PlayStation 2

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003

March 12, 2003

PlayStation 2 / Reviews / by Shane Quast Make a comment! / Tweet it!

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/tw2003/cover.jpg[/floatleft]Although I’m not a terribly huge fan of golf, I do enjoy a good golf game from time to time. Never having played any of the previous entries in the Tiger Woods series I really didn’t know what to expect from this game.

Since I was about to play this game on the PS2, I really didn’t expect much from the graphics on Tiger Woods 2003. In no way was I prepared for what I was about to see. From the cheesy pre-rendered cinematic with Tiger Woods in the intro to the craptacular background landscapes, the graphics in this game are terrible. Terrible with a capital “T”. The only thing about the graphics in Tiger Woods 2003 that is quasi-acceptable is the character models. I would consider this game to have the worst graphics I have ever seen in any golf game, and among the worst I have ever seen on the PS2. The fairways looked like concrete painted green and the greens look like ponds with some sort of green sludge floating on top of them. In summary, get yourself a 5 year old, give him a green crayon, and you’ll be able to generate graphics better than this game.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/tw2003/ss03_thumb.jpg[/floatright]This EA Sports Trax thing has got to go. It seems like whoever selected the music for Tiger Woods 2003 had no idea what the demographic for this game was going to be. The soundtrack is chocked full of metal and rock. That’s right, metal and rock; on a golf game. Insert your own blank stare here. Aside from the soundtrack that seems completely out of place, the actual golf sounds aren’t bad, although there are a few oddities that pop up from time to time. Pickle and I were playing on a course in England and we kept hearing this strange sound in the background. After about an hour of this Pickle blurts out, “Was that a cow?” Strangely enough, it was a cow. This game’s sound wierds me out.

Control is Tiger Woods 2003 solo strong point. It only took me a few minutes to get the hang of the angles and the spin control. I still don’t feel like the controls were very realistic though. You have to tap the L2 button repeatedly while the ball is in the air to get the ball to spin the direction you want it to. I don’t know of any pro golfers who have psycho-kinetic powers and are able to adjust a ball’s spin in midair. Additionally, I don’t think that the PS2’s analog joystick lends itself very well to this type of game. You pull back on the joystick to start your back swing and slide to forward to complete your swing. The PS2 analog joystick seems too “sticky” to do this motion fluidly.

Tiger Woods 2003 presents little or no challenge whatsoever. It took me less than an hour to get good enough with the controls to win my first tournament. The putting in this game is the only thing that presents any sort of challenge at all, and that is only due to the fact that you have no grid or any other type of device to line up your putts with. The only thing you have to work with is your “caddy tips.” Your caddy tips will be something ridiculous like “5 ft. 4 in. long and 4 in. right.” This would be great if you had any point of reference. You spend a lot of time asking yourself “Does that look like 2 feet?”

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/tw2003/ss07_thumb.jpg[/floatleft]To be honest, Tiger Woods 2003 just isn’t very much fun. There are several mini-games included in the game, but none of them represent any real challenge. After about an hour or so into this game you’ll be wondering why you’re still playing. It doesn’t take long to master the controls, and Pickle was holing out from 30 yards less than 30 minutes after we started. A visit to the dentist for a root canal or two would be more entertaining than an afternoon playing Tiger Woods 2003. If you’re looking for a fun golf game I would recommend Outlaw Golf for the XBox.

My best advice would be to avoid Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 altogether. Don’t rent it, buy it, or even borrow it from a friend. This game is just the icing on the cake from a series of sub-par games from EA Sports as of late. It just seems like they are rushing everything and not taking the time to make the game quality. Hopefully they will fix these issues soon because in the past I have been a huge fan of EA.

Pride FC

February 26, 2003

PlayStation 2 / Reviews / by Mike Carabajal Make a comment! / Tweet it!

