Ægrus Somnium

worst 5 scratches, best 0 scratches

Demons Souls (Asian Import edition)

ok, short and straight to the point this game fucking pound, and it beats the shit out of you, you’ll see bad reviews for it because those people are bitches who aren’t gamers, those are what I call Halo Gamers (the next gen gamers), this game is for true old school hardcore gamers who like a challenge, ok, I lied, the first level of this game is kinda like going to buy some milk  with your sword of course, then some guy beats the shit out of you, rapes you, cuts a hole in your stomach, rapes that, calls some buddies over, who rape each other over you, then hack you up and dump salt on you, then they kill you, if your lucky, and it’ll happen like 60 times before you get off your porch. Seriously this game teaches you who’s the boss and you want more, this game is amazing, the graphics rock, the sound, settings even the so called non-existent story are awesome. Yes there is a story if you find the hidden characters to fill in the puzzle pieces for you. So this game is for real gamers NOT halo gamers, go it, so when you se it on the shelf leave it for a real gamer you little wuss. 0/5 scratches and import of the year, since my copy was a real import. pssssssst if you want the game to go a little easier don’t pick a big armored class they can’t dive and roll and their weapons are cumbersome and slow, this does include the barbarian even though he wears no armor, although he is pretty good, thief is a great class.

Best Import of the Year

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Batman: Arkham Asylum

Ok, so pre-ordered this to get it the day it came out because it looked friggin amazing, and dag’ nabbit I was spot on. This game fucking pounds, from start to finish you just want more. The graphics, the fighting system, the audio everything in this game right down to the mood is dead on. The only complaint I had was I kept finding secret areas to get to that I couldn’t get to woth my current equipment and it annoyed me, you’ll find them too if you haven’t yet played this, and if you haven’t I hope someone nut checks you right before smashing your teeth with a lead pipe, because if you didn’t purchase this on street date release your a dumb bitch. If you didn’t purchase the PS3 version to get the Joker maps, your a dumb bi…… ok, I’ll let that slide since this game is worth buying a PS3 for but the economy is shit right now, your lucky this time. ZERO scratches, and the BEST BATMAN GAME EVER award.

The Best and Only Batman Game award

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Lux-Pain

I just purchased this game not to long ago because I thought it looked interesting. The back of the box description made it sound as though you’d be investigating crime scenes and such which really intrigued me. The game itself wasn’t like I thought it would be from that description, it was less crime investigation and more supernatural investigation. Let me get more into it so you’ll understand.

Ok, so to get into this investigation set up, the dual screen’s are copies of each other except the top screen is in a sense looking into a shadow world. It reminded me of when Frodo put on the ring in the LotR’s movies because the upper screen is black and white and wavy. Now if your just investigating a “crime scene” you’ll see colored orbs on the upper screen so you use your characters power which is called “sigma” which allows him to see a different plain and pull trace memories from the scene. The memories are the colored orbs, once in Sigma mode you basically look at the upper screen to see where the orbs are then on the bottom screen scratch away the real world to reveal the shadow world, kind of like a lottery ticket, except your prize is a memory of what happened there. If your pulling memories from a person you don’t see them in the top screen and they move around the body, so you can use a simple pulse radar setup to find out where they are then switch over to search mode and start scratching away and try and chase them down, they look a bit like worms, once you find them you press on them and they flash red, enough damage and you pull the bad memory out.

These memories are called Shinen and basically everybody has them from what I understood, but if someone comes into contact with this disease/parasite called silent it warps their shinen making them either violent or suicidal and that’s where the premise of the game comes into play. You must save the town from this “Silent” and these corrupted Shinen and people being overcome by the corrupted Shinen. It’s an extremely hard game to describe. I’m not even going to try to explain what it’s like trying to fight inside the minds of people infected with Silent, it’s simple yet hard to explain.

When I first started to play Lux-Pain I was very confused, I hadn’t read the book, I never do, so I really wasn’t sure what to do but I easily figured it out and got into the swing of things and quickly became addicted and couldn’t put the game down. The storyline quickly engulfs you and you start to actually feel for the characters. At one point a certain event happens that actually shocked me and nearly made me jumped from my seat, and yes I was yelling at my DS at times. Not out of frustration but either cheering for the characters or telling them to not go to certain places. I found this game to be a great title that snuck out under the radar and I myself may have missed if it wasn’t for the anime characters on the cover. I’m a chump for anime characters in games. One downside to the game is the translation issues, there is some major translation flaws yet they don’t make the game unplayable, actually far from it, they are more humorous in the fact that the translator was that stupid. A female character in the game, Mako, major character, female cop, half the time she gets referred to as a he, the other half a she, like I said, it’s kind of humorous and it’s not like she’s androgynous looking she’s obviously a female.

I’m giving it 1/2 a scratch because they introduce some major bad guys that never get used, hopefully for a sequel, and for the translation issues.

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Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

I purchased this game about a week or two ago after hearing some comments from my cousin, I’ve always been a GTA fan but figured I’d wait for a price drop, yet after what I’d heard I had to check it out. He explained to me the methods of stealing cars in this version which I’ll get to shortly. So I ran out and purchased a copy the next night and was not disappointed in the least, this is probably one of the most enjoyable in the series even though it’s a bit short, he reason it’s so enjoyable is due to the touch screen making it so hands on.

