“WoW” Factor

Since it is no secret to anyone of just how big of a video game geek I am, the one question I get asked most is, “You play World of Warcraft, don’t you?” And the answer to that question is, no, I do not play “WoW.” But it isn’t because I have some sort of nerdy, irrational dislike for the game because in all honesty, I’d probably be playing “WoW” right now if I had a gaming quality PC. Considering how popular the game has become, it wouldn’t be outrageous to think a gamer like me would play “WoW.”

In fact, the game has become so popular since its release that Blizzard, the games developer, stated that “WoW” recently hit the 8 million subscriber mark. This colossal figure, as reported by Gamespot.com, translates to closely .1% of the world’s population. China leads the pack with 3.5 million subscribers, followed by North America with 2 million players. Since “WoW” charges players a monthly fee to play online, Blizzard is pulling down a huge sum of money from this game.

Blizzard not only cashes in huge with monthly fees, but they recently released an expansion pack for “WoW” called “The Burning Crusade.” Though this expansion pack costs almost as much as a stand-alone game, about $40, it has sold a record amount of copies. According to the website Digitalbattle.com, “The Burning Crusade” sold 2.4 million copies of the game in North American and Europe within the first 24 hours of its release. This staggering number makes this game the fastest selling PC game of all time. Plus, a video game selling this kind of units in such a short amount of time is almost unheard of and rivals the opening weekend sales of any major motion picture.

But rest assured, Blizzard is giving fans of the game more than their money’s worth with “The Burning Crusade”. First off, Blizzard has introduced an entirely new continent for gamers to explore and conquer. They have also introduced two new races for players to pick from. The Horde now has access to a race known as the Blood Elves, while the Alliance will now have access to the Draenei race. These two races also level the playing field in “WoW” somewhat, because until now the Horde and the Alliance only had access to certain character classes. But with the introduction of these two new races, each side now has the ability to choose whichever class they wish. Another new feature included in “The Burning Crusade” was the level cap being raised from level 60 to level 70.

In fact, one fan of the game was so fanatical about the release of “The Burning Crusade” that he reached the new level 70 cap much sooner than anyone could have anticipated. According to the website www.pro-g.co.uk, a French player named Gullerbone reached level 70 an astonishing mere 28 hours after the game was released on January 16^th. But Gullerbone didn’t accomplish this feat on his own. Actually, he had help from close to 40 of his guildmates and he also utilized a tactic called “tagging” which allowed Gullerbone to receive experience points from his teammate’s kills. Blizzard, who had hoped this new expansion pack would keep fans happy for some time, could be the only ones not impressed by the speed with which Gullerbone reached level 70. Though, given how obsessed some fans are with “WoW”, it was almost expected that someone would attempt something like this.

While “WoW” is not the only MMORPG on the market, it is by far the most popular. “WoW” has also become such a force in mainstream America that its game engine was used to animate an episode of “South Park,” “Make Love, Not Warcraft.” I really do believe that console video game developers will want to take a page from Blizzard’s book and start to cash in on the MMORPG craze that has taken the PC gaming world by storm. With powerful next-gen consoles already on the market and the ever growing popularity of video games and MMORPGs, it’s only a matter of time before a company, like Microsoft who has a strong online community already in place, releases an MMORPG for their console. While I do realize that Sony already tried, and failed, at this idea with the “Everquest” series for the PS2, Sega has already proven with the “Phantasy Star” series on the Dreamcast that creating a successful MMORPG for a home console is absolutely possible.

“GTA” spin-off fails to impress

In the history of “Grand Theft Auto” games, one of the fan favorite cities has been Vice City, not only because Vice City has such a different feel from Liberty City or San Andreas, but also because Vice City embodies a special time in America’s history – the 1980s. The music, the fashion, the coke – the 80s almost seems to be too perfect a setting for a video game about virtual gangsters, which is partly why I was so excited to see that Rockstar, the developer of the “GTA” series, was releasing an all new adventure set in the digitized version of Miami that is Vice City. Unfortunately, “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories” doesn’t live up to its older brother’s legacy.

“GTA: VCS,” which takes place roughly two years before the original “GTA: VC,” follows the misadventures of Vic Vance, the older brother of “GTA: VC” second banana, Lance Vance. Though most “GTA” protagonists are already criminals or social miscreants, Vic is quite the opposite. Vic starts out the game in the army but eventually gets caught up with all sorts of seedy characters that lead him to a life of crime – which he makes very vocal that he is not happy about. While it was an interesting aspect of the game for the main character to be against virtually all facets of the criminal underworld, it also makes for Vic to be quite uninteresting, boring, and quite frankly, annoying.

