Joe Redifer's Super-Awesome Reviews!!!!

[Vegetto]

Originally Posted by spider-prime

personally, the game doesn't really need a story other than what they give you, they've already told you the entire thing. Nothing else to learn. Except from what the NPCs tell you about world they live in like what happened to the king, why did he go mad and summon the demon's for and about Astarea, why did one who believed in god so much, become a demon.

yeah, some games are just better without a buncha plot, just give the basic story and go at it, I have a pretty big imagination so I can get pretty crazy with games like that.

[Sinful Sam]

I guess it sounds comparable to Phantasy Star Online. Can you turn off the PVP when someone goes into your game?

BTW. Great review, Joe.

[spider-prime]

sort of, there isn't really a option to turn off multiplayer, but if you don't want that option, just sign out of the PSN. But then you can't ask for help if you need it.

But really, it's one of the fun points of the game, playing normally and then HAS INVADED YOUR REALM and you're just like, OH FUCK, getting your shit ready for the fight, cause he has to find you first.

I've beaten 5 guys in a row, one after the other, it was really annoying! it was just when I beat it for the first time doing my 2nd play though, after the 3rd fight in a row, I wanted to beat the first demon so I could use my souls, so I summoned 2 other guys who were only useful in clearing out the other demons in the castle, they didn't help me fight the assholes! They just ran!

But luckily the last 2 still sucked and I still beat the shit out of them. I surprised the one guy, he had armor on so I could hear him coming from behind me, so I waited around the corner and when he got close BAM FIRE STORM, Guy flew to the ground, desperately trying to get the right gear equip to deal with me but I beat him before he could do that, he lasted 20 secs lolol

[Alucard]

Originally Posted by Vegetto

I was replying to Alucards "Oh yeah, that makes up for all the pointless levelling up!" since he likes the dungeon crawling games of the top down style like Diablo which is pretty much the same thing as in gaining levels and LOOOT, I know Diablo has story though,but a lot of those types of games have pretty much zero story.

I never bothered playing diablo online. And the story for 2 was quite good. Some epic cg in it.

[Joe Redifer]

Originally Posted by darren316

makes wonder why bother then .. seems as pointless as the fable 2 multiplayer drop in rubbish

No shit, right? Games that don't have more than 4 players online at once should not be purchased much less even made in the first place. The developers and publisher should be absolutely ashamed.

But in all seriousness, please explain Fable 2's online stuff. Nobody liked Fable 2 because it was, well, Fable 2.

[darren]

sry didn't mean to highlight the 4 player bit just

You see others running around, but there is no interaction.

which seems totally pointless.

i'd take a guess that most people that hate Fable 2 .. probebly didn't play it .. and just wanted to hate a usual because it was, well, Fable 2.

anywhere heres a descrition of the pointless online bit

Getting into an online game is as simple as entering your offline world. After fixing your online options to give either everyone or only friends access to your game, you'll find a number of floating orbs moving through the world, each of which represents another player. By moving towards an orb and clicking on it, you can interact with that player. You can compare stats, exchange gifts, or invite him or her to your game.

Once the two of you are connected in a single game, you're free to roam around the world with your partner in crime, completing quests and chatting with each other in your personal version of Albion. What's neat about this is that everything the two of you do together influences your world, so if your friend decides to kill some townspeople, they'll be dead in your game forever. But that's where the cool bits of the co-op end

[spider-prime]

Those are supposed to be ghosts that have died, you don't see people who have their body running around, just people who died while playing and haven't gotten their body back yet.

I got into a wave fest with a guy before he disappeared from my screen lolol.

[Joe Redifer]

That's funny! I wonder why they just vanish after a few seconds. I always try to attack them, but they never instinctively dodge. Sometimes I will dodge or whatever when I see one of them emerge from around a corner running towards me.

[eastx]

Darren meant that joining another person's game in Fable 2 is largely pointless outside of chatting with them and just piddling around. The non-host player doesn't earn EXP or items, just gold. It's a rather poorly implemented co-op system which is why hardly anybody took advantage of it.