As stated the touch screen makes this game very hands on, and also as I said it’s time to talk about the stealing of cars. There’s three methods to stealing cars in this game, if it’s a low end crappy car when you jump in you’ll be shown a screwdriver, you grab it on the touchscreen and are prompted to insert it into the ignition and twist it back and forth until the car starts. On the slightly better cars you need to use the touchscreen to unscrew a portion of the dash, then pull out a green and yellow wire to twist together to hotwire the car. On the expensive cars you slide open a digital lock system, insert a cracking device that gives you the code and you need to insert the code on the scrolling digits. You are timed on all methods if I remember correctly, definitely are on the digital method and if you fail the alarm goes off and you can still take the car, but where’s the fun in not trying to jack the car properly.

This hands on approach also goes to planting bombs, plantings bugs on cars, and I’m sure other things I’m currently forgetting. One other very cool and notable thing that the touch screen is used for is that if you happen to drive into the water you have to keep tapping the touchscreen to kick out the windshield to escape the car, very cool touch then added.

The weapon lock system can be annoying sometimes and not lock onto the enemy you want and you may needed to quickly duck and cycle to lock properly before jumping out and shooting. If you want to throw a molotov cocktail and I would assume grenades which I never threw you click the symbol on the touchscreen and quickly slide in the direction you want.

Another thing incorporated in this game is a drug trade system, nearly identical to the old pc game dope wars for those that remember that, this is really where you make all your money. The missions do make you some money but the email tip offs and drug runs net you the most money because missions will get you a $100 to $1000 near the end, a good drug run can snag you nearly $10,000 if done right. Make sure you use the drug map so your know where to buy cheap and use the email tip offs to know where to sell high. You could also just use the drug map and sell dealer to dealer but you won’t net as much profit as you will with the tip offs.

Now for the other portions, the storyline is great as well,unlike the other games, you really won’t find characters like Brucie or Packie to like, you’ll hate every character you work with in this game. At least I did, but I kept wanting to play more, buy more safe house, steal more stuff, which I forgot to mention, you can hijack ammunation trucks and bring them to one of your safehouses and use a torch to cut them open, or steal rival gangs drug vans and do the same except you slash the interiors open to get to the drugs.

As with all GTA’s there are thing to find as well, there’s 50 or 99 security cameras hidden to smash, I found some but couldn’t figure out how to smash them. There’s 30 specific billboards to be smashed, they have a beaver on them I think, when you find one there’s always a jump nearby to jump through one so you can break it.

The police chase system is done differently as well. If you have three star’s there will also be three cop car symbols beneath them, if you smash three chasing cars (they’ll get red X’s over them) it’ll drop to 2 stars and 2 cars, smash 2 cars it goes to one star and 1 car, smash 1 more car you go to a flashing white star and have a chance to hide and get away. That’s a nice setup and makes it finally possible to finish mission when you have a five star rating.

All in all this is a great addition to the GTA series and a nice kinda flashback to the original game being that this is also top down yet the cars are all technically 3D as you’ll see when they start flipping around. The radio stations did act up on me once or twice and just gave me a grinding annoying noise and made me turn my speakers down, I just changed stations a few times and turned them back up and it seemed to clear up. If your a GTA fan and have a DS/Lite/i I’d highly recommend this title. I give GTA: Chinatown Wars 0 out of 5 scratches and DS GotY ‘09.

edit: you’ll want to use your fingernail more then the stylus, takes way to long to switch and you need to move fast, unless you have a finger stylus, the kind like the claw, that would probably work great for this game

DS Game of the Year 2009

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Twilight

my first ever video review, enjoy

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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

i really don’t know how to review this game, i finally picked it back up a few days ago and finished it last night and, well, all i can say is, well, if you don’t have a ps3 get one just for this game, this is what video games are meant to be, this game is so solid, so perfectly executed, so well polished, it’s simply fucking amazing, there’s really nothing i can say bad about it, every frame was great, every battle was amazing, the last battle was fucking epic, all the other game companies should use this game as their bible, that’s what they should do

Epic game of the year
(if not lifetime of videogames)

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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

yeah this review will have spoilers so fuck off if you don’t want to read it, so i was looking forward to this game even thought I’m not the biggest star wars fan, just all the work that went into it with all the engines and such, and it mostly worked out for them, mostly that is, let me explain, the engines seemed to collide at times, like I’d be in an elevator with an enemy and we’d be going up, the elevator would stop and the enemy would be launched to the ceiling like we were traveling mach 10, or I’d go running into a frame and enemies would just trip and slide for no reason, speaking of the fucking slide, I’d hit an enemy or be hit with an enemy and at times slide like 100 feet when there was water on the ground i was more accepting but when i slide nearly 200 feet across a steel grate floor, slid mind you, not rolled, slid like on ice i was pissed, literally jumped up and screamed at the game "what the fuck, get the fuck up you piece of shit", this happened often, the game is a massive test of patience, and if you don’t want to throw you controller at least 50 times during this game your a saint, anything under 50 your brain dead and the console of choice probably isn’t even turned on and your staring at the wall, ok, so now for major story flaws, now, you know if you chose to be good and fight the emperor you had to die because your not in the movies, which is all good and cool and works because it puts a nice twist in the on how you started the rebel alliance, well, indirectly Vader did which in turn brought about his own downfall, "what a tweest", but if you choose to go the other way and take revenge on Vader and kill Vader, yes, kill Vader off, then you turn on the emperor and get killed of instead of joining his side which would have been badass and instead you become basically a robot slave by his side just like Vader, so lets see, if you go good they kill you off because you can’t live or it throws off the continuity of the series, but if you go bad it’s alright to kill Vader and become the next half robot slave Vader type character and throw continuity out the fucking window, ok, so the game get’s 2 scratches, probably should get more but when it wasn’t fucking up like the ground being like ice, and it wasn’t frustrating it was a fun game to play, oh, and it’s fucking short as hell

