Monday, January 30, 2012

Review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution


This review is based on my experience with the PS3 version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Score: 4/5

The name Deus Ex holds a lot of weight with the video game community. It was released in 2000 to critical acclaim. It’s well known for its numerous ways to tackle each situation in the game. The sequel Deus Ex Invisible War didn’t do so hot, so there were no further attempts at prolonging the series. Eleven years later Deus Ex: Human Revolution hit store shelves as a prequel to the original game. Human Revolution had a lot to live up to. While it didn’t necessarily hit the mark it certainly didn’t disgrace the Deus Ex name.

Human revolution takes place 25 years before the original game in the year 2027. The world is just as cyberpunk as it was before, but now everything is much more orange. Human augmentation is just coming into its own. People can opt to get robotic parts to enhance their bodies, but as you’d expect not everyone is cool with that.

Jensen sounds like a cross between
Keanu Reeves and Christian Bale's Batman voice.
You take control of Adam Jensen, an ex-cop who is now the head of security at Sarif Industries. Sarif is a bio-tech company who specializes in augmentation. The company has just made a huge breakthrough thanks to Adam’s ex-girlfriend Megan Reed. The night before the company is going to present the data they are attacked by terrorists. Adam is severely wounded and the scientists concerned with the breakthrough are either dead or missing. Adam is brought back from near death with state of the art augmentations. Adam is reborn as an awesome robot man and he must find out the truth behind the terrorist attack. You’ll have to explore the dark alleys and  neon lit streets of Detroit and other locales to find the answers he seeks.

The World of Deus Ex is extremely interesting and you’ll get plenty of opportunity to explore it. It’s not immediately apparent, but there’s a whole lot going on. The world is built up in the story, but you can gain even more information by reading e-books, newspapers, doing side quests, and hacking computers. You’ll want to invest in hacking skills, because there’s plenty to be done with them. It allows you to get into computers to read emails, but it can also make combat easier by turning turrets and robots against their unwitting masters. If you’d prefer all of this information can be completely ignored, which falls in line with the choice that Deus Ex stands for.

Just as there is different ways to gather information about the world there are different ways to get to your destination. This is where the choice is shown off the most in Human Revolution, but if you look too closely at it the magic is lost. You can opt to go right to your destination, but the path can be diverged from. If you look around you’ll often find vents to crawl through, heavy objects to move, sewers to move through, doors to hack, or ladders to climb. This sounds good on paper, but not all of these options are given at once. Most of the time there will be two choices and they’re almost immediately obvious, which makes the alternate paths seem forced. It’s a nice touch though, because it’s reminiscent of the original game.

The problems with Human Revolution are mostly in the combat. Just like its predecessor, Human Revolution is a first person shooter laced with stealth mechanics.  At first glance this seems fine, but in practice it doesn’t work as well as it could, or should. For a game that’s all about choice and different ways to tackle a certain situation the combat seems to penalize the player for specking in a certain manner. Human Revolution wants the player to be stealthy, and they make it abundantly clear.

You better spec for stealth
or you're not going to live long.
Like most first person shooters with cover mechanics Human Revolution gives you better guns as you go that can be upgraded. However, on top of that you earn experience points for doing things in the game. When enough experience is gathered Jensen will be awarded with a piraxis point. These points can be spent to upgrade Jensen’s augmentations, or purchase new augmentations. These augmentations help in many ways. You can invest in hacking, combat, stealth, or exploration upgrades. No matter what you get it will help you in some way, but you’re best off going for the stealth upgrades if you want to live.

It’s easy to go into a scenario guns blazing, but you’ll get almost no experience. When you use nonlethal means to take down an enemy you’ll get over twice the experience. On top of that if you complete a mission without being seen you’ll gain a large amount of bonus experience. The game gives you a choice on how to approach combat, but you’re considerably more rewarded if you use stealth to your advantage. Shooting someone to death takes far more work than it’s worth. You’ll gain ten experience per kill, and an extra ten if you get a headshot. In order to kill enemies it’ll take a crazy amount of shots unless you get a headshot.

