Brief updates: WipEout HD and Ratchet: Quest for Booty

I haven't had the time or the inclination to review full games for a long time, as the PS3 is still quite dry of titles that hold my interest, and I'm having doubts over whether people actually want to read reviews of old PS2 games. Here's a brief filler.

Both of these cut-down titles are available on the PlayStation Store - HD being a PS3-quality roster of tracks from previous WipEout games, and Booty being an interquel between Tools of Destruction and its sequel (due in 2009).
For £12 WipEout HD is certainly enticing, though it's debatable whether it's worth buying the same tracks again if you already have the PSP games. For WipEout aficionados it certainly is, as the tracks have been restyled and polished to glorious effect, rather than being straight-across ports from the PSP. Furthermore, you get to play them with a proper controller instead of the digit-deforming handheld. There are also downloadable expansions planned for the future -- here's hoping for Arridos IV. HD looks fantastic and handles nicely -- though it's essentially more of the same, it's a treat for fans and is the game Fusion should have been.
Quest for Booty is another little game to which the words 'more of the same' apply, being that it's essentially an epilogue to Tools of Destruction. Ratchet is in pursuit of his kidnapped sidekick Clank, and the secret of the latter's whereabouts is held by the space pirates we encountered in Tools. Apart from the cyber-tropical island that acts as the hub for this little adventure, Booty is set exclusively in pirate caves and hideouts, giving an intriguing flavour to a series we've come to associate with sci-fi. Apart from a boss and some mini-boss fights, combat is somewhat lacking, and you're equipped with only a barebones arsenal. Instead of blowing shit up, Booty focuses on platforming and, refreshingly, a bit of puzzle-solving. One hopes this is a representation of the shooting:platforming ratio that we will be seeing in 2009. Shooting things with space rockets is all well and good but it can very easily get same-y.

I'd recommend WipEout HD for existing fans, but it may not be to the taste of those who haven't played the series before. For £10 Quest for Booty is an excellent download for Ratchet fans and a nice little taster for those new to the series.

Quick impressions: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)

I can't say I'm terribly impressed with this title so far. The graphics are just mindblowing - even more so than those of Devil May Cry 4. As far as gameplay goes, though, I've yet to do anything I haven't done many times before in Prince of Persia, albeit with a few guns added. The shooting's rather rubbish because it's hard to aim without going into aim mode (unless you opt for the spray-&-pray approach with the AK-47), and moving the x-hairs in aim mode is reeeaaalllly sloooooow. Bah. I keep getting deaded.

It's a bit of a Heavenly Sword: ace eye candy, but it's a by-the-numbers standard adventure.

I hope Naughty Dog will follow the same path as Insomniac have done; making a 'serious' game for the PS3 before going back to their fun series that was such a success on PS2.

Game review: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (PS2)

I'm going to indulge in a bit of backstory prior to this review, as it seems many people aren't aware of the Shin Megami Tensei series, despite the fact it's existed since the days of the SNES. In my experience, answering "What are some of your favourite games?" with "Shin Megami Tensei," will elicit the response "Never heard of them." The already-initiated should feel free to skip the first paragraph or so. Hell, skip all of it if you want. I'm here to tell you what I think of games, not to tell you how to run your life.

The Shin Megami Tensei (truncated to MegaTen by fans) series of RPGs are a dark bunch; so much so that each one begins with a disclaimer stating that the views expressed in the game do not necessarily reflect those of the developers (presumably to avoid the ire of rabid religious fundamentalists). Their common theme is demonology: in every MegaTen game you either are a demon, can turn into one, or can command them (or a combination of the above) Other issues candidly tackled by the various games include cannibalism, god-killing, demonic possession and human sacrifice. They're also fairly bloody to boot.
However, MegaTen isn't the horrific Satanic orgy the above paragraph probably makes it out to be. The games are mature, but intelligently so, and not gratuitously violent or sick. Indeed, they're actually quite cheerful. They also take a very loose interpretation of the word 'demon', using it to mean almost any mythical being, creature or demi-god, including 'holy' creatures such as angels and unicorns.

Devil Summoner is a standalone title in the series, set in Tokyo in Taisho 20 (between the World Wars). In it you control the titular devil summoner Raidou Kuzunoha, the 14th in a line of warriors sworn to protect the Japanese capital from evil. As a cover for his work, Raidou is a PI for the Narumi Detective Agency. (One wonders if this is a subtle nod to Devil May Cry, with whose developers Atlus collaborated in the makings of Lucifer's Call and Devil May Cry 3.) Raidou (and his sidekick-cum-mentor Gouto the cat) and Narumi agree to take on a case to find a missing girl, and through a series of wacky hi-jinks somehow end up having to save the world.

Devil Summoner returns to the roots of MegaTen in that the main character is a human rather than a demon. Raidou's success as a fighter comes from his mastery of the denizens of the underworld, on whose skills you'll need to rely both in battle and in the field.
The game marks a change to the MegaTen series in that it dispenses with the brilliant turn-based combat system seen in Lucifer's Call (Nocturne outside the EU) and Digital Devil Saga, and replaces it with an odd real-time combat malarky. Raidou fights with katana and pistol (which can hold elemental bullets as well as ordinary ones), aided by one of his demons, who can assist him by healing or attacking, and by performing a powerful combo move with Raidou once its morale is high enough. Only one demon can be in play at any one time, but you are free to switch whenever you like, barring any debuffs the enemy may have inflicted on you to prevent switching. By default, the demon will take whatever action it thinks best suits the situation. You can instead tell it to adopt a particular strategy (e.g. heal me often, use magic attacks, don't waste magic, etc.) or if you need to be ultra-precise tell it to use a particular one of its moves on a given target.

As a concept, it's not a bad combat system in itself. However, the execution could be better. All fights take place from a bizarre isometric perspective, and controlling Raidou is awkward, and often he won't hit the enemy you want him to hit. The perspective also means that Raidou or his demon can get hidden behind a cloud of enemies. There's also the fact that it's not as good as the turn-based system of games past. One could argue it's not fair to compare turn-based with real-time -- indeed, mechanically they have individual merits and flaws -- but Devil Summoner's real-time just isn't as satisfying as the turn-based.
For one thing, much less strategy is possible. You can learn which enemies are weak to which attacks and finish them off quicker, but when all the enemies on-screen are trying to get you at once you can't focus on just one of them so well, meaning that your only real option is to just twat anything that comes near you.
For another thing, it's a piece of piss. Combat in Devil Summoner is pretty much 'press square repeatedly until you win'. If it's a boss fight, just send out a demon with healing moves and tell it to keep your health topped up while you simply hack away.

