Reviews by Derron

Do you remember how amazing Eternal Sonata on the Xbox was? If you do then you'll be quite pleased to hear that the ps3 version has even more to love about it. If you don't well then what are you waiting for? But it on either system, it is well worth the money. The new version has added content including two popular characters made playable. How exciting is that?! And we all love ES for its beautiful graphics, so it's wonderful to know that there are now secondary costumes for some of your favorite characters. Polka looks very nice in blue.

Okay so here is where I am supposed to talk about the game's flaws. I do not like doing that, since I'm very loyal to this game. But hey, let's face it, all things have flaws. Even your favorite games. So here goes. It's rather short. I really wish there was more, but at the same time I am okay with the length. It doesn't take forever and a day to finish and they did not pack the story with lots of useless stuff just to get a couple more hours out of it. The camera angle can be a pain sometimes. I want to look around and take in the beautiful backgrounds but I can't do that very easily.

Now the good parts. Besides graphics and story I mean. The combat is unique and fun. It gets a bit too easy later on, but I'm okay with that. At a certain point I just want to know how it all ends. I hope more games start to use the fusion game play that ES has because that allows for just the right level of control for a strategist like me.

This game is great. I just finished the campaign on Insane (Ok I had some help from a friend) and it was challenging and fun. The action was intense. I enjoyed the different environments, and the new enemies. There were a few glitches throughout the campaign, but overall it was really fun. The only negative that I can say is that the matchmaking in multi-player takes forever. I spend almost as much time waiting for a match to get started as I do actually playing. Other games can get you in a game and playing way faster than this. Hopefully they will update the game with a patch that improves wait times. For now I'll just have to deal with it.

Yes I have seen the movie even though it isn't out yet.(I have my ways)

Audio was very good, nice solid punch to the TrueHD track. Vocals are clear and nice bass. Good use of surround. PQ very nice as well. Good vibrant colors with some amazing looking textures to the animation. Some slight color banding but that's what happens in animation especially with something this low budget. Plot was very good cleared up some things that weren't said in the games. But the whole thing felt a very long cut-scene on a game. But one thing that did annoy me and made the film look a little a bit lame was the lip syncing. It wasn't off or anything but rather the mouths did not form the words very well. It looked like random lip movement instead of forming words which kinda stood out when you had amazing animation and then horrible lip movements looking stiff and unnatural.

While laying on my back and being kicked, slashed, stomped and punched by multitude of rabid zombies, I empty magazine after magazine of my pistol ammo into the undead trying to ward off another horrible attack. My health bar slowly going down, I realize that I have reached the end of my game and that I will soon be dead. Just as I fired the last round from my trusty side arm and started to reload, what felt like the longest few seconds of the game, and I knew I might be lucky to take a few of these infected walking dead with me before I go. Just as I knew all hope was lost, the 10 or so moaning beasts around me found it hard to moan having just had their heads removed from a volley from several 12 Gauge shotguns. "Get up, I'm like half your size..." pipes out the young female character named Zoey as she gets me on my feat. She then proceeds to administer 1st aid on me with her remaining health pack telling me not to move this will only take a second. Moments ago I was on the floor, on my back no less, shooting and shouting waiting for the sweet release of death, and now I'm back to normal, because of friends.

Left 4 Dead takes you deep into the world of a Post Zombie Apocalypse like never before. So gone are the days of slow moving zombies who want too much on your brains with crackers and wine, and in comes the world of fast, angry, rabid zombies that will pounce on you, puke on you, choke you, and bash you into a world of pain. You are one of 4 survivors of said "end of days" and you have but 2 goals. Your 1st goal is to live, and your second goal is to make sure your team lives, because without them you are as good as dead. Say goodbye to running and gunning on your own, you will be torn to shreds by a lone hunter, or choked to death by a smoker. (I will explain that in further detail when I get to "the infected") Each of the survivors has a different personality, and as the game progresses you hear a taste of their identity with short come backs, pleas for help, and the occasional joke at the others expense. Honesty I personally hate when games try to be funny, cute or witty, and I usually loathe the dialogue the characters in game have in the heat of battle, but for once I actually enjoyed the dialogue in the game. I mean what can break the tension of a short elevator ride to an unknown but almost certain death than to hear some crazy Vietnam Vet whistle a little tune. The Characters are Zoey, Bill, Francis, and Louis...all simple common people forced to work as one to survive the new world full of the living dead.

Playing the Co-Op is probably the games strongest point, and the way they set it up is priceless. If you are joining a game that is not with a bunch of friends you get randomly thrown into a game with 3 other souls that you have never met before and have never gamed before. Since you don’t know each other and each others gaming style it’s a lot like being thrust into a zombie apocalypse with a bunch of people you don’t know, which I am sure that is what the game was going for. You have no choice but to cover each others back, if one person decides to go play loan gunman they will learn very fast when they meet their fate under the gnawing power of a pissed off hunter. The game has a feature which I have heard called "the overseer" and this feature judges your progress and throws hurdles in your way to see how you deal with them. For example, you and your fellow warriors have reached a part in the map and have done so with speed, and ease, nothing can stop you, you are the best of the best and those stupid zombies can bugger off. Then a boomer comes in, pukes on two of your guys, the puke draws the sent and hordes of zombies come rushing from every corner on the map...while you are trying to fend off this "inhuman" wave assault you are grabbed from behind and pulled into a dark room by a smoker, who uses his tongue to lasso you and choke you to death. While you are off being choked, and the other 2 who have just been vomited on are in a blind daze fighting off hundreds, your loan buddy comes to stop you from being choked to death by a smoker, and he is in turn pounced on by a Hunter who proceeds to slash his way deep into your skin and tear you apart. Within seconds a friendly game of "I got the most headshots" turns into "where is everyone". Never walk alone, or you will die.

