Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Developer: Relic Entertainment

Publisher: THQ

Played on: Dawn of War 2 Complete Collection

The original Dawn of War was a fun game though a bit low on content, but, once all three expansion packs were installed, the sheer ammount of content coupled with the perfectly balanced gameplay turned into one of my favorite games in the genre.

Now, rather than making yet another expansion (which I'd be perfectly fine with) they decided to launch a full-fledged sequel... which I'm also perfectly fine with.

The story is completely unrelated to the previous Dawn of War games, here, you assume the role of a silent character commanding a different chapter of the Blood Ravens who must battle an invasion from Orks, Eldar and for the first time ever in the series, the Tyranids. I didn't care much for the plot itself, but I definitely enjoyed the character interactions as your squad leaders didn't always see eye to eye with their comrades or other outside forces.

Plot isn't the only aspect where Dawn of War 2 breaks away from the prequel as the gameplay is now radically different, especially in the single player campaign. For starters, there's absolutely no resource collecting or unit production in the campaign mode, they are however available in the multiplayer modes, but even then there's still no base building. instead, when tackling the campaign, you will control a limited number of squads in a gameplay mix of RTS with dungeon crawler. This means each squad acts as a different 'class' as they level up, are assigned stats and equipped with better gear. 

You can assume a total of 6 squadrons though you can only take four with you, this army size limitation forces you to think tactically as you try to complete each objective and I was very surprised at how flexible your teams were. Depending on the gear, teams and stats chosen, I could easily shift between a heavy attack force capable of dealing high damage to most enemy types, or change to a nimble and stealthy approach. Should one of your squads be destroyed you can easily revive its sergeant, though you'll have to capture specific points if you want to recover any other lost soldiers.

I did get to play a bit of the campaign through co-op, but I didn't much care for this mode. I was expecting the second player to bring in squad reinforcements, but instead, all it does is halve the available units for each. Needless to say, if you're not perfectly in tune with your co-op buddy chances are the game just got a lot more difficult.

At first I found the game quite boring, but the campaign really picked up in intensity as you're given sets of story based missions coupled with randomly generated side-missions that need to be completed in a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, there aren't there aren't a lot of maps or objectives to accomplish so repetition does set in quite quickly as you find yourself running through the same locations killing the same enemies over and over.

Over on the multiplayer side of things the game changes to a more somewhat typical RTS style. While there is still no base building, you can capture various points throughout the map that automatically collect resources which can in turn be used to purchase or upgrade units. Despite this gameplay change, you have a population cap of a mere 10 squads per player, and considering there are no modes featuring more than 3 on 3 skirmishes, the battles will always at a small/medium scale. 

Dawn of War 2's most dire issue isn't in the game though. Instead it's in the online services it uses, namely Games For Windows Live which will be shut down in July of 2014 and with it goes any chance of online interaction with other players.

Overall I quite enjoyed Dawn of War 2, though the game is far from perfect. The campaign is fun but it becomes a bit repetitive, you can play it in co-op if you want but I'd really advise against it. The competitive online portions on the other hand are very fun but feel like an entirely different game altogether. Unfortunately as stated before, Games For Windows Live will shut down next year and with it, any chance of online play, so yes, I'm making the decision of including the end of GFWL as a con in the review.

Pros:

- Fun and enticing tactical gameplay that's easy to learn and hard to master
- Campaign is a nice mix of RTS and Diablo style gameplay
- Competitive Online modes feel entirely different, but are still very fun

Cons:

- Campaign gets repetitive after a while

- Co-op mode isn't very fun
- When Games for Windows Live shuts down all multiplayer mode will be gone forever

Final Grade: B

Packaging review to come soon

Manx TT Superbike

Developer: Sega AM3/Sega-AM4/Tantalus Interactive
Publisher: Sega

If there’s one genre where Sega dominated back in the mid 90s that would have to be the 3D arcade racer and Manx TT Superbike was no exception.

I’m just going to say it: The arcade feel and gameplay of Manx TT Superbike is perfect! The speed, the flow, the racing it’s extremely fun and addicting with that “one more race” factor. 