“GTA: VCS” for the Playstation 2 is a port of a Playstation Portable (PSP) game and after playing the game for only a few minutes, it is painfully obvious that Rockstar didn’t spend much time in porting this game from the PSP to the PS2. Unlike Rockstar’s earlier PSP to PS2 port of “GTA: Liberty City Stories,” which was a very solid port, “GTA: VCS” falls flat on its face in many, many areas.

Traditionally, “GTA” game’s graphics have never been visually stunning, but the graphics in this game are far below average. Buildings and people look jagged and the colors are too muddy and too bright. The controls in this game have also taken a step backward from the slick controls of “GTA: San Andreas.” The controls are so clunky that I often found myself fighting with Vic to get him to perform even the most basic of actions. The targeting system in this game also needs a lot of work for it to even be called competent. Too often when I tried to lock onto enemies who were an immediate threat, I found the game targeting whoever happened to be around, rather than who I need to eliminate. The camera also seemed like it had a mind of its own and would regularly be exactly where I didn’t need or want it to be.

Rockstar also tried to add a lot of new gameplay features but these new features ended up hindering the game more than they helped. For instance, the X button was added into the fighting mechanism to allow for combos but the fighting is so awkward and clunky to begin with that the added depth doesn’t add fun. New side missions, such as the ability to buy property and turn them into fronts for illegal operations, feel more like a chore that must be accomplished rather than an exciting new feature that I actually wanted to complete. The main missions themselves aren’t anymore exciting than the side missions, as they get pretty repetitive and boring before the game really even gets started.

The one area where this game truly shines is its amazing soundtrack. Once again, Rockstar went above and beyond to deliver an incredible array of radio stations which perfectly sets the mood of the 80s. The DJs of these radio stations also deliver plenty of laughs which provide for decent diversions from the sub-par gameplay. From the hair metal goodness of V-Rock, the funky 80s rap beats of Fresh 105, to the off-color humor of VCPR (the talk radio station), the soundtrack of “GTA: VCS” is about this games only saving grace. “GTA: VCS” also features many celebrity voice actors and one would think that with professional voices, the dialog would also stand out along with the radio stations – too bad this isn’t the case. The dialog is lame and the jokes most characters make aren’t on par with the humor of many of the previous “GTA” titles.

Granted it is understandable that Rockstar wouldn’t spend much extra time porting this game from the PSP to the PS2 as they are hard at work on creating their newest next-gen masterpiece, “GTA IV.” But as a gamer and big fan of the “GTA” series, I’ve come to expect a lot more from Rockstar than this game presents, especially after playing through their last excellent PSP to PS2 port, “GTA: Liberty City Stories.” Even though it is a port and only costs $20 on the PS2, I’d recommend that only hardcore fans of the series check out this title as casual gamers may be put off by the obvious lack of effort put into this game.

“Oblivion” expanding soon

Although I feel its part of my job to keep gamers aware of as much current gaming news as I can, I would always rather report on games that I’ve actually played. I’m not proud to admit it, but at the time of this writing, the game I’ll be discussing this week has taken up at least 80 hours of my life so far – and I’m still no where close to beating it.

Considered by many to be the best role playing game of last year, it isn’t hard to see why so many people love “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion”. The mythical world of Cyrodiil, a province of the continent Tamriel and where “Oblivion” takes place, offers gamers up to 200+ hours of gameplay. Players can choose from a variety of character creation options then after a lengthy tutorial/introduction players can complete any quest, be it part of the huge main quest or a short side quest, they want at their leisure. Exploring the gigantic land of Cyrodiil is almost a quest in itself. As the story goes, a strange, evil cult has conspired with a Daedric prince, a being widely considered to be a demon in Tamriel, to assassinate the emperor and plunge the land into chaos. The players main quest is to find the emperors last remaining son and heir to the throne and restore order to Cyrodiil.

“Oblivion” not only packs in a massive amount of features and gameplay, but it is also one of the best looking 360 titles. The attention to detail on each of Cyrodiil’s strange, but interesting, creatures is incredible. On top of the impressive graphics, “Oblivion” also sports more lines of dialog than a movie so expect to talk to a lot of people.

But even though “Oblivion” offers a few hundred hours of gameplay, it also has been out for almost a year. Developer Bethesda Softworks has taken advantage of Xbox Live Marketplace and released a plethora of additions to the “Oblivion” world. These new features range from a band of pirates you can hire to plunder and give you a cut of their ill-gotten gains to an entirely new quest called “Knights of the Nine.” But all of these recently released extras pale in comparison to the brand new expansion pack Bethesda is releasing in March.

