Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) Review

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the third and final game in the Metroid Prime series, developed by Retro Studios. The plot goes something like this (spoiler alert): In the first Metroid Prime, Samus (the main character of the Metroid series) was tasked with eliminating the Space Pirates on Tallon IV, as well as wiping out the phazon (it’s deadly, don’t touch it, unless you want to know the definition of the phrase “With great power comes great responsibility”) corruption on the planet. The source of the corruption is revealed to be a heavily mutated Metroid (creatures who feed off the life force of other species, also where the series gets its name from) known as Metroid Prime, living deep within the depths of the planet. So you need to collect these mysterious artifacts that open up the path to wear it lies. After finally defeating it, it’s presumed dead. However, it returns in the next two games as Dark Samus, Samus’ evil twin (exactly how this happens I’ll leave secret). So in the second game, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, basically you need to defeat Dark Samus before the amount of phazon she consumes reaches a critical mass or something along those lines. In other words, you just need to stop her, which you do, and then lo and behold she’s able to come back, which brings us to right now. In this game, you need to defeat her once again, only now you’re heading straight for the source of all phazon corruption in the universe, so you can wipe it out along with her. The plot sets the stage for the adventure ahead.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is actually the first Metroid Prime game I’ve played, unless you count the spin-off title Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS, so I haven’t experienced the controls of the previous two (I’m currently trying to get my hands on them, so expect reviews on them once I get them and complete them). As such, I also can't tell you what has and hasn't changed about the series ever since the release of the first game. Retro Studios claimed that the control scheme they created for Metroid Prime 3 is the best first-person control scheme ever made (they say so right on the back of the case). I’m not sure I agree with that statement, but there’s no denying that it is good. The game is played using the Wiimote and Nunchuk attachment. You use the control stick to move forward, backward, diagonally and side to side. The Wiimote acts as your arm cannon. That being said, you use it to change the direction you aim in, as well as the direction you move in. You press the A button to shoot, the control pad down to fire missiles (hold it down to fire multiple missiles once the ability becomes available to you), the B button to jump, the B button twice to double jump, and three times to do the screwattack (Once you gain the ability. Also, the A and B button can be switched, you can have the A button be the jump button and the B button to be your fire button). The C button is used to change into your morph ball and the Z button’s used to lock onto enemies. While Z-targeting you can shake the nunchuk to employ use of the grappling hook, which can be used to pull you across gaps that can’t be crossed by any other means, or to rip stuff apart, like enemy shields or hunks of debris that block your path. The – button (that’s minus) is also really important. You can use that to switch between various visors in your possession. At the beginning, you’re equipped with a scan visor that allows you to scan enemies and stuff like that (I know you totally couldn’t have figured that out without me), but as you progress you gain a visor that allows you to control your ship remotely as well as one that gives you X-Ray vision (take it from me, it’s really useful) The 1 button pauses the game, the 2 button displays hints (can be toggled on or off, if you’re a Metroid purist, you’ll probably want this turned off), and you use the + button to enter your hypermode (once you get the ability), which allows you to fire extra-powerful blasts of that phazon stuff I mentioned earlier, albeit for a limited time (more on this later). The setup feels weird initially, but becomes second nature after a few minutes.

I’ll admit I wasn’t really paying attention to the graphics. So rather than trying to make up things to say about them, I will say that they must have been good, considering that I lost myself in the game anyway.

Guess what’s coming up next? What’s that you say? Voice acting? Well you’d be right. The voice acting in this game is excellent. That being said, voice acting is never perfect, as one who has hopes of getting into the business himself, I should probably commit that to memory. But the voices in this game are good. I know, it doesn’t matter if the voice actors are well known or not, but most of them are obscure, at least to me. There are a few that I’ve heard. For some examples, Jennifer Hale (who plays the main character, Samus Aran), Christopher Sabat (who plays the bounty hunter Rundas, and those who have watched Dragon Ball Z might recognize as the Saiyan prince Vegeta, and the Namekian Piccolo), and Troy Baker, whose voice, to this day, I still can’t pick out. That must speak volumes about his versatility.