Alternatively you’ll get 50-60 experience points per stealth takedown and it’s much easier to do. You can snipe people with tranq darts for easy takedowns. Alternatively you can sneak up behind someone and do a stealth takedown. This will take down one of Jensen’s batteries, but they will quickly recharge. As an added bonus everyone in the immediate area won’t be trying to gun you down. This is good, because unlike his enemies Jensen will go down far too quickly. Even with maxed out armor Jensen will go down in a few shots. This goes against the whole feeling that you’re a super powered robot man. In a world where everyone is scared of where augmentation is going it doesn’t make sense for Jensen to be so weak. Near the end of the game I had almost every upgrade and Jensen felt far from a super soldier.

Bosses like this chick are really
not fun to fight when they can take a million hits.
The worst part of the combat becomes clear in the boss fights. If you follow the games suggestions and spec towards stealth you’re basically screwed. The bosses in this game are insane. You’re trapped in a small room with a person who generally has a huge gun. The normal enemies seem like they can take bullets, but the bosses put that to shame. The best bet is to throw a grenade shoot them a bit, then run away. It’ll take a long time, but you’ll eventually be able take them down. This problem may have been created because the boss fights were done by a different studio than the rest of the game. Regardless of what happened these fights are terrifically hard for most people who will play this game.

If you add together everything that Deus Ex: Human Revolution has to offer the good outweighs the bad, but not by much. While the combat may not be the best thing about the game it’s certainly competent.  Finding out about the world is more than enough reason to brave the sometimes frustrating and mediocre combat. There’s something about the universe of Deus Ex that compelled me to find out about everything. I hacked every computer and read every E-book I could find. That’s the mark of a well crafted world.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution had a lot to live up to. It does well almost in spite of itself. While it doesn’t exactly top its predecessor it doesn’t do it any great injustice either. Human Revolution could have been a horrific crash and burn for Square-Enix, but they ended up doing good by the name of Deus Ex. While I don’t think Human Revolution is one of the greatest games this generation it’s certainly a game that should be checked out.


Note: This review is also posted on giantbomb.com

     -Manny

Review of DLC for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney


This is a review of the DLC Rise from the Ashes for the Wiiware release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Score: 5/5



The original Phoenix Wright games were for Gameboy Advance in Japan. They were eventually ported to Nintendo DS and released across all regions. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney received an extra case when it was ported to the DS called Rise from the Ashes. This bonus case utilized the additional capabilities of the DS to add a bunch of new gameplay elements. This case was not included with the Wiiware release of the game, but was added later as an optional download.

Rise from the Ashes may be one of the best cases in the series, if not the best. I may be mistaken, but I feel safe in saying that it’s the longest case in the whole series. It takes place after the final case of the original game. Phoenix has proven victorious and Maya has left for spirit training. The case begins when Ema Skye visits Wright and Co. Law offices. Her sister has been accused of Murder and she needs a defense attorney. The interesting part about this case is that two murders happened in the exact same fashion in two places. In this case you’ll meet many exciting characters, but that’s standard fare for the Ace Attorney series. Where this case differs the most is in the gameplay.

Just like the rest of the game Phoenix will need to investigate areas and speak with people involved with the case in order to gain information and evidence. This is done the same as in the main game, but Phoenix has some new evidence gathering tricks up his sleeve. Ema Skye takes Maya’s place as Phoenix’s assistant in this case and it just so happens she’s a forensic scientist. Early on in the case she’ll give Phoenix luminal fluid, which can be used to search for washed away blood stains. Using the fluid allows for the player to spray around the crime scene with the Wii-mote until a blood stain appears. This allows for more information to be gathered at the crime scene.

Another new gameplay element is the ability to search for fingerprints. In certain story sequences you will have to choose an area to search for fingerprints. Using the Wii-mote powder can be sprinkled over the area. Shaking the Wii-mote will get rid of the powder, leaving a fingerprint behind. Once you have the fingerprint you will need to try to match it against everyone you’ve met so far. This allows for even more evidence.

These two new investigation techniques may not seem like much, but they vary the gameplay quite a bit. The Phoenix Wright games were very similar in gameplay, so it’s refreshing to see some new content in this case. It gives the player more interaction with the game in fun ways. I find it odd that they only added this type of interaction to the first game though. It seems like a missed opportunity for the series.

This case also utilizes the improved graphical capabilities of the DS. At one point in the case there is a videotape that must be reviewed. Everything that happens is rendered in full 3d and animates quite well. It would have been cool to see this in the following Phoenix Wright games, but I was content to see it here.