Though the world of “Oblivion” is quite beautiful and full of life, the setting can become stale after a few hundreds hours of play. But Bethesda plans on remedying this by releasing the “Shivering Isles” in late March.

It would’ve been quite easy for Bethesda to have simply added new quests and items to the already huge world of “Oblivion,” but they have gone above and beyond what most expansion packs have to offer. “Shivering Isles,” first and foremost, introduces a new plane of existence, the Realm of Madness or more commonly known as the Shivering Isles, that is 25% the size of Cyrodiil for eager adventurers to explore. This new locale will also include two distinctly different lands – Mania and Dementia. Each area will also feature a capital city which reflects the land it is located in – Mania’s capital being Bliss while Dementia’s capital city Crucible. There is also a third city called Split which lies, as you can probably guess, between Mania and Dementia. The most odd feature of split is not only that it bridges the gap between the two different lands, but that each citizen in Split has his or her counterpart in the opposite half of the city which will undoubtedly make for some strange, almost Twilight Zone-ian quests.

“Shivering Isles” will also introduce new weapons and items for players to gather on top of new locations and quests. One such weapon is a blade called Dawnfang that will actually level up the more it is used during the day but at night the blade transforms into a different form of the weapon called Duskfang.

Overall, “Shivering Isles” should give gamers hungry for another adventure into the land of Tamriel about 30-40 more hours of gameplay. Considering that this add-on alone packs the content of an original game, it will definitely be worth purchasing from your favorite game retailer or from Xbox Live Marketplace when it is released.

Classics Revisited

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines nostalgia as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period” which in other terms means a desire to return to better times in ones life – which for me was the early 90s. Times were simpler and by the same token, so were video games. Before Sony and Microsoft became the giants of the video game industry that they are today, the market was ruled by Nintendo and Sega. Today, Nintendo is still a monster in the video game market but unfortunately for Sega and gamers everywhere, Sega stopped producing gaming consoles around the turn of the millennium after the Dreamcast failed to compete with the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation 2.

But back in the early 90s, Sega was still a dominant force in the gaming industry and their console, the Genesis, had more classics than I can count. At the time, I often noticed within my group of friends that someone owned either a Super Nintendo or a Genesis, but not both – myself being a Genesis kid. One reason for the division in gamers was obviously the fact that we were young and at the mercy of our parents spending but also because of the games that each console offered gamers. The Super Nintendo already had a huge library of established games and characters to draw from – series’ such as Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario Bros. But the Genesis was unique in that it was the first successful Sega console in America. Being that it was the first major success for Sega in America, the Genesis offered new, different gaming experiences that the Nintendo didn’t offer and opened the door for some of today’s most classic games to be created.

Since saying tearful goodbyes to my beloved Sega Genesis, it had been quite some time since I had played some of my old favorites. Thankfully, Sega released a collection of games not too long ago that satisfied a lot of my nostalgic gaming cravings.

The Sega Genesis Collection for the Playstation 2 is a compilation of 28 classic arcade and console games spanning the entirety of the Genesis’ lifetime. But this compilation doesn’t just feature old and classic Genesis games; surprisingly it also has a lot of extra features.

Most video game compilations feel like hastily thrown together attempts at cashing in on a game’s former popularity, but not this game. This collection includes a feature called the “museum,” which is a quick run down of each game, interesting facts about the game, tips for playing each game, as well as box art from both American and Japanese versions of each game. But the extras don’t stop there. Along with the “museum” included for each game, Sega also added tons of interviews from various people who had integral parts in creating many of the classic games, old school Sega arcade games as well as trailers for new games like Virtua Fighter 5 and Phantasy Star Universe. But the interesting part of these extras is the way that Sega made many of these features unlockable content – which is a great way to add some replay value to a collection of older games. But the greatest addition Sega included in this collection was the ability to create save files for every game – a feature in all modern video games that older, less powerful consoles could not include. Granted, many of these classic games are quite short and can usually be beaten in one sitting, a save feature is still a very nice option to have.

But I know what you’re thinking, “All the great features in the world don’t mean squat if the games aren’t fun.” Well good thing for you that Sega included an incredible amount of classic games on one disc. Games such as all three Golden Axe games, Phantasy Star II,III, & IV, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2, Vectorman 1 & 2, and Comix Zone, as well as including many lesser known, but still great games like Kid Chameleon, Bonanza Bros., and Decap Attack plus many more great games.