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/pfc/cover.jpg[/floatleft][author]Soda[/author]So this week, like many others, started off with Pickle and I debating back and forth as to which game to buy at EB. After Manchester United dealt with us wanting to try out about 10 games Pickle walks over to me with Pride FC for PS2. Interesting decision on his part, because we both have a love/hate with the PS2 and both have been furiously pissed off at THQ since Wrestlemania X8. I decided to give it a shot and believe it or not we actually enjoyed playing it in the store, so I reluctantly agreed to buy it and give THQ a chance to redeem themselves.

[author]Pickle[/author]The funny thing is that when Soda says “I” decided to buy it, he really means that I, Pickle, had to pay for it while he gravy trains the second controller. I was in the mood for a fighting game at the time for reasons unknown. I personally do not like fighters. After 1000 editions of the same Street Fighter and shitty ass Mortal Kombats (with the exception of the first) I gave up on any games where I have to fight another guy. Soda is right. THQ has sucked for a long time now, after putting out some great games with AKI during the N64 “glory days”. The WWE Smackdown Series has never been a favorite of mine. I hate the character models and fast paced controls. It was just never right with me. So after seeing THQ on the cover I almost put it back on the shelf if it hadn’t been for me wanting to whoop some ass. I was able to demo it and to my amazement the game looked cool. I am a fan of the Pride and UFC television pay per views, so I knew who to pick and what I was doing. The computer had other ideas, and promptly kicked my ass about 10 straight times. Then after finally beating the CPU, I challenged Soda, mass chaos ensued.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/pfc/ss02_thumb.jpg[/floatright][author]Soda[/author]Mass chaos did ensue, but I’m still pissed because Pickle was reading the instruction booklet while I drove home and he knew all the moves by the time we got there. What Pickle and I quickly noticed about Pride was that THQ didn’t use the same crappy character models that they use for the Smackdown series. While the character models aren’t extremely complex, they look very good. THQ definitely made a good decision by not trying to get too complicated with the characters because every time they do I feel like I’m playing Pit Fighter all over again. They did a really good job of working within the Playstation 2’s graphic capabilities and not trying to push it too hard. The end result is characters that look good, moves that look fluid and natural, and kicks and punches that are flat out devastating. The first time I hit Pickle with a double fisted smash to the face we just about lost it. A major issue I had with the graphics during the fights was the ludicrous amount of blood that sprayed around the ring after every hit. The characters don’t bleed like you would expect a real person to bleed; they just seem to emit neon red raindrops like a sprinkler. The only cool thing that stems from this blood fountain is that there are some camera angles where one the fighter’s head sprays blood on the camera like a watermelon exploding. It’s gross, but if you’re landing nice blows than it gets an “Oh Damn” result from the unlucky guy who’s head is taking the pounding. Other aspects of the games graphics came out successful as well, the ring entrances aren’t anything over the top, but they do look smooth as well. Pride uses a lot of actual video between matches and during ring entrances, which are edited fairly well. Except when you create your own character. Instead of just using bits of Pride highlights or something it gives you a brief custom section to your entrance video. They are dumb, really dumb. For some reasons they also decide to give your created character fun little nicknames like “The Natural” or “The Fighting Machine.” This one entrance even has 80’s looking Pink Bubbles floating around in the background that led me to call Pickle’s created character “The Bubble Man.” It was classic because it really pissed him off. All that business aside, the graphics are some of the best ever to grace the PS2. Pickle, why don’t you tell the good folks at home a lil’ something about the sound?

