Bulls vs. Blazers sucked, sucks and will suck.

An aspect commonly overlooked in classic gaming is how solitary the experience is. Like lonely teenagers in a basement, the heroes of Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog work in complete isolation. While they may be working to save the world, there is little representation of this in their respective games. Outside of fun, the only reward for playing is rescuing pixelated princesses and fuzzy animals. These games rely solely on the strength of their gameplay to attract ...

The .hack series has established itself as a guilty pleasure of roleplaying video games, akin to Sylvester Stallone and action movies or The OC and cheesy teen dramas. Despite repetitive button mashing and frustrating artificial intelligence, .hack remains entertaining because of a ruthlessly addictive storyline and the encompassing universe around it. .hack//Quarantine is the culmination of the four-part .hack series.

With the explosion in accessible information and playable video game roms via the Internet, few video games remain truly obscure to this day. Chances are, if a game is worth playing for any reason, someone has played it and felt the need to inform others. Games formerly considered obscure due to short/limited production runs (Radiant Silvergun) or translation issues (Bahamut Lagoon) are soon exposed by diehard fans on the Internet who appreciate the value of the gameplay.

Do you remember the music of the early nineties? It featured a wave of experimental genres and new hybrids, at least compared to the music of the eighties. From Seattle, the raw sound of Nirvana refined the rougher edges of punk, paving the way for later acts such as Green Day, which itself was a hybrid of British punk and “new” alternative. The Black Crowes tried a new fusion of Southern blues with rock and roll. Rage Against the Machine combined political protest lyrics with an aggressive ...

If X-Men Legends was a Diablo expansion pack, would anybody care? What if it was named Final Fight 4? For all the allure provided by the possibility of controlling a squad of X-Men, X-Men Legends comes up amazingly short with tired game design and an overall lack of excitement. This is a cardinal sin for an X-Men game, a comic book series which is anything but tired.

A Game John Wooden Can Appreciate

Disgaea belongs firmly in the first camp of superior tactical roleplaying games, although it should be noted that it’s hanging by its fingernails off the edge of the cliff. The requisite tactical gameplay needs some tweaks, but this is balanced by the charm that the characters of Disgaea possess.

If the tedious fights were taken out of Base Wars, or if the faulty computer intelligence had been fixed, a better baseball game would have been produced. As it stands though, Base Wars is just an inferior hybrid.

Overall, Breath of Fire 2 is a game that's just below great because of a bad translation and a lack of new content from the previous release.