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blake307:
Game: Heavy Rain

Story taken from Wiki: Heavy Rain's story is a dramatic thriller, centred around four protagonists involved with the mystery of the Origami Killer, a serial killer who uses extended periods of rainfall to drown his victims. Ethan Mars is a father who is trying to save his son from being the next victim, while investigative journalist Madison Paige, FBI profiler Norman Jayden, and private detective Scott Shelby are each trying to track down clues to the Origami Killer's identity. The player interacts with the game by performing actions highlighted on screen related to motions on the controller, and in some cases, performing a series of quick time events during fast-paced action sequences. The player's decisions and actions during the game will affect the narrative; the main characters can be killed, and certain actions may lead to different scenes and endings.

The story in the game is pretty awesome. It's the only game I know where you can fail a level and the story moves on. My favorite part of the game is the fight scenes, especially the ones against the Doc and Mad Jack. There were many parts of the story that shocked and amazed me! The best part of the game is the many different endings in the game depending on what decisions you make.

Story: 9/10

Graphics: What can I say? The graphics are amazing, the backgrounds are great, the realism is incredible and the character details, awesome!

Graphics: 10/10

Music: The music is great, the music in the suspense moments and fight scenes fit perfectly in the game.

Music: 8/10

Gameplay: The great thing about this game is that you play as four different characters and try to get through the whole game with each of these unique characters. I liked being able to interact with these characters throughout the game as the decisions you make can either kill them, help them find Shaun Mars etc. The fights scenes like I said before are amazing! I liked the button pressing sequences in these types of events because depending on how well you do you can either succeed or fail the mission in this fighting or escape scenario. All I have to say is that the Gameplay is the best part of the game.

Gameplay: 10/10

Overall: If you own a PS3 I recommend getting this game as it is one of the best real life games I have ever play. You won't be dissappointed! This is the second best game this year behind God Of War 3.

Overall: 9/10

Cien Laguoire:
Can't decide on if you want Split/Second, Blur, or ModNation Racers for your racing fix? I'll be glad to help a bit with a few reviews.

Split/Second:
Split/Second is the second game from Blackrock Studios, known for the pleasantly surprising ATV-racer Pure some time ago. Is this game also as fun to play?

The premise of this game is quite interesting; you are in a TV show, called Split/Second, where you race in a city pretty much rigged to blow. Every stage has a different set of Power Plays, which can be used to take out opposing drivers (and vice versa), cause changes to the environment, or even switch routes and temporarily create shortcuts. These Power Plays can be executed by gaining points by drifting, drafting, and other skillful driving maneuvers to fill up the Power Play Meter. As you get more points, you can use more than one Power Play or activate a more powerful Power Play or Route Changer if the meter is fully charged. It's definitely awe-inspiring to see some of these Power Plays and Route Changers, which include bringing down a jet onto a runway, blowing up a docked ship, or bringing down a water dam. However, once you've seen most of these fantastic events fold out more than once, you'll pretty much know the timing it takes to use them effectively on opponents or the line you'll need to drive to avoid them yourself. It's an excellent party trick, so to speak, but after seeing the same things happen a few times, it may start to lose its awe factor.

The main mode is called Season, where you have to go through twelve episodes of the show, each episode having six races; four normal races, one bonus race, and the Elite Race, where completing it advances you to the next episode. Bonus races are earned by wrecking other drivers, while Elite Races are earned by credits, though you'll usually have them already unlocked in new episodes if you do well. As you complete races, you earn Credits, which unlock more vehicles, including muscle cars, trucks, and exotic sports cars, as you progress through the Season. You'll also unlock new tracks and game modes as you progress through Season mode as well. These modes include Detonator, where you do a hotlap while Power Plays are activated in front of you, Elimination, where the car in last place is blown up after a countdown while racing, Survival, where you pass semi rigs that shoot explosive barrels for points while on a time limit, and Air Attack and Air Revenge, where you rack up points for avoiding missiles fired by a helicopter during the former, and where you have to take down the helicopter by deflecting missiles as quickly as possible in the latter. Progression through the Season can be simple enough, but winning can be quite challenging, especially in later episodes. If you're good, though, you may be able to pull off wins in every race in the Season... and then that's it. After you complete Season mode, there isn't much else to do with the single player modes, aside from collecting some leftover Trophies/Achievements. Speaking of which, your Trophies/Achievements become decals on your vehicles, which is an interesting touch. On top of that, progression in Season is seen by the number on your car; 99 meaning you just started, and 01 meaning you pretty much completed Season mode 100%. Multiplayer also does something similar, where doing well gives you a lower racing number, while performing poorly will bring your racing number back up.

Once you're done with single player, there is also a 2-player splitscreen mode and 8-player online mode with normal races, Survival, and Elimination modes. There isn't much to offer here, and like the single player, if you're good and have the right vehicles (you use the vehicles you unlock in season), you'll breeze your way up to getting number 01 on your car and a few more Trophies/Achievements.

