The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
How do Zelda fair on the DS?
Style: Action/Adventure game
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: October 1, 2007
Story- Phantom Hourglass takes place after the events The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. While sailing in the Great Sea, Link and Tetra see a ghost ship and Tetra gets on board and disappears and while Link tries to save her, he fails and fails into the Great Sea and wakes on a island and is awakened by a fairy named Ciela. In order to rescue Tetra he must stop Bellum, Link must get the Phantom Sword, after going to find Fairy Spirits of Courage, Power and Wisdom.
Presentation
Graphics- The Wind Waker graphics are fantastic on the DS because the character models, facial expressions and effects look great on the DS.
Sound- The game has some generic music when going to islands and dungeons, but the other music is great as well as the sound effects.
Gameplay
Campaign- Your wondering on how would a Zelda game work on Nintendo's touch screen handheld? The answer is that the controls feel great even though it touch screen only. The several things you can do on the DS is amazing such as moving around, fighting enemies, going from point A to Point B while sailing, creative puzzle and moments where you can use the DS microphone. To sail you must draw your course on the sea. To change your route you must redraw your route. Using a cannon is fun and it does your bombs like in Wind Waker. Moving around is simple you drag the stylus and to roll you have to draw a circle on the edge of the touch screen. Sword combat is just as fun. To slash forward draw a line forward. To slash to the side draw a line left or right. To do jump slash you tap the enemy and Link will do a jump slash on that enemy you tapped. To do the spin attack draw the circle with the stylus. Interacting with the environments is simple you tap it with the stylus and Link will go right to it. Using your items is just as simple as the other touch based controls in this game.
Complaints- One problem with this game is that you go to a temple known as Temple of The Ocean King a lot to progress in ths game. This make you do the same things over and over again to progress. To me that was an idea to artificially extend the length of the game. This is as generic as Assassin's Creed mission structure. Another problem is on the Ghost Ship you assume that the numbers for the lever puzzle the clue to solve it right, but isn't because the number your given:24513 is actually a typo and the real code for the lever puzzle is 41523. How can you make a mistake like that Nintendo?
The multiplayer is very tacked on.
Value- This adventure has some problems, but in the end your enjoy this game once.
Overview
+ Good Presentation
+ Fantastic Controls
- Generic Temple Traveling
- Lever puzzle typo on the Ghost Ship
- Tacked on multiplayer
Assassins’s Creed Review
System: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and PC
Style: Sandbox, stealth, and action/adventure
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montral
Release Date: Xbox 360 and PS3 versions(November 14, 2007)
PC (April 8, 2008)
Story- A bartender name Desmond Miles was kidnaped by the company Abstergo Industries to become a test subject fro a machine called the Animus. The Animus lets that person recall their ancestral memories. You play as Miles' ancestor, Altair to get to a certain memory in Altair’s lifetime.
Presentation
Graphics- The graphics of Assassin’s Creed are beautiful especially when you at a viewpoint to show the scale of the city you are in. There are three cities to go to Acre, Damascus, and Jerusalem. The models and animations are great too, but since this is a sandbox game like GTA there is bound to be pop- up issues. That small blemish doesn’t ruin the join that the graphics bring.
Sound- The music, sound effects, and voice acting are well done. The music is exciting when you’re chased by Templars after assassinating your target. The sound effects for moving about and clash of steel is fun to hear.
Gameplay
Before I’ll tell you about the main gameplay, I would like to say that the control scheme is very well done. The control feels fresh and smooth when fighting Templars and moving around. After you assassinate your target you get chased and in order to end it you have to break the line of sight by hide in hay, going to a garden rooftop or blend with the people. Everything is climbable which is cool to execute great platforming. There are two types of profiles: a low profile and a high profile. Low profile allows you fight and blend in. High profile allows you to fight and sprint and perform cool counter moves. The fighting in Assassin’s Creed is fun because of good skills such as dodge and counter enemies attacks. One problem with the fighting is that all the enemies in the entire game have a very similar fighting style to each other, by having to same techniques. The gameplay revolves around Altair assassinating 9 specific targets. The mission variety isn’t great because you do the same task over and over again before you begin to assassinate your target. These missions for gathering information is Pickpocketing, Eavesdropping, Interrogation, search for the highest viewpoint and complete objectives for your fellow assassins and informers.
Value- This is a game with a great ideas in terms of free-roaming, but with generic missions and enemy fighting style.
Overview
+ Solid presentation
+ Intuitive controls
- Generic Missions and enemy fighting styles
- Lame Ending
No comments:
Post a Comment