While this collection does sport an impressive amount of classic games, Genesis had so many amazing games that one collection of this sort just doesn’t do the console justice. If Sega, and I’m hoping against hope they will, releases a second collection of this type, some other classics I’d like to see would be Gunstar Heroes, Toe Jam and Earl, and Sonic Spinball, just to name a few.

I would absolutely recommend this collection to anyone who wants to relive Sega’s glory days or to anyone who still enjoys the games of days past. Oh and by the way, this whole collection is only $20 – which should be more than enough of a reason for any nostalgic gamer to need to own this game.

PS3: Is it worth your cash?

As a video game geek with his own column, it is my duty – nay, my privilege to provide my fellow students with information. With this current round of the console wars in full swing, the biggest question on gamer’s minds is, “Which system is right for me?” This question is never an easy one to answer, especially since buying a console always entails buying a few games and perhaps an extra controller as well.

With three consoles out on the market right now, picking the console to best suit your gaming needs is not easy – but with a little advice from Grizzly Gaming, hopefully you’ll be able to narrow down your choices.

For years, Sony has been on top of the console market. They have consistently out sold their competitors and always seemed to have the most popular games being released on their system. But as with everything in life, time brings change. Now, instead of being the innovators in the industry, Sony and the Playstation 3 have been garnering media attention for all the wrong reasons. With a lackluster collection of PS3 launch titles, fewer than expected PS3 units shipped at launch, and a gasp-inducing price tag of $500-$600, the PS3 almost seems doomed from the start.

What makes a system a “must own”? Is it the price tag? Is it the hardware a console has under the hood? Or could it be the innovations made with the console controller, like Nintendo did with the “Wii-mote”? The biggest piece of the console war puzzle boils down to what system can produce the best line-up of games. Unfortunately for Sony, their line up of launch titles is anything but awe-inspiring. Practically every launch title for the PS3 is offered on other, cheaper consoles. Aside from the first person shooter “Resistance: Fall of Man”, the launch titles the PS3 offers hardly make the system seem worthy of 600 hundred of your hard earned dollars. But the problem with Sony’s collection of games only begins with the launch titles. Killer titles like “Grand Theft Auto 4” and “Assassin’s Creed” were originally believed to be Sony exclusives. Unfortunately for Sony, it was announced that “GTA 4” would release on the Xbox 360 the same day as the PS3 version and according to Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, “Assassins Creed” was never meant to be a PS3 exclusive. Apparently, Sony asked the developer of “Assassins Creed”, Ubisoft, to keep the 360 version a secret. But the most devastating, and almost unbelievable, rumor I have heard concerning the PS3 game library also came from EGM. It seems that Konami, the company responsible for the stellar “Metal Gear Solid” series, has been told to start porting their latest game “MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots” to the Xbox 360. If this is true, it means Sony will have lost two of their biggest exclusive franchises, “GTA” and “MGS”, which gives gamers even less incentive to shell out big bucks for a PS3.

From the beginning, Sony made it known that there would not be many PS3s available on the launch date. Sony stated that they would ship around 400,000 PS3 units at launch and that they hoped to ship nearly 2 million units before the end of 2006. As it turns out, Sony seems to be making promises they may not be able to keep. According to the website GameDaily Biz and analyst PJ McNealy of American Technology Research, Sony may have only shipped as few as 125,000 PS3s to all of North America. This number also included the 15,000 consoles sent to stores to be used in promotional kiosks. McNealy then went on to comment that Sony’s promise of 2 million PS3s before the end of the year was “under review”.

It also seems that Sony is losing money on manufacturing the PS3. According to the research firm iSuppli, it costs Sony approximately $840 to manufacture the 60GB PS3 console. Granted, it isn’t unusual for a company to expect lose money on a recently released console instead hoping that eventually the console will become a big hit and manufacturing prices gradually drop. In Sony’s case, however, this could prove to be an insurmountable sum of money lost. But why should a loss of only $240 per console be any kind of worry to the international giant that is Sony, you ask? The answer to this question lies in media format which Sony chose to use in the PS3.