Admittedly, that's an exaggeration. But at times it is easy not to bother actually playing the game, and instead to just paw at the controller and hope the game will play itself, which it pretty much will. I realise I'm sounding rather harsh on the combat, which is misleading. I enjoyed playing Devil Summoner, and at times the boss battles were actually quite hard. There's also the fact that the criticism can be levelled at turn-based combat that it's algorithmic -- players can achieve the same results by performing the same list of moves, only improvising when the order of the enemy's moves is randomised. You don't get that degree of predictability in real-time combat.
There's also the possibility that I found the game easy because I know MegaTen well, and I was able to keep a consistently strong party. However, that raises the question of whether a newbie will find this game and its lacklustre combat system easy to get into.

When you're not fighting enemies you'll be exploring the world and doing detective work. You can have a demon follow you around in the field, as they have field abilities as well as fighting abilities. Some of them, for example, will occasionally pick up hidden items and money off the ground. Most field abilities are more active and require you to decide when to use them. Electric demons, for example, can use their move Inspect to reveal hidden objects. Big strong demons have the move Use Force with which they can push aside obstacles, whereas little demons can investigate small spaces. Ice demons and fire demons can freeze and ignite things respectively, and psychically-inclined demons can charm or read the minds of unco-operative NPCs. You can also send the demon off by itself to explore, as there are some areas demons can get into but humans can't. Demons are also invisible to humans other than devil summoners, making your minions useful for eavesdropping.
All this I found rather fun. It fits the idea of a detective game well, and as a concept I approved of it because it could have made for some interesting puzzles. As it is, though, all people and pieces of scenery from which you can provoke a reaction to a demon's move are indicated as such, so all you have to do is switch out all your demons in turn until you find one with the move that will make something happen. Makes it a bit too simple. Plus, it can be frustrating to get halfway through a dungeon only to find you need a demon with Use Force, Allure or whatever in order to proceed, making it necessary to return to town and recruit or fuse a new demon. Keeping a wide selection of demon types is very important to progressing in Devil Summoner.

There are two ways of adding demons to your party: confinement and fusion. To confine, Raidou must lower the target demon's health (a demon at full health will be too strong to subdue), then stun it by exploiting its weakness, which may be Raidou's bullets or one of his demons' moves. With the target suitably weakened and immobilised, you can then attempt to capture it by repeatedly hitting the circle button. Do it quickly and relentlessly or the demon will overcome your efforts.
Once demons have been with you long enough for you to have earned their loyalty, you can then fuse two of them together to create a third, which if done right will inherit the skills of the two 'parents'. You can also sacrifice a demon and transfer its power to another, or to Raidou's katana. It's very similar to the fusion system seen in Lucifer's Call.
The aforementioned fusion is the only use for loyalty (increased with combat experience or by plying your demons with booze), which I thought was a missed opportunity. Atlus could have made it so that demons with higher loyalty hit harder or found better hidden items.

Like a lot of RPGs, the story is important. I can't reveal much without spoiling it, but the ending is stupid, in that loose ends aren't tied up. I can tell you that you must fight Rasputin - yes, him as in the historical figure - which isn't a spoiler given that he's on the box and in the instruction manual. However, Rasputin was well dead by the 1920s, so why is he still alive? You'll find out, but you'll never find out why that happens, which I thought frustrating.
On a smaller scale, it can be hard to find out what you're supposed to do or where you're supposed to go next. Narumi will only give you the most vague of hints, and sometimes the game refers to something I did several chapters ago and I now can't remember the location of. At times I had to resort to systematically searching everywhere so as to find the next objective through the process of elimination. I had the same problem at times in Lucifer's Call, but not to the extent of Devil Summoner.

I think Devil Summoner has a lot of good concepts going for it, and it's a brave break from tradition. However, it doesn't gel together terribly well, and it suffers due to its execution. I found the fieldwork easily the most enjoyable part of the game, and would like to see this concept carried further into a Monkey Island-style puzzle adventure.

Choosing a score for this title is hard. As a MegaTen fan, I really, genuinely, enjoyed it even as I acknowledged its flaws. However, it's easily the weakest in the series, and newcomers to Shin Megami Tensei probably won't be grabbed by it. In terms of my own enjoyment, I'd give it a 5/7. However, putting my reviewer's hat on instead of my fan's hat, for the reasons outlined above I'm inclined to give it a 3. So I'm going to take the cop-out option and compromise.

Score: 4/7

First impressions: Devil May Cry 4

'First' impressions is somewhat inaccurate, given that I'm over halfway through the game now. I haven't played enough of it to write a full review, so a first impressions post is what you're getting. Call it a 'pre-review' if the semantics makes you happy.

My hopes weren't high for this one after months of screenshots that looked just like the first 3 games but shinier, followed by the lukewarm demo. Nonetheless, I went out and bought the game on release day because I am such a Devil May Cry nerd that I would probably buy anything if it had a DMC logo stamped on it.

I picked up the collector's edition as it was the same price as the normal game. It's nothing special, and if it cost any more than the normal version it wouldn't be worth getting. It comes in a metal tin and plastic slipcase with boring monochrome box-art instead of the much more dynamic cover of the plastic box version. Enclosed with the game is what purports to be an 'art book', which is a tiny wee thing bound with staples, showing a few pictures that are admittedly pretty but have been circulating the internet for months already. The other freebie you get with the collector's edition is a beanie hat with the Order of the Sword's emblem embroidered on it. A free hat's always welcome in my life, but it does seem a very odd item to give away with a game (other than Parappa the Rapper).

The game itself is fantastic. It manages to be both refreshing and new, and still wonderfully familiar. It plays, looks and sounds like a new game mixed with a grab-bag of the best bits of the first three, making it accessible to newbies but still catering to the existing fanbase. It's also the first DMC game to have something of a plot. Despite spawning a couple of spin-off novels, the Devil May Cry games themselves have a not undeserved reputation for having plots that could be written on a postage stamp. "Dante twatted some monsters and then twatted the big boss monster (with a bit of help from his chums) and then went home for tea" was pretty much it. DMC4 begins partway through a story already -- new lead character Nero has been granted demonic powers, but we don't yet know why, how or by whom. Dante then appears from nowhere and kills the leader of the Order of the Sword (a warrior-priest cult to which Nero belongs) with apparently no provocation (not a spoiler; it's in the opening cutscene and you'll have heard it already if you've been following the press about the game). I'm playing the game to find out why this is happening as much as for the enjoyment of the gameplay.