[Joe Redifer]

In Demon's Souls, all players get souls (which is also experience). When you kill a boss, the souls are split depending on how you rate each other. You can drop an item as well for the other player(s) to pick up. Not the best online ever presented in a game, but I guess not absolutely horrible. But I always value the single player experience so much more than the online experience in any game ever made.

[Vicviper]

Originally Posted by spider-prime

I got into a wave fest with a guy before he disappeared from my screen lolol.

Lol. I want to play it now just for this reason. I love being nice to people and try to get into wave fests while I'm walking down the street.

[SpaceManSpiff]

Glad to see you've been playing the game Joe, great review. I have played a lot in the last couple months with my brother and cousin. I have seen bosses try to attack the ghosts.

[Joe Redifer]

Bayonetta
7.5/10
Xbox 360


The game includes a pack of tissues.

I never cared much for Devil May Cry. Each time I tried one of the versions I found it too hard, too quirky and too uninteresting. I also hated the music. Along comes Bayonetta which everyone says is a Devil May Cry clone, mainly due to the director of this game being the creator of DMC. I guess it can be seen as that, but not really, at least not from what I personally remember about Devil May Cry. However just like DMC, Bayonetta prominently features guns in its artwork and advertising. Similarly, the guns do next to nothing and you will use them basically never except to keep your combos going, if that's important to you. There may be other similar comparisons between the games, but it was the Sega fan service that was thrown into this game that tipped the scales for me. I also consciously chose the Xbox 360 over the PS3 version, but more on that at the end of the review.

Story: 5/10
The story is, ummm, weird. I think I can follow most of it. But be warned, it is way over the top and very cheesy. That alone kind of makes it fun, but it does begin to take itself seriously a bit too much. Just don't expect too much out of it. This is a game which is designed to be played, nothing more. Remember arcade-style games which basically just had a set-up and nothing more? This game would be perfect if it was like that.


This game is full of hilarious sexual innuendos, even when doing seemingly mundane things like pulling a lever.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics aren't half bad in this game. It runs mostly at 60 frames per second in 720p. It does slow down from time to time and there is a lot of screen tearing/v-sync problems. It's kind of interesting to see a throwback to 32-bit-style 3D graphics where the leaves on the trees and the such are actually 2D "sprites", for lack of a better word. Because of this, they can look infinitely more detailed than any random polygon can, but once you start turning the camera or moving in 3D space, it starts to look very odd as the same tree leaves are always facing directly towards you. The designs of the levels look fantastic and are a sight to see. The enemy designs get generic after a while… they are all angels, so they are all white, adorned with blue and gold trimmings. Some of the larger enemies have cool designs simply because they are so weird. What God would create such a thing? Everything bleeds in this game since the developers are still on a 1992 Mortal Kombat high, apparently. The character design of Bayonetta herself is odd to say the least. Her head is miniscule, her ass giant and her legs spidery long. She is very disproportionate, I find it incredible that she can even walk. I guess that's supposed to be "hot", though. There is some very mild nudity, but certainly no boobies.


The boss fights can be a bit overlong as is the case with many games these days which try to
give you that "epic" feel. What's worse is that most of them have to be beaten again later.

Sound: 7/10
The sound in this game is very good for the most part. Lots of subwoofer when you use Witch Time and some good surround effects here and there. Sometimes the voices are drowned out by the music during the cut scenes, so it is a good thing they are subtitled. I guess nobody listened to the final result before shipping the game. There are tons of f-bombs dropped here which all seem a bit forced and unnecessary. I think that the Japanese developers are using them just to sound "cool". The game's soundtrack spans 5 CDs, but there is actually only one piece of music in the game. That happens to be a horrible version of In Other Words/Fly Me to the Moon which you may know as it was made popular by Frank Sinatra (though he did not write or originally perform it). This plays nearly every single time you are fighting an enemy. The choice is not only odd, but damn repetitive! It's cute once or twice, max. Oh, there are a few other pieces of music, like your typical orchestral/choir stuff that you find in any videogame these days when they are trying to be way overly dramatic/epic. Once you beat this game, you also unlock something that is EXTREMELY RARE in videogames these days. That's right, a sound test with nearly every single piece of music in the game, even the Fantasy Zone themes. I heard a Zillion theme somewhere in the game but I must have missed that in the sound test… I wouldn't be surprised if it is in there, though. The game sound did cut out/skip on me a few times during the cutscenes and then picked back up making the voices happen about 5 seconds or so later than the subtitles. This was fixed after I installed the game to the hard drive.


