worth importing? - Defunct Games

Review by Racewing
Publisher : Ubisoft
Genre(s) : Action
Developer : Pipeworks Software Category : Adventure
Release Date : 12/6/05
# of players : 1
Rating : “M” for Matue (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes)
Analyzing Prince of Persia: Revelations can be likened to a game of
baseball. In fact, I keep getting this nagging feeling that someone’s
already done it before, but whatever. In any case, let’s get started!
The game’s at bat; how will it fare?
Strike one! This is an enhanced port of Prince of Persia: Warrior
Within. Now, before you turn the page, I already know that everyone
whines about Warrior Within, so I won’t do the same. In fact, I totally
respect and like it. However, facts are facts: it’s still the weak link in
the Prince of Persia series. It’s got the most disjointed gameplay, uses
backtracking to confusing ends, contains hardly any humor, and makes
the Prince all emo.
Through all this, however, Warrior Within delivered all the quality
brain-busting gameplay the series is famous for. Revelations also
sports a smattering of super-hard rooms that weren’t in the console
version for people who have already conquered Warrior Within. These
rooms are brutal and you will lose many lives in them, guaranteed.
Unfortunately, in the end, this is still Warrior Within, and that’s going
to turn a lot of folks off. Why Ubisoft didn’t just start with enhancing
the classic Sands of Time, we’ll never really know.
Strike two! Loading. There is so much loading here. While it’s not as
bad as Midnight Club 3, it’s still very much enough to annoy. Expect to
wait a few minutes when first booting up the game, and when loading
saved games. Stray too far from automatic checkpoints before dying,
and you’ve got up to a minute’s worth of loading time there as well.
The game doesn’t control too badly with the analog nub, the camera
system has been converted well, and the gameplay is just as rock-solid
as its big brother... or at least, it would be if the framerate weren’t
2.75 of 5
so wishy-washy. This
brings us to strike
three: whether it
be the lack of the
PSP’s power, or just a
shoddy port in general,
the framerate is
inconsistent enough
to make previously
elementary parts of the
gameplay hard as heck.
There are also very
serious game-freeze
bugs and audio-sync
issues. Nothing’s worse
than having the game
completely crash,
forcing a cold reboot
just as you’re about to
finish that room that’s
been frustrating you for
almost an hour.
All of these factors combine to create a package that’s pretty safe to
pass over unless you’re a total Prince freak. It’s a shame, really; being
able to take a series of this caliber wherever you go should be a much
more enjoyable undertaking than it turned out to be. Pass this one up
and go play any given Prince of Persia on the consoles instead. Your
brain cells will thank you.
Rating : 2.5 of 5
2nd opinion by Roger Danish • Alternate Rating : 3 of 5
Like Ubi’s King Kong for PSP, Prince of Persia: Revelations is sloppy port with some serious glitches. Still, it
manages to entertain and fills a large genre gap for the handheld system. For serious fans only.
54_PRINCE OF PERSIA: REVELATIONS HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 1_ISSUE 8_WARM BUN
Now this is refreshing. Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under
Pressure deserves special recognition for being an urban settingbased
game that, for once, is not a pandering, embarrassing
exercise in stereotypes and cop killing. It’s unfortunate that
the game’s setting places it in proximity to crap like Crime Life:
Gang Wars and 25 to Life, because Getting Up is a rare title that
portrays urban life in a positive light, emphasizing self-expression
where others glorify murder.
Getting Up also humbles other urban games in terms of gameplay,
crafting an enjoyable experience that builds on elements found in
titles like Prince of Persia and Jet Grind Radio. Much of the game
is spent trying to figure out how to reach certain out-of-the-way
spots to tag with graffiti while working within the limits of your
character’s physical abilities. This is where the game is most fun; all
the climbing and wall-jumping moves are easy to pull off, and even
the stealth portions are well done.
It always seems like combat breaks things up whenever the game
thinks you’re having too much fun with exploration, though. Getting
Up’s fighting engine could’ve used a lot of work; enemies tend to
block any move that doesn’t drain your special attack meter, and
weapons do way too much damage compared to other attacks. You
probably won’t bother using more than a few basic moves for much
of the game either, as many attacks require too much thumb work
to perform and only result in a sliver of damage to an opponent.
Then there’s the game’s centerpiece, the graffiti tagging. Now, as
2nd opinion by 4thletter • Alternate Rating : 4 of 5
HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 1_ISSUE 9_WARM BUN
Review by Sardius
impressive as it is to be able to tag on almost any flat surface in
the game, there is simply nothing here that makes tagging at all
exciting or fun. Whereas Jet Grind Radio took a simplified approach
to graffiti in order to keep the game flowing at a quick pace, tagging
in Getting Up is a slow, laborious process that boils down to
painting over an outline. Awkward controls make this even less fun
than it sounds.
Also of note is that for a game about
self-expression, it’s really strange that
Getting Up does not allow you to design
your own graffiti tags. The default tags
in the game give plenty of ideas for
hilarious possibilities—a personal favorite
is one that simply says “BALLS” in
huge capital letters—but the lack of
a tag creation mode means that
one will never be able to bomb
the streets with curse words and
poorly-drawn genitalia, as
was very much possible in Jet
Grind Radio.
Getting Up offers a moderate
amount of fun, but it has its
fair share of problems. Jet Set
Radio Future is still the king of
its genre, but this is the next
best thing.
Rating : 3.5 of 5
Fun platforming, Nina Simone on the soundtrack, and cool-looking graffiti? I could get used
to this. Highly recommended.
Publisher : Atari
Genre(s) : Action/Adventure
Developer : The Collective Category : Graffiti
Release Date : 2/14/2006 # of players : 1-2
Rating : MATURE; Blood, Strong Language, Violence
3.75 of 5
MARC ECKO’S GETTING UP_REVIEW_55