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Review by Sky:

Just like its most recent predecessors, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World at War, the campaign portion of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a really fun game with extremely intense battle sequences. The downfall is that it’s very very short. So let me start by saying that if you’re not set up to, or you just don’t intend to, play the online co-op or multiplayer modes, you really want to think twice before paying full price for this game. Single players either need to rent this or wait for an inexpensive used copy to go on sale.

So you get three game options: Special Ops (online isn’t necessary, but at least two players are required for some of the missions), Multiplayer (designed to be played online; this is no fun split-screen with a max of 4 players), and the single player Campaign that took me less than 6 hours to finish.

In single player Campaign mode, you’re a first person shooter (soldier) on the frontlines, and this time the frontlines aren’t limited to overseas territories. Primarily you’re playing separate, interlacing missions all over the world as two different characters. The story takes place several years after CoD 4 ended. And just as in CoD 4 you’re with a team of characters that are truly your band of Artificial Intelligence brothers. On easier settings the AI soldiers can do practically all of the work for you on some missions; the help you might get from your team is based on the difficulty setting you’ve chosen. So unless you want to just glide through the game, definitely don’t pick the Recruit difficulty (the other difficulty options are Regular, Hardened and Vet).

I could take away a star from the overall score of this game for how short the single player mode is, but I won’t….All of a sudden it’s not so short when you go back and try to play on the Vet setting and spend the time looking for all of the Intel items.

You arrive in single player boot camp just like in all of the previous CoDs, and you get a brief tutorial on how to maneuver around, shoot your weapons & throw grenades. After boot camp you get to choose the difficulty setting, then you’re immediately strewn into various battles. (Once you’ve completed the game on any setting you can go back to various chapters to clean up any items or trophies missed, and at the start of each chapter you can choose to attempt on the higher difficulties.)

You fight your way through some intense chapters….really intense. In fact, when you first start off, there’s even a warning that you’ll be in for some VERY disturbing sequences, and you have the option to tell the game to skip “offensive material”. Ummm…no thanks. I think that this is the first game that I’ve played that offers the option to censor itself if you choose the option. The story is a bit choppy at times, but the battles are wild. The graphics are out of this world, and some of the “familiar territory” scenes will just blow you away with how much it really looks like your own back yard.

The weapons are plentiful and sophisticated. You’re shooting whichever modern-day weapon you happen to have picked up along your objective route. Objectives that guide you along are updated regularly as you complete each task throughout each chapter. And some of those tasks are brutal. There are frequent checkpoints (I think I remember even reaching new checkpoints without firing a single shot) in the campaign, so no need to worry about respawning back before what seemed to take an eternity to complete. On the other hand….

….There is the Special Ops portion of the game. I think that there are 23 different missions for you here, and you can play each one by trying to earn 1, 2 or 3 stars in each mission. Some of these are darn hard, especially the final 3-star unlocks. You will be frustrated by playing some of these a few times before you beat the levels to earn your stars. And there are no checkpoints in these missions, so if you fail in the final moments of a mission, you start over from the beginning of that mission.

Special Ops is most fun with a partner. It’s best online so that you get to play full screen, but if you have a guest over you can play split screen offline. For all you World at War players looking for Zombies, you’re out of luck here. You get Special Ops instead. There was a silly rumor that MW2 would have an “Alien Invaders” mode that would rival the Zombie mode of WaW, but that indeed was just a silly rumor.

Online Multiplayer is where you’ll get addicted. No AI brothers here…just your fellow gamers. You’d better have your FPS skills honed if you think that you’ll score better than some of the MW2 online players. A very high percentage of the online players have been honing their skills online for years now with CoD4 and World at War.

The concept with Multiplayer is certainly not new. The more you play, the higher you rank allowing you to unlock more (fine tuned) weapons. The game sets you up in matches with people at your level and rank, but that ain’t gonna help you if you’re new (you will be fondly referred to as a noob by your swell fellow online players) and you’re up against the CoD4 or WaW vets.