Bayonetta's costume consists almost entirely of her hair. She can use it for "wicked weave" attacks as well.
Shown here is the stiletto smash. Actually I don't know what it is called, but most special and
finishing moves are made out of hair. So if you have a hair fetish...

Gameplay: 7.5/10
This game is basically a button masher. What you want to do here is press the Y button. After that, press it again. Then press it about 2 billion more times. That's it! OK, there is jumping, kicks and really cool combos you can do as well. Not to mention dodging, which if you do at the right moment will engage Witch Time which turns the screen purple for you to admire. The enemies also slow down at this time to give you time to admire the screen, but I found a secret! You can attack the enemies when the screen is purple and they are defenseless! I should win a god damn Nobel Peace Prize for this discovery since they are handing them out for nothing these days. There are also expensive weapons, techniques and items you can buy to help you out, and I suggest not ignoring the shop like I did for the first 7 or so chapters. The game is composed of about 15 or 16 chapters and each chapter has about 600 verses each. Yes, many levels seem sometimes perhaps a bit too long. And it can be fuck-all hard at times. Still, it is gratifying, stylish and really fun to play through. I really enjoy the wackiness of everything, the over-the-top torture and finishing attacks and just how crazy it all is. And it is crazy! You can run on certain walls and even fly on missiles while you play Space Harrier. There is also an Out Run stage. Both of these tribute stages seem nearly as long as their original games, though with markedly less variety. DVD just doesn't have the storage space of a 2 MEGA POWER cartridge, so there are fewer enemies and backgrounds during these stages. This game has extremely long loading times which be cut down a bit by installing the game on your hard drive. Overall I found Bayonetta very enjoyable if a bit too frustrating for its own good at certain points.


Can you tell what is going on in this picture? The game is exactly like this, with many crazy
things happening at once along with a spastic camera which does not always obey your wishes. It
is easy to get lost in the visuals. There were many times I could not even find my character.


Wrap up:
Now why did I chose the Xbox 360 version over the Playstation 3 version even though I am afraid of my Xbox 360 breaking down at any given time? Well, the PS3 version has major framerate issues. During the PS3 demo I noticed that it was running at half or less the framerate of the 360 version, and it stuttered quite a bit as well. The colors were far more muted on the PS3 whereas the Xbox 360 seemed much more colorful. It was as if someone dialed the COLOR control on my TV down a bit. My Xbox 360 is hooked up via component cables and my PS3 via HDMI. Thirdly, the sound is better on the 360 version despite the PS3 delivering 5.1 uncompressed audio to the receiver. There is much more bass present when you use Witch Time on the 360, it's not even there when you use it on the PS3. But the PS3 does have some strong subwoofer here and there. The surrounds are also much quieter on the PS3 version for some reason. Despite these issues, the PS3 version is still very playable. In fact, after playing through the entire game on the 360, playing the demo on the PS3 felt soooo smooth in comparison due to the controls. I really prefer the controls on the PS3, the buttons aren't as rock hard and the controller simply isn't as stiff. They have updated the PS3 version to include and install option which decreases load times and helps with a couple of the framerate issues, but I have not seen those improvements. I'll chalk it up to a horrible conversion. Not sure why a Japanese developer would ever choose the 360 as a lead platform to develop a game on, but then again many western developers (Criterion, for example) choose the PS3 to lead development on, so who knows? Besides the audio dropping out a few times during the cut scenes and one time where I was informed that my disc was unreadable, the Xbox 360 worked like a champ. Installing the game cleared up both of those issues.

[Seraph]

Good review!

I really want to play this game, like you said it's that element of pure insanity that makes it so appealing. I would probably play on easy mode as I just want to mash and do cool stuff.

I also liked that you touched on the two versions. I'll be getting the PS3 version once it drops in price.

[Joe Redifer]

Either get it for a low price or rent it and play it on Easy or Very Easy. It's been a long time since I've seen a game that had two levels of easy.