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Silent Hill: Homecoming

ok, so i was really excited when i got this for my birthday, it came out around that time, i got all in to it, Silent Hill being one of my all time favorite game series’, well, it was quickly dashed, this one being done by the american developers, how could you let one of the best game series’ go out like that, it was very combat oriented as opposed to the older ones, i ended up getting stuck at a boss with half life and no health potion, no med kits, or serums and couldn’t beat her, scarlet if you must no, the hardest boss in the game, so the game got shelved for a bit, last night i dusted it off and went back a save, got to her with some healing pots and kicked the ever loving shit out of her and continued on with the game, surprisingly this silent hill is really short compared to others in the series and it did get better, scarlet just annoyed me and she brought the game down for me for a bit but it went back up after i got past her, so if you a fan of the game then get it, if not rent it, for me it’s a must have because i need all the Silent Hill’s, also the nurses are confusing, you don’t know whether to put a bag over their heads and go to town or kill them, it also sucks that they took this game and made it tie to the movie when none of the other games did, not sure about origins, have yet to play that, but none of the others i played had anything to do with the movie, there was also a big lack of pyramid head, he shows up twice and only does anything once, wtf is yup with that, couldn’t they have wrapped up the enigma that is pyramid head a bit for us, so i hate to do this since like i stated it’s one of my all time favorite series of games, but due making it tie to the movie when no other game did, leaving pyramid head still an enigma who does even less in this game then any other game, and letting the american studio wrap up the series, ok, tying it to the movie isn’t that bad, it;s actually an alright idea so it all flows, but anyways, for all those reasons i still need to give it half a scratch it probably deserves a full scratch but I’m biased on this title

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Mirrors Edge

ok, just beat this game twice, yeah, you heard me twice, this game is fucking badass, i had to run through it twice though because i fucked up near the end, less then a minute from the end of chapter 8 i accidently shot someone, i never disarmed anyone at all throughout the game, i just beat the shit out of them but this one time i disarmed and forgot to discard the gun before i went to p8unch and fucking shot him in the face and ruined my chances for the "test of faith" trophy you get for not shooting anyone throughout the whole game, so i ran through it all again after beating it once, I’ve never done that with any game that’s how fucking badass this game is, yeah it’s kind of short if you don’t fuck up at all that is, but if you mess up and fall and miss jumps it can take a while to beat, took me about a week playing a few hours a night, second run through only took me two nights, either way this game is damn good, and damn intense, it’s a total edge of seat game, the environments are gorgeous but you rarely have time to take them in because your on your feet sprinting nearly the whole time or your dead, i love this game, no scratches what-so-ever

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Fallout 3

Ok, where to begin, this game was like a roller coaster for me, I was a huge huge fan of the originals for the pc, including tactics, the PS2 game was alright (Brotherhood of Steel), but all in all a huge fan so when I heard about this game coming out I was ecstatic, I was scrounging for details, going on and on about it to friends, then after a bit more news arose and screenshots and it was going to be an FPS, and my dreams crashed and I was pissed they were going to ruin it and I was ranting and raving about how gaming companies always step in and ruin shit now, then I heard Bethesda was doing it and I saw a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, hey, Oblivion was amazing, if anyone could do this FP style they could, and the glimmer began glowing as more screenshots came out, and finally release day, I traded in some older games, and holy shit, more trade in credit then I thought, no fucking way, not only could I get Fallout 3 (PS3 of course) but I could get (trumpets blaring)

now I was totally stoked, the store had one special edition left and I only had to pull $8 from pocket, sweet deal, so I rush home, and watch the clock till it’s my daughters nap time, tick tock tick tock, finally, run in, load up the game, and it was just glorious, non stop playing every minute I could, now the ps3 version had it’s faults, I had to turn off friend notifications because they basically paused your game for like 15 seconds when they popped up, and if you played for extended periods of time it seemed as though the system memory became fragmented and the game would freeze on you so you would have to restart after a good 6 hour or so session. This game just completely blew me away, I explored every section thanks to the explorer perk, well, every one except like 2 or 3 metro tunnels but fuck them, and found every single bobble head, all but 6 I found on my own, those 6 were in places I had explored but I overlooked them, this is a must have game, A MUST HAVE!!!! and is the best action RPG game of the year by far, no scratches whatsoever, scratches shouldn’t even be mentioned when discussing this game

Best Action/RPG of the Year!!!

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Little Big Planet

Another on the list of games I’ve been looking forward too, I nearly wasn’t able to get this game but a friend came to the rescue and helped fund my gaming addiction and paid for nearly all of it so I could get the game which I greatly appreciated, this game was another one that was fun to play, well, until the later levels where it got a bit hard and annoying at times when you had to repeat the same parts over and over because you kept on dying, it was one of those games where you want to throw the controller at times. The game is sadly very short though, but on the strange side I found myself going back and playing it over and over trying to find every hidden item, and playing with my friend since some things take two people to unlock, and some take 4 people, but only a couple of those. Also you can create your own levels and upload them for users to play, there are many levels currently upload and many levels Sony keeps closing, so we’ll see what happens, I have a few of my own out there so if you see and from user "PariahComplex" play and heart them, the game gets 1 scratch for the shortness.