The game looks and sounds quite nicely. Explosions galore, falling buildings, twisted metal; it looks pretty good. Sounds convincing as well, with some nifty little effects depending on what's going on around you.

Split/Second is definitely fun to play, and feels a little bit like Burnout... but the game can be short-lived, especially if you're a good driver. I rented this game, and felt satisfied with that instead of buying it. I managed to get all the Trophies in a matter of three days during the week-long period I had it... but it was definitely a wild ride while it lasted.

Split/Second gets a 3.5/5.

Blur:
What happens when a kart racer and an arcade-style racer had a love child? You get Blur, the latest creation from Bizzare Creations, best known for their Project Gotham Racing titles. Is Blur a successful experiment?

The game is split into single player and multiplayer modes. The single player career puts you up against several different levels of competition, each run by a certain driver. To progress through career, you earn Lights and Fans. You get Lights by placing in the top 3, getting a certain amount of Fans during a race, and clearing on-track Fan Runs, where you drive through gates to earn more Fans. Fans are pretty much like experience points; as you earn more by driving skillfully, using powerups effectively, doing Fan Runs and Fan Demands, and win races, you level up, which earns you more cars to use during races. It's a good concept, and it persuades you to finish events, even if you fail to win, since you still earn more Fans regardless of position. If you meet certain Demands from rival drivers during the career, you get to race against them for a chance to win their specially painted car and a mod, which include getting four Bolts instead of three, or enhanced Shield properties. These demands start out easy enough, but can get really challenging later on. Single player racing modes include normal races, checkpoint races, where you need to clear checkpoints on a time limit with the help of Nitros and time-saving Stopwatches, and Demolition, where you shoot green, yellow, and red vehicles with Bolt powerups for points. Career mode can take some time to complete, but there is one big flaw; it's the only mode in single player, meaning there are no quick races for you to mess around with different racing modes with different car classes on different tracks of your choosing. You're pretty much stuck with the career.

On the multiplayer side, things are a little more open-ended. Though the progression is slightly different (you start off with different cars than in single player, among other things), you are able to have up to 4 players on split screen, and up to 20 players online. You still earn fans to level up and unlock more cars, but you'll also unlock different paint materials for cars and unlock some very useful Mods. Though you can only equip one Mod in single player, you can equip up to three in the multiplayer. It feels very much like the later Call of Duty games; just like you can equip different weapons and Perks in Modern Warfare 2, you can drive different cars and equip different mods in Blur (oddly enough, both are published by Activision...). There are many more different modes in multiplayer, too, including normal races, races where power-ups are turned off, and arena-style combat. Multiplayer can get addicting, so don't be surprised to find that you come back for more.

In both modes of play, the game plays like it's on the border of arcade and sim racing; though the action is fast-paced and vehicles are maneuverable, they do handle like you might expect them to in real life, and you still need to brake in some corners. Every car has a certain handling property, like Grippy, Very Drifty, and Off Road, so depending on your driving style or track, you should have a vehicle that will supply your needs. However, no matter what vehicle you drive, you still need the aid of the power ups, which include Nitro for speed boosts, Shunt for homing attacks, and Mines for protecting your rear. You can hold up to three, and most of the powerups have an alternate fire as well, like shooting Mines forward a short distance and shooting Bolts behind you. Other drivers will use these powerups to their advantage as well, but none ever feel cheap; there are ways to avoid each powerup, unlike a certain long-running kart racing series...

In terms of presentation, everything looks slick and stylish. Though it is rough around the edges, the special effects are not that bad, and the music is delivered via techno and drum & bass... when you turn it on, at least. Oddly, the game's default setting for music while racing is off, something I've never heard of before in a racing game (there are racers that don't have music while racing at all, like Forza 2, but that's a different matter.).

This game will last you for quite some time, especially with the multiplayer. Some say that this is the racing version of Modern Warfare 2, and I would have to agree. The game can get quite tough though, but perseverance will reward you with a really fun game.

Blur gets a 4/5.

ModNation Racers
ModNation Racers is the second game to utilize the "Play. Create. Share." mantra started by the awesome PS3 platformer Little Big Planet. Does this kart racer achieve what it set out to do?

There is a story for this game; you play as a Mod named Tag, a newbie driver contending for the ModNation Racing Championship (or MRC... wait, wasn't that an old N64 game?). You are aided by your mother who owns a paintshop, and your crew chief who was a former MRC racer before his career met a premature end. As you race though the Career Mode, you meet and see other characters, including the CEO of the bland and utterly meh Conservative Motors and the reigning champion of the MRC. Each race is voiced over by two commentators, one who is a complete jerk to the other guy, who is rather nerdy but efficient at his job. The story is overall ho-hum, and plays second fiddle to the gameplay and other features to the game. All it does is set up the situation for the next race.