Playing as Nero is the biggest upheaval for the series. True, DMC is no stranger to having a second playable character, but DMC2's Lucia's missions were just reversed or truncated versions of Dante's, and control-wise she was pretty much Dante in drag; and DMC3's Vergil's missions were flat-out identical to Dante's and playing as him was pretty much just a cosmetic option. Nero, on the other hand, plays very differently thanks to his possessed demonic arm. Called the Devil Bringer, his arm behaves somewhat like the possessed scarf in Freak Out (anyone remember that? By eck, that game was bizarre), enabling you to grab faraway baddies and bring them close enough to run them through with cold steel, and to pick up nearby baddies and fling them around. It also acts as a grapple-shot and allows Nero to activate certain demonic machinery. It's nothing short of ace. In fact, it's broken. Nero has only one sword and one gun, but that isn't a problem as you'll be using the Bringer far too much to care. It's far more powerful than Nero's sword, and its ability to fling enemies into each other gives it a big damage radius. It's a shame, because the sword is really nice, but I just couldn't be bothered to hack and pirouette when I could kill enemies in less than half the time by punching them into the ground a few times with the Bringer. Nero's sword Red Queen can be 'revved' like a motorbike, which squirts a propellant down it, increasing its power (admittedly, I'm a biologist-cum-geologist, not a physicist, but I don't really see how that can work. Still, Capcom games rarely make sense, and it's probably stupid to criticise something like that in a game based on mythological beings from a parallel dimension), but who cares when you can punch/throw with the Bringer faster than you can charge up the Queen?

Fun to play as though he may be, Nero himself is a fucking cockslap. I thought Dante was an arrogant tit until I played this game and found what an irritating, whiny, emo gimp Nero is. All the badassery of playing Nero in combat melts away a little as each cutscene makes me increasingly resent having such a cocky wanker as my avatar.
In fact, all the heroes in this game -- Nero, Dante, Trish, Lady -- are infuriatingly smug. Still, it goes well with the melodrama and OTT-ness of the DMC series. It's rather interesting how the series changed over time: the first game had pretensions of being a survival horror title, but that's gone down the pan and now it's become fecking daft. Several times in this game (and in DMC3, come to that) I've laughed out loud at the utter b-movie insanity of the action.
At times I thought the voice acting was a little wooden and sterile, and I don't think Dante's voice quite fits him. He sounds a wee bit too young considering this game is set after the first one and he looks about 40. It doesn't really help that he's had a different voice actor for each game, which makes it a little hard to mesh together all the different Dantes in my head as one character.

Nero hasn't replaced Dante as a playable character; the first half of the game is Nero's adventure, and then Dante takes over for the second half. There's nothing really to criticise about playing as Dante other than the fact I was spoiled by Nero's Bringer and found myself really missing it. I was no longer able to grab back faraway enemies I'd flung away, and had to chase after them with the stinger (Dante's headlong charge attack). True, that's what I've done all through the series, but once I'd got used used to the Devil Bringer it just didn't seem satisfactory any more.
Dante has the style system present in DMC3, with the difference that you can switch between styles on the fly with the d-pad, instead of picking one at the start of each mission and having to stick with it. The styles determine what effect the special action button (circle by default) has: Sword Master and Gunslinger are self-explanatory, with the action button delivering a fancy blade flurry or sharpshooting cleverdickery respectively; Trickster allows evasion; and Royal Guard allows blocking enemy attacks and leeching their energy. The style system felt half-arsed in DMC3, but in DMC4 it really flies. You can switch to Swordmaster and carve enemies up at close range, then change to Gunslinger and blast them full of lead from afar once you've scattered them. If it gets too much to handle, switch to Trickster and evade their attacks. If only Dante didn't strike such cheesy poses whenever he changes style.

The graphics are absolutely superb, as you'd expect from Capcom. (And this is still early days for the PS3 - who knows what they'll be able to get out of the machine when they master it further?) They make Heavenly Sword's look drab, and Ratchet's simplistic and cartoony (well, to a point they were anyway, but you can see what I mean). I found the jungle levels a wee bit too bright and shiny, however; they're so intensely sunny it's a little overwhelming. Plus, the cutscene subtitles are white and they often contrive to fall onto a pale background, which is irritating. I don't understand why most game subtitles aren't white text with either a translucent grey background or a black outline, which makes them readable against any colour.

You read right above: jungle level. Previous games were set in one castle/town each, and whilst there are those kinds of environments here too, there's a lot of branching out. So far I've been into DMC1 & 3-esque castles and cathedrals, and DMC2-esque factories, docklands and town streets, intermixed with more exotic locations such as the aforementioned Prince of Persia-like jungle, and icy mountains. It's a nice mix of old and new.

The enemy roster too is great. Returning enemies include the Frosts and Blades (renamed Assaults), and 'remixed' ones in the form of Scarecrows (who are Marionettes in all but name) and Mephistos (an intriguing mix of Sin Scissors and Shadows). I was a little disappointed not to see any Goatlings; they were easily the coolest-looking enemies in DMC2. There are the new ones in the form of animated suits of armour (revealing more about their nature would be a bit of a spoiler) who are complete arses to fight, which makes it all the more satisfying when you do manage to smash them to pieces.
The bosses are excellent, both in terms of fun to battle and looking awesome. They include mythological figures such as Berial (depicted as a giant flaming centaur-thing) and Echidna (depicted as a very cool dragon-plant-woman). I wonder if it's too much to hope that bosses from past games will make a return? I loved fighting Griffon in the first game, and while Nightmare lived up to its name in difficulty there was a certain masochistic pleasure in fighting it, and it was certainly one of the most memorable and imaginative bosses I've ever seen. Hell, it would be nice to see the Orangguerra or something for old times' sake (yes, DMC4 is set before DMC2, but Lucia and Dante fought an Orangguerra each so there's clearly more than one of them).