Adding to the wonderful gameplay are the colorful graphics, these are not all that great on a technical level due to low polygon models and 2D trees and buildings, but are still very pretty to look at thanks to mix of colors and general summer/spring feel of the game, however, I did notice some slight frame rate hiccups now and again, though nothing too serious.

The soundtrack is mostly composed of rock tunes which do a good job at getting you pumped and ready to go, though when I reached speeds of upwards of 190MPH my bike starting sounding more like a vacuum cleaner… that was kind of weird.

Unfortunately for all the praise I just gave the game I have one major issue, there’s only two tracks! Oh sure there’s also a mirrored version of said tracks and I admit, it’s kinda neat seeing these from a reversed perspective, but really, once you master the regular version it’ll likely only take you one or two tries to dominate its mirrored counterpart.

There are a few other modes like the superbike challenge or the time trial modes, but really these add very little in the way of replay value, so far the best the biggest drive I get to replay it (other than the gameplay that is) is to beat the dreaded superbike, an NPC player with an overpowered bike, that’s faster and handles better than anyone else’s.

Overall, I freaking love the gameplay here, but really, there’s only enough content here to last you two days if that. With that said, this is my default Saturn game, it’s the perfect title for when you have 5 minutes to kill, but anything over that and you’ll likely get tired of the same two tracks over and over. A shame too, there was potential for an A+ here.

Pros:

- Attractive, colorful graphics
- Fast and addicting gameplay
- While a bit limited, the Soundtrack is pretty nice

Cons:

- Only two tracks (four if you count the mirrored tracks)

- Very little replay value once you finish in first place
- Bike models are very low poly

Final Grade: B-

I generally don't like mid 90s CGI covers, but on the other hand I am a sucker for pleasing vibrant colors and this one is chock full of them!

Inside you'll find a pretty barebones manual, it starts off by telling you something about Norse kings gutting their defeated foes to please Odin and I'm really not sure how any of this is related to bikes. Outside of that weird introduction it explains you how to play the game and what each mode does, though it doesn't tell you too much, likely because there's not that much to talk about to begin with. It also doesn't really help the manual is in black and white with extremely minimal decorative art on the bottom right and left corners.

I did like the "coming soon" section as it showed off the box art for Torico, Mass Destruction, Saturn Bomber Man and Fighters Megamix, though a few screenshots would've been nice

Overall the manual is a bit disappointing, but the cover is pleasing and it does come in a sturdy late-life plastic Saturn casing, so it's not all bad.

Packaging Grade: C+

Yakuza

Developer: Sega
Publisher:  Sega

I remember reading a magazine preview of Yakuza back in the day labeling it as “Sega’s GTA”. Now considering how I stopped caring for Rockstar’s flagship franchise once the series evolved to 3D I ended up ignoring Yakuza, expecting it to be more of the same, much to my detriment.

You play as Kazuma Kyriu, once the most feared yakuza member in the entire Tojo clan, but fell into disgrace after being wrongfully accused of murdering his own boss and spending 10 years in prison. When he’s finally, Kazuma discovers the Tokyo clans are on the brink of civil war due to the disappearance of 20 billion yen from their hidden stash.

As the game begins you’re prompted to explore Tokyo’s fictional Kamurocho district, which is a series of neighborhoods filled with bars, strip clubs, stores, thugs, gangs, yakuza and just about everything else you can imagine. While the general area is relatively small when compared to other sandbox games or even RPGs it makes up for it by being so damn interesting and detailed. Every neighborhood feels different from the last, you can read magazines, watch commercials and have a few drinks, all of which are from real products and brands though most of them are exclusive to Japan. Still, I recognized a few western products like Jack Daniels whisky. You can’t really interact with random NPCs though, nor can you steal or even drive a car, as when exploring Kamurocho, most of the action is relegated to select areas with specific tasks or NPCs to talk to.

There are a ton of shops you can visit, many of them with their own mini-games which can range from baseball batting cages, gambling or even hostess bars where you pay for the time and opportunity to court a woman (wait, what?). These are pretty fun at first, but a lot of them quickly become stale or the rewards are simply not worth the time/money investment especially in regards to the hostesses. I ended up spending nearly 100K on one of them with the ultimate reward being a small animation implying Kazuma slept with her… big whoop.