The versus mode is the most fun I have had on a shooter since I killed a dual gatling gun carrying Hitler in Wolfenstien 3D. At the start in the lobby you choose your character, either one of the infected or one of the survivors. If you spawn as a survivor you play through the level like normal, only now you have to worry about the zombies a little more because they are no longer AI zombies. As the infected you can play the roles of the Hunter, the Smoker, the boomer, and the Tank. All these roles are selected at random. The Hunter is a fast, deadly zombie who has the ability to pounce on a survivor and from there he proceeds to rip your flesh off and slash you into tiny bits while he screams and barks at you. The Smoker has the ability to lash out his tongue and lasso you with it, he then drags you near him where he starts to choke you to death as other zombie hordes mass around you and rip at you. The boomer is a fat disgusting blob of a man, who waddles around throwing up on the survivors, the puke then sends out a message to all the hordes of zombies "dinner is served" and like a neon sign that says "free buffet" in come the zombie waves of destruction. The other thing about the boomer is...if he gets in close and you shot him, he spews out the vomit on you and anyone near you, enacting the same punishment. The tank is just what it sounds like; he is a huge beast that looks a lot like the Thing in a weird twisted, not really at all, kind of way. He will bash you, hurl giant rocks and chunks of a building at you and if the tank has his way he can kill your entire team very fast....team work is essential in taking down the tank.

Spawning in as the infected is quite interesting, you get to pick and choose where you spawn as long as it’s not to close to the survivors and they can’t see you spawn in. For example, they just cleared a floor out of an apartment building; you can spawn behind them and take them down 1 by 1 from behind. You can also spawn way ahead of them and work as a team and set up elaborate zombie ambushes, while playing online we set up quite a dozy. I was playing as the smoker, a friend of mine was playing the Boomer, and the others were hunters. The boomer was in a room that they just walked past...I was behind them and the 2 hunters were in rooms on either side of the hall from me. When they walked past the boomer he walked out and puked on 2 before he was shot, exploded and covered all 4 with the slime. I shot out my tongue and grabbed the man in the back, just at the 3 up front were attacked by a horde of zombies. The guy I grabbed yelled for his friends to come and save him so 2 came after him to save him and the other stayed behind to hold of the attack...then 2 hunters jumped the 2 saviors and the trap was complete. Eventually they were able to fight their way out of it, but at the cost of a lot of their ammo, 4 of their health packs...and plenty of time for us to set up another.

The one infected I mentioned before, but you cannot play is, is the witch. STAY AWAY FROM THE WITCH. The witch sounds like a crying woman and she will destroy you. She is usually sitting on the ground sobbing, leave her alone...don’t go near her and don’t shine a light on her. IF you piss off a witch some one on your team is going down at a minimum. She is fast, deadly, and will thrash you with her long razor hands.

This game is like no other I have ever played, and I strongly suggest this to anyone who has a desire to kill zombies, work as a team, and have fun. I have never had this much fun in a game and it really is a breath of fresh air for this gamer. Hope to see you all in the post apocalypse.

Fable 2's story sucked in my opinion. If i wanted to i could beat that game in a matter of hours maybe 5..? Besides that there was no fun really to it . I mean to make money you have to click a button in a green part of the bar for what at least an hour to make a decent ammout of money. Ohhhh thats soo fun! Then there was so sense of adventure just follow the stupid yellow line.? No creativeness to the monsters there was maybe 3 trolls in the whole game and bandits and hobbes...and a few balverines.. .? Then the dog yes you stupid thing i can see the damn chest in front of me..thanks. Also that ending was the biggest piece of junk i have ever seen in my entire lifetime. How do you make a single player game with no ending boss battle? HOW.? and then at the end you get to choose your ending...your kidding me right!...so all this time i have been trying to be good for nothing because what i choose in the end will make me all the way good bad or stay the same.

Pure isn't just expansive...it's beautiful, too. The lighting's exquisite throughout, especially when diffused or shredded by a canopy of trees, and the game's chock-full of impressive visual details such as swaying grass, functioning suspension systems, steaming exhaust pipes, and photo-realistic, fully deformable track surfaces. Cameras flash as you whiz by, birds fly, puddles and ponds splash, and the air often darkens with dust clouds and loose pebbles. But what distinguishes the game from its competition isn't just the pretty graphics -- it's the concept. In Pure, you need to be first to the finish line. And to do so, you'll need to apply a few turbo boosts as you ride. Yet the only way to accumulate said turbo is by successfully completing tricks and stunts while you race. Thusly, the game forces you to be both a great rider and an accomplished aerialist. You're limited at the outset of each event to "easy" tricks (A button, left stick). However, once you pull a few of those, your turbo builds enough that you're permitted intermediate tricks (B button, left stick), and finally advanced (Y button, left stick) and special tricks. The fancier the trick, the more turbo you get. More turbo equals better tricks; better tricks equals more turbo. One feeds the other, and the whole idea works quite nicely.

