Genre Action Adventure for NDS
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Transformers by Penman
vs 
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The long awaited
Transformers: The Moviehad come to the big screen on
4th July 2007, and the premiums are arlready out for grab, i.e. action figures, games, etc...
For the DS, there are 2 versions, or rather 2 factions (of the games) to choose from:
1) The
Autobots; or
2) The
Decepticons;
My ThoughtsThe overall feel or mood of the games are like playing
GTA, in terms of control and navigation, of course the difference is - you are a TRANSFORMER!
I find the
Autobots version is more challenging to play, comparing to the
Decepticons. 'Cos being an
Autobot, you have lots of considerations bounded, like during combat, you have to watch out for public properties and so. In another word,
TO PROTECTHowever, if you are on the opposite faction, i.e. The
Decepticons, you can do almost anything you like, i.e. destroying private or public properties. In another word,
TO DESTROY.Either side you are on, by destroying civilians' properties, means violating laws, and you'll draw attentions from the local authorities -
HUMAN POLICE!.
As for the
Graphics, it is truely a great disappointment. Well, some many argue DS has a limited graphic engine, however, I believed it can be better, at least doesn't look like an old 3D FPS flat BMP BG.
FACTSBy playing either versions of the games, will gives you certain spoilers to the movie. Please take note!
Where to getYou can either:
"Autobots! Transform and PROTECT the humans now!"
or
"Deceptions! Transform and DESTROY the AUTOBOTS"by getting your copy/copies from your local stores or from
Play-Asia.com.
1) The
Autobots; or
2) The
Decepticons;
Release Date: 20/06/2006;
Genre: action;
Version: US;
RANK: 3/5
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Lunar Knights by Reveur
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How cool is it if you were a dark blade wielding with a huge ego, cool pirate eye patch and a shiny jacket going around with an attitude? Then there is this young kid that is a total opposite of the blade wielding attitude filled dark power user. The son of a world savior, down to earth, gun wielding rocket totting kid which thinks that everyone is innocent and want world peace.
Previously known as the Boktai series which uses the sun ( literally ) to play the game, Lunar Knights has decided to cut off all relationship with Boktai and start it over with a clean slate. Lunar Knights is essentially Boktai 4, the first 2 series of Boktai were release in the US and are known as Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand and Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django. Lunar knights is known as Bokura no Taiyou: Django and Sabata. Anyway, enough with the history lesson.
Graphic Wise
How does lunar Knights look? B-E-A-UTIFUL! Colorfully drawn in anime style, the game pulls you in the moment its turn on with a short anime movie and some cut scenes. Then it throws you uncremenouslyie.. uncremenouily... unceremoniously! Yeah thats it, unceremoniously! The game throws you unceremoniously onto a dungeon and feeds you information bit by bit on how to play the game. Set somewhere in the future where wizardly and technology co-exist. The world is under the ruling of Vampire for a really long time. To make the world more inhabitable for them, the vampires deployed a satellite device known as the paraSOL which blocks out the sunlight, making the world permanently enshrouded in darkness. Human were largely known and regarded as livestock to feed the vampire.Out comes two heroes determined to free the world from the clutches of the vampire. Lucian, blade wielding attitude filled vampire and Aaron, solar gun wielding innocent kid.
Dungeon Crawling
The core gaming style of Lunar Knights are dungeon crawler with a bunch of puzzle thrown in and relentless assault of various monster. There is an overworld where you can buy items, upgrade weapon, find information and rest. Saving in game is pretty easy as the game can be saved anywhere anytime, the only thing that is notable is the fact that the save only works after you walk into a new room. If you were to fight halfway in a room, save and proceed to die, the save will start in the room but all items that you gain before you die in the room will not be there. Terrenials, your best companion in game, also your most annoying companion. You can't live without them, yet you can live without them. Confusing ain't it? Terrenials are sort of like the guardian of the world which will help you to regain the world from the clutches of vampires. There are 6 terrenial guardians, each of them represent different element, Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Darkness and Sun. By equipping them, your attack will be imbued with their power. Certain monster are more vulnerable against certain terrenial. Each strike cost energy to be used, run out of energy and you are pretty screwed. This is pretty true for Aaron as every shot from him cost energy. Run out of enery and Aaron is as good as dead. There is also a trance meter that is used to measure the "adrenaline" of Lucian and Aaron. When the trance meter is filled, Lucian and Aaron can merge with their terrenial and proceed to use their special attack. Each terrenial has different kind of special attacks.
Boss Fight!
The really interesting element in Lunar Knights is in the end of the boss fight. Every time you beat the boss, you will then need to drag their coffin into a really cool flying robot/ship into the space to purify their body. The journey is not easy, and this is where it gets really interesting. The player will be thrown into an action space shooter scenario where they need to drag their ship around the screen via the stylus and shoot down all incoming enemy by pointing the stylus onto the incoming space ship. The action hereafter can get very very exciting as the player needs to guard the ship from being shot while quickly shooting down the incoming ships.
Time Moves one
In Lunar Knights there are day and night cycle which is very important in game. As one of the most effective way for Aaron and Lucian to regain their energy is to charge up via the moon or the sun.And it is easier said then done to charge up the energy as most of the time, the character will be indoor. Only occasionally there will be windows for the sun or the moon to shine in and the character can then charge up their energy. Aaron and Lucian also have to level up their weapon by upgrading it via Junk item which can be bought from shops or found from monster drops. Player also have to look out for the right stats for Aaron and Lucian. As every time they level up, they will be given stats to be added.
