Category: GameFAQs Reviews

Alas, poor Midway. From being a modest developer of classic arcade games to becoming the Mortal Kombat empire to becoming bankrupt and bought in pieces by Time Warner. Such a tragic tale for such a former powerhouse and gaming legend. It’s going to be a shame that Midway is gone and that the Mortal Kombat saga is in the hands of Time Warner. One has to imagine how they’re going to handle the saga now.

But enough about the depressing side: let’s talk about Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Nintendo Wii!

So for those who don’t know, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is the seventh fighting game in the Mortal Kombat series and is considered to be the closure point of that particular chapter in the MK story. Having gather just about every fighter that has been in a MK fighter (and a couple extra guys), it was a fitting and satisfying final hurrah for the PS2 and Xbox consoles before Midway unleashed their Mortal magic on the next-gen systems… in the form of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe… what bitter irony. Guess we know who won that battle, heh heh… Ahem.

But what about the Wii?

Obviously, the Wii isn’t as powerful as the PS3 and Xbox 360 and couldn’t handle MKvsDC. So to remedy this, Midway decided to bring over Armageddon to Nintendo’s white box of wonder, but with a couple extra features – including a new character, new motion controls, and a couple other additions.

Now I’ve already reviewed the Xbox version of the game and since this is pretty much the same game, I’ve taken the liberty of “recycling” a couple blurbs here and there. This isn’t a straight copy – there are minor notes and quibbles I’d like to point out in regards to the Wii version.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Wii)”

Contra is known for its simplistic gameplay and intensely difficult challenge. Originally released as an arcade game, it was soon ported over to the NES where it gained legendary status and had become synonymous with one of the most famous video game codes of all time (even the code began in Gradius, but I digress). Contra had spawn a number of sequels and spin-offs for the NES, Super NES, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis and they were all good games. However, many fans feel that the series had gone on a downward spiral the moment it hit the Sony Playstation. And despite some decent entries on the PS2, the series never did get that feel of fun and frustration that the old school games always presented.

And then came this beauty… and it’s Contra-riffic!

Known for its GBC sleeper hit Shantae, Wayforward Technologies were also the geniuses behind the GBC mistake known as WWF Betrayal, which was a horrible wrestling-related game on the same system. In any case, these guys were given the task of developing a Contra game worthy of the number 4… and they have succeeded.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Contra 4 (Nintendo DS)”

Imagine a world if you will where professional wrestling/sports entertainment was the hottest thing around – when the initials WWF referred to the wrestling company and not the panda organization that sued them later. Just about anything and everything that had a WWF license was a license to print money. Well, while some of you might think that I’ve been drinking the strong stuff, that period actually did happen in the late-1990s and early-2000s. The World Wrestling Federation, on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, ultimately changed their product and made a ton of money as a result to become the media conglomerate that is known today as World Wrestling Entertainment. And while the current product is nowhere near as hot as it used to be, it’s still a very profitable venture and many products with the WWE license are still being made today.

Okay, I’ll dispense with the history lesson. Like any hot product, a ton of licenses get tossed around and you have the usual assortments of action figures, trading cards, and even video games. Wrestling video games are a varied type – some are good and some are really bad – but recent titles on the Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64 seem to give the genre a workable template that continues to see use today.

Okay, okay… no more history lesson. Eventually, Microsoft released the Xbox and a WWF game – titled WWF Raw Is War before being shortened to WWF Raw – was released on the system. How does it fare? Let’s find out.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – WWF RAW (Xbox)”

My first experience with a WWF arcade game wasn’t the Wrestlefest game (because I’ve never seen it in arcades around my block) but rather the Midway-produced WWF Wrestlemania arcade game, a strange little beast that involved some of the more popular WWF wrestlers of the time competiting in Mortal Kombat-style wrestling matches (without all the blood and fatalities). For the time, it was a fun little game, but involved little wrestling. Years later, I come across a Royal Rumble arcade machine that I’ve only heard about and this was more like a wrestling game than the other one was. You could either play in straight matches or compete in the Royal Rumble match itself, which was a crazy experience in and of itself. This ought to be a fun game to bring home, right?