Rise from the Ashes is an excellent case. It has memorable characters and a great overarching plot. The addition of the new gameplay mechanics make this case even better. If you have Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney on Wiiware it’s hard to pass up this add-on when it only costs a dollar.


Note: This review is also posted on giantbomb.com

     -Manny

Sunday, January 29, 2012

My Quest for Justice

About two weeks ago I somehow found myself watching the following trailer for Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice.



I don't know how I feel about someone
other than Phoenix yelling objection.
Prior to watching the trailer I knew very little about Apollo Justice, and I didn't want to. Phoenix Wright is one of my favorite characters of all time, and I didn't want any part of a game that he wasn't in. As you can imagine my mind nearly exploded when I saw Phoenix Wright in this trailer, and on top of that it's brilliantly made. It was at that moment that I decided that I needed to buy Apollo Justice.

I wanted to play Apollo Justice, but I first needed to finish the second and third Ace Attorney games. Since the series has an ongoing continuity I didn't want to miss out on anything. During the past two weeks I finished what I had left of the second game and completed the entirety of the third game. I thought I was done and ready to buy Apollo Justice, but I then found out that the character Ema Skye was in the DS only case of the original game. Since she seems to be a main character in Apollo Justice I decided to buy the DS only case as DLC for my Wii version of the original game. I have now completed that as well and have a review forthcoming.

With the entire series under my belt I decided it was finally time to purchase Apollo Justice. Since most of the Ace Attorney games for the DS cost a small fortune I knew that Apollo Justice wouldn't be especially cheap. Much to my surprise I could buy the game new for $56 dollars. However, I always try to purchase games as cheaply as possible. I knew I could find the game cheaper on a website other than amazon, which is where my nightmare began.

My early search proved beneficial when I found the game factory sealed at GameQuestDirect.com. I promptly used paypal to pay the $25 dollars and began waiting in eager anticipation for the game to arrive. The next day when I woke up I received an email claiming that Apollo Justice wasn't in stock. I was refunded my money and forced to look for the game elsewhere.

After the previous setback I decided that I would be happy buying the game used. When buying games used I always need to have the case, while the instruction manual is an afterthought. The weird thing about DS games is that stores always try to sell just the tiny cartridge when you buy them used.

I found two sites that had the game in stock and used. One at Geeks Etc. was selling it for $16.99 and another for $24.99 at nintendosforsale.com. Both of these websites claimed that the game "may or may not" come with the case and instruction manual. I figured that since they actually have the game they should know, so I emailed both websites asking if they came with the case.

I never heard back from Geeks Etc., but now the game is out of stock and the page has been edited. I did however, hear back from Nintendosforsale. I received a wonderful email from a gentleman named Stephen claiming that the game will come with both the case and the instruction manual. I was ecstatic and immediately went back to the site to order the game.

$84.99!? Are you out of your mind!
Turns out Stephen realized that the game was rare, because the price was changed to $84.99! Also, along with the price change the description of the games description changed. It now says that the game comes with just the cartridge, which is the opposite of what Stephen told me in his email. Needless to say I was infuriated. This website tried to price gouge me after I had inquired about a product and on top of that I was most likely lied to. You can see the page I tried to purchase from here. I can understand that they upped the price for a rare game, but $84.99 is ridiculous. I have emailed them inquiring about the game again, but I have yet to hear back and I expect that I won't.

Despite my poor experience trying to buy Apollo Justice I was determined to buy it anyways. I then decided to wait and see if any more were added to amazon. I got lucky when someone put the game up new on amazon for $42. I waited to post this until I knew the game was on its way to me. It has been shipped and I should be receiving it sometime this week.

It's ironic that I encountered a great injustice while trying to purchase a game that's centered all around justice. This is not the first rare DS game I have tried to purchase and it will not be the last. Hopefully next time I will not have this much trouble finding the game new at an affordable price.

Update as of June 2013: Since writing this the price of Apollo Justice has gone down considerably and for some reason it's also much more widely available. On Amazon you can get it for around $20 if you are so inclined. Now that I have it I've even seen multiple pristine copies at my local Gamestop for $25.

     -Manny

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Review of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations

This review is based on my experience with the Wii-ware release of Trials and Tribulations.