Blu-Ray is a word that may be foreign to some, but Sony hopes to make this term as common as VHS or DVD. While Blu-Ray technology is still in its infancy, Sony hopes that by integrating it in the PS3 that Blu-Ray will eventually become the standard. This is most definitely a gutsy move on Sony’s part. Blu-Ray could either be an enormous success of epic proportions, or Blu-Ray could ultimately go the way of Beta-Max and be a disaster. Based on nothing more than my personal opinion and a life time of gaming, I’m not giving Blu-Ray much of a chance for survival. Blu-Ray discs are more costly to manufacture than HD-DVDs and while Blu-Ray does boast an impressive 50GB of storage space per disc, no game has ever come close to needing that kind of data storage space. Plus, because Blu-Ray is a new format, they require their own special player. Currently, Blu-Ray players begin retailing at around $1000. The argument can be made in Sony’s defense that selling a device with the ability to play Blu-Ray discs is a veritable steal, one must remember Blu-Ray is new and not many worth while movies have been released on Blu-Ray yet - unless you consider Adam Sandler’s latest film “Click” (the first movie released on Blu-Ray) to be worth a $600-$1000 investment.

But one of the most unforeseen arguments made against the PS3 is an event which hasn’t even happened yet – the release of a Playstation 4. I can imagine your confusion but allow me to elaborate. Apparently, some analysts are predicting that the PS3 will be Sony’s last foray into the blood stained battle field of the console wars. This idea was brought about when Sony Computer Entertainment America president Kaz Hirai took over the position of SCE president from Ken Kutagari shortly after the PS3 was released. Many believe that Hirai will begin to move away from hardware production and begin to focus Sony solely toward producing software. Now, this is all entirely speculation with no physical evidence that Sony is going the way of Sega and becoming a third party game publisher but these claims are at least based in reality and aren’t merely internet rumors. I bring this up to point out that if Sony does begin to move away from hardware production, support for the PS3 may begin to dwindle and you are essentially left with a $600 paperweight.

The PS3 could conceivably rise above the competition and take its place atop the gaming world like its little brother the PS2 – though I’m not predicting it to. The price tag is far too high for even hardcore gamers like myself to consider, the game line-up (even exclusives) isn’t anything special, and the Blu-Ray capabilities just don’t give the PS3 enough of a “wow” factor to merit a purchase. Now, if you’ve got your heart set on a PS3 (or you happen to be a Playstation fanboy-and if you don’t know what that is chances are you aren’t one), its likely this article won’t dissuade you from buying one. But if you belong to the majority of gamers who play their current gen systems all the while fantasizing about a shiny, new next gen console – the only thing I have to say to you is do yourself a favor and spend that $600 on an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii.

Gaming goes major

These days, Americans treat their sports heroes like royalty. People of all ages look up to sports stars as role models for a multitude of reasons. They’re successful, famous, rich and above all, talented. But until recently, a qualification of being a sports hero was being big, strong and athletic – which is something most hardcore gamers typically are not. Now, thanks to video gaming leagues like Major League Gaming for console players and the Cyberathlete Professional League for PC players, gamers young and old can aspire to become a star in the sport of their choice – fragging noobs.

Major League Gaming, otherwise known as MLG, was created in 2002 and even though it is a relatively new organization, it already has a large following. MLG organizes and runs various console gaming tournaments but the Super Bowl of the MLG is its Pro Circuit tournament. But the unique aspect of MLG is that, unlike major sports organizations, anyone can sign up for a tournament and compete against the best in the world.

Each year, the Pro Circuit tours various cities in North America. This years Pro Circuit, starting in April in Charlotte, North Carolina, will showcase the best of the best in console gaming.

Currently, the only games used for the Pro Circuit are “Halo 2” for the Xbox and “Super Smash Bros. Melee” for the Gamecube. In the past other games such as “Tekken 5”, “Soul Calibur”, and “Gran Turismo” were played on the Pro Circuit but were not as big of successes as “Halo 2” or “SSBM.” It should come as no surprise to gamers that these two games are the only ones played on the Pro Circuit, given their incredible popularity and the ease with which each game can support larger amounts of players.

In the “Halo 2” MLG tournaments, for example, participants can sign up with a team of four for the 4v4 tournament, where teams compete against other teams for gaming glory. Gamers can also sign up for the FFA, or free for all, tournaments where the games are everyone for themselves.

There are already heated rivalries between teams in MLG, but players compete with much more than pride on the line on the Pro Circuit. Thanks to sponsorships from companies such as Red Bull, Scion, and Boost Mobile, the MLG is able to offer fairly large prizes for tournament victory. Though the prize money wouldn’t be considered large to the average sports star, being awarded thousands of dollars for playing video games isn’t too shabby. In the 2006 MLG Pro Circuit, the top prize for the “Halo 2” 4v4 tournament was $100,000. Though that prize money is split between the four teammates, it is still enough for a young gamer to scrape out a living playing video games.