[author]Pickle[/author]The sound for Pride is probably where it could use the most improvement. The game is presented as the actual live Pride event, so of course they try to bring you into the actual arena. The intro music for fighters is presented as well as an announcer introducing them. The intense Japanese live crowds cheer for their favorite fighter, and in the ring you will obviously hear the sound of a fist or a foot hitting others upside the dome. However the sound of hits are a bit unrealistic, as it should be more muted as opposed to an explosion happening. The intro songs, pre and post match announcing are low, and the crowd noise usually drowns them out. Cool thing is that some fighters have actual licensed songs that accompany them to the ring such as Sandstorm. But nothing, and I mean nothing, is better than hearing the Japanese accented announcer say your custom character’s name as, “Pwaaaaaayerrrrrrrrrr WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!” Sheer hilarity my friends, sheer hilarity. The game does do the mat sounds correctly, and you will hear this the most as you and your opponent roll around the mat trying to break each other’s neck the audio that represents it is perfect. Good thing that most matches take place on the mat so you can hear the one aspect of audio that was done right…besides “Pwaaaaaayerrrrrrrrrr WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!”

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/pfc/ss04_thumb.jpg[/floatleft][author]Soda[/author]Which brings us to the best part of Pride, the control. I hate fighting games that usually just end up in either a button mashing fest or a series of complicated moves that only a quantum physics engineer could master. How many times have you had this conversation while playing a fighting game with friends; “Hey, sweet. How did you do that fireball?”

“Oh man, it’s so easy. Just move the D-pad back and forth in a rocking motion while standing on one foot at the same time holding down all four buttons on the top of the controller and hitting the A, B, and C buttons while mashing the select button with your nose and eating a bowl of ravioli at the same time.”

And don’t even get me started about how much I hate the controls on Smackdown. Like the graphics in Pride, THQ kept the controls simple but elegant. They made sure that a person couldn’t win a match by pressing the jab button repeatedly or just pinning you in the corner and kicking you in the junk. Pickle and I decided to discuss the two aspects of a fight by talking about them separately. I prefer to use Gilbert Yvel who is a kick boxer. Pickle is usually a Jiu-Jitsu fighter, so obviously we employ different strategies during a fight. Basically my strategy is to keep him at a distance and keep myself off the mat. If I can keep the fighter at a distance I can do a dash move that ends with a knee to the face that is just wicked. Throughout the course of a fight Pickle will move in many times to try and knock me to the mat, so I play a bit defensively and weasel my way out of most of the grapples he tries to get me in. As I wear Pickle down with a few roundhouse kicks to the head, I try to get him on his back to go for the win. Mat wrestling is more of Pickle’s forte, so I’ll let him tell you about it.

[floatright]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/pfc/ss01_thumb.jpg[/floatright][author]Pickle[/author]The fighting engine really shows how well it was designed when the matches go to the guard. There are so many things that can happen depending on your style of fighter. You want to take away as much of the other player’s life as possible leaving him susceptible to a submission. Or you can hold him down and beat the high hell out of him on the ground for a knock out. Anything and everything has a reversal, often times your submission’s momentum will cause you to tap out due to a well-timed reversal. Or if a fighter is on top raining punches below, the fighter in his guard can catch the punch and turn it into the triangle chokehold. Personally if you want to win the match you must control the ground game. The key to taking a striking player down to your level is to take him to the mat. The controls make this possible but difficult to do. If the opposing fighter knows you want him on the ground he can keep his distance and avoid any take down attempts. The game becomes a chess match if played the way it was meant or it can turn into a slugfest. Personally I love to play slow matches and set up the submission, but sometimes a well-placed knee to the face will cause you to panic and start flailing punches like a mad man. The controls are set up for you to control the match and make it your fight; it can sometimes become almost artistic with reversal after reversal to set up the final blow.

[author]Soda[/author]Pride really shines when you play against another person. Playing against the computer can be extremely frustrating. I don’t understand how the difficultly works on this game. You’ll enter a tournament one time and mow down your opponents to the finals and than another time the computer will paint the ring with your blood in the first round. It’s very bizarre and there doesn’t really seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. The first time Pickle and I tried a tournament he got beat in the first round and I made it all the way to the finals to fight one of the most spectacular matches ever against Ken Metzger. Sadly I lost with less than 10 seconds left in the first round. The strange thing was that the longer we played the harder it seemed to get. After an entire weekend we couldn’t even win a match anymore. I imagine that if you invested some serious time and energy into Pride you could get really good. Only once you got good you would become frustrated with the lack of a ranking system or any type of “title defense” mode.

