Dragon Quest V is kind of a big deal, in more ways than one. This fifth installment into Japan’s master series marks the series’ transition to the 16 bit realm of the SNES. Or perhaps I should say Super Famicon, as it was also the first Dragon Quest game to remain inside Japan. The fact that it was excluded from exterior countries is actually fairly ironic, because Dragon Quest V is typically considered to be one of the stronger games in the series. Of course being released in 1992 the game is still a fairly old one, and came about while the Super Famicon was still young; that is to say that it could have been a much better game than it is. However despite this, I would say Dragon Quest V is the most fun game I have played in this Marathon thus far. If you had asked me two days ago I would not have said that though. My one-line review of this game: “It’s a little slow to start, but by the time it’s over you’re going to wish there was a whole lot more of Dragon Quest V”.
The final Dragon Quest game on the NES, Dragon Quest IV was also the last of the series we would see outside of Japan for almost a whole decade. Coming to North America a full year after the SNES had already been released, Dragon Quest IV saw very little success this side of the Pacific. However even in Japan the fourth installment of the series is not considered to be one of the series’ best, ranking in the bottom half of the pile for units sold. That isn’t to say the game is at all bad or unpopular, but it isn’t one of the shining gems that epitomize the series. What sets this installment apart from the others is that it takes a unique approach in multiple aspects of the game. While taking a chance pays off in some ways, it definitely is not a bed of roses. Or maybe it is? That’s a weird phrase, I mean roses are thorny, a rose bed would be painful. My one-line review of this game: While Dragon Quest IV takes some chances and improves on it’s predecessors in some areas, ultimately it just can’t live up to the series’ spectacular third game.
Over the past week or so, I’ve been looking for a good RTS to mess around with. I’m not a huge RTS fan or anything so I don’t really know what’s out there, but I’ve just felt like playing around a bit, and been looking for something that catches my eye. In the midst of this search it came to my attention that I have never actually beaten Starcraft all the way through without the use of a single cheat. I’ve beaten most of it, and I beat both Warcraft II and III plus their expansions cheat free, but Starcraft remains unvanquished in this sense. So I went with Starcraft, but more importantly, this got me thinking about cheating in video games. Cheating has been around as long as the games themselves, and I’m sure people were cheating at one thing or another long before video games existed. The question is, is cheating a bad thing? Do cheaters really never prosper?
In the early days of 2009, the XBox vs Playstation silliness was coming to a front because of two games with very similar concepts. The PS3 fans steadfastly defended InFamous, whilst the XBox360 fans proclaimed Prototype the hands down superior game. Of course InFamous is a PS3 exclusive, whereas Prototype is on both systems, and so this squabble was rather lame even for fanboys. Both games feature an average guy who, through some mysterious disaster receives super powers. In both games, the hero must explore (and climb all over) an open-world city stricken with crime, disorder and disease in order to uncover the truth behind the origin of their powers. Staying alive is a good thing, too. Along with developing the hero’s powers, each game also has a slightly different take on decision making, and it’s effects on the game. Of course as the title of this review makes blatantly obvious, InFamous is the game I went with. Reason being? The one difference between the two games is that InFamous is good, whereas Prototype is not. My one-line review: “One part Assassin’s Creed, one part Grand Theft Auto and about a million parts electricity, InFamous is “shockingly” good.”
For as long as I can remember, Role Playing Games have been my video game of choice. For years I basically ignored any game that wasn’t an RPG, and even up until the end of the PS2 “era” I still had loads of games to play. I don’t think like that any more, I will play any game that is good if it strikes me right, but as my horizons have widened the number of “traditional” RPGs have dwindled. The traditional RPG is a type of game that has always been fairly polarizing among gamers, many people adore them, but just as many if not more people despise them.Through the years this has lead to a pretty drastic evolution of the RPG genre, and entire sub-genres of RPG have even emerged. I bought my PS3 about a month ago, and with it I have basically dove head first into the current generation of gaming. I’ve been playing this thing a whole lot since I bought it, and I have been playing some really good games, but I can’t help but notice the lack of traditional RPGs on the PS3. I’ve got all these great current-gen games now, but playing them has developed something of an itch for a more traditional RPG game, and as far as I can see there just aren’t any out there.
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