But the Pro Circuit isn’t the only tournament that MLG runs. Currently, MLG is running an online “Halo 2” tournament and soon plans to run online tournaments for “Gears of War” as well as “Rainbow Six: Vegas.”

One interesting aspect of the MLG is the fact that they offer their top participants contracts to play exclusively for MLG. This practice is different from other gaming organizations in which teams are sponsored by independent companies rather than the league itself. MLG has signed its top team, Final Boss, to a $1 million deal as well as signing the two other top teams, Carbon and Str8 Rippin, to equally large contracts. Though the practice of signing contracts with MLG no doubt has an affect on the players ability to participate in other gaming tournaments, one must consider that a large majority of the signed players are still in their teens or their 20s making their contract deals more than lucrative.

Still not convinced that playing video games professionally could someday be as popular as football or baseball? Professional gamers have been featured in an episode of MTV’s “True Life” series as well as in a special which CBS’ 60 Minutes interviewed one pro gamer named Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who is considered one of the top gamers in the world. MLG also was featured in a series of specials on the USA Network, which aired weekly from November to December, which showcased various matches and tournaments from the Pro Circuit.

Some gamers have even parlayed their gaming success into other careers. Thomas “Tsquared” Taylor, widely regarded as one of the top “Halo 2” players in the world, took his talent for “Halo 2” and created the website Gaming Lessons, www.gaming-lessons.com, in August 2005. The site offers up to hour long training sessions from various pro players for as little as $15.

Unfortunately just like making it in the NFL or MLB, becoming a pro gamer is not as easy as just being good at a particular game. Since the field of professional gaming is still in its infancy, there are not many opportunities for gamers to make it to the big time, with even less of a chance of being able to make a living playing video games.

Even though it would be a dream come true to make a living playing “Halo 2,” I’m just as happy to think that future generations of gamers could grow up in a world where professional gamers are considered just as talented as professional athletes.

Does “Maximo vs. Army of Zin” top the original “Maximo: Ghosts to Glory”?

If anyone has played the original Maximo game, you’ll know this game is very much like old NES games such as “Ghosts ‘n Goblins”. The original game, “Maximo: Ghosts to Glory” revolves around the hero Maximo battling the undead minions of the evil King Achille. The sequel, “Maximo vs. Army of Zin”, follows in the originals footsteps with Maximo fighting the evil Zin army, an army of machines driven by captured souls. Maximo is charged with finding the source of these Zin machines and stopping whoever is leading them.

“Maximo vs. Army of Zin” is a platformer game (a game where you have to jump perilously from level to level) on the Playstation 2 game console. The original Maximo game was notorious for its difficulty and the creators have toned this down to suit more casual gamers. While this game is certainly not easy, it is not as difficult as the original “Maximo: Ghosts to Glory”. This is both a blessing and a downfall. The lowered difficulty will allow for more casual gamers to become involved in the game and storyline while allowing them to have fun. However, the lowered difficulty also means this game will be easier to complete in less time. Though this game will take less time to finish, there can be many more countless hours spent mastering each level by completing specific goals such as: destroying a certain amount of enemies, collecting a specific amount of treasure or rescuing a certain number of innocents from the Army of Zin. As a reward for those brave enough to master and complete these extra objectives, the game unlocks bonus items such as galleries of original character sketches and original storyboards of the in-game movies. The controls in this game also make earning rewards much easier. They are more responsive than the first Maximo game and make the combat much more fun. Though the camera view did sometimes force you to make uncertain jumps, the controls and camera for the most part are as tight and responsive and you could want them to be.

While the graphics in “Maximo vs. Army of Zin” are a little on the cartoon side, they are still some of the most polished and clean looking visuals I have seen on the Playstation 2 in some time. The movies in this game look amazing. I was sad to find out there were only a few movies that did not use the in game graphics. If you’re looking for excessive blood and gore, you won’t find it here. “Maximo vs. Army of Zin” is rated T for teen because of its cartoon violence.

Overall, I had a very good time playing this game. This is one of those games that is easy to pick up and play but difficult to master. A couple parts were a little frustrating, but that made conquering them all the more sweet. As fun as the game was, beating it without unlocking everything only took a short time. If you plan on mastering this game or are a fan of the original, this is definitely a game you want to own. If you plan on just having fun with it or are new to the series, this game is still worth the price of a rental. Either way, you’re going to have a great time playing “Maximo vs. Army of Zin”.