In short, it's a brilliant boost to the series, and whilst I'm not in a hurry to get it over with I'm really looking forward to completing it to find out what happens and so I can write a full review.

New to the series? Check out my reviews of Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition.

First impressions: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner

This is probably the only game I've seen that has two subtitles. Its full title is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army. It's so long it won't even fit on the damn spine - the SMT bit is only on the cover. Devil Summoner sticks to the MegaTen staple of controlling demons, though deviates from the really rather brilliant turn-based combat of previous games and has a real-time combat system instead. It's not bad, but I much prefer the turn-based system.
I say it's not bad -- the concept isn't bad, but the execution's a bit weak. Moving Raidou around in a fight is very stiff, and he often doesn't hit the enemy I want him to hit.

I was pleased to see the return of the demon collection and fusion system from Lucifer's Call, as that was one of the things I missed in Digital Devil Saga. Plenty of the demons are the same as the ones in LC and DDS, though there are plenty of new ones too. Controlling demons in LC often felt quite a soulless affair (no pun intended), and the creatures expendable. Devil Summoner feels much more hands-on; the creatures chip in with acerbic or encouraging comments during fights, and you can send them out into the field to explore. Demons are invisible to humans except devil summoners, so it's a great way to explore an area at no personal risk. Your demons will also become more loyal to you the longer you fight with them, which furthers the more 'alive' feel DS has compared to LC.

I'm enjoying the Onimusha-esque feel this game has. The gameplay is nothing similar, but the atmosphere is. DS is set in the Taisho era (between the two World Wars) so has that sort of traditional Japanese styling going for it. It's a shame the same can't be said of the camerawork -- the Onimusha series had excellent fixed-point perspective cams, but the fixed-cam in this game is rubbish.

I'm going to enjoy reviewing this one. Could take a while if it's as long as past MegaTen games have been, though.

Game review: Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction

http://www.gamestyle.net/articles/1428

Vroooom

I speed-ran the original Spyro the Dragon earlier, getting each and every last gem (as opposed to just bombing through doing the bare minimum needed to reach the end boss), just to see how fast I could do it. 3 hours and 32 minutes, one sitting (sans tea+wee break 2 and a half hours in). Died twice. Booya.

3 and a half hours may seem a lousy lifespan for a game, but I'd say this game's got a pretty damn good lifespan if I still want to play it eight years after I first got it.

Game review: Loco Roco

A blast from the past, this. I wrote this for Press Start Online back in summer 2006, and as the site has since folded I thought I'd repost it here. The site folded due to a loss of writers, which I feel rather guilty about as I was one of the deserters - I just couldn't keep up with Press Start and Gamestyle in addition to uni, and I never got round to writing the Mercury Meltdown review I said I would for Press Start. Sorry, chaps.

On to the review!

Sony's PSP is undeservedly struggling. It's an amazing piece of hardware, but is losing face in the eyes of both the media and the gaming public thanks to its tumbleweed-filled library of games failing to compete with that of the Nintendo DS. While it's too early and presumptuous to say Loco Roco is the game that will save the PSP, it's certainly a surprising and welcome arrival.

Loco Roco, looking like a mix of Pepperland and something out of a Lemon Jelly video, is a sweet and cheerful game with nary a swear word or any gritty urban styling in sight (the baddies even explode in a cloud of bubbles when you stamp on them). Your task is to guide the Locos - happy little jelly-creatures who can engulf each other - to safety, increasing their numbers and restoring world peace along the way. The game's brilliance is all the more remarkable for it being a 2D scrolling platformer, showing that new things can still be done with the genre. As with Monkey Ball or Archer Maclean's Mercury, you control the landscape rather than the spheroid creatures themselves. Only three buttons are required to play: the shoulder buttons tilt the landscape left or right, and both together will flick the scenery, effectively making your Loco jump. The circle button is used to split your Loco into many smaller ones (enabling passage through tight tunnels), and to regroup them afterwards. It's a wonderfully simple interface that shows the designers know that they're coding for a handheld and not a Dual Shock.

The premise behind Loco Roco is simple, but a game like this doesn't need to be epic. The eponymous creatures' home planet has been invaded by space octopuses called Mojas. Being peaceable sorts, the Locos have no concept of fighting back, so you must take control of the landscape and do it for them.
Along the way, you're helped and hindered in your quest by the local wildlife. My own favourites are the chuppas (bipedal aardvarks who will vacuum you onto their snouts and then sneeze you to great heights) and the kerakera (bristly creatures that will tickle your Loco and make it laugh if it jumps on them). Another fun one is the Unfu-ku: an owl who will chew your Loco and spit it out in a different shape. Whether that's bothersome or to your advantage depends on your skill as a player.

As well as the judicious hopping from ledge to ledge you'd expect of a platformer, you'll be expected to jump on trampolines, fall down bagatelle-esque sections, and stick to the ceiling, among other things. Though the levels' styling and trappings are imaginative, the game is rather formulaic mechanically. The levels are linear, going mostly from left to right, and progress is achieved by getting to the end of a stage and unlocking the next one. (Players will also note the obligatory ice level.) Furthermore, though it's a joy to watch your Locos carried along by the breeze or flung around by pistons, there are many of these sections in which the Loco is out of your control, and this can make the game feel too passive. After some levels I wondered what I had actually achieved - it seemed as though the PSP had done nearly all of it for me.

Though they're cloaked in different colours and environments (green hills, beaches, fungussy forests, even inside the giblets of giant frogs and penguins), the level design gets a bit samey. The only real deviation is the slipperyness of the terrain in the ice sections, making these levels suitable for half-pipes and big jumps. Some more variety and unique features would have been appreciated. One of the levels has some giant beach balls that initially hinder you, but can prove very useful if you can nudge them into the right places. More things like this would have been great.

Despite its repetition at times, Loco Roco is a winner. It manages to tap into that 'joy to play, bitch to master' vein, which is a hard combination to pull off. It's an easy and friendly enough game to be an enticing advert for the PSP, and getting everything is challenging enough to make this title appealing to more experienced gamers. Add to that the way it's sweetly packaged in crisp, sweetie-coloured graphics and cheery music, and this is definitely this summer's must-have game for Sony's handheld.

Score: 6/7

First impressions: Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction

I've been looking forward to this one for a long while -- I loved the previous versions (apart from Gladiator, which I merely quite liked), and would have bought it even if it were just more of the same.