[author]Pickle[/author]This game has a fun factor only a fighting game can have. While playing it alone it is ok, but when playing with friends with some friends it really shines. The matches can be great to watch sometimes, as you pals yell at you to do this or do that. The reaction from hardcore knees to the grill is priceless as the crowd lets out a collective, ” OHHHHHH!” This is not a game I would mind waiting for my turn in. The first player aspect however is not as fun. There are limited modes and no career mode with player rankings and such. Playing by yourself just to go through a tourney and become champ is not very fun after a while. The survival mode is fucking impossible, so that isn’t fun either. Like I said, round up some friends and have a great time with this game. I assure you your fingers will be hurting from all the buttons being pressed to avoid the submission. I would say the game does have a lasting fun appeal for multiplayer, but a short one for the single player modes.

[floatleft]http://www.snackbar-games.com/images/reviews/pfc/ss03_thumb.jpg[/floatleft][author]Soda[/author]Pride is definitely the best thing I’ve seen THQ do in a long, long time. But I can’t help but feel that if this game had spent another few months in development it would have been fantastic. The most fun you’ll have with Pride is to rent it and bring over as many friends as possible for a night of heavy alcohol consumption and video games. The single player mode on Pride is just not fun enough to buy it. And if you’re thinking that you’re going to buy this game and get good and than bring your friends over and kick their asses, just don’t. If you get too good at the game it’s not going to be any fun. The best matches result when two players of almost equal skill match up against each other. This game is definitely worthwhile to rent, as a matter of fact consider it a Snackbar recommended rental. Props to THQ and here’s to hoping that they keep making games that are on par with Pride.

[author]Pickle[/author]So get to the rental store and pick this bitch up before I make your ass tap out!

Wild Arms 3

January 3, 2003

PlayStation 2 / Reviews / by Shane Quast Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Normally I am not a huge fan of the RPG genre, so it’s a bit odd that I picked out this game. I’ve never really been a fan of cell shading either. Something about Wild Arms 3 intrigued me at the store though. It had been quite awhile since I’d given an RPG a chance and this could possibly be the one that changed my mind. Wild Arms 3 was developed by SCEA and was released back in October of 2002. While not the best game I’ve played lately I was very impressed by the things that SCEA tried in this game. It’s seems that there has been an extremely lack of creativity in the game market lately, but that isn’t true of Wild Arms 3.

WA3 defiantly changed my mind about cell shading, this is the first time I have ever seen the power of it. I had no clue what could be accomplished and communicated by what I thought was just a cope out on the graphics end. Instead of the usual style of cell shading WA3 tried to texturize the cells. The end result just looks like they ran the scenes through a couple of Photoshop filters. I’ll have to admit that the graphics are pretty weak in the beginning and in the worldview. Later on in WA3 after you get spells to work with is when the graphics get a lot better. While I wouldn’t consider the graphics great by any stretch of the imagination the lighting effects on the characters are fantastic. Pickle sat there watching me play this a lot and was constantly pestering me as to how this game couldn’t carry Final Fantasy’s jock, but even he was blown away by some of the lighting effects. Some of the enemies you fight are so lame though. It seems kind of a waste to use a “Devastate” spell on a floating book. SCEA really could have put more time into developing more detailed enemies. The battle scenes that initially cause a jaw-dropping awe effect will later on make you want to beat yourself over the head due to how repetitive they are. In the end all this game’s graphics did for me was get me more hyped up about the cell shading in the upcoming Zelda.

The sound in WA3 is terrible. I played for close to ten hours and heard two midi tracks looped endlessly over and over. After two hours or so I just went ahead and played on mute, and trust me, I didn’t miss anything. One thing that really spurned me away from RPGs in the past was all the reading that was involved. Once RPGs started out on the next-gen consoles I thought that was a thing of the past. Apparently SCEA didn’t get that memo. There are very few things I find more frustrating than reading endless amounts of cheesy dialogue with no voice-over whatsoever.

