Reviews

Review: Sonic Generations (3DS)

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I used to be a huge fan of Dimps in the past. Sonic Rush is one of my favorite Sonic games and I loved the Advance series sans number three. However, in recent years, it seems like there’s been a new Sonic Cycle. For every great Sonic console game, there’s a mediocre Dimps adaption on the portable systems. This started with Colors DS which IMO, came up a little short of capturing what made Rush and Rush Adventure fun. Then, we have Sonic 4 which had decent level design, but odd physics which turned some people away. Now, we have Dimps first foray onto the 3DS with Sonic Generations. Does it boost up to the glory days of the Advance and Rush series or does it trip over its own two feet? Grab a chili dog and read on. It’s gonna be a long one.

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Review: Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games

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When the first Mario and Sonic title hit in 2007, it was a major deal. Two video game rivals competing in a shared title! Unfortunately, once the novelty of seeing Nintendo and SEGA’s mascots together wore off, what players were left with was a so-so mini-game compilation with the best moments being the Dream Events and remixed music tracks from both series. In 2009 the series returned with Mario and Sonic competing in the Winter Olympics, and while it wasn’t a huge improvement over the first game, it was a better title thanks to improved controls, more characters and more events. Now the Mario and Sonic universes go head to head in a third Olympics, is this time just more of the same or is the third try a charm? Read on to find out!

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Retro Review: Sonic Pocket Adventure

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After SEGA retired the Game Gear in early 1997, they suddenly found themselves on the market for a new handheld to support. That same year SEGA threw its weight behind the Tiger’s Game.com, offering Tiger the licenses to several of its franchises, including Sonic. This deal would give rise to the worst shit SEGA ever slapped its name on. As the Game.com quickly dropped dead at the sight of the Gameboy, SEGA threw its support behind another, much better handheld: SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket Color. This support would only yield one SEGA game in the American market, in the form of Sonic’s last portable adventure before going third party: Sonic Pocket Adventure.

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Retro Review: Sonic Jam

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The SEGA Saturn was something of a black sheep in SEGA’s family of consoles. It divorced itself from many of its predecessor’s most well-known franchises, and instead focused on a slew of original IPs. Even Sonic Team would take a big break from Sonic, instead focusing on NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning Rangers, the former becoming the Saturn’s mascot. This would lead to the Saturn becoming the one and only SEGA console to not feature a wholly original Sonic platforming game. Instead, the Saturn merely saw a trio of spin offs, in the form of Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R and the subject of today’s review, Sonic Jam. The first two were fairly mediocre spin offs created by Traveler’s Tales for the purpose of filling the cap by the canned Sonic X-Treme game. Sonic Jam was easily the best Sonic game on the Saturn, though largely because it capitalized so heavily on the past: it was a compilation of the best Sonic titles ever made.

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Review: Sonic Generations

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SEGA’s next big Sonic game is centered around his 20th anniversary. Even though Sonic started off this console generation with some awful games, Sonic Team has been learning from their mistakes and perfecting their skills. Have they finally delivered the Sonic game that all their fans want?

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Review: Thor: God of Thunder (3DS)

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SEGA’s Marvel games line up is one big missed opportunity. When I first heard that SEGA had managed to get the game licenses for all of the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, I could only imagine great things. After all, Activision had managed to turn its Spider-man license into a quality, long running, successful franchise. Surely SEGA could do the same! As we all know by now, this turned out not to be the case. However, in a sea of trashy movie games there have been a few bright spots. A few of the games have managed to be pretty decent. Thor 3DS is one of them.

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Review: Rise of Nightmares

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Leave it to SEGA to be the first to dive in and attempt to offer something new and unique when it comes to a crazy peripheral like Microsoft’s Kinect. When the Kinect launched, SEGA released Sonic Free Riders. Free Riders was, in my opinion, an under-appreciated launch title that attempted to offer more than what other launch titles were offering. While Kinect Joy Ride and Adrenalin Misfits were pretty basic, and appealed to the family friendly party game crowd, Free Riders actually required skill and practice. The racer touted weapons that required a variety of actions to execute, different vehicles and stances and a number of hazards that again called for various actions to overcome. While not a perfect attempt, I applauded SEGA for what did work and for the boldness of attempting a Kinect title that featured so many methods of control. Now, SEGA returns to Kinect with Rise of Nightmares, a SEGA AM1 developed horror title which resembles SEGA’s famous The House of the Dead series. Like Free Riders, Rise of Nightmares puts a motion controlled spin on a well established genre (survival horror), promising a variety of weapons and actions as well as a Kinect first: body controlled free movement. Just how well did SEGA do? Read on!