When you’re not exploring the town it’s likely you’re engaged in combat, this can happen as part of a story/side mission or by random thugs accosting you, which happens way too often. The combat is really fun, playing like a 3D Streets of Rage, you can perform combos, grab your enemies or even use weapons which can be bought or found lying around on the floor and as you beat thug after thug you gain experience points which can be spent on learning new moves or just generally improving your stats. 

Unfortunately as fun as the combat is, it happens way too often to the point of it almost feeling series of random encounters. In one instance I was attacked by three groups in the same street! To make matters worse there’s a loading screen between battles, streets and shops, slowing down the pacing quite a bit. Combat isn’t perfect either as I often ran into camera issues where I couldn’t see myself and/or the enemies, also, it could’ve benefited from a lock-on feature as I often found myself punching the air simply because I was facing the at the wrong angle. 

The story for the most part is pretty good, even if it hinges quite a bit on the soap-opera side. It features plenty of interesting and unique characters, but many of them, as well as the situations themselves are often so over-exaggerated that it feels like I’m watching a Naruto anime (e.g. at one point your character punches someone through the floor). My real gripe with its story however lies with the complete lack of self-restraint towards the later chapters, it throws you a bunch of plot twists and everything just keeps escalating to point where it simply becomes a bit too ludicrous for my taste, though I did enjoy the relationship between Kazuma and his friends, especially detective Date.

It even features a pretty impressive cast of well-established voice actors such as Mark Hamill (Batman: TAS) and John DiMaggio (Futurama) but you wouldn’t have guessed it by the performances we got, with the exception of Mark Hamill’s Majima everyone sounds so bored and lifeless. If I had to guess I’d say all of the actors were given zero voice direction, but hey, that’s just my opinion.

Graphically I was pretty impressed with Yakuza, the city is beautiful to look at both artistically and on a technical level with tons of Neon lights, billboards and dozens of NPCs leading their daily lives though at times I did notice some light texture warping and a seaming issues. I’m surprised to see the latter is still an issue considering this is a late PS2 release.

On the sound department is certainly doesn’t win any prizes, apart from the previously mentioned voice acting there are only a handful of songs and I got tired of the battle music way too fast. I also noticed a few ambient sounds looping every 3 seconds or so especially when visiting K-mart, but these were in the minority as almost every other place did a good job at disguising this.

Overall I feel Yakuza is a much better game than I originally thought. While it can be seen as a GTA-style game I would argue this is a shallow comparison at best. The story, combat and exploration are fun, but they’re all poorly balanced, with too much combat, a plot that goes overboard towards the end and an abundance of mini-games where the rewards are hardly ever worth the time invested.

Trivia: Did you know many of the brands and even some of the shops we see in Yakuza exist in real life? Due to the game's expensive development process Sega secured several tie-in campaigns ranging from the Don Quijote discount stores to Jack Daniels adds.

Pros:

- Fun combat
- The city is small but interesting and very detailed
- The story is pretty good for the most part
- Plenty of mini-games to keep you entertained

Cons:

- Gameplay becomes repetitive after a while

- You'll encounter loading screens a bit too often for my taste
- Towards the latter chapters the story jumps the shark
- With so few worthwhile rewards, the mini-games feel meaningless

Final Grade: B-

The box shows our main character with his back turned to the viewer and displaying his Yakuzatattoo. While the idea itself is a bit on the boring side the nice use of color in the tattoo makes up for this turning it into a pretty eye-catchy box art.

When reading the manual I was surprised at the lack of backstory information or character backgrounds, all you get is a short paragraph that sounds more like a tagline than it does an actual backstory. 

On the flip-side the booklet goes into great detail on how to play the game. It gives you a ton of information, screenshots, tips and NPCs to talk to. On the rim of each of each even numbered page is a different Yakuza styled tattoo, while the designs end up repeating themselves they do a good job at making the manual feel unique and part of the experience, unfortunately the entire booklet is in black and white though, so while it makes for a nice read the eye candy is a bit muffled.

Overall this is a pretty nice package, I liked the cover image and while it doesn't come with any extras a lot of effort was put into the manual, a shame that it comes in black and white and lacks backstory information.

Packaging Grade: B+