Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded

It was only a matter of time before another Kingdom Hearts game came out. Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded is a remake of a cell phone game exclusively made for Japan. Square Enix again manages to squeeze the PS2 franchise into the palm of your hands onto the Nintendo DS.

The story is presented very nicely with 2D moving frames and 3D cutscenes. It starts off with Mickey trying to find out what happened to Jiminy's journal. All they can find is "Thank Namine" and a odd message talking about hurt. Mickey brainstorms an idea to solve this puzzle. He brings out Data Sora to fix the bugs. Since they are debugging the original journal from the first game, expect to revisit the same worlds again.

The graphics are extremely well done in this game. There are a ton of 3D models for the player and enemies. The textures are quite detailed and varied. Every single command in this game has its own sprites. Most of the worlds are filled with plentiful vibrant colors. You might wonder how this game could possibly be done on the DS!

Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded has to be one of the most unique Kingdom Hearts game. It takes the classic Kingdom Hearts gameplay along with the Birth By Sleep command deck. Along with that, you'll find that there are platforming, side scrolling, RPG, and even shooting sections. Before you ever get tired, the game will throw you into a totally new gameplay scenario. All of the different types of gameplay styles are done very well.

There are a ton of different music tracks in this game. Although, some may be disappointed that most are recycled from previous games. All of the music tracks fit nicely with their respective worlds. The battle themes sound pretty good. You might even pause the game to listen to the music then actually play the game, that is how great the soundtrack is.

Unfortunately, there is no real multiplayer in this game. The only multiplayer function there is is the ability to trade avatars and play other player's floors. Playing those floors will grant items that your avatar can wear. This adds a bit of replayability to the game, but not too much. Speaking of replayability, the game has tons. After beating the game, you can replay any world you have beat to gain extra rewards you might of missed the first time around. Along with that, you can do optional quests and system sectors to reap rewards.

This game is perfect for any die-hard Kingdom Hearts fan. The story is very simple that even players that never entered the Kingdom Hearts realm won't get confused. The graphics and gameplay are amazing for a handheld. This is a game I would recommend to buy right now. You won't regret it and I'll bet that you'll have a ton of fun with it. You'll be playing this game for a long time.

Rating: 9.5/10

Sega All Stars Racing Wii

Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing is Sega's latest All Star title. The first title was an eyetoy party game, the second was a tennis game, and the third is a racing game. The game throws in all its stars into one game, similar to Super Smash Bros Brawl. The game is on many platforms which include the PC, Nintendo Wii&DS, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Controls
With a regular controller, the controls are nearly spot on. The Wii wheel controls, on the other hand, can be crappy sometimes. I have had moments where I turned the other direction out of no where. I personally prefer the Classic Controller Pro, there are no motion controls that could affect your performance.

Characters/voices
The game has a lot of people to pick as. It has Sega's best stars, old stars, retired stars, and "other" stars Sega still uses today. The characters all have really nice voice acting and emotion while playing. The character roster isn't as big as other racers, but it still has a nice amount of people to choose. There is also an additional option to play as your Mii. I can see why people are mad that Sonic overruns the roster. I remember Sonic characters taking a huge portion of available characters in tennis. There was huge potential for a bigger variety of characters and tracks to choose. One problem is that there are no alternate vehicles to choose from. While playing Mario Kart, you get to choose from a huge range of bikes and cars!


Balance
A majority of the roster have different stats. In the least you might find that one or two racers share the same stats. There is problem, some characters are very overpowered. Most people regard bikers as the best racers due to them having some of the best stats in the game. Ryo, Shadow, and Alex Kidd could be argued of being top tiered characters. This becomes an issue when everyone dives toward those characters and ends up having an advantage toward winning. Another issue is that there are some game breaking techniques. Sumo did say they wanted to patch unlimited boost, but they backed out on it*. (360/PS3 editions)

Graphics
The graphics are decent at best. Most of the character models look meh. It looks like a lot like the textures were pulled from a PS1 game. The graphics in levels fit the styles that they are in. (Casino type graphics in Casino type stages etc) Several times I have seen texture issues and [QUOTE]It's more likely of edge precision errors seen on game levels constructed with planes. They're either caused by the video driver, or a very sloppy game programmer.[/QUOTE]
white dots . This bogs down the look of the game as they can be distracting on bigger screen TVs. Some people might point out that many games have these white dots. I have seen them myself in a lot of other games. Although, this game has a huge amount of them and they are littered around in a lot of stages all over the place.

Multiplayer
The Multiplayer is average at best. Multiplayer severely makes the graphics terrible. The cool water oceans turn into MS Paint Blue puddles, waterfalls shut off, the whole stage looses all the emotion and charm the developers put into them. The basic stage still is there. Fortunately, this makes multiplayer run much more smoothly. There are also several different modes you can play. Most of them are plain boring and feel like fillers. They feels extremely poorly done and rushed in just for the heck of it.

Online
The online is pretty meh, with a terrible friends system that only allows you to create groups. What happened to joining friend races? As seen on these boards, many people complain about being disconnected. I've had this happen many times to me and this ruins the experience. There also happens to be a glitch where everyone gets kicked out from the race. Eh! The kick option was removed in the Wii version. I asked where it was and a Sumo representative told me to go over a name and press A. I did this and nothing happen, I replied it wasn't there and several people backed me up. There was no comment after that. This is very annoying when a player does not start a race. At least put in an auto-start! Another issue is that All Star moves are disabled online. Sumo has responded this was due to issues with the amount of data the game would be sending. Online could be much better with a few improvements; 2 player online, joining friend races, better stable connections and servers. Online... works is all I can say

Gameplay
The gameplay is amazing! All tracks are made with charm from their respective franchises. One example is from the pinball stages from Sonic. There are a ton of balls moving all over the screen. It looks great racing around with neon lights sparkling everywhere. Several tracks have shortcuts which makes the game a bit more open with multiple paths. Unfortunately, shortcuts seem to be used rarely in maps, even being cut from the final game.

Like other racers, this game has a mission mode and a cup mode. In Mission mode, you do what the mission does and you try to get the best score. Some can be a lot of fun while others can be downright awful. In Cup mode, you try to get first on several tracks. Your score is based on what place you came in the race. There are 3 difficulties for this mode; easy, medium, and hard. You'll also find at the end of races you get Sega Miles. These are used to buy race tracks, characters, and additional music tracks for levels.

Music
The music is a hit and miss. You'll find that some tracks don't really belong to a certain setting, or the music is just beyond annoying and repetitive. The game has a huge library of songs so you'll hear a different track every time. SD card support would of been really nice; playing your own music during the game. In the end, you probably think you could pick some better songs.

Replayability
Racing is fun every single time you boot up the game. There is a ton of tracks to race on with a broad select of characters to choose from. There is also a built in achievement system that awards you if you do specific tasks. Doing these tasks will upgrade your profile license to better medals. (Bronze--> Silver --> Gold) There is a ton of content to unlock with you or your friends. Sega All Stars Racing supports Nintendo Wifi Connection to race over the internet which boosts its playtime.

Final Comments
Sega All Stars Racing isn't a Mario Kart clone. Its more then a clone, a lot of people consider it to be closer to Sumo's previous works with Sonic and attack items thrown into. It has some quirks, but I can assure you at the price. It is worth a buy! When it was released, it was 10 dollars lower then the average Wii game. With all the content thrown into it, you shouldn't disregard the game!

*This is only present in the HD versions of the game, so this will not affect the final score/opinion. The HD versions also have slight differences such as graphics.


Rating: 7/10

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