Adventure/Explore

Game Description: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver tells the story of Raziel, one of the undead lieutenants of the vampire lord Kain. Jealous of Raziel's newly evolved wings, Kain tears them apart and casts his former champion into the netherworld. But a powerful entity that dwells in the netherworld has restored Raziel to a semblance of life and has set him on a path of vengeance. After this tantalizing movie introduction, you take control of Raziel in the spectral realm, where your new existence is explained to you. From there you enter the physical plane, ready to begin your quest for power and revenge. Raziel's combat moves are extremely brutal, as you'd expect from a vampire who has returned from the dead. When he finds a spear, Raziel gleefully stabs and slashes before he impales his foe, lifts it off the ground, and feasts on its soul.

Is there life after death? Well, according to fiction and pop-culture, there most certainly is. For as long as we've known, tales of the undead have permeated through our society in the forms of Nosferatu, Dracula, and Tom Cruise.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Blood, Animated Violence 

Game Description: In a genre that often lacks originality, Ape Escape shines, as it is one of the most innovative games ever to grace the PlayStation console. Ape Escape is an adventure platformer like no other before it. Your goal is to try to capture as many apes as possible throughout the various levels. Offering some of the best controls ever, Ape Escape utilizes every button and stick on the PlayStation controller. However, don’t think you’ll be getting through this game in a breeze, as many of the levels pose a great challenge.

I'm not going dispute Dale or anyone else about how innovative the control scheme is. Ape Escape brilliantly incorporates the Dual Shock controller much the same way Super Mario 64 did with the Nintendo 64 controller, but my praise ends there.

So here we are with an analog controller with TWO joysticks and a built-in rumble (they call it "vibration") support and a new 3D platformer called Ape Escape. The game was supposed to be launched with the new controller but instead got delayed, so Sony bundled it with the new PlayStation systems and hoped for the best. So here we are half a year later with Ape Escape in hand.

I take exception to the comparison Chi made of The Phantom Menace to Super Mario 64 and the Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. Being a fan of both games, I can say that The Phantom Menace has little to show in terms of inspiration from either masterpiece. What I do see is that LucasArts wanted to capitalize on the trend of third-person perspective titles and the Star Wars prequel license at the same time.

My suspicions of confusion proved to be correct. Trying to figure out what the developers were going for is difficult and describing the results isn't easy either. The best I can say is imagine the jumping platform elements in Super Mario 64 mixed with the puzzles in Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time; all from a locked-down, overhead, three-quarters perspective.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Violence