The music for the game is being composed by Kenji Yamamoto, the one who composed the music for the previous two games in the Prime series, among others, such as newcomer Minako Hamano. The music sets the mood of every one of the planets (yes, Metroid fans, I said planets) you visit in the game. One example that stands out to me at the moment is a theme that plays in a xenoresearch laboratory found in SkyTown, Elysia. Once you first visit, everything is more or less normal. As you progress, you will go past several cells containing Phazon Metroids (Metroids enhanced with Phazon? How can this be?). Some will try to attack you, some won’t. As you progress further into the lab, which is seemingly empty except for you and the Metroids, it becomes evident that you’ll need to shut off the power to the entire lab. So you do, and, when you do, a rather unsettling theme starts playing. So you start backtracking, and sure enough, those cells with Metroids you saw earlier? The glass has been shattered. They’re destroyed. They’ve broken out, and judging by the amount of time it took for you to get back to that spot, they’re probably still somewhere in the laboratory. So now you’re trying to find a way out of here when BOOM! Out of frigging nowhere, a Metroid comes charging at you and unless you’re exceptionally prepared for the thing, you’re probably gonna get some life sucked out o’ ya. But that’s beside the point. The point is the music gives you a sense that you are not alone in this place. It really is amazing, the effect that music has on situations like this one. Would it have generated the same effect if the Jaws theme was playing? Well I guess it would’ve helped, if anything, you’d be better prepared for those Metroids at least. One other example is the abandoned federation ship G.F.S. Valhalla (see what they did there?), but I’ll leave that to you. The sound effects in the game were done by a company known as Okratron5000, ironically founded by Christopher Sabat.

If there’s one thing I enjoy about the gameplay, it’s the combat. This is really where the game gets most of its challenge. The enemies you face are mostly of the Space Pirate variety. The earlier enemies are easy enough, but as you progress, they’ll be sent into combat with flight capability or they’ll find themselves enabled with the same hypermode ability that you possess, or they’ll have really thick, near-impenetrable armor. Sometimes it may even be a combination of these things. In other words, the difficulty really ramps up later in the game, even on normal difficulty. I’d say about half the challenge comes from knowing when to use hypermode, because as I said above, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Seriously, this thing will kill you if you let it. The boss fights in the game take this even further. The boss fights will test your proficiency with your abilities like nothing else can. Alright, maybe I’m exaggerating that a little, like few other things in this game can. Whatever, the point is that the boss fights are challenging, and I like ‘em that way. I don’t think there has been a single boss fight where I wasn’t left with a low amount of energy. This is just in my experience, I’m not sure about you. Maybe you’ve had better luck.

The puzzles are another aspect of the game that deserves praise. They never had me guessing for more than a few minutes, but they were well done nevertheless. They are almost always galaxy-spanning, almost never limited to a single room/area/planet. Sometimes you need to backtrack to previous planets to find a solution to a problem you encounter on another planet. That being said, some puzzles are still done the old fashioned way. The solution is right there on the planet you’re on. For those Metroid purists out there, the guys over at Retro Studios haven’t forgotten you in this regard either.

As I haven’t played any other game in the series (except the original Metroid for the Nintendo Entertainment System, which was stupid-hard), I have no clue how this game would stack up compared to previous instalments in the series. But for my money at least, you can’t go wrong here. The game and its story can easily be enjoyed without previous knowledge of the series (I looked up backstory after I beat the game just to see where it fit in the chronology), the difficulty ramps up at a steady pace, and higher difficulty modes provide incentive to play through the game again after beating it, not to mention the extra content you could unlock, such as decorations for your ship (bumper stickers, bobbleheads, etc.), based on what Wii games are also saved onto the console’s internal memory. You can also unlock background music, so you can sit there and listen to it without having to actually play the game just to listen to it (this or you could always just go on YouTube and search it up), pieces of artwork, and the like. Like I said above, you can’t go wrong with this game. If you’re a Metroid fan and you own a Wii, pick this game up. If you aren’t a Metroid fan but own a Wii, I’d also recommend you give it a go. It’s an excellent game to play to get a good first impression of the series. You’ll probably really enjoy it. I know that I did.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) Review