After completing the introductory race, you are placed in the Mod Spot, where you can view and access many different things, like the Career, Single Race, Split Screen, and Online Multiplayer modes, the Top Mods and Karts made by users for the week, the shop where you can create your own karts, Mods, and tracks, and even other players if you're in the Mod Spot while online. The Career takes you through more than 20 races in the MRC tour, with each race having it's own set of unlockable rewards, including parts for your Mods, karts, and tracks. Each track in the Career has three challenges; Advance, Payoff, and Bonus. Advance requires you to only need to place third or better to move onto the next race and earn some rewards. Payoff and Bonus challenges require you to do something particular during the race, like attack a certain driver, or get a certain amount of drift points, and then win the race. Some of these challenges are quite difficult; trust me when I say you'll be spending time trying to complete them all. And with the usual behavior of kart racing AI in most games (read: as insane as a retarded psychopath on cocaine), it's no joke. Single and split screen races have a variety of options, including kart speeds, turning powerups on or off (Action and Pure races, respectfully), and AI difficulty.

The real meat and potatoes of the game, however, is the multiplayer and user-generated content available to download; want to play as a Zaku? Want to drive the Mach 5? Want to race on a recreation of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit? It's all there to download. Can't find anything you want? You can easily make it! Karts have tons of parts to play around with and paint, Mods can use many different face parts and clothes that can be recolored, stickers can be used to customize both karts and Mods, and both can be used anywhere in the game, including online multiplayer and the Career mode. Track creation is quite deep, and has much to offer. If you put time into it, you can create your own masterpiece to race on - or just simply drive the layout for your track and hit the Auto Populate button. Easy as pie. When you feel confident in your creations, you can publish them for the world to download. It is just as good as LBP's abilities to create user-generated content, and you can earn Create XP as well for having your stuff downloaded.

The online multiplayer can support up to twelve players, and is split into casual races, or the more hardcore races where you earn XP for your driving. Admittingly, I didn't spend too much time playing multiplayer during the rental time that I had this game, but you can expect a good challenge from other players.

The core gameplay is rather simple - you race to finish first by using powerups and other skills. Powerups can be upgraded by collecting up to three powerup spheres. Each version of a weapon has a different effect, so mastery of each weapon and upgrade is essential. However, when used against you, they all seem to stop you dead in your tracks. The one way to avoid this problem is earning Boost. You earn Boost power by drifting, attacking other drivers, and spinning in the air. Boost can then be use to either make you go faster, shunt other drivers with a close-range attack, or shield yourself from deadly powerups. Using your Boost power effectively is definitely a must, otherwise you could be caught by an enemy's missile attack with no Boost power to use your shields, since you used it all to try and open a gap between you and second place. With practice, driving in ModNation Racers will become second-nature. Just be prepared to deal with some frustration.

Visually, everything looks fairly nice. It's not really pushing the limits of the PS3's capabilities, but its fidelity is still quite good. Sounds are quite good as well, from the various engine sounds, to your Mod doing various cheers, if you gave him or her a voice, that is. The voice acting for the game is alright, but it's not much worth remembering. The music for the game can be fairly catchy, but there isn't any track-specific music like most kart racers.

ModNation Racers definitely carries the adage of "Play. Create. Share." just as well as Little Big Planet. Though it can be infuriatingly hard at times, your efforts are well rewarded with more personalization options for your character, kart, and track. The user-made content is great, and will get better as time goes on. Though the presentation isn't the strongest suit of the game, the gameplay is fun and rewarding, and the community will have you coming back to play this game.

ModNation Racers gets a 4.5/5.

digi162:
PHANTASY STAR PORTABLE 2 REVIEW

OKAY.  YES.  I have not beaten the game, I did get it today, but played through enough to formulate an opinion.  If you played the first Phantasy Star Portable, or currently are playing through it, just stop and throw it away.  Or something IDK just don't bother touching it.  This game is FAR superior from the first, so if you had problems with the first like I did, chances are they've been corrected here.  I'd probably suggest thinking about what you didn't like and try and read somewhere if it's been corrected or not.  I mean I did like the first one so I will have a little bias toward the series, but it was too easy, and there was a lack of motivation to do stuff, and the plot was so meh.  Seeing all these major improvements made me happy :3

Things to note off the bat:
-PP with weapons is now one gauge rather than each weapon having it's own and having to refill it.  So if you pick guns or something it's easier to reload, you don't have to carry a bunch of guns and just keep swapping them.
-Attacks are more fluid and feel less hack/slash like the first
-Guarding and dodge-rolling have been added
-Character creation is even MORE expanded
-Leveling up is harder, and max is 200 from what I've heard, so there's a long way to go
-Difficulty has been cranked, I normally would just go solo on the first portable, but I think I'll have to constantly add people to my party or just get better at maneuvering with dodging/guarding

Gameplay
If you played the first one, it's pretty much the same but just expanded and improved.  Instead of all the static imagery, there's a lobby you walk around in and just select which planets you want to have missions on instead of traveling to that planet in order to pick what missions you want.  New things include a room you can customize with items you purchase/obtain, as well as new levels, monsters, etc.  But if you've never played, basically you select a dungeon/level/thing, go on a MMO killing spree of the monsters there, then fight a boss at the end of the level.  The levels aren't complex, don't expect to be moving boxes on switches or solving puzzles.