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Fable II

This was one of the games I was looking forward to this year, I really enjoyed the first one even though it fell short of many of it’s promises, hell, the creator even got death threats from people due to how much it fell short, still I thought it was a well done and innovative game. So naturally I was excited for the sequel, so when it finally came out a short while ago I picked up a copy and rushed home to play it and I wasn’t disappointed, I really enjoyed this game and found myself playing for a bit even after I finished the main storyline, still never got all the gargoyles or silver keys but oh well, I did manage to get all the expensive building and turn from a male to a female, that twist was amusing, and also got to marry a hot zombie chick and have a child with her. My only real complaint is that you gain weight with nearly everything you eat and don’t lose weight from running and fighting like you did in the first, you only lost weight from eating celery that was rather lame, so that was annoying because throughout the game you just keep getting fatter and fatter, so the game does sadly get a half scratch for that major annoyance, if not for that it would have none, the game was a blast to play.

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Uncharted: Drakes Fortune

Ok, so I finally played and finished Uncharted, before I get to all the goodness though I’d like to get all the bad shit out. This pissed me off to no end during the game, well, maybe not that bad but it sure was annoying. No matter where you went there was a bad guy, you come to a vault door that’s never been opened in centuries only to find gunmen inside. You come to a tower you need to climb and you need to move chains around in order to climb them, you get to the top, and there’s a fucking guy with a gun, how the fuck did he get up there if the chains were all fucked up?, your riding up a river on a jet ski, fighting the currents, and of course dodging the exploding barrels…… wait a second, is fucking Donkey Kong waiting for me at the top of this fucking river?, anyways, your dodging the barrels and you pass by a little ruined piece of some old temple, and there’s a fucking guy with a grenade launcher, seriously, is the head of the bad guys flying around in a helicopter strategically placing these guys at the worst places? As damaged stated it’s set up on the NES difficulty scale, if you don’t know the NES difficulty it’s simple, don’t make it challenging, just fill it with more bad guys. Is it really that bad to have a couple slower segments so you can chill and enjoy the gorgeous environments? That’s the most annoying bad portion, there other was the characters shiny skin, you see them in a plane in the beginning and their ears are all shiny, no idea why but it was annoying but easy to get past. On to the good parts. This game is simply gorgeous, all the environments are amazing to look at, some stages when you can see out over the ocean made me wish for a screen capture button, it was just that great looking. The brush moves as you pass through it, you fall in some water and you actually get wet, it’s great detail. All the treasure you find isn’t just some 2d picture it’s a full 3d rendered object you can rotate and check out, and they did put some nice detail on those models. I also found the storyline very engaging, I really just wanted to keep playing more and more, it was basically playing a movie that’s how good I think it was. The voice acting and music is superb as well, I think Nathan Fillian should have done the voice since the humor fit great with his type of characters but that’s just me, the guy who did it did and awesome job anyways. The controls are also perfectly done, not once did I die or have trouble do to the controls, or the camera, all worked perfectly well. This game is a definite must play if your a ps3 owner, and if not, bye one to play it, this probably does deserve a scratch, or at least half a scratch due to the NES difficulty but aside from the few wanting to throw the controller moments the good parts far outweigh the bad parts. It’s also getting an award for being the best adventure game I’ve played this year so far. (yes, it came out in ‘07 shut up)

Best Action/Adventure Game of the Year!!!

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Soul Calibur IV

anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fighting game fan, fighting games, to put it plain and simple, are straight repetition, that’s about all there is to it, they have weak stories in short story modes, so to review a fighting game is hard, if it has good controls and looks pretty it aces, even though I’m not a fighting game fan there are a few fighting games i do enjoy, i like the tekken games, and love the DOA games, now all that aside this game is really pretty fun, I’ve been playing for hours just unlocking weapons for the characters and creating my own characters, so far i have the joker and Vega (from SF), downside to the creation in this one is they took away the ability to change the lip color so i can’t give my joker red lips, plus you can’t make them pure white just really pale, on the other hand the creation is a little better because you can change the proportions and physique, so they gave some and they took some away, all in all it’s still fun to create a character, the story mode is alright as well, it’s a little reading in the beginning, a few fights, then the resolution, the one annoying point to story mode is that there’s only three real ending bosses, from what I’ve seen anyways, so you can basically skip the big fancy 3d intro to the last boss if you’ve already seen it, I’ve played through nearly all the characters storylines so far and all I’ve seen are the three, the tower mode is pretty cool and allows you to unlock special items for accomplishing certain feats during the matches, such as getting no ring outs on either side, taking no damage, and things like that, each level of the tower is two stages 1st floor to 2nd floor, 3rd floor to 4th floor and so on up until I think 60, you can also ascend and descend in the tower to get different items, now to the part that makes a fighting game, the vs. modes, i have yet to play local vs. mode but have played over the net, same damn thing just less load time, so far the fighting is fun even though there’s a few things that do annoy me everything else is pretty solid, the things that annoy me is when a character can swing a 10 ton sword like its a twig, perhaps have it ease in and combo to pick up speed using its momentum, now that would have been bad ass, when it comes down to the core of it Soul Calibur IV is a solid fighter and I’m having fun playing it, one negative issue is the lag that is ruining my online experience, but all new games with online have lag till the first or second patch, 1/2 scratch due to it being nothing new

