Playstation 3 Highlights - March 2007 (Month #5)
For the first time since the launch month, I actually get a decent amount of games to talk about for a single month's releases. Also for the first time though, I'll be skipping a couple games this month, and before I get to the ones I am covering I'll explain away the ones I'm not.
What We Are Skipping and Why?
Def Jam Icon - You know how they say don't judge a book by it's cover? Well I judged a game by it's title. When I saw the name of this game I assumed it would be a vocal only, hip hop version of Rock Band, and then I would need to get a mic for the PS3. But then, I looked into it and saw that I was completely wrong. This game is actually another fighting game published by EA, and with it coming so quickly on the heels of Fight Night Round 3, it's just a repackage of the boxing game with a street-fighting facelift. In the end I didn't see the need to cover essentially the same game twice, especially so closely together. Fight Night Round 3 was great, so Def Jam Icon must be as well in my mind.
College Hoops 2K7 - Again, this is mostly for the same reasons as above. It's another basketball game pushed out by 2K sports, with NCAA teams instead of NBA. I've played some of the NCAA games in the past and they've never felt any different than their NBA counterparts, so again, I didn't feel it was necessary to cover a 2nd version of the same game so closely together. Maybe in one of the upcoming years I'll cover an NCAA game instead of an NBA one.
That's it, those are the only two we're skipping this month. Now, on to the good part.
Highlights
Armored Core 4 - Set in a future, dystopian Earth where all the world's governments have been taken over by corporations. You come in working for a freelance corporation, running misions paid for by one corporation to attack another, going wherever the money flows from. All the combat takes place through giant armored mech suits, complete with four mounted weapons that can all be upgraded with the money you earn from the jobs. When I first loaded this one in I was super excited for it, I'd heard great things about this series but never gotten a chance to play any of them before. Once it loaded up, Armored Core 4 looks, feels, and plays just like Mobile Suit Gundam. Your mech-suit in AC4 moves a bit more fluidly, but it still has some issues that can be chalked up to it's being an early release on the console.
Godfather : The Don's Edition - The Don's Edition is actually a remaster of the PS2 version of Godfather : The Game. Combining video games with cinema, the game brings the mobster life to your hands in the style of Grand Theft Auto, taking place alongside and after the first movie. Your character is a new recruit to the Corleone family, right off the streets of New York. During your time in the family, you'll run missions for them, eliminating their enemies, or extorting shop owners for their money in exchange for your protection. The "GTA" formula started to become popular after GTA III, and it still is with games like Watch Dogs and Saints Row, This game not only borrows on that and does it justice, it incorporates the story from one of the most iconic films in existence right now. Whether people have seen it or not, everyone knows The Godfather, and some of the missions you take on in the game are things that happen off-screen during the film.
Splinter Cell : Double Agent - Ubisoft's 4th entry into one of it's big Tom Clancy series of video games, Double Agent actually saw a few different variations on the different platforms it was brought to. You play once again as Sam Fisher, starting off in Iceland until he gets the worst possible news : his daughter, has been killed. With nothing else to lose (or to live for), he agrees to take on an incredibly dangerous mission, inserting himself into the terrorist group John Brown's Army. The game introduces a loyalty meter, where Sam's actions are judged every step of the way, forcing you to toe the line having the JBA trust you, as well as the NSA. While the loyalty meter is a brilliant new feature, it's not without it's flaws. Some of the missions start off with Sam needing to follow another JBA member around, and if you're not on the move the second you have control of Sam, you start losing their trust. Aside from that, the heavy stealth gameplay that made the series famous stays ever present in this installment.
Everything Else
NBA Street Homecourt - The first entry for the NBA Street series on the new generation (obviously), this series shifts the focus from strategic 5-on-5 play in arenas, to a flashy street court play with games of no bigger than 3-on-3. While the goal is still to outscore your opponents, it's playing to a set score instead of timed quarters, and ball-handling becomes a bigger focus because it can drive up your multiplier and turn a 2-point shot into a 5-point. The rosters are filled from the (then) current NBA teams, with players having a focus on shooting, handling, and speed. Whether you play 1-on-1 or 3-on-3, your whole team shares a special meter that fills up depending on how many skill points you earn, which is based off the tricks you pull off before scoring. And, if you successfully outdeke someone and fake them out, you'll gain a multiplier on your skill points.