I am a Zelda fan. That being said, I wasn't around to see the original three Zeldas released (Zelda, Zelda II, Link to the Past), however, my fandom started with a Zelda game all of us know as Ocarina of Time. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the first 3D Zelda, and it's also one of the best Zelda games in my opinion. The dungeons were great, the overworld was a bit too big, the graphics hold up well, the narrative was well done, etc. I haven't had the privilege of playing any Zelda game succeeding Ocarina of Time except one, which was Twilight Princess.

Twilight Princess took everything Ocarina of Time brought to the table and refined all of it. It was a more mature-looking Zelda title. It was pretty much a modern Ocarina of Time. You know the overworld? They made that bigger (They also put a lot more to do in it). You know the graphics? Yeah those were a lot more realistic. You know the dungeons? Bigger and better. And for the first time in the Zelda series, motion controls were added to the experience. I mean, sure all you ever really did in terms of motion control in that game was shake the wii remote to slash enemies with your sword and shake the nunchuk to use your shield, but they were still well implemented. And not only could you name your character, you could name your horse as well. Also, the game ran in widescreen (16:9) format on Wii as opposed to the Gamecube version of the game (the Wii game is also a mirrored version of the Gamecube game).

Last year, 2011, about 5 years after Twilight Princess was released, was Zelda's 25^th anniversary. And for that occasion, Eiji Aonuma and his development team set out to make a Zelda game unlike any other. And what better way to celebrate the Legend of Zelda’s 25^th anniversary than by creating a prequel to Ocarina of Time? That prequel Zelda game eventually came to be known as The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Once again, this game refines conventions of the Zelda franchise, and also refines motion controls. In Twilight Princess, as said above, you were just shaking the remote and nunchuk to get results. In this game, swordplay has received a bigger emphasis than in previous games. In fact, it's impossible to play this game without a Wii MotionPlus accessory (or a Wii RemotePlus)! I opted for a MotionPlus 'cause it was cheaper (I also had to wait for two months before playing the game to get it, big mistake. If you’re going to get this game, play it with a Wii RemotePlus). The Wii MotionPlus allows for 1:1 accuracy when swinging your sword. Put in its simplest terms, it means that whatever direction you choose to swing the remote, Link (or whatever you choose to name your in-game avatar) will swing in that same direction in game. Some dungeon designs (the first one in particular) and pretty much all enemies and bosses are designed around this mechanic. And if this isn't the last Zelda game for the Wii as we know it (as the WiiU is upon us) then this is, apparently the way Zelda games for the Wii will control from now on, so get used to it.

The story of Skyward Sword delves into the origins of the Legend of Zelda series, and does a surprisingly excellent job of pulling all of the games in the series together chronologically. We have Link and we have Zelda, who for the first time ever, aren't in their traditional roles as Hero and Princess of Hyrule (remember that at the time of this game, Hyrule doesn't exist), but instead are childhood friends. Zelda takes a walk off the edge of Skyloft one day and falls below the clouds. Actually, she gets sucked into a tornado and then falls below the clouds. How very convenient. And just in case you’re wondering, Skyloft is the town above the clouds where these two protagonists grew up. Getting back to the plot, naturally, the knight in shining armor has to rescue the princess, doesn't he? Well that's exactly what Link does. As Link, the player scours three areas called provinces on the surface world (or the surface, as it’s called in-game) in search of his love interest, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds. Why is this? Because Nintendo, the developer of the game, continues to do things the way they’ve always done them with the Zelda series: spectacular game design and a well-written story.