That 'even if' was premature. I reasoned that with the PS3's technology at their disposal, Insomniac would do something revolutionary with the series; perhaps something like the change they achieved from Spyro the Dragon to Spyro 2 (and they were on the same console - the leap from PS2 to PS3 would surely allow for even greater improvements). However, 'more of the same' has been the overwhelming impression I've had so far.
True, it does look very pretty. Very pretty indeed -- sometimes I've just been wandering around admiring the scenery. I got used to it very quickly, though; the PS2 Ratchets already looked pretty good, and as it's got such a cartoony graphics engine there's not much you can add to it, without dumping it in favour of a more photorealistic engine, besides making everything shinier.

Everything that made the previous games great is present and correct: grindrails, tricky platforms, sticky gravity walls, swingshotting; it's all in here. No hoverboarding or spherical worlds yet, but I'm nowhere near finished. Same basic plot: evil wannabe universe-ruler sets out to conquer the galaxy with an army of alien and/or robot minions, and Ratchet has to stop it all on his own. It turns out that this dictator, Emperor Tachyon, is the last of his species, as is Ratchet (Insomniac are either denying that Angela Cross ever existed or are saying she wasn't actually a Lombax and just looked very like one). The Lombaxes nearly wiped out the Cragmites (Tachyon's people) a long time ago when thwarting the Cragmites' plans on universe domination, but the methodology they employed is unknown. Tachyon and Ratchet each want to be the first to discover the "Lombax Secret" and finish the job their respective people started.
In my opinion, it doesn't gel well with the previous games. There was nothing in them to suggest that Ratchet was the last of his kind or didn't know where he came from, so this sudden revelation that he's an orphan with no idea about his past feels very tacked-on. Plus, everyone in the Shadow Sector made such a big deal about Ratchet being a supreme Lombax gladiator you'd've thought Tachyon would have got wind of him before now.
An intriguing development is the appearance of somewhat Midna-like enigmatic little aliens called Zoni that only Clank can see. They keep giving him mysterious clues (as well as bestowing upgrades on him), and I'm intrigued to see how this is going to pan out.

In short, it's got better explosions, better sound effects - everything you'd expect a PS3 upgrade to a PS2 title to have. Otherwise, if you're an established fan you'll enjoy it; if you didn't like the past games, you won't warm to this one. If you've never played any Ratchet games before, Tools is as good a place as any to start.

I was vaguely considering the idea of doing a first impressions post on Burning Crusade, which I also bought today, but a) anyone who wants it has probably got it anyway, and b) I haven't got to play it yet because I have to download an 871-meg patch first. Argh.

Napalm Riot

Napalm Riot is (or rather will be) a social networking site for gamers. It's not limited to videogamers, and includes in its definition of gamers those who play table-top games, card games, etc.

Currently they're accepting sign-ups for the alpha, and I've put my name down for it. I know 'Myspace for gamers'-type sites have been attempted before, but this one grabs my attention while the others have yet to. Some of the founders and coders have previously worked for deviantART and SheezyArt, so they must know what they're doing. I'm also digging the name and the punchy, iconic visuals. This looks like one to watch.

First impressions: Crash of the Titans (PS2) and Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (DS)

I picked Crash of the Titans up in Gamestation today after wandering in in search of a new Dual Shock 2. It was only £25 (for the PS2 version - oddly, the Xbox version of the same game is £40!), so I thought why not, I quite liked the demo.

I was quite disappointed by Crash's previous outing - Twinsanity - which, though genuinely funny, sucked canal water; as did the last two kart racers (not to be confused with Crash Team Racing on the PSone, which was made by Naughty Dog and is still pretty fun). I liked The Wrath of Cortex (the first post-PSone Crash game), but it was just more of the same from the first three games, just with shinier graphics. Suffice to say, Crash's PS2 outings have been pretty lacklustre. Whilst Titans is no Jak or Ratchet, it looks as though it'll reverse this trend.

The first thing that struck me while watching the intro FMV was how much Radical Entertainment have changed the appearance of the characters. Crash looks gimpier and more ungainly than ever, as does Coco. Crunch looks pretty much the same, though. Aku Aku and Uka Uka have had a total re-draw: Aku Aku is now lozenge-shaped instead of rectangular and he has sideburns instead of a goatee. He does look more like the sort of mask a witch doctor would wear (which is what he was supposed to be right from the start of the series), but personally I don't like his new appearance. Still, he at least does look recognisable as the same character, which is more than can be said for Uka Uka. Uka Uka has almost nothing in common with his old appearance, though he still looks suitably menacing. However, Uka Uka and Aku Aku are supposed to be brothers, and now they look nothing alike.
I do approve of Cortex's new appearance - he actually looks like a human now. A horribly mutant and jaundiced one, but still. Tiny Tiger also really looks like a tiger now, and has a proper voice instead of the barely-understandable growl he used to have. N Gin looks better too. I was disappointed not to see N Tropy or Dingodile; I liked them. They're not mentioned in the instruction manual, so I don't think they'll put in an appearance.

Titans returns to the linear levels of old-school Crash, and it's a welcome move. Twinsanity tried open levels a la Jak & Daxter, and proved it doesn't work for a Crash game. You now have to smash plants etc. to gain mojo (life force goo) rather than smash crates to gain wumpa fruit, but the mechanics are basically the same. Crash now kicks and punches rather than spins for his default attack, and can perform a rolling kick-jump to break an enemy's block. He can also protect himself by holding up Aku Aku and using him as a shield, and can stand on Aku Aku and use him as a hoverboard. Sentient planks of wood make hella useful sidekicks, it seems.
Aku Aku's biggest use, though, is "jacking". In addition to the standard grunt enemies (such as the test tube-wielding Ratnicians), Crash encounters big evil bastard monsters that you can only stun rather than kill. When you do, Aku Aku can possess the beast, allowing Crash to leap onto its back and ride it.

Being able to play as various 10-foot spike-throwing killing machines is a satisfying endeavour, especially considering what a lanky wimp Crash himself is. However, none of them can jump, which means you must leave them behind (which kills them, rather brutally) in order to progress through the platforming sections. Nothing to complain about here, really - I like platforming stuff. I've also taken to the aforementioned jetboard sections - let's face it, you'd have to be a pretty crap developer to make riding a hoverboard not fun.