MotorStorm - This one should ring a few bells if you follow this blog, mostly because I reviewed this one specifically a while back. Not much new to say about this one, it's a racing game set in a post-apocalyptic setting that is a lot of fun. You choose between any of the available vehicles to race in, from quads and dirtbikes to dune buggies and dirt trucks. Some races only give you one vehicle option, but they are all a lot of fun to use. Each track provides you with multiple routes and you have to find the one that best works for what you're driving based on the terrain and the weight of your bike/car/truck. If you'd like to check out my review on this game, I will provide the link to it down at the bottom of this page.
Formula One Championship Edition - Based on the 2006 season of the racing division, Formula One Championship brings the world-traveling open-wheeled racing series to the PS3. All tracks from the season are present in the game, as well as the then current roster of driver teams, and a few unlockables. You get access to a few different modes, from jumping into a single individual race weekend, play out a full season, or come into things as a fresh rookie racing your way to a contract to kick off your own F1 career. The tracks themselves look beautiful, and while there still hasn't been that "perfect feeling" PS3 racing game, the cars in this one handle really well making it the closest one yet.
Virtua Tennis 3 - A full tennis simulator, complete with both men's and women's tours. The main career starts you off on the bottom of the ranking barrell, and you need to work your way up before most tours become available for you to enter. There is a tennis academy you can hone your skills in, as well as a plethora of mini-games that allow you to practice in really fun ways. You can go bowling to practice your serves, or play a space-invader esque game to practice the strength of your shots. The tournaments themselves are bracket-style, with the earlier ones being single-game rounds and the more higher up tournaments being more in depth.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion - Now I bet everyone's wondering why I decided to put this huge, massive game down in the small blurb section, and it's simple. It's fucking great. Everybody knows that the ES series is Bethesda's shining star, and every time one get's released it takes over the world until the next big thing comes out. So just like why I don't review the really popular games on the blog, you don't need me to highlight Oblivion because just hearing the name you know it, even if you don't play it. Once again, Bethesda creates a massive world that you can immerse yourself in, and it's a ton of fun. Everything is customizable from your appearance, to your style of fighting, and how you treat everyone in the world around you. Oblivion is a beautiful experience of a game that doesn't really "end" because a lot of the side quests and other features are still open once you complete the main quest of stopping the Mythic Dawn cult's plan of opening the gates to Oblivion.
What's Worth It?
With eight choices of games this month, surprisingly (and again, just my opinion) only just over half of them really stood out as being worthy of places in a game library. Obviously, Oblivion is among them. Before these games even get released they build up such a hype and they haven't once let the fans down (at least not that I've ever heard). While Splinter Cell : Double Agent doesn't do anything incredible to make it stand out like it's predecessor, Chaos Theory, it's still a highly enjoyable entry into the stealth franchise. Godfather : Don's Edition was a game I almost didn't get for my collection. I'm not a huge fan of remaster styled games, but no matter how many stores I went into I could never find a copy of the original on PS2. So what happened after I got my PS3 copy? Of course, I saw the original all over the place. Nevertheless, I'm glad I have this game in my collection. There are some issues with it, and I don't really know how to explain this but if you've played multiple generations of consoles maybe you'll get what I mean : the issues in this version seem to be long-lasting PS2 ones that weren't able to be "patched up" without completely remaking the game. NBA Street : Homecourt is so, so much fun, whether you're a fan of basketball or not. It's one of those games that you throw in "Just for a quick game or two" and then a few hours later it's dinner time and you have no clue what happened. It's easy to master the shooting and blow your opponent out of the water, but pretty quickly that becomes boring and you'll find yourself trying to master the handling tricks if for nothing more than the simple fact that you can. Lastly, MotorSport, it's not the greatest dirt-racing game, but it is a great play. The fact that it mixes in the different styles of vehicle in one single race is what makes this one stand out, because the tracks almost become a puzzle, forcing you to find the route that works best for you while hoping your opponents don't do the same.
What Falls?