The controls in this game are awesome. The motion controls work well, for the most part. They were a bit awkward at first, but I was able to get used to them fairly quickly. While I was playing through the third dungeon, I accidentally broke the accessory and ever since then it started behaving erratically. I suppose this is why Nintendo created a remote with the accessory’s technology built in. The Wii RemotePlus works much better. As said above, the motion you make with the remote is the motion that will be made with the sword in-game. This scheme is mostly used for battling enemies and bosses, hardly ever for puzzles inside the game’s dungeons. The only dungeon that ever really used the remote’s functionality was the first dungeon, the Skyview Temple. There are several places in the temple where there is an item crucial to progress in the dungeon behind bars. It’s a type of security system, guarded by these machines that look like eyes. These eyes follow the point of your sword, so you need to use this to your advantage in order to gain access to the item that this system guards. You can access various items that you have by pausing the game using the + button, pressing the – button (to access health potions, shield potions, shields, etc.), as well as the + button to access weapons that you have acquired throughout the game.

From the second temple on, the focus shifts off of using your sword to solve puzzles and onto using weapons you gain throughout the game. Previous games in the series have you entering a dungeon, then at some point in the dungeon finding a new weapon, and then using that weapon to help you progress in the temple. By that, I mean that until now, all the dungeons that Nintendo designed had puzzles inside that required only the one found inside. The item had a hand in defeating the boss character at the end as well. The only other item you would ever use inside a dungeon in Ocarina of Time was the bow (acquired in the Forest Temple), which would be used to shoot at switches in later temples. This game sort of breaks that mold. The item you find in the dungeon will still be the one most prominently used, however, there are, for the first time, some puzzles that you can’t solve by using that newly acquired weapon. They can only be solved by using a weapon you found in a previous dungeon, or sometimes you need to use multiple weapons in tandem, to solve that particular puzzle. Ever since I’ve played Ocarina of Time I’ve been a Zelda fan, and I’ve always praised Nintendo for their dungeon design in Zelda games. I do so again now, I love what they have done with the designs in this game.

The boss characters at the end of the seven dungeons in this game… well, some of them are good, others employ tactics that have been done to death, others you find yourself fighting three times throughout the entire game. My favorite boss fight in the game… well, there are actually three of them. I’m talking about all three of fights with the main villain in the game, Lady Gag – David Bowi – never mind. I guess it’s just because I enjoy using the sword controls to find an opening in his defenses, which makes it that much more satisfying when you land hits on your opponent. Another boss fight I enjoy is a giant “thousand-year” scorpion creature that you battle against at the end of the game’s third dungeon. In video games, especially in some of the more recent ones, it’s in my experience that a common weakpoint in bosses is always their eye(s). So it is with this boss. However, this works, because, in my opinion, it keeps you from feeling like you’ve done all this somewhere before. The boss’s eyes are on its pincers. It will open these pincers to grab you, thus revealing its eyes. You’ll have to strike with your sword parallel to its pincers if you hope to land a hit on it. Once you destroy its claws, it will reveal its final eye, which you have to stab at in order to defeat it (thrust the remote forward). There are two other boss fights in the game that involve eyes as the boss’s weakpoint; both feel as though you’ve done the same thing before (once again, in my opinion), however. I’m looking at the boss of the second dungeon and a boss that has possessed a flying sperm whale (yeah, I’m not kidding about that). The first mentioned has you chucking bombs at it to gradually expose his eye, the other has you hitting a giant ball of what looks like phlegm back at a giant ocular (get it?) parasite to reveal his. In both situations, once the eye is exposed, you slash the ever-living crap out of it until it dies. There is one more boss that you find yourself battling three times (actually, if you think about it, you fight it FOUR times) in this game, with each time getting progressively harder: the Imprisoned (a gargantuan beast with a mouth and feet... to begin with anyway). This guy actually serves as a major antagonist in the game as well. Each time you fight it, you have to try and stop it from reaching the top of the pit it was previously sealed in. In the first fight, that means chopping toes off, in the second fight that means using a cannon to fling bombs at it to jump on it from above and start slashing its weakspot, and in the third fight it means outright killing it by any means necessary. I absolutely hate this boss. It’s repetitive and annoying. Trust me, should you choose to play this game; you will see what I mean.