I'm only five levels in, and yet I've beaten 16% of the game. Hm. Looks as though this'll be a short adventure. I think I may have missed something by not playing Twinsanity (not playing it longer than was necessary to realise I didn't like it, anyway), as Crash now has tribal-y tattoos on his hands with no explanation in the game or manual as to how they got there. Is this one of those art updates in which we're supposed to pretend the character always looked like that?

I also picked up the DS version of Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. Perhaps an odd move, considering how lukewarm the PS2 version is (check my Gamestyle review), as were all the previous hand-held incarnations of Spyro, but I was curious to see how the game translated to the DS format. Surprisingly well is the answer. It didn't work on the big screen (big as in a telly, not as in the silver screen), but as a top-down scroller it's pretty nice. The 3D-ness of the PS2 version kept making me expect it to be more like, y'know, a 3D adventure game, but a 2D perspective robs it of its pretensions to be anything other than a scrolling beat-'em-up. It's rectangular top-down rather than the isometric top-down of the GBA Spyros, which was a bit pants. I'm digging the Curse of Monkey Island-esque painty graphics too. There are also some slidy-block redirect-the-laser-with-mirrors puzzles, which are right up my street. I love those.

I'll probably end up doing reviews of these two. I want to write a review of Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters as well; I told Gamestyle I wanted to do that ages ago, and I still haven't got round to it. Ho hum.

Book review: Devil May Cry Graphic File

No, this book is not technological in any way - it doesn't come with a DVD or have microchips embedded in the cover or owt. It is official Capcom merchandising, though, so I deemed it game-related enough to be worth reviewing here.

The Graphic File is a compendium of artwork from the first DMC game: concept sketches, production art and CGI renders. Apart from short captions to the pictures, and (handily) the table of contents, the book is entirely in Japanese. I can't read a single character of Japanese, so I can't comment on the written content. However, there isn't too much of it, so I'm fairly confident my enjoyment of the book hasn't been marred too much by not being able to read the text.

Rather curiously, the book has a dust-jacket despite being a softcover. Is this the norm for Japanese books?

As I'm an avid DMC fan, a fair few of the production images I'd already seen online (though it's nice to have them without any jpeg artefacts), though I was excited to see some new ones too.
There are some character designs that were never used: besides Tony Redgrave and Aisha (two people who were going to be in the game way back when it was still a Resident Evil 4 prototype), there are concept images of Dante's partners (perhaps evolved from Tony and Aisha) and a man called the Count (perhaps one of the castellans of Mallet Castle), who is a pretty cool-looking character. Shame he was never used.
A couple of pictures show concept art of Dante with a machine gun and a rocket launcher. If only those had been included in the first game instead of the inferior sequel!

One of my favourite sections is the level designs. These pictures are hand-painted rather than rendered (though I expect many of them were touched up in Photoshop), which gives them a dark, otherworldly quality that CGI would have been too 'perfect' to capture. Most of them look darker and more foreboding than the game itself does. I'm disappointed by how they've been presented four to a page - they must have been designed on canvases at least as big as A4, so why not one to a page?

The early enemy designs are interesting in how they're still recognisable as the creatures they eventually became, but show an unexpected starting point. The early Blades look very Resident Evil-ish, and the Nobodys look sort of Aztec-y. The Shadows are quite RE-ish too; instead of being made of darkness they were originally giant zombie cats.

The CGI renders of the weapons are fairly meh. I suppose they're interesting if you're into firearms, but as far as I'm concerned if you've seen one gun you've seen them all.
The enemy renders are disappointing: if you've played the game you'll have seen these images in the enemy files anyway. I'm quite interested in how games are made, so I'd've welcomed a few images of wireframes, some walk cycles and texture/colour swatches. Furthermore, most of the enemy renders are duplicated in another DMC book I have (I can't remember the title or find it online - it's an annotated recap of the game's cutscenes interspersed with some production images).

The Staff section of the book has a collection of one-panel cartoons, each drawn by one of the members of the production team. I assume these are hilarious if you can read Japanese, but I can't.

The rest of the book isn't very exciting. Apart from a few storyboards (which are printed too small on the page to really see properly), it's all post-production stuff. There are photographs of the other DMC merchandise available, but a cover shot of a book or DVD is rather meaningless out of context, especially when they all look pretty much the same.
I'm intrigued by the double-page spread of 3D models (actual sculptures, not 3D renders). I can't read the accompanying text, so I don't know if these were made as production tools during the game, or whether they're commercially available figurines made to promote the game.

I make no secret of the fact that I'm pretty nerdy for DMC - I've acquired the official soundtracks, sound DVDs, mangas, novels and graphic novels, and a couple of the action figures. (I can't say I'm terribly fond of the anime, though.) Therefore this review isn't totally objective - if it's official DMC merchandise I'll probably buy it. As a Devil May Cry nerd, I consider the Graphic File worth acquiring (and I'd love to have an equivalent book for DMC2 and 3), but your mileage may vary. As I said, some of the images are duplicated in-game and a lot of them are online if you know where to look.
Like most of the DMC merchandise, it's for just the hardcore fans. If you can take or leave the games, you can take or leave this book.

Score: 5/7

Super bonus review: I wrote a short review of the first DMC novel, posted here on Archonia (mine's the one by Ginger).

PMP review: Cowon A2

Official product page:
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a2/

Note that I've been uploading data by just plugging the player in and letting my computer treat it as a removable storage drive. I haven't bothered installing the proper software, as it's Windows-only and I mostly use Linux. This review therefore just covers the A2 player itself and not its computer software.

The A2 is a portable media player (PMP), on which you can store images, films/video clips and text documents as well as music -- you can also use it to listen to FM radio, and it can record any audio or video input, plus it can record your voice with its internal mic. It comes in 20gb and 30gb varieties, the latter of which I chose to replace my faulty Nomad Jukebox 3 (which, impressively, still works as a data storage medium after all these years; it just won't play music thanks to a damaged headphone socket).

It was hard finding a player of that capacity that would work on Linux, and I quite fancied one that could play .ogg files (I gave up on them, though, as at the maximum bitrate .mp3s are smaller than .oggs; it's only at intermediate bitrates that .ogg is smaller). I also didn't want a sodding iPod. I know that's nothing less than elitism, but I still didn't want one. I had an mp3 player (a 6gb Creative Jukebox) before the great unwashed had heard of mp3 players, and then suddenly iPods stormed onto the scene and everybody and their granny's dog had one. It annoyed me that no-one had any idea that mp3 players other than iPods existed (I hated that people would buy them instead of a more obscure but better value for money player), and I dislike all Apple products and have disdain for their users anyway.