Three "flops" out of eight really isn't that bad. And it wasn't that these three games in particular were horrible, it was more that nothing about them really gave off the "keep me" vibe, it stopped very abruptly at "play for a little while. Armored Core 4 can be fun in short bursts, but having the games broken up into such tiny levels is something I can never find any way to enjoy. It makes everything feel choppy, broken, and even if there is a story, it takes away from it greatly. Virtua Tennis 3 looks great, and the controls are pretty easy to master, but at the end of the day it's just a tennis game. There are the fun mini-games that you can play to help with your training, and they really are enjoyable, but they don't make everything else in the game worth it. Virtua Tennis might be a bit more enjoyable against a friend, but the AI gets severely dumbed down for you early in your career. My first tournament, I made it to the final round against Roger Federer, and he didn't score against me once. World renowned tennis player, against a scrub rookie, and he can't get a single point? C'mon.... Lastly, Formula One Championship Edition was really difficult for me to put down on this end of the spectrum, because if you follow any of my YouTube stuff you know I'm a huge fan of the racing series. However, while the tracks are beautifully imagined in this game, there isn't enough depth in this one. Career mode seems like it would promise that but the requirements to gain your first contract are stacked against you it seems. I tried on normal at first and failed all three tests that are made available to you, then after putting it down to easy I still failed two of the three tests.
So, that covers the 5th month of PS3 releases. Again, as always, I in no way intend for my thoughts to be anything more than just that : my thoughts. At the end of the day I always say try every game out for yourself if you're able to. I do these highlight posts to just break down a little bit of each game that was released in that month. Next month's highlight only brings us two games, however neither of them are "throw away" sports or racing titles. We get Enchanted Arms, and F.E.A.R., a decent length sci-fi/fantasy RPG and a first-person shooter horror game. It's gonna be fun. I'll also be streaming a bit of each game on my Twitch channel in the coming weeks, so feel free to follow me on there at twitch.tv/honestgamermike
And lastly, as promised earlier here is the link for my actual review on MotorStorm if you'd like to see more of my thoughts on that game specifically.
http://mbentongamer.blogspot.com/2016/11/motorstorm-ps3-8-quick-review.html
See you guys with the next highlights! Game on!
HG
What We Are Skipping and Why?
Def Jam Icon - You know how they say don't judge a book by it's cover? Well I judged a game by it's title. When I saw the name of this game I assumed it would be a vocal only, hip hop version of Rock Band, and then I would need to get a mic for the PS3. But then, I looked into it and saw that I was completely wrong. This game is actually another fighting game published by EA, and with it coming so quickly on the heels of Fight Night Round 3, it's just a repackage of the boxing game with a street-fighting facelift. In the end I didn't see the need to cover essentially the same game twice, especially so closely together. Fight Night Round 3 was great, so Def Jam Icon must be as well in my mind.
College Hoops 2K7 - Again, this is mostly for the same reasons as above. It's another basketball game pushed out by 2K sports, with NCAA teams instead of NBA. I've played some of the NCAA games in the past and they've never felt any different than their NBA counterparts, so again, I didn't feel it was necessary to cover a 2nd version of the same game so closely together. Maybe in one of the upcoming years I'll cover an NCAA game instead of an NBA one.
That's it, those are the only two we're skipping this month. Now, on to the good part.
Highlights
Armored Core 4 - Set in a future, dystopian Earth where all the world's governments have been taken over by corporations. You come in working for a freelance corporation, running misions paid for by one corporation to attack another, going wherever the money flows from. All the combat takes place through giant armored mech suits, complete with four mounted weapons that can all be upgraded with the money you earn from the jobs. When I first loaded this one in I was super excited for it, I'd heard great things about this series but never gotten a chance to play any of them before. Once it loaded up, Armored Core 4 looks, feels, and plays just like Mobile Suit Gundam. Your mech-suit in AC4 moves a bit more fluidly, but it still has some issues that can be chalked up to it's being an early release on the console.