Once you reach a certain point in the game, you get the option to fight all previous bosses in the game again, allowing you to relive your favorite (and not so favorite) battles in the game. You aren’t allowed to bring any health restores into the challenge, just you, your shield, and your sword (Zelda purists will want to play through this at least to the eighth battle to obtain the Hylian shield, the greatest shield you could ever acquire in any Zelda game). You can also replay challenges you’ve cleared in a place known as the Silent Realm. In this realm, you need to collect 15 glowing orbs while avoiding getting hit by the guardians scattered all over the area. If you fail to get an orb within 90 seconds, get detected by a searchlight, or touch water, the guardians will awake and come for you. You need to do these challenges to access the rest of the dungeons (thus progress in the game) the first time; whereas the second time you do them you have the chance to win stuff (money, extremely rare items, etc.).

After you beat this game once, you unlock a “harder” version of the game. However, Zelda fans, this is no Skyward Sword Master Quest Edition. It is EXACTLY. THE. FLIPPING. SAME. As the normal mode. The only difference in this mode is that there are no hearts to be found whenever you cut bushes and stuff like that with your sword. And you know what? Yes, I am laughing while I'm writing this. But you know what else? The no hearts part of it can be solved by obtaining a heart medal later in the game, so that hearts appear, just not in the amount they do in the last mode. Therefore, the only reason you would want to play this mode is if you want enemies and bosses to do twice as much damage to your sorry arse, and if you want a triforce standing next to your file name once you complete it. A triforce symbol. Oh WOW that is so awesome. That TOTALLY makes me want to play through what might as well be the same thing all over again. I feel that this mode detracted from the game's overall quality. I really would have loved to see a Master Quest edition of the game on the same disc, just like Aonuma and his team did with the OTHER title they made for Zelda's 25^th, which was a rerelease of Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 3DS. They even mirrored it! Why didn't they do it with this game? As much as I admire Eiji Aonuma, it's as if he and his development team just threw their hands up and said “screw it all, we don't care anymore. Let's give 'em some half-baked excuse for a more challenging version of the original game. They're gonna absolutely LOOOOVE that.”

The music in this game was done by several composers who have worked on Zelda games in the past, for example, Hajime Wakai and Mahito Yokota are the ones who stand out most to me, I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because they’ve done some of the music for previous Nintendo games that are in my favorites collection (in Yokota’s case, Super Mario Galaxy, in Wakai’s case, Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker). The music in Skyward Sword is done completely with an orchestra, so I’m told. The orchestra is a great fit for the Zelda series, some pieces in the game are really epic-sounding thanks to the choir. I’d love to see this style return for future Zelda titles.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, as the game that connects the entire Legend of Zelda series, does well in every category... save for that one. The hard mode. But that is the only weak link in a game that makes great strides in the evolution of the Zelda series. The controls are pulled off well and take little to no getting used to. The story is as good as they get when it comes to Zelda games, and the music really is top-notch. Instead of the hard mode, I would have loved to see a Master Quest version of the game, though. I'd like Nintendo to think about this for the Zelda titles they have planned for the 3DS. Other than this, you cannot go wrong with this game. I highly recommend you pick it up.

Updates

Hey all! Sorry I haven't been paying as much attention to this as I had planned, I just wanted to update you on what I have coming up in the future. I was going to write reviews for two games: Sonic Generations and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The Generations one is already in the works, so you can be expecting that before the Skyward Sword one.

Prince of Persia Xbox 360 (2008) Review

Prince of Persia 2008 was the first Prince of Persia game I've played. It was one of four games that came included with my 120 GB 360 Elite. This game I'm guessing, hence it's name, was intended to reboot the Prince of Persia franchise. The game's story revolves around two characters: one random guy, a drifter, whose nickname is "The Prince," and another, a woman, whose name is Elika. The game starts off with them running into each other, both of them looking for something. The "Prince" for his donkey, Farah (a nod to the female companion of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), and Elika for a temple. How it came to this point is slowly revealed through flashbacks interspersed throughout the game. You, as the Prince, assist her in finding this temple, where an incident occurs that awakens a thousand-years dormant god, Ahriman, who plunges the entire world into darkness. So... now that the entire world is shrouded in darkness, whose job is it to clean up this mess? Take a guess.