Score: 4/5

Over the course of the past few years I have come to love the Ace Attorney series. The crazy cast of anime characters and ridiculous occurrences of the franchise are jam packed with charm, giving the series a unique sense of style. Trials and Tribulations made no change in the way the game is played, but somehow it still managed to captivate me just as much as the previous two games in the series. If you didn’t like the previous games in the series then you most certainly won’t like this one either.

The Ace Attorney games can best be described as interactive novels. They are in the same vane as point and click adventure games. However, instead of pointing and clicking you have to navigate menus. Everything is text, except for a few choice phrases such as “hold it”, “take that”, and everyone’s favorite “objection”. This means that your success in these games hinges on how well you remember what you’ve read, while at the same time thinking critically about what you’ve learned. You are taking the role of a defense attorney after all.

This image speaks for itself.

Trials and Tribulations much like previous games in the series features a number of cases or “turnabouts” that are separate court cases in an episode like format. Each turnabout goes through two stages, investigation and trial. They begin by showing a crime, which Phoenix inevitably ends up getting involved in. Once you have your defendant it’s time to gather information and evidence for the trial by investigating.

Outside of the courtroom you have one goal, which is to gather evidence for the trial. There are four options that the game gives you outside of the courtroom. These options are examine, talk, move, and present.

There are different places in the world, which are depicted by various static backgrounds. Examine allows you to move a cursor around the background to try and find evidence. When you find something it will be added to the court record, which is your inventory. Each place will feature a different character who Phoenix can speak with about the current case. There will be multiple conversation topics to discuss, or you can show them items from the court record to hear their opinion by presenting it to them.

Like the previous game in the series, Trials and Tribulations brings back psyche locks. When a character is lying, or hiding something from Phoenix chains will surround them and locks will appear. In order to break the locks you must present the correct evidence. A health bar comes into play here, so when you present the wrong evidence it takes a hit. This adds a bit of challenge to finding evidence, but it can get to be annoying if you’re missing a piece of evidence.

You use these four options to conduct your investigations.

Once you have found everything the game wanted you to the trial will begin. This is where the player has the most say in what happens. The prosecution will call a witness, who will state their testimony. When they finish you will be able to cross examine their testimony. You can press each statement to question them a little further. The goal of the cross-examination is to show the contradictions in the testimony. In order to do this you must present the correct evidence at the correct statement. If you present the wrong evidence you will lose some health. Once all your health goes away you must restart at the beginning of the chapter. This concept is trivialized, because the player can save at any time.

While this system may not sound very exciting in writing, it is quite satisfying in practice. When you know what to present the game makes you feel smart for figuring it out. The music amps up and Phoenix gains some confidence. However, the game is scripted and sometimes you need to make some leaps in logic. This can lead to some frustration, but the game tries its best to direct you in the right direction. 

Since Trials and Tribulations is basically an interactive visual novel the most important part of the game is the story and writing behind it. I loved the previous games in the series, but I can say without a doubt that this one was my favorite. Fan favorite characters return, while new characters like the mysterious coffee drinking prosecutor Godot make their series debut.

Godot is an excellent addition to an already amazing cast.

A big part of why I liked the story in this game so much was that I’ve grown attached to the characters over the past two games. Trials and Tribulations taps into that by having sequences take place in the past and making the player be someone other than Phoenix Wright. It does a good job of expanding the world, while at the same time bringing conclusions to things that started in the original game. Trials and Tribulations was a surprisingly good end to the Phoenix Wright Trilogy. They leave room for sequels, but it’s just as easy to see this being the conclusion to the Phoenix Wright story. 

My problems with this game lie solely with the port. I played this game on the Wii and it’s clear that almost no work was done to adapt the game to the console. This game was originally for Gameboy Advance in Japan, which was ported up to the DS for the North American release. Capcom then took that release and slapped it onto the Wii. 

The game does not scale well to a bigger screen, which makes everything look super pixilated. Since this is a port of the DS version it causes some issues, because a television is only one screen. When asked to point something out in a picture while in court the image scales to how it would look on a DS screen. This makes the picture too small to see what’s happening in it, which just seems lazy.