Godfather : The Don's Edition - The Don's Edition is actually a remaster of the PS2 version of Godfather : The Game. Combining video games with cinema, the game brings the mobster life to your hands in the style of Grand Theft Auto, taking place alongside and after the first movie. Your character is a new recruit to the Corleone family, right off the streets of New York. During your time in the family, you'll run missions for them, eliminating their enemies, or extorting shop owners for their money in exchange for your protection. The "GTA" formula started to become popular after GTA III, and it still is with games like Watch Dogs and Saints Row, This game not only borrows on that and does it justice, it incorporates the story from one of the most iconic films in existence right now. Whether people have seen it or not, everyone knows The Godfather, and some of the missions you take on in the game are things that happen off-screen during the film.
Splinter Cell : Double Agent - Ubisoft's 4th entry into one of it's big Tom Clancy series of video games, Double Agent actually saw a few different variations on the different platforms it was brought to. You play once again as Sam Fisher, starting off in Iceland until he gets the worst possible news : his daughter, has been killed. With nothing else to lose (or to live for), he agrees to take on an incredibly dangerous mission, inserting himself into the terrorist group John Brown's Army. The game introduces a loyalty meter, where Sam's actions are judged every step of the way, forcing you to toe the line having the JBA trust you, as well as the NSA. While the loyalty meter is a brilliant new feature, it's not without it's flaws. Some of the missions start off with Sam needing to follow another JBA member around, and if you're not on the move the second you have control of Sam, you start losing their trust. Aside from that, the heavy stealth gameplay that made the series famous stays ever present in this installment.
Everything Else
NBA Street Homecourt - The first entry for the NBA Street series on the new generation (obviously), this series shifts the focus from strategic 5-on-5 play in arenas, to a flashy street court play with games of no bigger than 3-on-3. While the goal is still to outscore your opponents, it's playing to a set score instead of timed quarters, and ball-handling becomes a bigger focus because it can drive up your multiplier and turn a 2-point shot into a 5-point. The rosters are filled from the (then) current NBA teams, with players having a focus on shooting, handling, and speed. Whether you play 1-on-1 or 3-on-3, your whole team shares a special meter that fills up depending on how many skill points you earn, which is based off the tricks you pull off before scoring. And, if you successfully outdeke someone and fake them out, you'll gain a multiplier on your skill points.
MotorStorm - This one should ring a few bells if you follow this blog, mostly because I reviewed this one specifically a while back. Not much new to say about this one, it's a racing game set in a post-apocalyptic setting that is a lot of fun. You choose between any of the available vehicles to race in, from quads and dirtbikes to dune buggies and dirt trucks. Some races only give you one vehicle option, but they are all a lot of fun to use. Each track provides you with multiple routes and you have to find the one that best works for what you're driving based on the terrain and the weight of your bike/car/truck. If you'd like to check out my review on this game, I will provide the link to it down at the bottom of this page.
Formula One Championship Edition - Based on the 2006 season of the racing division, Formula One Championship brings the world-traveling open-wheeled racing series to the PS3. All tracks from the season are present in the game, as well as the then current roster of driver teams, and a few unlockables. You get access to a few different modes, from jumping into a single individual race weekend, play out a full season, or come into things as a fresh rookie racing your way to a contract to kick off your own F1 career. The tracks themselves look beautiful, and while there still hasn't been that "perfect feeling" PS3 racing game, the cars in this one handle really well making it the closest one yet.
Virtua Tennis 3 - A full tennis simulator, complete with both men's and women's tours. The main career starts you off on the bottom of the ranking barrell, and you need to work your way up before most tours become available for you to enter. There is a tennis academy you can hone your skills in, as well as a plethora of mini-games that allow you to practice in really fun ways. You can go bowling to practice your serves, or play a space-invader esque game to practice the strength of your shots. The tournaments themselves are bracket-style, with the earlier ones being single-game rounds and the more higher up tournaments being more in depth.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion - Now I bet everyone's wondering why I decided to put this huge, massive game down in the small blurb section, and it's simple. It's fucking great. Everybody knows that the ES series is Bethesda's shining star, and every time one get's released it takes over the world until the next big thing comes out. So just like why I don't review the really popular games on the blog, you don't need me to highlight Oblivion because just hearing the name you know it, even if you don't play it. Once again, Bethesda creates a massive world that you can immerse yourself in, and it's a ton of fun. Everything is customizable from your appearance, to your style of fighting, and how you treat everyone in the world around you. Oblivion is a beautiful experience of a game that doesn't really "end" because a lot of the side quests and other features are still open once you complete the main quest of stopping the Mythic Dawn cult's plan of opening the gates to Oblivion.