As the Prince, you ally yourself with Elika to heal the various "fertile grounds" that pepper the landscape. There are four that you can heal initially, all others require some sort of power. Of course, before you can heal the land, you need to get rid of the boss guarding the fertile ground. There are four main bosses in the game, all of them corrupted servants of Ahriman: The Warrior, the Alchemist, the Concubine and the Hunter. Each of these guard some of the fertile grounds throughout the world. Once you beat a boss for the first time, you use Elika to heal the fertile ground the boss was guarding. With that patch of land now healed, you simply move on to the next one, defeat the boss waiting there, heal that land, and so forth.

Also, once a patch of land is healed, 45 objects called light seeds are released into the vicinity of the fertile ground. There are 45 of these in each area, and there are a total of 1001 light seeds in the game (1001 light seeds, 1001 Arabian Nights, get it?). You'll need to collect a specific amount of these, and once you do, you'll return to the temple so Elika can gain a new power to help you access new areas, which includes more corrupted areas of land. You can use these powers on special plates, called power plates (awesome name, eh?). There are four different colors of power plates: blue, red, green and yellow. Blue and red power plates basically function the exact same. They warp you between plates. Green power plates allow you to do a gravity-defying wall run. That wall run is one of my favorite moves by the way. The yellow power plate allows you to fly, simply put. The flight is on rails, so you can only move left or right. These power plates, as said above, are needed to access the later areas in the game, and if you're a completionist, they're also needed to collect all 1001 light seeds.

The controls in this game do the job. The Prince on his own, can jump, run across walls, run up walls, slide down walls, crawl across the ceiling, engage in sword combat, etc. Most of the above actions (with the exception of utilizing the sword and sliding down walls), are pulled off with a press of a button (the A button) and a tilt of the C stick, depending on which of the above situations you are in. If there is ever a time where you will need to slide down a wall, just use the R trigger, and use the C stick to direct your descent. You use the X button to use the sword, but only in certain circumstances, which will be described further on. The start button is used to pause, and the select button is used to bring up the map. On the map, you can use the C stick to move the cursor onto any area you have or haven't visited and check its stats (number of light seeds collected, the power needed to progress, etc.), and press A on any area to mark your next destination. The Y button is used to perform Elika's actions. If at any point you get stuck in the game, you can simply press Y to have her show you the way to your destination (which you can mark on the game map). You can also press Y in midjump to call on her and perform a double jump. You can also press the L trigger to make conversation with her, a good way to find out more about the world you're supposed to be saving.

The gameplay is entertaining and fluid. No matter what you find yourself doing in this game, the framerate stays up. You'll find yourself using all of the moves listed above to get through each area in the game; none of them are just for show. The game's mostly made up of platforming, which means jumping across some platforms, climbing up walls, crawling across ceilings and the like. One thing that's different from platformers in the traditional sense of the word is that death is impossible. You can't die. Whenever you make a wrong move, sure you'll fall, but Elika will always be there to pull you back up. She'll take you back to the last piece of solid ground there was, which I suppose can be taken as a checkpoint. You can start from that checkpoint as many times as it takes you to succeed and get to the next piece of solid ground. And you're going to find a lot of ground to cover in this game, as the environments are massive.

The other part of the gameplay (the part that isn't platforming) is combat. Unlike the Sands of Time games, where you face multiple enemies at a time, here you face only one at a time, which harkens back to the original Prince of Persia games created for the Apple II by Jordan Mechner. When you enter a combat sequence it will be against one of Ahriman's soldiers or against one of the bosses in the game (which I mentioned above). The only part of the game where this isn't the case is the beginning, where you're fighting some human soldiers just to get the hang of things. In combat, you can press the X button to pull off a combo with your sword, the B button to pull off one with your gauntlet, and the Y button to do one with Elika. You could also mix things up and do a combo that combines all three of these (there is, in fact, an achievement that tasks you with finding all of the possible combos in the game).