Eventually, THQ did bring it home to the Dreamcast. Unfortunately, chances are not many people got to play it because it was released somewhat late in the Dreamcast’s lifespan before Playstation 2 arrived and demolished Sega’s hardware dreams forever… which is a shame. In any case, a few years later (more like last year actually), I had managed to pick up a Dreamcast with a few games, which included this game. So I decided to give this game a go to see if it was as memorable as I remembered it… and the end result is… it’s okay, but lacking. How lacking? Let’s see here…

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – WWF Royal Rumble (Dreamcast)”

First there was X-Men. Then there was Marvel Super Heroes. Then X-Men came back and tussled with Street Fighters. Then it was Marvel’s turn. Then other Capcom heroes joined the fray. Now we get to Marvel vs. Capcom 2, where a whole bunch of fighters from both universes show up and beat the tar out of each in pixilated fashion. Most people consider it to be one of the finest fighting games ever made while others (myself included – see my Xbox review of the same game) blast it for being a unbalanced contest of who can pull off the more impressive combo. In either case, you were getting a pretty meaty package that was a blast to play among friends and fun times can be had by all.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, like most Capcom fighters, started life as an arcade machine and was eventually first ported onto Sega’s Dreamcast console before being shovelwared onto PS2 and Xbox consoles a couple years later. While I have already picked up and reviewed the Xbox version years ago (before it started commanding ridiculous prices on eBay), just a couple months ago, I was able to snag the Dreamcast version for a couple bucks. And after having played the game for a couple days, my thoughts are… well, let’s just go on.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (Dreamcast)”

In 2007, Power Rangers celebrated its fifteenth anniversary with a 2-part episode that united some familiar faces of the franchise’s past. Despite its intentions, the episode had left a sour taste in most people’s mouths that is rather hard to do away with. So in a vain attempt to salvage the anniversary, Disney has their gaming studios develop a couple games commemorating the franchise’s fifteen-year history; one for the Nintendo DS and another for the Playstation-2 and PC platforms. Both share a similar scenario (Rangers from different points in history team up to fight the bad guys), but the actual set-up and gameplay is different. For now, we’ll start with the DS version.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Power Rangers Super Legends (Nintendo DS)”

First there was X-Men. Then there was Marvel Super Heroes. Then X-Men came back and tussled with Street Fighters. Then it was Marvel’s turn. Then other Capcom heroes joined the fray. Now we get to Marvel vs. Capcom 2, where a whole bunch of fighters from both universes show up and beat the tar out of each in pixelated fashion. Admittingly, this can be a fun party game if you have a bunch of guys together, but does that equal a good game? Let’s find out.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (Xbox)”

Since its debut in the early nineties, Mortal Kombat had become something of a long-running franchise that built its empire on the bloodied skulls and dismembered torsos of controversy, spawning a new string of violent video games. It’s probably because of this violence that it became a household name, enough to get a movie, a cartoon, a live-action television show, and even some action figures and card games. But then, it happened; Mortal Kombat got repetitive, the novelty of performing ridiculous finishing moves went stale, and people moved on. Years later, the crew behind MK remade the series into a deeper 3D fighting game (well, deeper than the older games) and people noticed.

And now, with the new consoles taking over the reigns, Midway decided to release the last MK game for the PS2/X-Box generation of consoles. It can easily be considered the 3D equivalent of Mortal Kombat Trilogy, which was the last 2D game before the shift to 3D. How does this game fare in comparison to that release? Let’s find out.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Xbox)”

For quite some time, wrestling (or sports entertainment) has been in existence. Sometimes, it’s the hottest thing going on while oftentimes, it’s nothing more than an afterthought. The whole real-or-fake question often comes into play even though the business was exposed a few years back. In any case, what is well known is that since the 1980s, there have been a multitude of wrestling-based video games. Some good, some bad, and some strange. In the case of the X-Box, there were a few of them, but were lacking compared to games on other consoles. For this review, I decided to review the one I felt was the best of the bunch on the console.

WWE Raw 2 is the follow-up to the lackluster WWF Raw game that appeared on the X-Box prior. At first glance, it seems like the game has added much needed features and gimmicks to what was essentially a poor barebones package. But is it really deeper than before or is it more of the same?

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – WWE RAW 2 (Xbox)”

In the late-90s, Acclaim made some WWF wrestling games. Well-regarded but criticized for their use of button sequences to perform even the simplest of wrestling holds, Acclaim eventually lost the rights to the WWF franchise to THQ. They managed a couple of games based on the cult promotion ECW before that company went under. Now with only one company in the wrestling threshold (WWE), Acclaim had managed to sign some names of the past to use their likeness in a game called Legends of Wrestling. It was a moderately good game, though not without its issues. The same can be said for the second game in the series. So Acclaim decided to bring in a new game engine, sign more legends, and aim to create the ultimate wrestling game for the old-school fan.

The end result isn’t what they hoped to achieve… and the final product, while still a decent game, has too many problems going against it that it’ll turn off some people. But let’s not jump ahead here and get on the review.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Showdown: Legends Of Wrestling (Xbox)”