By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter
INQUIRER.net

I’M an air guitarist, that is I strum my fingers without a real guitar. Actually, I don’t know how to play the guitar nor will I have the patience to learn how to. I just use my imagination like most non-guitarists. But Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2) just about made me wan to pick up a real guitar and learn how to pluck chords.

This is the very first time I’ve played a game from the Guitar Hero series, which has been getting more and more popular and gave PS2 owners a reason to actually keep their PS2s for quite a while. This is not a game about graphics and as such players will not be concerned or distracted by the 3D background, which I would say is nominally good in some sense. All the players will be concerned about are the five colored notes from the top of a screen coming down along a virtual guitar neck and the player will have to press the corresponding fret button on their guitar controller. It’s also important that every time a fret button is pressed the strum bar has to be pressed down as well. As in a real guitar, there is also a whammy bar for hammer-on and pull-offs for rapid, consecutive notes.

First-time players like me will find playing the game difficult to start with, especially when having to press five buttons with only four left fingers (the left thumb is at the back of the guitar neck). Most of the time, the index finger will be used to press two buttons as it is the most movable finger among the four. Still, it takes quite some time to learn what to press and can be daunting even with the easy mode. The concept is similar to the arcade Dance Dance Revolution wherein the player has to time their button press when the notes hit the empty colored buttons at the bottom of the screen. Missing a note will cause some points and the Rock Meter to be shaved off. The Rock Meter serves as the player’s health and when it drops to zero it will cause the music to stop. Not missing for a while will give special bonus points to the player. Bonus points become harder to achieve as the levels increases. Getting in the “groove,” that is, being able to completely following the buttons on screen would take at least 1 hour. But once the buttons are mastered, it’ll be hard for anyone to let go of the controller.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Erin Chupeco, hackenslash Contributor
INQUIRER.net

PICTURE this: you are a recently orphaned student who has just enrolled into Gekkoukan High — a prestigious establishment that seems normal by all outward appearances — that is, until the stroke of midnight, when the world literally changes. People are transformed into “coffins,” to protect them from hordes of enemies called Shadows that patrol the area, seeking fresh meat to feed upon. Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — you are one of the chosen few with the ability to summon Personas; entities that are a part of your character’s psyche, that can be used to combat these Shadows. You are, however, the only one in the student body to switch and use multiple Personas in combat, granting you leadership of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, formed to defeat the Shadows once and for all. And it only gets weirder.

In terms of storytelling and plot concepts, Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is a revolutionary breakthrough, playing and telling its story like no other franchise to date. While players do not need to be aware of previous Persona installments to understand the game, fans will find a few similarities in the game with its predecessors.

Optimism, rainbows, puppy dogs, and general happiness; these are not necessarily things that you will find while playing Persona 3. The game presents different complex concepts, raising issues like the psychological implications of sanity, paradigm shifts, and even mock “suicides” — most of the characters for instance, can only manifest their Persona during battle by pointing an Evoker (a gun-like weapon made to force Persona out of one’s soul) to their heads and pulling the trigger.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Erin Chupeco, hackenslash Contributor
INQUIRER.net

THERE are very few 2D rendered games in the market today that would even dare to compete with the more aesthetically pleasing 3Ds and FMVs trends that most current games have adopted. Fortunately, Odin Sphere for the PlayStation 2 is one of them. Combining beautifully hand-painted artworks and compelling gameplay with well-thought out plot twists and lovable characters, Odin Sphere is a traditional masterpiece, and one of the last few games for the PS2 worth waiting for.

Save the Forest Witch, save the world

Odin Sphere is a story of five people, all destined to play a part in changing the world and stopping the coming Armageddon — or furthering its progress. Odin Sphere is also a fairy tale — tales of love and triumphs set in the midst of war. The game starts when a young girl named Alice wanders into her grandfather’s attic. Selecting a book prompts the player to read (as Alice), and play through the lives of the character featured. Completing a book unlocks more books, and therefore unlocks more characters to play through — five in all. Once finished, a special book involving all characters is then made available for play.

The talking frog should have been playable. Seriously

Gwendolyn is a young Valkyrie who had just recently lost an older sister, and fights under her father, King Odin’s, banner — not to win the war, but to win his love. Cornelius is a young prince of Titania, who wakes up one day to find that he has been transformed into a Pooka — an anthropomorphic rabbit. Taking up the sword of a fallen ancestor, he must now fight to break the curse. Mercedes, a fairy princess who lost her mother during the Fairies’ war against Odin, must now assume the mantle of queen, aided by a frog who is more than what it appears to be. Oswald is a human knight fighting for the fairies — but when a betrayal leaves him with no master to serve, he decides to pursue the interests of his heart instead. Velvet, royal survivor of the destroyed nation of Valentine, must piece together the meaning of a prophecy handed down by her mother, to halt the Armageddon — and to defy her destiny, which predicts her own doom…

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter
INQUIRER.net

IF there’s one popular Marvel character in video games, it’s Spider-Man, who has had several titles under his belt in the last 30 years. He started out as an 8-bit hero in 1982 in the Atari 2600, then in 1987 in the Sega Genesis and PC until he became a major franchise title in the Sony intendo and Microsoft consoles. Spider-Man has been reincarnated in just about every known console.

In his latest video game adventure, the developers (Next Level, Artificial Mind and Movement, Beenox Studios) made major changes in the storyline of the web-slinger that may not be considered as canon. But most of these changes are actually coming from the last three Spider-Man movies and while the video game-movie tie-ins did not fare as well as the movies, the other Spider-Man titles that were not related to movies were quite successful.

I’m reviewing the PlayStation 2 version, and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is one such title wherein the adventure is very loosely based on the movies. As in past video game adventures, Spider-Man will swing his way through levels of enemies up until the boss battles. But one unique difference in this game is that the end-level boss becomes Spider-Man’s sidekick, in much the same vein as in the Final Fantasy video games where the bosses become summoned guardians.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

CHECK out this trailer from Electronic Arts Limited (UK), which explains the Aggro system in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 third-person shooter Army of Two.

Army of Two will be launched on November 15 in North America and Europe.

For more videos from INQUIRER.net and our partners, visit iVDO.