There are multiple paths you can take throughout the game, as you can choose which fertile ground to go for at all times. Once you heal a couple and get a set number of light seeds, you can choose which power plate you can access (red, blue, green and yellow), and those will allow you to access more fertile grounds. The way you play through the game also determines how much difficulty you'll have getting to the boss on the fertile ground (you'll know what I mean once you play through the game a couple times).

The art style used in this game is cel-shading, and this is the game in which it looks the most impressive. Many times I felt I was watching a movie (but, I guess that's what people have come to expect from an HD game console such as the 360). 

The music score in this game is done by Inon Zur and Stuart Chatwood (who has done the music for Sands of Time). The score is amazingly done, and adds to the atmosphere of pretty much every area in the game. And I do mean every - the same three songs play in every area in the game, that is, if that particular area has been healed. And yes, in my opinion, they do get somewhat repetitive. However, they're still awesome. The voices are also well done. Nolan North voices the Prince, while Kari Wahlgren voices Elika. They both do an excellent job. The others, while I may not know who their voice actors are, are just as fitting for their respective characters.

This game is one of my favorites. However, it is not really that challenging. It does, however, look beautiful, and the various things you find yourself doing in this game, whether it be climbing up walls, or putting the hurt on Ahriman and his goons, are made better because of the cel-shading art style. Once you have a chance to play it, maybe you'll feel the same about Prince of Persia. I hope they decide to make a sequel to this game. I feel it deserves it.

What I Now Think of Hellsing OVA

OK, people, now that I have watched more of the Hellsing OVA, I will give my thoughts on the OVA compared to the Hellsing anime once again. The OVA comes out on top. The anime is totally clean compared to the OVA. In the anime, people die. People lose limbs. When I look back at watching the anime, it reminds me of those films that came before Bonnie and Clyde. Back in those pre-Bonnie and Clyde films, when people got shot, there was no blood. Totally unrealistic. One example that I can think of at the top of my head is the end of Sunset Boulevard, where the main character gets shot a couple times and right before he dies, he falls into a swimming pool. You never see the red stuff. When Bonnie and Clyde came along, people actually bled when half of their face was blown clean off. I know Bonnie and Clyde doesn't even compare to films of the slasher and splatter genres of films, but the Hellsing anime makes Hellsing OVA look a bit like films of that kind, and yes, I know that compared to those genres, the Hellsing OVA doesn't compare either. The voices from the anime are the same, and they are equally as good, if not better. From what I've seen, the OVA also has a more interesting plot than the anime. I've also grown to like Hayato Matsuo's music score in the OVA, but that doesn't make the score from the anime any less awesome. Each score is fitting for their respective shows. I admit I was biased, doing a comparison of both shows after watching just the first episode of the OVA while watching all 13 episodes of the anime. After watching more, everything has settled down a bit. The first OVA episode was rushing through things because it didn't want to drag it out more than it had to. They didn't want the backstory and first few escapades of the King of Vampires and the Fledgling to be extended to more than one episode, after all. I didn't see that then, but I do now. For those of you who are watching the anime, watch the OVA if you wish. For those of you watching the OVA, you can watch the anime if you want to see exactly how these two shows stack up to each other. Just don't expect the anime to be anything like the blood fest that the OVA is. For those of you watching neither, watch either (or both) if you wish. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Update to last post

Yeah, it turns out that an error appears when one tries to make a donation on the previous site, so if you still want to donate, check this site out: http://dangreen.info/.

RIP Michal Friedman

Apparently, Dan Green's (voice of Yugi) wife, Michal Friedman, has just passed on, leaving Dan with two kids to raise. If you're feeling generous, check out www.thesnydertwins.com and make a donation. Also, in case you're confused, one of Dan Green's alternate names is Jay Snyder, so... yeah.