So I picked up the Lost Odyssey based on a few words that Suskie said about it here. Unfortunately the English voice acting is pretty bad, so I checked the options to see if there was a Japanese voice option. To my surprise, you can select from not two, but five, different languages. I have since switched to Japanese and it is a bit better, though still not great. Did anyone else try out the other languages?

It may seem strange to criticize the game for its single-player considering Quake III built its entire legacy on multiplayer, but it was this version’s one and only chance to prevent itself from being redundant. Instead, redundant is exactly what Quake Arena Arcade is.

Despite all of its pretensions of intrigue and mystery, the most fun to be had in Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut is found by going around, bothering every character by showing them every piece of junk in your inventory, and eliciting their amusingly rude responses to your queries. There was clearly someone involved in Broken Sword who had incredible writing talent, because the colorful cast of characters is truly one of a kind. Unfortunately, this talent was misguided and misused, and having t...

Savage 2: A Tortured Soul is a game that defies, complicates, and undermines the process of game categorization altogether. It belongs to a hybrid genre that can tentatively be called Competitive Real-Time Strategy Role-Playing Action, a genre with only three games, one of which is its ultimately superior predecessor.

Baten Kaitos' first few impressions are among its best. It begins with a series of flashbacks: a peaceful family scene at home, that same home engulfed in flames and invaded by sinister figures, ethereal petals coalescing to represent the bonding between human and otherworldly spirit. This tragic imagery, pregnant with intrigue, covered in film-grained sepia, and streaked by transparent vertical lines evocative of tears and raindrops, is subsequently juxtaposed with the natural hues of the charm...

Blasting someone out of the sky with an electromagnetic beam rifle; making heads explode with twin Desert Eagles while somersaulting through the air; disintegrating someone's entire torso with an over-sized, electrified sledgehammer - these are some of my fondest memories in gaming.

Bujingai is about Gackt, the androgynous Japanese pop star. But since this is a pre-Guitar Hero-era game, musician was not yet thought to be a viable game role, so instead you play as Gackt, the androgynous, immortal Chinese sword master. He has a different name in the game, but why bother with the pretense? This is Gackt merchandise, an arbitrary cash-in on his popularity in Japan. Some misguided individual in publishing must have been blown away by all the fancy, dancing swordpla...

Much like its predecessor, Shadow Hearts: Covenant thrives on difference. It is not an absolute departure, but more than most it takes several of the most taken-for-granted role-playing game conventions and turns them on their heads. These differences, while not always positive, make Shadow Hearts: Covenant a unique and refreshing entry into a genre characterized by saturation and conventionality.

Contrary to certain (mis)conceptions, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell isn’t a very innovative game. While contrasting considerably from the universally acclaimed Metal Gear Solid 2, its core gameplay elements fall heavily in line with the stealth blueprint laid out by Looking Glass Studios’ Thief, one of the originators of the genre. Splinter Cell’s success lies in the supplementing of its stealth mechanics with unbelievably believable environments and audio, as well as a generous helping of well-wri...

If you were unaware that Devil May Cry 2 was crafted by a different development team than that of its predecessor, you could only conclude that Capcom was trying to flush its newly conceived Devil May Cry series down the proverbial toilet. Only one thing about Devil May Cry 2 is impressive: how it has been so successfully stripped of the original’s personality, depth, and challenge – these being virtually everything that made Devil May Cry the unique, stellar title that it was. Actually, that’s ...

Cutting away the epic pretension lavished on many other action games, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy boldly relies only on its innovation and competent execution. With lofty ambitions of psychic powers, Psi-Ops had just as much potential for utter failure as it did for resounding success. And while cult-classic System Shock and LucasArts’ fabled Jedi Knight have sheepishly tested psychic power implementation, Psi-Ops bravely brings this idea to the foreground...