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Batman: The Dark Knight

went to the theatre to see this on Sunday, now i know all about the critic reviews and shit, and what people are saying, best batman movie ever, best movie ever, amazing, now, since no one is shoving wads of cash up my ass I’m going to give it to you straight, the movie sucked ass, it was horrible, complete and utter shit, actually it was really good, i wouldn’t say "best movie ever" but i would say best batman movie, Christian bales batman mode voice still kind of annoys me, batman’s not supposed to talk in metal growls but i understand why its there and it makes sense, next, Heath Ledger, this role was definitely to large for him, he’s never done a role of this caliber before that I’ve seen, maybe he did a big role in brokeback mountain but I’ll never no because i hate cowboys, and two cowboys going at it is definitely a lot worse, i just think this was too deep of a character for him to handle BUT he nailed it dead one, this is the definitive joker, he stole the movie with his portrayal of the joker, the effects for the second villain was awesome as well but i won’t mention the villains name so i don’t ruin the movie for anyone, now i do have one complaint about the movie, it was just too damn long, about and hour and a half to two hours in i just wanted it to end, that’s doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, it was awesome, but the hype it’s getting is a bit much, i highly recommend you see this in the theatre, and if you have a fancy digital screen theatre like we have then go there, you won’t regret it, unless of course you hate batman

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The World Ends With You
(It’s a Wonderful World – J title)

Just got this game for fathers day and can’t stop playing it, actually bumped MGS4 to the side to play this more. The game takes place in Japan, mainly the Shibuya Terminal and surrounding areas, some of the same areas made popular in JSRF. The premise of the game is trying to survive a game, you wake up in an alternate Shibuya and have to survive 7 days or you get erased from existence. The fighting in the game is very unique in that you fight with two characters at once, one on the bottom screen controlled with the stylus and L + R buttons, and the character on the top screen is controlled with the D-pad. The character on the bottom screen, the main character, fights with buttons/pins, each button gives a special ability called a psych and you can mix and match and choose between many buttons. The attack buttons you chose work in consecutive order, when one is used and needs to recharge you automatically start using the second button, or you can set one button to "sub" and press either L or R to use that one whenever you want. All the moving and attacks are done with the stylus, some attacks you slash the monster, some such as the starting fire button you drag the stylus around to create a line of fire, others you slash across your character, Neku, and the attack shoots in the direction of the slash. The top screen differs greatly, for one you don’t have much control of moving the character, you can jump or dodge, and the attacks are done with D-pad combos by pushing left, right and up on the d-pad. If the enemy is on the left you use left and up, on the right use right and up, you can technically just push left or right to do you attack but when fusions come into play you need to pay attention more. Fusions are when the characters sync up and do a team attack, in order to achieve these you need to pay more attention to the combos and get the right symbols in the right order, the symbols are at the end of each combo. As you can see it is very hard to explain and there is still more such as the light puck that gets passed back and forth between the bottom and top screen, it’s confusing to play at first but after a few fights becomes almost second nature.

Aside from that you also need to pay attention to the clothing trends going on in each section, if you character is wearing clothing of the number 1 trend for that region you attacks are stronger, if you wearing the least favorite style your attacks are halved. Certain pins also have certain labels attached to them and you can effect an areas trends by using them more.

This game is an action RPG and with RPG’s come leveling, your characters can level up and all of the buttons in the game can level up. Obviously as you fight you gain XP and lvl, but you buttons also lvl when your not playing in real time so if you have a button that you want to lvl but its currently really weak you can place it in your "deck" and it will level up for the time your system is off and your away, I do mine overnight while I sleep.

The game also has a multiplayer mode called tin slammers which I have yet to try and a mingle mode which I haven’t used yet either. In mingle mode you turn your ds on, set it to mingle and close it up carrying it in your bag or pocket when you go places. If you pass other players in mingle mode with TWEWU set to mingle mode as well you trade friend cards and you also get the store they set up on your DS so you can buy there items, which may be items you haven’t found yet. If you pass another DS that’s not playing or mingling TWEWU but is playing a different game on Wi-Fi your buttons earn exp points.

This game is released by Square Enix and I would highly recommend it to Square fans and anyone willing to try a different style game, I can’t put it down, the SL, the graphics (graffiti style), everything in it is great even the music goes perfect with the game and I tend to get the songs stuck in my head. The game, from what I’ve heard and seen, is on a limited print run and getting hard to find, we had to suck it up and get it from EB and they said they got one copy this month and are having to struggle to get anymore in, walmart stated they only got 4 which they said is odd, so supplies seem to be thinning out quick.

AMAZING GAME!!!

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Untraceable

awesome thriller movie, highly recommend this movie to everyone, only had the 1/2 scratch due to parts being kind of predictable

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The Signal

sucks, well, amusing I guess but the acting is lame, and the movie is lame, the premise was alright

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The Onion Movie

very funny movie, couple slow parts but very funny and worth the watch, no rewatch value unless you have massive short term memory loss

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Super Smash Bros. Brawl

game was kind of bleh, couldn’t figure out how to do anything but the normal attack, couldn’t figure out the life/win set up till I was sick of playing

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Shoot ‘Em Up

this movie fucking rocks, there’s like a whole 5 minutes in the movie without a gun fight and that’s it, he fucking shoots people while having sex and delivering a baby, c’mon if that’s not fucking awesome then nothing is, this movie steals the title of "Ultimate Man Move" from crank, a definite must see

ULTIMATE MAN MOVIE!!!

