we've played and share them with each other. I'm hoping we can have at least one post a day which would be great for the average daily visitor of OB. Even if it's a quickie review, a couple paragraphs is fine.

The review you write can be for any game and you can use any type of format you want (graphics, sound, story, gameplay, etc) but let's keep all final scores /10. To start here's my review of [B]Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock[/B].[/COLOR][/FONT]



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Guitar Hero rocked the world with an addictive new way to play rhythm games, Guitar Hero II improved Guitar Hero in every way thought possible, and now Guitar Hero III is attempting to do the same. Does it come out better then all the others, or does it fall short?

[b]Graphics/Visuals[/b]: I've got to say the graphics didn't exactly blow me away on the Wii. I would have expected them to try a bit harder then just PS2 graphics but they didn't and that disappoints me. I'm sure the 360 and PS3 versions look great though.

As far as visuals go, I really dig the art style of Guitar Hero. All of the artwork is really cool and all the venues look great (aside from a certain advertisement-covered truck stage). Even so, none of the new visuals and venues were that much of an improvement on Guitar Hero II, I think a lot more variety to choose from is needed here.[right]7.5/10[/right]

[b]Audio/Music[/b]: The amount of different songs in Guitar Hero III is awesome. There's a lot of different choices as far as genres go and there's certainly something to please everyones taste. There's not much to be said about it, it's just got a really good soundtrack.[right]9/10[/right]

[b]Gameplay:[/b] This really is where Guitar Hero III (and the other Guitar Hero games for that matter) really shine. They've introduced a lot of cool new things to the game like Guitar Battles, Online, and a much bigger store that just make the replay value of the game really refreshing and long lasting.[right]9/10[/right]

In the end, I would highly recommend Guitar Hero III to any rhythm-type person or just anyone who likes the other games in the franchise. I give it...
[right][size=5][b]8.6/10[/b][/size][/right]
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I'd really like to see a review of Rock Band for those of you that have played it.:animesmil[/COLOR][/FONT]

[quote=Top Game Scores]
Mass Effect - [I]Reviewed by silpheedpilot[/I] - [B]9/10[/B]
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - [I]Reviewed by 8bit[/I] - [B]8.6/10[/B]
Halo 3 -[I] Reviewed by Deus ex Machina[/I] -[B] 8/10[/B][/quote]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]I was really tempted to do what I did in that thar music review thread and link to my old GameFAQs profile with 25 game reviews, but since my writing was less-than-good back then, I don't think it'd be very good (and besides those games would all be old by now hehe) however, I have gotten so out of gaming... the last review I did was for that Wii Pokemon game XD. the only game I have been playing lately is the one you already covered XDDDD Hmmmm...


[B]Halo 3: Obligatory Review
[/B]
So, I was a huge fan of the halo franchise in 2005. Halo 2 remains one of my favorite games of all time for it's stellar multiplayer experience, and Halo remains a favorite for it's great single player campaign. Needless to say, my expectations wer at least a bit high for Halo 3.

However, unlike many, such as my brother who enthusiastically ranks it in his utmost highest places, I was pretty disappointed by halo 3. The multiplayer, to me, felt weighe down by all the things they tried to add. All of the extra modes and bonus features were boring to me, being the type of player who's fine with just his trusty shotgun if he gets to go kill his pals.

this doesn't mean that anything has been done wrong - after all you can't really hate a game for what they added if you can perfectly ignore it. However, the bottom line is that Halo 2 was much more my style on multiplayer. For me, it was the perfect experience already, and the minor cahnges made it loose it's perfection.

As for single player, well, Halo 2 didn't have the best single player ever, but halo 3 just bored the hell out of me on single player. No really, truly memorable parts, except the maybe very end.

[B]8/10[/B][/COLOR]

[silpheedpilot]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="SlateGray"]Mass Effect

A simple description would be Oblivion meets Gears of War with a dash of Ghost Recon and thrown in space.

The story is that you play a one John Shepard and are out to save the galaxy from all sorts of nefarious wrong-doers. There is a little treachery, a bit of emotion, lots of killing, and some romance all thrown in to make the story not only epic but one of a kind.

At a gameplay standpoint it bears a resemblance to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in that you make decisions along the way in your chats with other characters, whether you're nice to someone or a complete penis the choice is up to you.
When you enter combat, however, it becomes a shooter not unlike Ghost Recon and even Gears of War. You can crouch, aim down your sights, and give orders to your fellow teammates with the D-Pad. Holding RB brings up your Powers and holding LB lets you select any of the weapons you have.
Unfortunately the combat is probably the weakest aspect of the game next to the driving segments which are kinda sloshy. Its a shame. With a bit more AI tweaking, this could've been a great shooter but instead it's workable within the confines of the game structure which is the fact that it's not the central focus like the combat in Knights of the Old Republic was.

The graphics are really amazing, aside from the occasional pop-in. Every glisten of glass, shimmer of light, the texture of the armor. Everything is modeled with great care. The facial animations are also some of the best seen, along with Uncharted and Heavenly Sword. Mass Effect is truly one of the better looking games to come around.

All in all a great story, workable combat, likable characters, and tons of other innovations make this game worth having.

9/10[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Magus]

[COLOR="Navy"]I normally just read reviews since I don't have much of a knack for giving any reviews outside of saying something is good or bad lol, but I'll try it for once.

[i][u]Final Fantasy VIII[/i][/u]

[b]Graphics/Animation[/b] - The CG animations in this game is amazing. It even beats out some games that're on the ps2 and GameCube. Even though it's a game that was made back in the PSX and N64 days, I still wish the in-game graphics were as good as the CG cutscenes, but still I don't really have anything bad to say about the graphics.

[b]Sound/Music[/b] - Truthfully, I don't have much to say about the music. 3-4 songs stands out, but the rest of it isn't me. I'm not saying they're bad, it's just that I can live without the lol. As far as the sound effects goes... Err... They're good I guess. A bunch of monsters making noises... "shrugs" It's not really anything I pay attention to unless somebody (like my siblings) points it out to me.

[b]Gameplay[/b] - The good ol ATB battle system. I use to hate this style of gameplay because I only liked hacking and slashing up my enemies. (Still do till this very day) But I've gotten a bit more used to this style till it just stuck with me. I kind of prefer this method for my RPG's, and seeing how I haven't really played (given a fair chance) many of the other RPG's out there, I've only adapted to this one. However, I still do kind of hate the ATB because it can become a little boring/repetitive just waiting for the gauge to fill up and keep using the Attack/Draw/GF/Magic/Item commands over and over.

[b]Story[/b] - Tch... Who am I kidding? I don't know what the story is about. I have a short attention span, and I tend to just fly through the words across the screen lol. One thing I do hate about it, though, is the forced romance, especially when I've been choosing options that results in Squall talking negatively towards Rinoa. (Forgot what that word is called, but you get what I'm saying)

Overall it's a good game though, and a good way to kill a bunch of time.

8/10 (I really prefer using the scale of 5 but hey... :) )

I really suck at this lol.[/COLOR]

[John]

I've just got one quick thing to say about GHIII: I thought they were going the wrong direction with Judy Nails in GH2, but man, this game really completed the process of turning her into just another abrasive slut. They pretty much ruined most of the characters this time around, but I think this is the biggest tragedy.