Although I don’t play many RPGs I found that the controls during battle sequences were really easy to master. In the worldview though I wandered aimlessly not quite able to master quick turns while riding horseback. It doesn’t seem like control is a big issue in the RPG world, unless someone attempts to implement an extremely complex battle sequence. The thing that frustrated me the most, and what I consider to be the downfall of this game is the navigation. For some bizarre reason all the cities are hidden and you have to run around with this stupid search tool to find everything. After a while it got so frustrating that I just gave up. The world is enormous, and I spent a ton of money on a world map that I could never figure out how to use. Note to game companies: when making an RPG don’t hide the fucking cities!

Other than the challenge of trying to find my next destination there was nothing terribly complex about WA3. A few puzzles were involved here and there, but nothing that took a whole lot to figure out. I spent most of the time lost, looking for cities. Once I was able to find them the levels were a breeze to get through. Even the bosses don’t pose much of a threat. I fought the same boss on three separate occasions and whipped up on him every time. I imagine that later in the game the enemies are a bit more challenging, but like I said, the sheer frustration of trying to find the next city is headache enough.

I have an extremely short attention span and it actually amazed Pickle and myself that I was able to log close to 15 hours on WA3. The game’s story was really weak though. If the story had been developed a bit more I may have had more interest in achieving my next goal. All the characters back-stories were really weak as well and I was never really sure as to what my eventual goal was. Parts of it were entertaining, but as a whole the game really isn’t much fun. The repetitiveness of the enemies got to me as well. It seemed like enemy attacks were constant and I didn’t even have time to walk from point a to point b without being jumped 50 times.

In conclusion I’d say that it might be worth giving this one a rent. Someone with more patience than me may find it more enjoyable. I’d like to give SCEA props for trying new stuff and I think they have created an excellent foundation for other games to build on. This is the first time that I’ve been semi-interested in an RPG in quite some time. The fact that WA3 was a “western-style” RPG was pretty cool as well. It did peak my interest in other RPGs though and Pickle has convinced me to give Final Fantasy VII a shot. So maybe this game is a good beginner RPG to get people interested in the genre.

Kingdom Hearts

December 18, 2002

PlayStation 2 / Reviews / by Chris Rasco Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Let me start off by telling you that I had no clue this game was even in production. It wasn’t until Pickle brought it home and started playing it that I had even heard of it. So Dots and I walk upstairs to check it out with Pickle. Now Dots is a HUGE fan of the Disney world, so naturally her first reaction is “Buy it. We need to play that game.” So we head out to the store and with what limited funds I had at the time, we bought Kingdom Hearts. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. If you don’t know anything about the game, let me summarize it for you:

Kingdom Hearts is the story of Sora, a 14-year old boy whose world is shattered when a violent storm hits his island-paradise home, and is separated from his two closest friends, Riku, a 15-year old boy, and Kairi, a 14-year old girl. The storm scatters the three to different and unknown worlds.

At the same time, there’s turmoil in Disney Castle. King Mickey is missing, and Count Wizard Donald and Captain Goofy set out to find him.

On their travels they meet Sora, on his own search for his lost friends. The three were told of ominous creatures known as the Heartless – beings without hearts derived from an unknown dimension, and as it turns out, the ones responsible for the devastating storm. The Disney villains, enticed by the power of darkness, manipulate the Heartless to help them gather the princesses of heart, who are needed to open a mysterious final door.

Upon discovering the link between the Heartless, the storm and the disappearance of King Mickey, Sora, Donald and Goofy join forces and help familiar Disney heroes to save their worlds from the Heartless.