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Reign Over Me

really really good movie, only hard thing about this movie was adam sandlers comedic voice, when he gets mad and yells it just sounds funny

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Oceans Thirteen

great movie, just as good as the other two, and no idea if it’s as good as the original old oceans eleven since I never saw that one, only saw the remake, love all three of these

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Mariokart

game was just alright, the racing was definitely fun, but the part i always loved, the battle mode, now sucks since you have to play with a team, that ruined the game for me

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Lost Odyssey

great game so far anyways, heard from a reliable source that it gets even better as you progress, got a star due to being very slow because of the dream "novels" but you can skip them if you don’t mind missing his past

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In the Name of the King

yeah, um, total shit, c’mon, burt fucking reynolds as king, NO, none of these actors fit into this type of movie accept maybe the funny looking girl with the funny name, just a horrible cast set up, only got half a no scratch because two of my favorite actors are in it

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Horton Hears a Who

good fun movie, one scratch for the slowness at parts which tended to make me lose interest

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Grand Theft Auto IV

great game and worth all the 10’s it got, massive sandbox game here that you can spend hours just fucking around, plus the option to stop the storyline to do just that and online multiplayer add’s even more to the table, and some of the characters you come across are hilarious, Brucie is great, and Packie is my favorite

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The Forbidden Kingdom

good movie, got one scratch for some slowness and it resembling an older movie as mentioned in a rant on the main page

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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

awesome game so far, one scratch due to the blandness of the gui and the dull/cleanness of the graphics, the cg movies are awesome so far though

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Fear House

alright movie, worth maybe a rental if you want something just kind of cheesy to watch, that’s about it

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Eternal Sonata

overrated, amusing but you walk a linear path which really destroyed it for me, and the paths are also very narrow so no room to even explore the beautiful environments

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Baroque

awesome game, a bit confusing with no explanation as to what the fuck to do in the beginning which is why the half scratch, but very unique and find myself wanting to keep play it

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The Bank Job

alright so so movie, nothing amazing or spectacular

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Casshern

I’m not normally one for subtitles, i usually prefer dubbed so i can watch what’s going on, got this the other day from Netflix after seeing it at hollywood video and thinking it looked interesting, not sure if all copies are the same since this Netflix copy is one of the weird, looks as though they made it, discs, but this copy was in japanese with the subtitles built in so you can turn them off or anything and the only audio was either japanese 5.1 or japanese 2.0, either way i wanted to watch it so i didn’t mind to much, well, upon looking it up it comes in only japanese, anyways to get back to the point, this is the character that is thought to have been a major influence in the creation of mega man, but this guy kicks major ass compared to shitty mega man, this movie is done very comic booky (similar to sin city), at points a majority of the background look hand drawn and sketchy, the major characters are live action and a major amount of cg, the movie itself is very grungy and grainy looking which totally works and give some great atmosphere to the movie, that combined with the great light uses makes it also feel really artistic, this movie was, to put it simply, fucking amazing, i highly recommend everyone to check this out, its total live action anime done amazingly well

being that Casshern is hard to explain I’ve decided to include a great sequence from youtube

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The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass

just got this game over the weekend, kind of funny how i got it, was in line to buy a different game and my friend saw it on the used rack and ran it over to me, ok, not really "kind of funny" at all, just odd it was already on the new rack having not even been out a week, anyways, i just finished the game today and it was a damn good game, everything was done perfectly making it a very solid game in the Zelda series, all of your controls are done with the stylus, movement, fighting, everything, draw a line for the path the boomerang will follow and everything, which makes it great for hitting baddies in the backs, but the downside being that while your drawing the line your kind of standing there vulnerable, but it’s nothing major and not enough to lessen the overall experience of the game, the storyline was also really good, music sounds, everything went together solidly, i thoroughly enjoyed playing it and when i wasn’t playing it i found myself wanting to play it, which is awesome and how all games should be made, The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass gets 0 scratches for being a damn good game

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The Reaping

alrighty, just watched The Reaping last night and all in all it was a really good movie, not sure what it’s supposed to be but I’d classify it as a thriller, the story is about a woman who was a ordained minister and while out doing "gods work" her family was murdered and she turns her back on the faith and sets out disproving "miracles", and blah blah blah, someone needs her to come and disclaim the religious plagues that have befallen a quiet little bible belt town before a little girl is murdered for being the cause, really well done movie, nice pace, sometimes a little rushed it seems but it works, i really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it to everyone, nice little surprise twist at the end as well, 0 scratches

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Halo 3

hmmm… Halo 3, the final of the trilogy….. or is it (insert intense organ music here), i personally highly doubt they’ll close out the series, it’s making them a shitload of money, setting records as being one of the largest 1 day sales in history, and generally when something like that happens the creators like to milk it dry, plus the ending isn’t very finalizing, the graphics and game play are great, sometimes the game tends to be a bit tough, mainly in one frame when fighting the fucking flood, i fucking hate them, the tunnels you need to go through tend to be a little dark as well at times and the flashlight is little to no use half the time, as far as fps’s go it’s a fun and enjoyable game, it does however get one scratch for being just that, your standard fps, I’m not a Halo fan boy so i have the ability to look past the name on the cover to the actual game play and it’s nothing groundbreaking, it’s another fps, but it was good so it’s only getting 1 scratch

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

ah, good old TMNT, i grew up on the cartoons and with the toys, never read the graphic novels that they came from though, the movie in my opinion was amazing, the 3d animation was done well, voice acting was great, the turtles each did their personalities perfectly, splinters voice was a little odd, and the humans heads were a bit oddly shaped as well, but all in all i really enjoyed this movie and think it’s a definite purchase or at the very least a rental, 0 scratches

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The Simpsons Movie

and again, another cartoon i grew up with makes it to the big screen, granted i don’t watch the simpsons much anymore and tend to side with family guy (yes i know Simpsons did it first, and family guy steals from them, but guess what, that’s how society works, deal with it), so even though I’m not a huge fan i still really liked the movie, and as with the last review and the next few to follow this is short, watched the movie a little while back and didn’t review right afterwards which is a no no, but all in all a good movie and I’m only giving it the 1/2 scratch because i don’t think it’s one that can be rewatched to much