What's Worth It?
With eight choices of games this month, surprisingly (and again, just my opinion) only just over half of them really stood out as being worthy of places in a game library. Obviously, Oblivion is among them. Before these games even get released they build up such a hype and they haven't once let the fans down (at least not that I've ever heard). While Splinter Cell : Double Agent doesn't do anything incredible to make it stand out like it's predecessor, Chaos Theory, it's still a highly enjoyable entry into the stealth franchise. Godfather : Don's Edition was a game I almost didn't get for my collection. I'm not a huge fan of remaster styled games, but no matter how many stores I went into I could never find a copy of the original on PS2. So what happened after I got my PS3 copy? Of course, I saw the original all over the place. Nevertheless, I'm glad I have this game in my collection. There are some issues with it, and I don't really know how to explain this but if you've played multiple generations of consoles maybe you'll get what I mean : the issues in this version seem to be long-lasting PS2 ones that weren't able to be "patched up" without completely remaking the game. NBA Street : Homecourt is so, so much fun, whether you're a fan of basketball or not. It's one of those games that you throw in "Just for a quick game or two" and then a few hours later it's dinner time and you have no clue what happened. It's easy to master the shooting and blow your opponent out of the water, but pretty quickly that becomes boring and you'll find yourself trying to master the handling tricks if for nothing more than the simple fact that you can. Lastly, MotorSport, it's not the greatest dirt-racing game, but it is a great play. The fact that it mixes in the different styles of vehicle in one single race is what makes this one stand out, because the tracks almost become a puzzle, forcing you to find the route that works best for you while hoping your opponents don't do the same.
What Falls?
Three "flops" out of eight really isn't that bad. And it wasn't that these three games in particular were horrible, it was more that nothing about them really gave off the "keep me" vibe, it stopped very abruptly at "play for a little while. Armored Core 4 can be fun in short bursts, but having the games broken up into such tiny levels is something I can never find any way to enjoy. It makes everything feel choppy, broken, and even if there is a story, it takes away from it greatly. Virtua Tennis 3 looks great, and the controls are pretty easy to master, but at the end of the day it's just a tennis game. There are the fun mini-games that you can play to help with your training, and they really are enjoyable, but they don't make everything else in the game worth it. Virtua Tennis might be a bit more enjoyable against a friend, but the AI gets severely dumbed down for you early in your career. My first tournament, I made it to the final round against Roger Federer, and he didn't score against me once. World renowned tennis player, against a scrub rookie, and he can't get a single point? C'mon.... Lastly, Formula One Championship Edition was really difficult for me to put down on this end of the spectrum, because if you follow any of my YouTube stuff you know I'm a huge fan of the racing series. However, while the tracks are beautifully imagined in this game, there isn't enough depth in this one. Career mode seems like it would promise that but the requirements to gain your first contract are stacked against you it seems. I tried on normal at first and failed all three tests that are made available to you, then after putting it down to easy I still failed two of the three tests.
So, that covers the 5th month of PS3 releases. Again, as always, I in no way intend for my thoughts to be anything more than just that : my thoughts. At the end of the day I always say try every game out for yourself if you're able to. I do these highlight posts to just break down a little bit of each game that was released in that month. Next month's highlight only brings us two games, however neither of them are "throw away" sports or racing titles. We get Enchanted Arms, and F.E.A.R., a decent length sci-fi/fantasy RPG and a first-person shooter horror game. It's gonna be fun. I'll also be streaming a bit of each game on my Twitch channel in the coming weeks, so feel free to follow me on there at twitch.tv/honestgamermike
And lastly, as promised earlier here is the link for my actual review on MotorStorm if you'd like to see more of my thoughts on that game specifically.
http://mbentongamer.blogspot.com/2016/11/motorstorm-ps3-8-quick-review.html
See you guys with the next highlights! Game on!
HG