CONCLUSION
All in all, Lunar Knights is beautifully crafted with interesting storyline and amazing gameplay. There are a lot of features that are not mentioned here and no amount of words can do justice to it. Get this game if you like hack and slash.
Genre: Action Adventure, Hack And Slash, RPG
RANK: 4 / 5
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Spectrobes by Reveur
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This review will be far from perfect. In fact after you guys finish reading this review I believe you will want to lynch me and then feed me to the piranha. No, its not the fact that I am going to beat this game down and give it a really really bad review. Its more of a fact that I have reach an indecision after playing this game. Let me start from the beginning
Spectrobes is a game which has it in their mind to dethrone the pioneer of catch em all cute looking monster called Pokemon, and with the imminent release of Pokemon Pearl and Diamond in a month time, Spectrobes is taking a huge gamble releasing the game now. For those that are ill informed. Spectrobes are about collecting fossil from obscure planet, reviving the fossil to life and then using them to battle outer space alien. Cool concept, but how does the game work?
Cool CG = Cool Game? NOT
Spectrobes starts off with a cool CG movie where the main character called Rallen rides up the lift while his equipment is morphed onto his body ( Think Kamen Rider). From the get go, you will realize that Rallen is a trouble brewing guy, hence the game throws in his conscious in the form of a girl called Jeena. She will be informing and teaching Rallen ( that's you, incase you haven't notice) what to do. Then there is Commander Grant, the old man that is wiser then the owl and tougher then diamond which keeps Rallen and Jeena in line.The in game animation for dialogue is pretty cool. The character changes expression according to their dialogue to express themselves. The dialogue is quirky and not corny enough to make you squirm.
Not Half bad!
The graphic are pretty cool actually, it seems a bit weird when you first look at it, but it sorts of grows on you. You cant really see into the details of your character face while moving around but the detail of the surrounding is not half bad, this is especially true when you first start off in the game, the rain effect is nice and makes the whole scenario slightly misty. The battle graphic and the whole battle concept though is something left to be desired. When engaged in battle, the player and the monster will be thrown into a circular room and fight. The controls for the battle is less then perfect, in each battle you will be accompanied by two Spectrobes, one on your right and another on your left. To control them, you need to utilize the R and L shoulder button. When a bar on the bottom left fills up, either one of your Spectrobes can attack. Rallen can attack anytime, he can also charge up the power to use a combine attack from your Spectrobes which hits all monster in the area. To avoid attacks from the opposing monster, Rallen can run around the circular room with the Spectrobes each on your left and right. There is no way to control the Spectrobes individually ( For now that is, this might change further on in game)
RPG with a twist!
Spectrobes is built as an RPG game, hence the dialog, the quest and the tips to move around finding items. But the battle system at its core is action based, furthermore there is also the quirky excavation minigame. The excavation allows Rallen to find new fossil to be changed into Spectrobes, mineral deposit used to grow the Spectrobes and cubes which contains information regarding the planet. The only way to find all this treasure is via usage of child Spectrobes. Tap the child Spectrobes and it will expand a search radius ala sonar style which reveals anything that is buried around the area that its standing. There is only one problem, there is no map to wide scan an area, and the map is pretty huge, so you might have to spend hours around an area and scan it bit by bit. This might get tedious in the future, but right when you just started the game, it feels adventurous.
Mom, Can I dig a hole here?
Excavating the fossil or anything else from the earth is not an easy task either. To excavate, first the child Spectrobes have to find the buried treasure, then you tap it once to reveal the earth. Depending on how deep its buried, you might have to tap the earth a few more time to break open the floor till the tip of the buried treasure can be seen. From here, it's a slightly slower process of excavating the treasure with 2 types of drill, a big drill which reveals an area easier and a smaller drill to nick and pick the harder to get area. And there is also a blower to blow away the dust and fragment of earth which covers the treasure. The whole process itself is quite engaging, if I am allowed to say so. There is a sense of realistic when you blow into the microphone to clear an area or when you gently drill away the earth covering the treasure and hears the drill hit the treasure. Oh, did I mention that, if you hit the treasure too many times accidentally with the drill, the treasure will be destroyed.
Space! Excavation and ACTION!
After the treasure is excavated, if it's a fossil you will then bring it onto your space ship to give the fossil life, so to speak. To "wake" the fossil up, the fossil will be incubated and you can call the fossil or talk to it till it wakes up, although blowing into the microphone will do the trick also. The "voice" level have to hit a certain level that is designated on the screen for an amount of time before the fossil can wakes up. Although there might be hidden trick on how to wake a Spectrobes, this though remains to be seen.Spectrobes and Rallen levels up individually, even though the Spectrobes might be high level, Rallen also need to up his level via fighting or anything else. Equipment can also be used to strengthen Rallen.
CONCLUSION
Spectrobes is an interesting and innovative idea towards the collect em all mania, the excavation idea, the touch screen incorporation and the sci-fi theme cannot be helped but compared itself head to head against the cute cuddly yellow electrifying monster. The graphic of Spectrobes is not exactly top notch but It does maintain its own standard. All in all, Spectrobes is a pretty decent game at the start, but will the excavation process be a tedious thing in the future remains to be seen.( Told you I will be indecisive)
Post-Gaming Session Update: Its been quite a few days since I last played this game and reviewed it for all. Call me a guy that is not persistent or maybe I just don't follow the collect em all hype. Spectrobes is now officially collecting dust at a far corner in my room. The game is cool, the graphic is so and so but its not as fun as it is for me.
Genre: Action Adventure, RPG, Catch Em All
RANK: 2 / 5
This post has been edited by reveur: Jul 5 2007, 07:49 PM 
Jul 4 2007, 12:52 PM, updated 19y ago
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