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SiCKO

yes i understand that micheal moore does go to extremes showing stuff but that’s what i do and that’s the best way to get your point across, lets see heroes of 9/11 dying because the gov’t won’t support them or a guy who has a simple cough and a doc won’t give him medicine, gee, which gets the point across about how the gov’t bends us over and ass rapes us without lube better, and that’s why you use extreme situations to get points across, it’s the things that open peoples eyes which this film does by showing us how health care in other countries works even though our gov’t tells us it’s the most evil thing there is, fuck them, gives us all our health care and show a little concern for your people, 0 scratches, great eye opener go watch it and smarten up you damn cattle

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Mr. Brooks

ok, we all know kevin costner isn’t the best actor, in nearly every movie he plays the same character, but in this movie he done good, this movie was so damn cool i was really impressed, he plays the perfect calculating psycho, and the little twists are great as well, definitely watch this damn movie it is so worth it, the story and writing are perfect as well unlike the movie fracture which is coming up a little further down the reviews, yes that was a good movie too but some major holes, 0 scratches

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Mr. Beans Holiday

if you like mr. bean (rowin atkinson) which i do you should like this movie, its not like the last one they made which basically flopped, this is just typical bean doing what he does best, 2 scratches though due to it being kind of boring and predictable at times

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Live Free or Die Hard

live free or die hard is another ultimate guy movie, it’s was awesome, explosions, killing, terror plots, all action, damn good movie, just as good as the first three, 0 scratches

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Hostel

Fuck hostel, so damned awful, 5 scratches, and a castration

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Fracture

fracture is another really good movie from hopkins, he plays his now typecast psychotic killer/genius in this one as well, its a really good "fun" thriller with some nice little twists that are so obvious you wish you thought of them before they happened, which is a good thing, a few big loop holes like how the writer kind of forgets that police guns are shot before being handed out so the bullets and barrel marks are on record, hence the bullets and case should have been solved early on, the other guy ryan gosling or something is kind of lame at acting in this movie, just how he acts doesn’t seem to fit well at most points in the movie, 1 and 1/2 scratches for the obvious holes they left

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The Descent

the descent was a damn good horror/thriller, some scene would be classified as edge of seat moments, but since I’m usually laying down when i watch i can’t claim that but there were some good tense scenes, lots of blood, sadly no nudity even though its full of girls, the "monsters" are done great and actual are a bit freaky in how they move, and no it’s not that overplayed choppy fast slow fast slow twitchy walk you see all the time now, I’m giving it 1/2 scratch for no boobs, but that’s the only reason lol

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Audition

audition is another "oriental" thriller, and i would highly HIGHLY recommend this movie if you want to watch about 1 hour and 40 mins of absolutely fucking nothing, then like 5 mins of a gore scene, mainly involving needles and no blood, the ankle scene was alright, then a quick ending, this movie fucking blows, not sure if this is actually worse then hostel just because the was the bare minimum of gore and like no nudity, at least hostel had boobs, 5 scratches and a full on castration

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Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

aqua teen hunger force colon movie made for theaters, long name but a great flick, if you like ATHF anyways, this movie is great, a shame the broom scene was removed though that was hilarious, all in all get this movie, no scratches at all

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28 Weeks Later

28 weeks later picks up after 28 days later obviously, look at the fucking name, well, the beginning of this one is around the same time, but just like the first this movie kicks major ass, especially if your into zombie flicks which i am, and yes some say it’s not a zombie film and one reason because the zombies actually can move, but that’s a plus, who the fuck is afraid of a zombie that a slug can outrun, very lame to state that, anyways, 0 scratches, a definite must see

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The Darkness

ok, before you read this review you must, MUST, keep in mind that I’m not a big FPS fan, this is very important to remember as you read this, so now on with the review, i just rented this game and honestly knew nothing of the comic, i was mainly stuck to Lobo when i read comics, ended up just renting this game, figure it’s xbox it’s an fps, typical, so it sits here on the desk a day or so till i pick it up and go to play it, i beat it in 3 sessions, 1 session being only like and hour or so, the other 2 sessions being quite long i just couldn’t stop playing the game, the graphics are simply amazing and set the tones and moods of the game perfectly, the music and sound effects the same, the lighting, perfect, then we come to the voice acting, perfectly done as well, this game is simply put a fucking masterpiece, it’s non stop fun, has some side quests, some collectables, a fucking AMAZING twist in the middle, The Darkness is one of the best games i think I’ve ever played, i will be buying this title and putting it in my collection and may even play it again, extremely graphic and full of curse words as well, and if all that isn’t enough for you Mike Patton does the voice for darkness and does it superbly, they couldn’t have picked a better person for this, my recommendation is to go buy this game, fuck the rental, and if you don’t like it then you obviously have issues and should probably be playing barbie horse adventure or fucking mario sunshine, so go buy this or your obviously gay……. 0 scratches, honestly, ball scratches shouldn’t even be mentioned when talking of this game even in a review

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1408

this is going to be the most painful review i have ever had the misfortune of writing, I’d put writing this along the lines of shitting out a full sized living feral cat who keeps trying to climb back in, if you’re a past reader you’ll know why, if not it’s because yes, i used to like stephen king, then his books/movies became boring, dream catcher was horrendous, the green mile was plagiarized, yeah i know, not word for word but the idea was so fuck off, anyways, here’s why this review hurts so much, because aside from this movie reminding me off Silent Hill 4: The Room, it was pretty damn good, its about an author basically writing books about his experience’s at so called haunted hotels, then he goes to room 1408 and basically gets what he asked for cusack plays the role really well, the effects are done very nicely, and the mood is right on with the scenes, a child dying also sets a harsh tone which increases the effect of the movie, the head kick in the heating ducts was a little cheesy but not enough to effect my thoughts, 1/2 a scratch due to it reminding me a lot of SH4