The A2 comes in beautiful packaging, which really makes you feel as though you're getting a premium piece of consumer electronics. All the cardboard box and its cardboard sleeve are printed smooth white with glossy images. Inside the box is a card envelope containing the instructions and the installation CD, below which is the plastic mould housing the A2. Neatly ensconced in the underside of this is another card box, containing all the connector cables and carrying case (leather, boo!).
The instruction manual doesn't have a table of contents or an index, so the only way to find something is to browse for it. Not good.

As it's an American product, I had to buy an adaptor plug for my A2 so I could recharge it at the mains here in the UK. Cowon do make an official UK plug for the A2, but it doesn't comply with British safety standards! I bought a bog-standard £1.50 adaptor plug, and it works fine*. Though it doesn't actually state this anywhere on the packaging, the A2's AC adaptor is compatible with European voltages (I found this out on the Cowon website - I'm not so foolhardy as to plug a 110v device into a 240v socket just to see what would happen) so a step-down converter isn't necessary.

The A2 itself looks pretty good, but is let down by being mostly white. I don't like white plastic gadgets; I think it makes them look cheap. Admittedly it's metallic white (if that makes sense - and no, I don't mean it's silver) rather than the glossy white that looks really cheap, but still. The A2 would be far sexier if only it were black, or perhaps a nice dark grey.
The serial number is printed on a sticker on the back, which looks fairly easy to remove. Couldn't they have printed it somewhere less accessible, such as on the back of the panel that covers the USB and AV-out ports?

The hardware interface of the A2 is nice and minimal - there is a strange little nub called the 'joggle', which is used to move up, down, left and right. Accompanying this are three context-specific buttons (whose functions are displayed at the bottom of the screen), plus a handy 'back' button.
The joggle is, unfortunately, pretty infuriating to use. To select something, you click it in as if it were a button. When doing so it is very easy to push it up as well, so you end up selecting the thing directly above what you were trying to. A weeny joystick is a nice idea, but a clickwheel would have been far nicer.

I'll go through the thing's features one by one, in the order they're listed on the main menu -- which, by the way, is nice and PDA-like.

Video (called 'movie' in the menu):
Not having much of a portable video collection, and because I bought this thing to be primarily an audio player, I haven't used this function much. From the demo videos that come stored on the A2, I can tell you it's nice and crisp. The videos I put on it myself are mostly low-res stuff ganked from YouTube, so aren't really indicative of the quality of the device.
The screen is only four inches wide (admittedly, much bigger and it would stop being pocket-sized), so there is some detail lost.

Music:
Oh dear. As a music player, the A2 is grand: sound quality is lovely, as are the sound-boosting effects. Also, if you remove the headphones the player automatically plays through its wee speakers, which are surprisingly loud and clear for such a little machine. As a music organiser, though, it's shit. It can't read any metadata off tracks besides the title, artist and album. This means that you can't sort or view tracks by genre, nor... wait for it... are songs sorted by track number! The only way to have the songs in the correct order is to rename the actual files (01 Future Legend.mp3, 02 Diamond Dogs.mp3, etc.). How quaint.
When playing a track, its title, artist and album are displayed on the screen. However, there's no way to look up tracks, artists or albums with these data - you must upload the files in folders by album (or with whatever sorting you prefer). Unless you prefer having them all lumped in together, I suppose. I have mine in folders by album with the artist name in square brackets, e.g.
[David Bowie] Diamond Dogs
[Eric Clapton] Pilgrim
[Future Sound of London] Dead Cities
Although I can find the music I want easily enough because it's all in alphabetical order, this is a stupid way to go about things. My old Nomad used the metadata to sort, so you could browse by artist, album, or genre, or you could view all the tracks in one massive list if you so wanted. I'm quite stumped by Cowon choosing to adopt this bizarre system.

Furthermore, I added lyrics to an albumful of tracks by typing them in by hand in Amarok. They didn't display on the A2. I'd try adding them again in a Windows program, but I'm not sure I can be bothered to type all that out again.

Photo:
Pretty disappointing. I tested this first by uploading some PSP wallpapers I made. As the PSP and A2 have the same screen resolution (480 x 272px), I thought they'd do nicely for customising my A2. However, a lot of them looked pixellated and blocky, despite looking swish on my bigger-screened PSP.
Also, for some reason, if your picture is taller than the screen, it won't let you zoom in far enough so that the image fills the screen width.
I suppose the photo feature is handy if you have a digicam with a small screen, as you could use one of the supplied cables to connect it to the A2 and view your pictures on the 4" screen.

Document:
Meh. I thought of using the A2 to store my lecture notes on (after converting them to plain text), but was thwarted by my overestimation of its line width. I carefully kept all the lines under 80 characters to avoid nasty wrap and line breaks, only to find it needs to be under 62. Still, I can't fault their nice, crisp display.
The A2 can also play .csd files, which are a proprietary .pdf-like format for Cowon devices. I haven't created any .csds of my own, as I've not bothered with the installer CD, but I can tell you the ones stored on the player are a bit blurry and rubbish.

DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting):
No comment; I've never been able to find anywhere transmitting data

Radio:
Crap. It won't pick anything up. I don't know if this is because I'm in the UK, and the player's radio modes only offer 'Europe', which may mean just the mainland. I'm not in an area of poor reception; I've got a bedside radio right here in the room that works fine.
Once you've switched the radio on, furthermore, there's no way to shut it up apart from switching the player off or playing an audio or video file. Argh.

Record:
I haven't tried recording from TV yet, but I did try recording some music off my CD player just for kicks. It was nice quality; almost indistinguishable from the CD itself. The voice recording (with the built-in mic) effectively makes the A2 a dictaphone, as long as you're careful not to hold it too close to your face (which makes the recording horrible and hissy).

In summary, I don't wish I'd never bought the A2, but when it packs in I won't get another one. I give the A2 a 4/7: it has above average features, but it's not great enough to get an above-average score.