With more than 100 Disney characters — such as Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Jafar, Ariel, Peter Pan and tons more; the voice talents of Haley Joel Osment, David Ghallagher and Sean Astin, to name a few; guest appearances from past ”Final Fantasy” characters and the top notch gameplay and storyline from Squaresoft, Kingdom Hearts is a revolutionary adventure role-play game that will leave your adrenaline rushing and your heart pumping! It’ll take magic spells, wits and a cast of hundreds in multiple diverse lands to solve the riddle of the Heartless. Do you have what it takes?

Ok, so that wasn’t a summary, it was taken from the Squaresoft site. Whatever, you know what it is about now. So Dots and I start out playing, she was actually playing in the beginning, but I stole the controller from her at some point. In the beginning, you see a very impressive FMV and when the game finally starts you are presented with 3 abilities: Magic, Strength (Warrior), and Defense. At this point, you choose 1 ability and give up 1… this choice sets your character’s abilities up for the game. There are numerous FAQs about what those do and whatnot… so I won’t explain it. Jump forward past the choices etc… as that is not the only choice you make to determine your course in this game.

Let me briefly pause and explain to you folks that I am not an RPG fan. I know I know, but Cone, this IS an RPG. Ya, I get that. It’s not that I don’t like RPGs, but I have a rather distaste for turn based games. Maybe its due to my short attention span or even my inability to strategize, but I just prefer things to be real time.

Getting back to the game… My initial thoughts of this game were overall good. I was very impressed graphically in regards to the FMVs and the in game graphics. The sounds was about average. I don’t have a full surround sound system anymore so my judgement comes from plain ol stereo sound. The game is good, very good, but it needed something to hook me into it. I needed to feel as though I couldn’t go a single day without immersing myself into this Disney world that had been so finely crafted. It didn’t take long for that to happen. The story that Kingdom Heats tells is fascinating, and on par with the average RPG story. Keep in mind that I don’t play many RPGs… The hook came about 1/4 of the way into the game… when I finally figured out that I had tons of magic, items, and weapons that I hadn’t been using. Well crap! The game suddenly got way easier as I equipped the numerous items I had been toting around and not using. Now I was hooked and determined to hit level 100 and discover every secret in the game. I was also trying my best to catch Goofy in experience points, which you will find out is pointless as he seems to get points for everything you kill. Needless to say, I spent many hours just killing enemies, collecting items, and avoiding making any progress in the game.

My main complaints about the game were really with the idea of the “locking system” in which you automatically or manually target enemies and/or objects in order to attack and cast magic onto them. I experimented with Auto and Manual… my conclusion is this. The manual locking on takes a little extra skill to do properly, especially if there are numerous enemies around, and if the enemy you are locked on to moves then your camera view moves with him. Aha! There we have it. Sporadic camera movement that almost feels like the camera is slinging wildly around like some of those gravity based Flash movies you have seen (you know what I am talking about!). So I decided the Auto locking was the way to go and I learned to move Sora and attack in such a way that you kind of swing the camera around behind you . You get the hang of controlling the camera and locking onto enemies after about the 2nd world.

Aside from the camera, which I got used to, this game is superb. It has been a long time since I have been into a game like I am into Kingdom Hearts. If you are into turn based RPGs, you may not totally be into it, but if you enjoy real time action ala Dynasty Warriors 3, then you should definitely give this game a try. For the record, I am Level 100, have unlocked all the secrets, and have the Ultima Weapon. I have also logged 70 hours on that game and 25 on another.

Update: It has now been a good 3 weeks since I beat Kingdom Hearts and I haven’t touched the game since then. I have heard a lot of rumble about a possible sequel to this game, but not until 2005 at the earliest. The game has a tiny bit of replay value, but its not a game you will go back and play from the beginning very often, if at all. I still give this game an excellent rating since the 70 hours I spent playing it blow away the length of most current games, but I wish there was more to it. I almost think that if they would have let you play as another character with slightly different attributes (maybe Goofy or Donald) then the game would have been that much better.

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