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The Messengers

yet another thriller that came out, again going for the same style shit as every other one, this one wasn’t all that bad though, kind of a mash up of other ones but keeping the best of all, all in all it worked out not so badly, wouldn’t say this is the best thriller and to go buy it, it’s alright for a rental, possibly a buy only if your a massive thriller collection, some nice little effects in it, as well as some massively overplayed ones as well, like the twitching walking ghosts, well, I’ve seen some ghost shit before and it wasn’t all twitchy so i think movies need to lay off that effect a bit, is a cool effect but its everywhere now, this one is slightly different twitchiness but not much, severe lack of blood, and no nudity whatsoever, those 2 would have helped greatly, and of course the main actress couldn’t do nudity she’s under age you sick bastards, on the subject of the main actress, she’s kind of odd, her acting is good at times and horrible at times, not so horrible its unbearable just bad enough to make her unbelievable at times, but the movie is getting a first time ever here, a 2 and 1/2 scratches our of 5, never did a 1/2 before so had to make a pretty new graphic, boobs and blood woulda dropped this to 1 and a half or possibly a flat 2 (look at turistas, that’s what saved that movie from a 3, very influential)

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Bridge to Terabithia

watched this one this morning, kind of hard to explain, i was expecting a light hearted fantasy style movie, kind of like narnia, and that’s pretty much what it was like at first, the main characters having the typical childhood issues as well like school bullies and shit, then the main characters create this fantasy world to enjoy and their lives start looking a bit brighter due to having a place to get away from it all, then they sucker punch ya with brass knuckles and drop a bombshell on ya, if you read the book it’s no surprise obviously, but i knew nothing of the book so was shocked, and yes I’m not afraid to say my eyes watered a bit, i really enjoyed it, i also really respect movies that can sway your emotions, not many movies can but when a movie draws you in and does that you need to give respect to the creators, no ball scratches at all for this, I’ll actually probably buy it

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Reno 911 The Movie

watched this movie last night, it was pretty amusing, kind of like the show yet kind of lacking, think it was due to it just being longer then the shows, the show is great but once extended to movie length you kind of get a tad bored and just want it to end, all in all it was a good laugh but not one to buy, 2 out of 5 scratches for this one, its funny but you wouldn’t miss much if you don’t see, just watch the show

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Circus of Dead Squirrels: The Pop Culture Massacre and the End of the World Sing-a-long Songbook!

i got this cd from Damaged last weekend and i can’t stop listening to the damn thing, this cd is just damn amazing, the best way to describe the music is a cross between mr. bungle and bile, the music is mainly pounding grinding industrial style with circusy parts thrown in and a majority of the time in the same style, the vocals are sometimes a lot like mike patton, like even sounding identical at times, then other times extremely guttural, this is a must listen

track listing:
1. disclaimer
2. overpopulation annihilation
3. the happy meal-worm
4. losing touch
5. president pinocchio
6. under the big top
7. prizefighter
8. elmo’s last laugh
9. hell’s kitchen!
10. nobody quite like me
11. utopia burning

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Turistas

just finished watching this movie about an hour ago, its basically your typical modern day thriller that comes flying at us at the rate of like 10 a month, there are a few minor differences that make it a tad different, the beginning bus ride was pretty amusing to watch as the driver barrels down this roads barely making any of the turns, the chase scene at the end which is typical in all these movies was done differently which did add a bit of a refreshing change, it was all done in an underwater cave, very slow chase since they were all swimming, yet very tense and kind of made ya feel a bit like you were holding your breath as the struggled to find the smallest air bubbles on the roof of the cave to get a breath, now i saw the unrated version and honestly I’m not sure how the "rated" version would have been seeing how there was minimal in the lines of graphics imagery, a split on the head, not bad, shooting not bad, stabbing, not bad, nothing really graphic accept the surgery scene, which if you’ll think back to my old post about what a good horror thriller needs (boobs, gore), this scene had, the girl completely topless, sedated, having her stomach opened and her organs stolen, all in one nice scene, none of the cut to surgery, cut to topless girl sedated, cut to surgery, cut to girl, nope, all in one nice scene, that’s what saved this movie from being a massive complete flop, so I’m kind of having a hard time rating, it was an alright watch and kept me amused, yet it wasn’t anything spectacular either, so I’m giving it 2 ball scratches, but barely, if it weren’t for the surgery scene it would get 3 scratches

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Custom Robo Arena

i just picked this game up last night and I’m loving it, it’s kind of an RPG and you battle people with your Robo, a little robot transformer type thing, it starts as a block and gets shot into the battlefield like dice, well, both of them you and your opponent, hence the plural "dice" then you fight, and yes as the title states you customize your robot, it also has online fighting without friend codes which is nice so you can just find a match, reminds me a lot of the anime Angelic Layer, I give Custom robo Arena 0/5 Ball Scratches

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Battle Royale

next up, the movie Battle Royale, I’m not even going to say much about this, just give a little back story, movie is based on a manga that was based on a book, i think, or the movie and manga were both based on the book, either way this movie is fucking amazing, it wasn’t banned in the US as a lot of rumors have stated, it just won’t be picked up by any companies for release over here, basically, a school class in japan gets drawn by random lottery and dropped on an island, they’re given a bag that could contain any kind of weapon, or even something completely useless like a cooking pot lid, but the kids are supposed to represent 15 year olds so you can understand why they won’t release it in this country, seeing as how we’re the only country that has all this bullshit school violence, 0/5 Ball Scratches