The Wii specific changes are purely related to the Wii-mote. When Phoenix speaks in court his catch phrases come out of the less than stellar speaker on the Wii-mote. The only other change is that you can thrust the Wii-mote down to present evidence. It’s no surprise that a port of a port is less than ideal. However this is the ideal version for people who missed out on the DS version, which is now fairly expensive due to its rarity.

At least Capcom took the time to give Edgeworth a Wii-mote for this promo!
I can’t recommend this game and this series highly enough. Even if you don’t have the same connection to the Ace Attorney series that I do you will still get a kick out of everything this game has to offer. The story stands on its own, but it’s enhanced if you have prior knowledge from the previous two games in the series. On top of that the gameplay may be guided, but it’s still quite fun. You’ll find yourself addicted and wanting to know what’s going to happen next. While this port isn’t great it’s the only alternative to paying over $100 dollars for the DS version. 

Note: This review is also posted on giantbomb.com

     -Manny

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Review of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

This review is for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Nintendo Wii

Score: 4/5


The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is mostly the game that I’d expect it to be. You play as Link the green suited Hero, on his epic quest to save princess Zelda. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s just what has come to be expected from a Zelda game.  What sets Skyward Sword apart from the other entries in this series is that it’s the game that finally delivers on the Wii’s promise of good and interesting motion controls. I’ve always thought that swordplay could be done quite well with the Wii’s motion controls, but somehow Skyward Sword is the first game that gets it right.

Since Skyward Sword actually has good motion it requires Wii Motion Plus to play. With the motion plus Link’s sword moves almost one-to-one with the Wii-mote. This leads to interesting changes in the Zelda combat. Instead of waiting for an enemy to let its guard down so you can attack it you must attack it with a well placed sword strike. You can swing the sword horizontally, vertically, diagonally, or thrust it forward. Alternatively if you hold the sword to the sky it will charge up allowing you to shoot a blast from the sword. Enemies will place their weapons, hands, or mouths in a way that lets you know which direction you should strike them. In fights with normal enemies the precision doesn’t really come into play. Sure you can take down an enemy with a few well placed strikes, but fiercely flinging the Wii-mote about will usually yield the same result.

Raise your sword skyward!

Boss battles are where the precision truly matters. If you attack certain bosses the wrong way you will be heavily punished until you learn to be more careful. One boss in particular will take your sword and throw it to let you know that you can’t swing the Wii-mote with reckless abandon as you do in most games.
Sometimes enemies require Link to block with his shield, which can be taken out by thrusting the nunchuck forward. If you thrust the nunchuck just before the attack lands on the shield the enemy will be staggered, which signals your chance to go crazy on it with your sword. This method is used to counter enemies who shoot projectiles. The shield introduced what I think is one of the most annoying mechanics in Skyward Sword. All of the shields have a health meter and when it hits zero the shield will break forever. This is something that’s never been fun in a game, so I really can’t see why Nintendo thought it would be a good idea.

Along with the sword and shield, motion control bled into every gadget Link finds in Skyward Sword. For the most part the arsenal is familiar with things like bombs, the bow, and the slingshot making a return. I was surprised by the new items and was a bit sad that they didn’t get more use. The one that gets the most use is the flying beetle. In order to hit far away switches, bomb walls, and pick up things you will take control of a mechanical beetle. In order to pilot it you turn the Wii-mote in the direction you want to bug to go. It works surprisingly well and is incredibly useful. On the other hand there were weapons such as the gust bellows, which is essentially a giant vacuum cleaner, which gets rid of sand. It’s used only a handful of times and it seems like a missed opportunity. The same goes for Link’s whip, but it gets even less use than the gust bellows. Skyward Sword tries to introduce a weapon upgrading mechanic. You can upgrade your shield and a select few gadgets by collecting materials around the world. This mechanic falls flat, because these upgrades are completely unneeded. They make the weapon slightly better, but the difference is barely noticeable. It seems like Nintendo was shooting for something much more grand, but it didn’t make it into the game.

Using the beetle worked far better than I expected.

