Burnout Paradise Review

In this thrilling new open racing world, you'll smash, crash, and destroy your opponent's hopes, dreams, and cars. With around 70 cars to race with, you'll find yourself using anything from a Compact car, to an F1, to a Dirt racing truck. Read the rest of the review after the jump.

The idea of 3 types of cars is very cool. Players choose from either Speed, Stunt, or Aggression type. Each type has different rules and priorities for earning boost. This can really help to decide which kind of car you'll use in event, though you really could do a race with an aggression type if you wanted.

I really felt that this game could've used some better music, as the soundtrack is pretty tasteless.

Sometimes you really do wish there was a menu, as some races may become difficult. You may find yourself doing a long race, lose, and then have to drive all the way back to the event to retry it.

I am actually a little disappointed in the crashes in this game though, as they are fast, vicious, and the damage effects leave your car with the imprint of that wall you just smashed into, but, I liked it better in say, Burnout 3, when your opponents would fly up as high as a 25 story building. Sometimes the crashes occur too easily and it leaves you frustrated
The speed in this game is very fast, probably the fastest game I've ever played, and yes F-Zero, that includes you too.

You'll lose yourself for hours in this gigantic city, finding races, and enemy racers you can smash and take their ride. I found that i had beaten the game, technically, but after the game was finished, there were still around 100 races I hadn't completed. You only need somewhere in the range of 60 races. I also still have about 7 or 8 cars left to unlock. There are also all the jumps I need to complete, the Smashes left, and the numerous Billboard you get a kick out of diving through.

Overall I gave this game about an 8/10 because, it has impressive visuals, and a vast open city with many races, but i was disappointed in the soundtrack, lack of being able to restart a mission/ quit a current one, and the crashes didn't seem worth it

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No More Heroes Review

Describing No More Heroes is not the easiest thing to do, but to put it bluntly its an untraditional Wii game. Suda 51, the man behind Killer 7, has come out with some of his best work yet in this combination of insane blood work, light sabers, and Mexican wrestling. To be honest No More Heroes is just the game that the Nintendo Wii needed; one that’s suited to the hardcore and one that’s actually coming from a third party. Our review after the jump

You play the role of Travis Touchdown, the eleventh ranked assassin in Santa Destroy as you make your way through the ten assassins above you to become number one. Obviously he has some motivation, in the form of Sylvia Crystal who watches your progress through the rankings. Taking out these assassins results in incredible boss fights all having their own style. Whether it be simply slashing away or trying to avoid a huge laser beam these boss fights are some of the best. Obviously this brings us on to the combat which is one of the best aspects of No More Heroes due to its great creativity. Travis carries around his blood berry, a simple light saber, that can be upgraded into faster and more powerful version as you progress through the game. He also gets a combination of fighting moves, most notably Mexican wrestling moves. The number of moves you can perform increases and they all involve using the Wii’s motion functionality. The combat works out great and is one of the strong points in this game especially as you decapitate your victim with a swish of the Wii-mote. Some of this combat is played to death though, usually before a boss battle you’ll be met with a continuous swarm of enemies as you hack your way through, essentially using the same moves encountering a few frame rate issues along the way. Overall the combat is some of the most impressive on the Wii due to its originality and awesome use of the Wii-mote.

There are many other things to do in Santa Destroy besides going through the story line. Your given a sandbox style city that is extremely small in comparison to other sandbox titles and what you can do is also limited. There are a few neat assassination mission and random tasks you can complete but the majority are not memorable. The free roaming aspect is to the most part not justified as it feels as if it doesn’t fit well with this game. The game would have been better off focusing on its unique combat and boss battles and not spend its time with a meager free roaming aspect.

Visually No More Heroes is one of those Wii games that can’t be seen as a great technical achievement but more of an artistic one. The artistic look goes great with this game with a good combination of cell-shading techniques and colour. There are a lot of rough edges, more noticeably in Santa Destroy away from the main story line. The cars look down right pathetic, but again that’s not the focus of the game. No More Heroes doesn’t try to push the Wii’s hardware and nor should it, the look goes great with the game and makes it a memorable experience. No More Heroes supports a pretty small cast of characters, essentially Travis and Sylvia give the best dialogue in this game with a few of the bosses having their own twisted story. Some of the minor characters throughout the city can’t even be understood, either by poor recording or poor translation. The music, a combination of modern and old video game styles, is pretty neat has a uniqueness to it that stays fresh through the entire game.

The main pull for No More Heroes is its creativity. The amazing boss battles, unique and addicting combat, along with a look that no other game really has makes No More Heroes the best third party and mature rated game on the Nintendo Wii hopefully setting the bar for future action games to come.

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Forest of Illusion Art

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Welcom to the Forest of Illusions

So welcome to the Forest of Illusions. A few of us will be posting on this page giving our opinions on video games in general. Every once in a while we'll upload a podcast with the first one coming up shortly as well as reviews which will follow a ten point scale. As always comments are greatly appreciated.

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