Astro Boy
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I'm a bit of a fan of the character Astro Boy. I'm not sure if it's his dress sense or his mega awesome haircut, but it's probably not the actual show. I respect the fact that he exists, and own an action figure complete with detachable robot head, but I don't really think I want to revisit the actual cartoons at the age of 34. I'm not implying that I have grown up tastes, but there are limits.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't apply the same idea to the PlayStation 2 game. It's a shame, really. I enjoyed the fully animated origin clip at the beginning of a new game, was mildly disappointed by the significant drop in graphical quality for the in game engine, and then was distinctly underwhelmed by the game play itself. Punch stuff, fly around, punch stuff
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more, do some attacks, wonder where the hell you are in relation to the robot dudes you're fighting, get killed, turn it off and try something else.
King's Field IV
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I remember getting King's Field 1 and 2 on PlayStation 1 during my early years as a 32 bit system adopter, and wondering if I'd taken a quaalude, or perhaps set the PS1 on 33 1/3 speed. The game was s-l-o-w. Looking back, however, it had some elements of Oblivion or Morrowind, in that you had the first person perspective, and the illusion of free roaming. OK, perhaps I'm stretching a bit.
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Having played King's Field IV for a whopping and extensive period of at least 5 minutes, I'd have to say I'm stretching a lot. The graphics may be a major improvement on the PS1 games, and surprisingly good even now (the game originally came out in 2002), the glacial pace still exists. The hand of your character swinging a club down is in an incredibly amusing slow motion. I also particularly enjoyed a cheap death or two, resulting in reloading the entire game, since I hadn't found a save point yet. To be avoided.
Formula Challenge
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This is some completely random budget title a friend of mine in England sent me, knowing as he does that I'll take just about any PlayStation 2 game I don't have. It would appear to be a budget Formula 1 game without a license, and it most certainly has very, very repetitive title screen music. I can hear it from the living room as I type this, kids, and it's not pleasant.
I was ready to dismiss this as another pile of poop that nobody should waste their time with, but when I started the first race and, as is my wont, planted it with no cares for other cars or upcoming curves in the road, I rear-ended another car in the race, and it went floating up straight into the sky. Certainly one of the most hilarious things I've seen in some time, and I see myself naked in the mirror every morning before I shower.
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By the way, the game is another pile of poop that nobody should waste their time with, although the sound effects were also amusing. I'm surprised they managed to record angry hornets, bears farting and cerebral palsy victims kicking air conditioners with such high fidelity.
Master Chess
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Released by 505 Gamestreet in Europe, this is one of many ports of the "Simple" series of budget games in Japan. In this case, it's a chess game. Chess is pretty universal, and rather entertaining, although I personally suck at it, since I'm so woefully out of practice. I won't even mention how the AI put me in checkmate within three minutes. The graphics are simplistic, but highly functional -it's simply a top view. No funny stuff, just chess.
Options are extensive for this kind of thing - free play, a tournament, tutorial CPU games ("The more
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you battle, the stronger the CPU gets! The opponent CPU is capable of saving and storing more than 13,000 games!!") and it also mixes drinks and balances your chequebook.
If you're a big fan of the "I move my horsie! Tee hee!" school of gaming, you could do worse than this, especially considering there's only a couple chess games available for PlayStation 2 at all, and I don't believe the others are budget games, or particularly common. Oh, and yes, I realize the picture isn't strictly related to Master Chess, but it's more fun to look at, don't you think?
Sega Bass Fishing Duel
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Only steers and queers like fishing video games, and you don't look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down. Sega, you had best square your ass away and start shitting me decent Sonic games that don't involve racing or Olympic matches with Mario, or I will definitely fuck you up.
(I was going to go with just "Tastes like chicken", but everyone loves Full Metal Jacket, don't they? Don't they?)
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Bonus Content! 1000 Word Review
Nintendo GameCube: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
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Well, the last time I checked, the exchange rate was 1 picture = 1000 words.
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