*Said adaptor plug indeed works fine at what it does, but it still gave me trouble. It has multiple sets of protractile pins, so you just have to push in and click out the appropriate ones, and you can plug it into any socket. I accidentally left the Japanese pins sticking out when I pushed it into my (UK) powerstrip. My finger touched the stuck-out pins, and YOW! 240v electric shock, trip to A&E. Fun.

Laptop mini-review: Medion MID2030

I'm calling this a mini-review despite its length, as I'm not computer-oriented enough to tell you much spec-wise other than what's already printed on the box.

After my Ei System laptop's screen died, I sought a new machine to replace it, and chose a second-hand Medion MID2030. Frankly, I'd've been better off spending my £400 on a new screen for my Ei.

I realised I was potentially giving myself problems by choosing an esoteric brand (it's hard to even find the specs of a MID2030 online), but dismissed the thought on the grounds that it had the same manufacturer as my old machine - Ei Systems and Medion are both made exclusively for PC World - and whilst my old machine was never fantastic, it was reliable and served me well for the four years I had it.
I also realised that buying second-hand threw up opportunities for more problems to manifest, but hey - I'd be using the same operating systems as before, this machine was more powerful than my old one so it could take all I could throw at it, and all it'd need would perhaps be a quick workshop job to blow out all the dust.

This machine is cursed. I'm sure the previous owner got rid of it because s/he realised it was an evil, evil bastard of a notebook. When I got it, the first thing I did, of course, was to put Linux on it. That was my intention, at least. I really wasn't prepared for it not being able to read the Ubuntu live installer - after all, I'd previously put Linux on two other machines, one of them nine years old, without difficulty. So off I popped to download the alternate installer (a text-based installer that has more advanced options than the graphical installer, and will almost always work where the graphical one doesn't). It didn't like that either - it'd get so far, then the screen would show me nothing but blue and red lines, that after multiple attempts I eventually learned to navigate away from with the right keyboard presses.
Having had no luck with my favourite distro or with Xubuntu, I decided to try Vector Linux, reasoning it'd be pretty much the same once I put GNOME on it. No luck. No luck when out of desperation I tried Knoppix either. This was insane. You can install Linux on just about anything with more than 14 megabytes of RAM, so what was my Medion playing at?

In the meantime, the machine had WinXP preloaded on it, with Norton Antivirus on it. Yuk. That program is a bastard to remove completely, so I decided to use my Win XP disc for a clean re-install, as I hadn't got round to using this notebook for storing anything important anyway, and maybe, I reasoned, the drive had something on it that was interfering with my Linux installation attempts. The installation went fine (and while I was at it I partitioned the hard drive ready to put Ubuntu on it), or so I thought. I still had no luck installing Ubuntu, and whenever I used XP I'd get BSoDs flashing by too fast for me to read, and whatever programs I used would crash for no apparent reason. Even Windows shouldn't be falling over that much.

The failure to install Ubuntu was making me suspect memory failure. I opened what I assumed to be the RAM access panel on the back of the machine, but what I saw didn't look like anything I'd encountered before. My old Ei System was so easy to open up to get at the important parts - a couple of screws and out comes the hard drive, off comes one panel and there's the RAM, a couple more screws and out slides the DVD drive. Lovely. This Medion didn't look as though it would surrender access to its insides that easily. Out of my depth, I admitted defeat and took it to a repair shop.

My suspicions of memory failure were correct - not only was one of the RAM modules defective, but it had two 1gig sticks (the machine was sold to me as having 1gig total, which I assumed would be in the form of two 512mb sticks), which the machine was having trouble reading as such. Not only that, but the hard drive itself was fubared - something to do with a smart media test, whatever that may be.
New RAM and hard drive plus workshop time came to £150 - quite a lot, but I reasoned that a total price of £550 (£400 for the machine initially, then £150 for these replacement parts and labour) wasn't a bad price for a laptop of these specs.

I took my machine home, and success! It booted the Ubuntu live CD and I installed it without a setback. I now had a pretty sweet XP/Ubuntu dual-boot, and I set about customising the two OSes to my liking.
Trying to install a game from CD on Windows, I encountered an I/O device error. I tried all the usual troubleshoots: upgrading the drivers (I had the latest versions anyway), changing the transfer mode from IDE to PIO (no effect), removing the upperfilter/lowerfilter limits in regedit (they weren't there anyway). Argh. I was having a suspicion that it was Ubuntu's fault, as the failure to read discs only started after I installed it. I can't think why that would happen, though - I've run an XP/Ubuntu dualy before and the two OSes didn't affect each other.

Realising I was probably out of my depth again, I phoned the Tech Guys helpline (formerly PC Service Call, this is the only place you can get support for the PC World-specific Medion PCs). NINE FUCKING POUNDS it cost me just for this dude to do some Googling I could have done myself, which didn't even help. My machine's model wasn't even in their sodding database!
I then told a tech messageboard of my woes, expecting them to know some fix I didn't. Alas, I got only replies saying I appeared to have covered all the troubleshooting bases and it was most likely a hardware fault. Arse arse arse. I know DVD drives are only about £25, but this is taking the piss.

£25 for a new part is going to be far cheaper than buying a whole new machine, but I'm sorely tempted to do the latter anyway. This machine's given me nothing but trouble. Wondering if I just had a duff one, I Googled for it and found that most reviews of this model are similarly grim. One says "Notebook? Better off with paper and pen". Ho ho.

I suppose this'll teach me not to buy a computer without reading reviews first, and not to choose a brand that has so little support. I give the MID2030 a rating of arsebiscuits out of ten.

Reviews archive

All titles reviewed are in PAL format unless stated otherwise.

Hosted on this blog:

Loco Roco [PSP]
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner [PS2]

Hosted on Gamestyle - the UK's longest-running independent gaming website:

Daxter [PSP]
Devil May Cry [PS2]
Devil May Cry 3 SE [PS2] [NTSC]
International Super Karts [PS2]
Jak 3 [PS2]
Jak X [PS2]
Legacy of Kain: Defiance [PS2]
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning [PS2]
Musashi: Samurai Legend [PS2]
Onimusha 3 [PS2]
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones [PS2]
Ratchet: Gladiator [PS2]
Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction [PS3]
Scaler [PS2]
Sly 2: Band of Thieves [PS2]
Sly 3: Honour among Thieves [PS2]
Soul Calibur III [PS2]
Spyro: A Hero's Tail [PS2]
SSX 3 [PS2]
SSX on Tour [PS2]