I LOVE this game! Not since Resident Evil 4 have I so enjoyed being afraid. This game is like a beautiful mash-up of so many things I love: Aliens, Resident Evil, BioShock, but it does so much new stuff with it (Zero-G, dismemberment, integrated HUD display, Instant map projected from your hand) that it becomes its own kind of awesome. This game is the reason to buy awesome headphones or a surround system. The sound design is FANTASTIC, I mean like Saving Private Ryan quality. The weapon/suit upgrading is addicting and will keep me playing this game over and over for a long time. I also love how there is no break in the action - you cannot relax, ever! I even got attacked while shopping at the store! Everything about this game is quality, top-notch, kind-of shocking coming out of EA from nowhere. My favorite game of the year, only Gears2 is capable of toppling it.

Forget what you know, or think you know, about Resident Evil. RE4 not only brings the series out of its creative rut, it also packs the most refined graphics and gameplay in survival-horror since...well, ever. Let's face it: The cumbersome controls and disconnected camera have always been a huge obstacle to fully enjoying the RE series. RE4's over-the-shoulder view changes everything. You still push Up to move forward and still sadly lack the ability to strafe, but combat is a snap—you can move and aim as easily as in a first-person shooter, with the added perspective helping you avoid obstacles. More important, a wide assortment of brilliantly designed enemies takes full advantage of this new viewpoint. A single well-aimed shot can disarm (literally or figuratively) knife- and ax-wielding foes or blow dynamite-tossing enemies to bits, along with anyone unlucky enough to be near them. Aim for the head of walking suits of armor to remove the helmet and expose the flailing tentacles inside; blast a giant bell to distract the blind maniac stalking you by sound; use a thermal scope to target the parasites keeping nasty experimental mutants alive. You never get bored of the gun-play. The game also allows for terrific freedom in how you choose to attack (or should I say survive) the gigantic, wide-open environments it drops you into. Will you plow through run-and-gun style, stopping only to blast groups of enemies point blank? Or will you make your stand on the rooftops, tossing grenades and sniping long range? Whatever you choose, environments cleverly designed with plenty of ways in and out of any situation and tenacious enemy A.I. make for unbelievably intense gameplay. Enemies set up ladders, carry shields, brandish chain saws and axes, sprint, sidestep, block their heads, shout to each other—these aren't stupid, predictable zombies, there are tons of them (I once counted nine onscreen), and they are hunting you. Backed by amazingly realistic graphics and an outstanding soundtrack, it's one of the most frightening and exciting experiences you'll ever have. I don't care how sky-high your expectations are, RE4 will blow them away again and again. 2005's Game of the Year might have come out just 11 days into it.

Why it's HOT?
Cool new characters- Setsuka and Tira rock. The Character Creation mode and the tons of new fighter skills/classes is something I've been waiting years for. The story continues and gets a bit of closure. Graphics and sound are boss, the gameplay tight and accessible. Great stuff all around- I can play this game for years.

Why it's NOT...
Weird A.I. spikes and lulls- sometimes you face Valium-induced zombies, the next moment you face a Psychic Killing Machine. The RTS-RPG Chronicle of the Sword mode is nice but needs a lot of work. Some of the new character classes are a bit too powerful (give me ten dancers and I'll conquer the world!!!).

And what else can I say other than you just gotta love a game that lets you wreak havoc on the battlefield with bikini-clad Samurai Babes. WOOHOO!!!

Screw it, I'll say the unspeakable: When this swordslinger stepped onto the scene, it eviscerated all comers, Virtua Fighter 4 included, and squatted to drop a deuce on their headstones. Soul Calibur II became my sensei overnight, and I've been abusing buttons ever since. With this sequel, Namco chose to refine its previous work rather than rethink the series' already superb design. SC2 is anything but a lamp-heated rehash of last generation's leftovers (and not only because many of you missed Cali's debut). This fighter's been training in secret for years and emerges from its sword school a leaner, faster, more lethal samurai, subtly improved in most every aspect. Anyone can appreciate SC2's unmatched visual polish. And the screenshots you've been staring at all summer only hint at this baby's breathtaking beauty. You've seen the flashes that follow blades as they arc through the air. You've studied the stills of elegant arenas where sunlight filters through stained glass, curves around columns of cold marble, and kisses Ivy's perfect breasts. But it's what you haven't seen that will really blow you away. The animation is unbelievable. It's fast and fluid, making even over-the-top moves seem totally convincing. Watching a petite Talim deflect a blow from Astaroth's king-sized ax and stagger clear across the stage under a shower of sparks is all the proof you need.