the truth

Matt is the real Mr. Delayer.

Have a nice day.

Sincerely,
Matt aka Mr. Delayer

After months of waiting, Rockstar Games has finally released their first Grand Theft Auto game for the PSP: GTA: Liberty City Stories. In this one, which takes place in the same Liberty City from Grand Theft Auto 3, you play Toni Cipriani. The game takes place in 1998 , 3 years prior to GTA3.

The first thing you notice about this game is (if you played GTA3, anyway) how well they preserved Liberty City in the transition between platforms. All the buildings are right where you remember them; only a few billboards and signs have changed, really.

Unfortunately, while all the good things about GTA3 are included in this game, some of its downfalls come back to haunt LCS. If you’re driving very fast, for example, textures and building models may not be able to load quickly enough. I’ve yet to encounter Blue Hell yet, however. Load times are long and frequent. Not something I’m used to after playing San Andreas all the way through.

The soundtrack is great, on par with those of previous 3D GTA games. Lazlow makes an appearance on the show Chatterbox; unfortunately, he does not have his own station as in GTA3. If you don’t like the music in the game, though, there is also a custom soundtrack option. (Unfortunately, you have to use a tool which converts them to an ATRAC-based proprietary format. This tool will only convert CDs; not MP3s or anything else, nor will the game read MP3s directly from the Memory Stick.) While on the subject of audio, I didn’t find the voice acting for Toni all that great.

The graphics are also on par with those of the previous 3D GTA games. Not great, but pretty good. We’re not talking Half-Life 2 or anything, but for a handheld system, the graphics are pretty good.

Multiplayer is included with this one, too. No mods, no split-screen; just full 2-6 player wireless multiplayer. You can play deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. Good times to be had by all.

All in all, it’s a great game. I’d like to see a PC port, however; it would be interesting to see what the modding community does with this one.

Final Score: 9.0/10

Criterion Games and EA have released a new installment to the Burnout series: Burnout Revenge. They’ve added some pretty cool features. As far as gameplay goes, you can now hit traffic, a well-awaited feature. You can use this to your advantage to, say, slam cars into your opponents to take them out. Actually, that’s about all you can use it for. There’s also a Traffic Attack mode, where you drive around and hit cars, racking up damage dollars as you go. Just don’t hit the oncoming ones. Or the cross traffic. Or walls.

The controls are just as smooth as the past Burnouts, with the exception of Crash mode, the newer version of which requires a somewhat clunky method of starting. The driving physics seem overall pretty realistic, something odd for an arcade racer such as Burnout.

Graphically, this game is a major improvement over its siblings. The textures on just about everything have been redone, as have various models. Cars take damage just as they did in Burnout 3. Reflections on the cars have also been completely redone.

The audio has its ups and downs. The sound effects are wonderful; however, the soundtrack isn’t. With the exception of a couple of songs (namely Straight to Video by Mindless Self Indulgence), the tracks you’ll find are what you’d expect from the local Hot Topic rather than a video game.

Multiplayer has all the same games as the past Burnouts; Crash, Party Crash, Race, Road Rage. It’s all good.

All in all, this is a pretty cool arcade racer. Definitely worth checking out.

Final Score: 8.5/10

The sequel to last year’s sleeper hit Katamari Damacy, Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy (We Love Katamari in the US) is now available in Japan. The gameplay mechanics are exactly the same, however the Katamari seems to be more easily controlled. New features include cooperative play (where player 1 acts as the left analog stick and player 2 as the right), and many new levels and objects to pick it up. There’s an underwater level, where the Katamari actually behaves as if it were underwater.

The storyline is just as strange as the first; from what I’m able to tell, fans of the Prince have goals for him to complete (size goals, amount of objects goals, amount of specific objects). When he completes a goal, it makes a planet, and unlocks another fan, or something. I can’t really understand because I don’t speak Japanese.

Words really can’t explain how many new objects there are to pick up. Well, they probably can, but I don’t speak Japanese, and thusly can’t find the objects list like there was in the first game. I’ll get back to you on that some other time. I can tell you this about them though: they are in a lot better proportion. Or at least it seems so.

Cooperative play is a fun one. It reminds me of the episode of Attack of the Show where they built a large NES controller which required two people to play, and they were trying to play Mario and kept screwing up.

The only complaint I have with this game is the fact that the camera transitions still aren’t very smooth. It should be gradual rather than sudden. All in all, however, if you liked Katamari Damacy (and who didn’t?), this is a good game for you. Hours of fun. There are many more levels to be beaten in this one.

Final Score: 9.5/10

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past seven years, you’ve probably heard of Dance Dance Revolution. You know, that game where you step on the arrows in time to a music. Well, the lack of new dance games triggered Roxor Games to create a new one: In the Groove. This game adds some new modifiers, along with a torrent of new songs; over 70, in fact.

The first thing one will notice when playing this game is its sheer amount of difficulty. If you start up this game thinking, “This game will be like DDR. I’m good at DDR - this’ll be easy!” you will lose. If you don’t like losing, this game is not for you. In DDR, most songs required you to place your feet on two panels at one time. In the Groove takes this one step further, in some Expert-level songs, requiring you to use your hands to press three or four panels at once.

Another new gameplay mechanic is the mine. You don’t step on these; if you do, it explodes, lowering your score and health bar. This requires you to move and dance to avoid these. But the fun level on these is debatable; many see this as just cumbersome and annoying.

This game is not without faults, however; long loading times aren’t something many are used to with DDR. There are a couple freezing glitches, too. However, full motion background videos and higher sound quality make up for this, partially.

All in all, this is a pretty good game. If you’re a fan of the Dance Dance Revolution series, then you’ll most likely enjoy this game. I, in fact, prefer In the Groove over DDR, but the loading times lowered its score a bit for me.

Final Score: 7.0/10

You’ve probably all played Marble Madness. You know, that really old game where you roll around the marble, attempting to reach a goal while avoid obstacles. Archer Maclean’s Mercury adds a twist: you’re a ball of mercury. That is to say, your blob has the same physical properties as mercury; it is a fluid, and split up into tiny blobs, and add up to hours of aggravation. Basically, you have to get your blob to a goal point, without spilling too much or wasting too much time.

One thing notable about this game is its soundtrack. The game has 72 levels (78 if you count the bonus levels), each of them having its own song playing in the background. It’s mostly ambient stuff, but the fact that there are 78 different songs in this game makes it worth listening to.

Gameplay mechanics are alright, though the game does get a bit repetitive after a while. I still haven’t beaten it (stuck in World 5 somewhere), and already it’s gotten kind of old. Sure, it’s fun and all, but the harder levels are more annoyingly impossible than fun.

All in all, however, if you were a fan of Marble Madness, you’ll probably like this game. At least for a while.

Final Score: 8.0/10

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