Music
OMG.  IT IS BEAUTIFUL.  The first portable had some really epic music, and they've taken it and added more amazing tunes.  I HAVE LISTENED TO THE OP SONG a lot over the past year, a lot of people hate it but I love it, it just got me excited to play.

Replay
Not sure yet.  The first portable had no replay value.  It would take 20-25 hours to beat, and there was nothing to do after that because you would level up so quickly.  You could make more characters, change job classes, etc. but without multiplayer or any sort of difficulty, the motivation isn't there.  Supposedly there are two story modes from what I've read in this new one, and with added Infrastructure multiplayer, you get a lot more out of the game now.  Although it's interesting because you'll have to choose between ad-hoc with friends, ad-hoc with xkai stuff, ad-hoc party on PS3, or just use the built in infrastructure.  You'll have different experiences most likely on all those.

Graphics
Very nice for a PSP game.  Nothing really groundbreaking, but the visuals are great, definitely acceptable for a PSP title now-a-days.  Especially since a lot of titles have pushed and shown what the PSP is capable of, and Phantasy Star could definitely fit into that.  I could say it's on-par with Monster Hunter but if I spent the whole review comparing those two titles it'd be a waste of time.  I do appreciate they got rid of those ugly screencaps they used in the first one for the visual-novel-ish scenes.  They are now drawn character portraits in place which is better.  There is also a data install for the game if you play off UMD, I'm not sure what's saved on it but it helps with loading.

Complaints
Well first off, the box cover.  On the back where they have little boxes showing screenshots of the game, someone accidentally put the cover art wraparound in one of those boxes...Which is worrisome to see because it's clearly an error and not supposed to be there since it doesn't scale to the box D:  Makes me wonder how rushed this product might be... I haven't tried out infrastructure, so I have no idea how well that experience is.  In order to access infrastructure you need a passcode which you plug into the PSN for your account.  It comes with the game, sorta like how IM@S came with the school girl outfit code in the box.  I haven't tried it yet, but I think you might need a USA PSN account, not sure if it works on other regions.  I think the whole point of that is to prevent people from downloading the game and playing it.  Although I could be wrong about all this info, it's so shady anyways doing this -___-  I mean Resistance Retribution just lets you in the lobby no problemo, I hope maybe I'll wake up tomorrow to discover the lobby is open to all or something.  Also...why is there no voice-acting ._. I mean I suppose that's alright considering how crappy the voice-acting was in the first portable.  But the Japanese portable 2 had voice acting throughout.  Sorta reminds me of Arcana Heart when it was brought over stateside, they ditched a lot of voiceacting.

I think if I were to give this a score out of 10, I'd say the first Phantasy Star Portable is a 7/10
The second Phantasy Star Portable is a 8.5/10 because it just feels like a sequel rather than a strong standout game.  There's a lot of potential and amazing things in the game, enough to make it worth picking up, but it retains too much of that MMO quality to it.  Also there's more they could improve despite improving on a lot of things.  Play the demo if you're curious, if you enjoy the demo then you'll love the game.

DO YOU LIKE MECHA? : D
Hardest part of the game is choosing what character to make.  So many good options D:

/posted this for Scotty I think xD

Lushe:
Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP)

My opinion:

It looks nowhere near as good as VC1, but that's to be expected. Gameplay has a lot more to offer than VC1, but the small, area-based battlefields are nowhere near as epic as VC1's large-scale and chaotic battlefields. It's a bit more balanced than VC1 (since order-spamming is now impossible), but overall, I'd say the gameplay is just as good as VC1's. However, VC1 definitely beats this game in almost all other aspects. VC2 doesn't have the same brilliance that VC1 has, but it's still an EXCELLENT game. I love it! Gameplay and music are still as great as ever, but some may be disappointed by VC2's much lighter tone, much younger cast of characters, much smaller battlefields, and heavily-downgraded visuals (VC1's visuals was one of the things that made it so memorable).

Overall Score: 9/10  (while I give Valkyria Chronicles 1 a perfect 10/10, lol)

Scotty:
TGS has disappointed me once again with their announcement of Valkyria Chronicles 3 being a PSP game...

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