All of this motion control works much better than I thought it would. It feels great when it works, but that’s where it fell short for me. I found myself needing to recalibrate and re-center the Wii Motion Plus far too often during my travels through Skyward Sword. Since the motion plus doesn’t use infrared it doesn’t need to be pointed at the Wii’s sensor bar. This means that the swordplay is never really affected by the previous issue, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its own issues. When you’re making broad strokes with the Wii-mote and Link is cutting down foes Skyward Sword’s combat feels amazing. The problem comes in when it doesn’t work as intended. There were certain times when I was making the stroke I should have been, but the enemy was still blocking my attacks. However, if I went crazy with the Wii-mote the enemy would quickly die. Things like that completely brought me out of the experience. However, I don’t think that these problems were caused by Skyward Sword. I’m fairly certain that they are caused by the Wii Motion Plus. As far as I’m concerned it’s a shoddy piece of technology that should have been built into the Wii-mote from the beginning anyways. Hopefully in the future Nintendo can find a way to make it work better.

Other than the motion controls everything about Skyward Sword seems fairly middling. The game opens on the floating island of Skyloft. Get used to it, because you’ll spend most of your time outside of dungeons there. It’s inhabited by a colorful cast of characters, much like every other Zelda game. These inhabitants will offer you side quests for upgrade materials and heart pieces. Everyone on Skyloft has their very own bird known as a Loftwing. This is how you move around the overworld in Skyward Sword. You take a running start and jump off the edge of Skyloft onto your oversized bird. It controls much like the beetle gadget, but it can go much faster. It still goes much slower than I’d prefer, but it’s a cool way to get around.

Link's Crimson Loftwing looks pretty cool.

There are quite a few sky islands you can travel to, but none of them are very interesting. Most of them only house one or two treasure chests with rupees in them. Other than that there will be giant pillars of light that mark places you can fall through the clouds. Jumping off your Loftwing at these pillars allows you to reach the surface world, which is where the dungeons reside. There isn’t much exploration on the surface world, which makes Skyward Sword seem much more linear than other titles in this franchise.

While the dungeons are interesting they are standard Zelda fare. You fight, shoot switches, and collect keys to make your way to the boss. Then you fight the boss in order to advance the story. This is highly reductive, but it’s what’s been done in almost every Zelda game. This isn’t a bad thing, or I wouldn’t keep coming back for more.

Fight the boss, save the princess.

Skyward Sword is a long game. It took me around 45 hours to complete the game. Normally I’d be thrilled with this kind of length from a game I enjoyed, but there was a point at around 30 hours in where I began to burn out. There are multiple sections of Skyward Sword that were clearly made to pad out the adventure. There’s a point where a game is too long and Skyward Sword reaches that point and then moves far past it. It could have easily been ten to fifteen hours shorter and I wouldn’t have minded a bit.

This isn't to say that Skyward Sword is a bad game. In fact, I’d say it’s a great game. I found myself having a great deal of fun with the game despite everything I've said in this review. It may sound overly negative, but that’s because I've played so many Zelda games. It’s hard to put something into one of these games that’s going to wow me. I think that this game made me realized that I've had my fill of Zelda for a while. The whole story and setting of this game were middle of the road, while the motion controls were pretty good. Skyward Sword is a decent Zelda game that’s a whole bunch of fun when it works correctly. However, that might not be enough anymore. It’ll satiate die hard Zelda fans, but I think it’s time for Nintendo to rethink the Zelda franchise before it gets too familiar.


Note: This review is also posted on Giantbomb.com

     -Manny

Sunday, January 8, 2012

The Post Christmas Rush

Christmas has come and gone and now we have entered the year 2012. As always I have exited the holiday season with a surplus of games. Some I bought, while others were given to me as gifts. Due to my sudden influx of games I have been distributing my time across all of them to see what they have to offer. Since my time has been spread across many games I haven't completed anything in a while.

This doesn't mean I'll never complete any of my new games. Here is a list of games I picked up this holiday season that you can expect me to write about in the future.

Wii
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Fortune Street
Little King Story

3DS
Mario Kart 7
Super Mario 3D Land

PS3
King of Fighters 13
The ICO and Shadow of Colossus Collection
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure


In the past week I've turned my attention to Skyward Sword. I expect to complete it within the next week or two and I'm very eager to share my thoughts about it.

Somehow I've also found myself playing a fair amount Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the GameCube. My friends and I are trying to get all A ranks on every single mission in the game. I'm thinking about writing something dealing with this subject as well.

Stay tuned for a great year here at Game Time With Manny.

     -Manny