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Retro Review: Dynamite Cop

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Dynamite Deka is a series of beat em up games first introduced to American arcades in the mid-1990s. Renamed “Die Hard Arcade” to capitalize on the success of the movie franchise of the same name, the game was later ported to the SEGA Saturn, and to this day remains the only good 3D brawler to ever make it to the system. Dynamite Deka 2 would later be ported to the Dreamcast some years later, renamed Dynamite Cop. Is this game any good? Read on to find out.

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Review: Renegade Ops

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Gameplay is Renegade Ops‘ strongest point. (Which feels like it should be a given, considering it’s a videogame. In this day I often get the feeling gameplay takes a back seat to plot and graphics, as it attempts to pretend it isn’t a game we’re playing but an interactive movie.) For me, gameplay always comes first, because I like my games fast, fun, action-packed and challenging. I’m happy to report that Renegade Ops has all of these qualities in spades.

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Review: Conduit 2

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First, a quick apology to everyone, including SEGA, for the lateness of this review. I unfortunately lost my access to high speed internet shortly after receiving my review copy, and so I had difficulties with the multiplayer portion of the review throughout the summer. The multiplayer played a significant part in the final verdict, so I hope the good folks at SEGA who sent the review copy won’t mind the tardiness.

The original Conduit pioneered the Wii first person shooter, allowing every player to customize the game’s motion controls in a fashion that best suited how they wanted to play the game. It had its problems, however. Its online was easily hackable and virtually broke the game, and the single player offered absolutely nothing that hadn’t been done better in numerous other shooters. The environments, being based largely on modern Washington DC, were fairly generic aside from the odd monument. The level design was linear, and most of the weapons were pretty typical for the genre. With the announcement of Conduit 2, High Voltage Software acknowledged the problems of the original and promised to solve these problems with the sequel. Does Conduit 2 improve over the original, or does it fall even flatter?

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Retro Review: Sonic CD

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With the news that a downloadable version of Sonic CD would soon be making it’s way to LIVE/PSN, I figured it was as good a time as any to review this “classic” Sonic game. Now, I say classic in quotation marks because frankly, I believe a lot of the praise of this game comes mainly from it’s nostalgia. Most folks remember Sonic CD because of several things. The anime intro/ending, the incredible music and of course, the battle with Metal Sonic. But does anyone remember it for it’s level design? No? There might be a good reason for that. Continue Reading to see why.

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Review: Captain America: Super Soldier (Wii)

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When Nuckles87 assigned me to do the hands on for Captain America on Wii during E3, I wasn’t too happy. The game just looked like another washed down, crappy port. I was surprised however, at the level of quality the game had. The game is handled by High Voltage. Mainly the HV team that handled Tournament of Legends (poorly reviewed but I thought it was okay). Now, I bought the PS3 version which I love despite how some may feel (No offense Aki), but after playing and beating the Wii version, does it hold up well or is it just another watered-down Wii port? Read on. Read further down for a Bonus Feature.

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Review: Captain America: Super Soldier (PS3)

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With the release of Captain America: Super Soldier, SEGA will be bringing a close to the licensing deal that they started with Marvel several years ago. So after four tie-ins with Marvel Entertainment, has SEGA improved in the quality of their licensed output? Read on to find out in my extensive review on the last game in their Marvel movie tie-in, Captain America: Super Soldier.

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Review: Virtua Tennis 4 (PS3)

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SEGA’s lovable arcade franchise returns, this time with the original series creators behind the development. Many fans have been asking how much new things the team could bring to the table, after already having 2 Virtua Tennis releases on HD consoles this generation. Well, let’s crack open this review and see how the game stacks.

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