What makes MW2 Multiplayer more than just a new map pack for CoD4 is that the Multiplayer weapons and perk system are vastly improved. And so is connectivity (so it seems in the initial week of play after a few day one and two glitches). You get 10 times the amount of points for the kills and captures that you’re used to getting only 5 or 10 points for in CoD4 and WaW. You also now get points for not just killing and capturing, but for taking out enemy air support, coming back from deathstreaks, killing your nemesis, breaking an enemy’s streak and other stuff. Yeah, Multiplayer is good fun, habitual and bad for a marriage.

So all in all Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is major fun. The only drawbacks to this awesome game are that the campaign is really short and the multiplayer action is a bit familiar. But the MW2 Multiplayer improvements over its predecessors far out weigh the familiarity.

Modern Warfare 2 is a must for FPS fans. Add it to your cart, soldier!

Review by J. J. Marino:

My Experience:

Being I am an OG, from the 70’s my reaction times are slowing down and I know it. I actually enjoy the campaign modes in these games. Which is why I am giving it a 2 star. I am sure people will blast me because the MULTIPLAYER IS WHERE ITS AT MAN!!! OMGWTROXXORZ.!11. I agree that the multiplayer can be fun, but this is a review of the game as it stands.

Campaign Mode: ***** 5 star

First off the campaign mode. The graphics and scenes are so absolutely beautiful I would give this a 5 star hands down, it is what brought this title up from a 1 star. From the basic places like the airport in the mountains. The snow, the weather, it all seems to be so very real and inviting. When you have to take back the White House it is breathtaking from the color of the sky to the helicopters crashing all around you. Wonderful, epic and left me wanting more. Which, leads us to the reason I want to give this a 1 star.

Campaign Story: 0000* 1 star

The campaign mode is ridiculously short. I wanted to take my time taking it all in and several missions push you the whole time to GO GO GO!!! which is expected due to the insane pace of the enemies. It really sucks you in and makes you feel part of it, however, it falls horribly short due to the anemic plot and, well…shortness… The major issue with the campaign is the incredibly weak story. They never explain why anything has happened, the dialogue between the characters is full of hyperbole and patriotic fluff. I realize the world thinks Americans are a bunch of yahoo cowboys, but come on with the brainless pointless dialogue.

Sub campaign:

The Spec Ops are so-so fun, but its just a rehash of the campaign you just finished.

Now lets discuss the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room.

Multiplayer 0000* 1 star

I understand its my lack of skillzorz that makes the multiplayer frustrating. That does not mean that I have to give a game I do not enjoy anything more than I have. The new titles and other 1337 embellishments they have thrown into the multiplayer has done nothing but polish what I perceive as a pile of excrement. Playing with a friend can make multiplayer a bit more fun. Going into a game where only 2 out of 18 have a mic, where most are young kids, and some have voice modifiers so we dont know they are kids,(yea right Darth), is nothing short of pure hell. Its not fun, nor is it the reason I got this game.

After playing such epics as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune & Uncharted 2: Among Thieves this game pales in comparison for the depth of characters, re-playability, and overall scope. I am not a glutton for punishment so games like Demon’s Souls have little appeal to me. I have a family, job and other things taking up my time, (like Amazon reviews), so a 2-3 hour frag fest where I am repeatedly killed over and over holds no appeal to me either.

For the -Not Helpful- voters:

I am sure this review will garner a fair share of negative votes. Just remember you too are entitled to your opinion and you too can write a review on any product and YOUR experience with that product. My experience with this product, while amazing, was brief and ultimately very frustrating. If this was a review of a new electric toothbrush and that toothbrush shocked you every time you used it, you too could come here and write about it was a pain to use. Reviews are not meant as an -I am a fan or I hate it-, instead it is meant as a way to let customers hear a varied and alternative view of a product. I think overall Activision did a pretty good job with this game. The soundtrack was spot on and sounded great. But making the game as a single player and a multiplayer means its not excellent at either one. Sure your Honda Civic can go off-road but eh, do you think it will hold up well?

Pros:

>> Beautiful animations

>> Epic scenes

>> Motion capture is fantastic

>> Fantastic soundtrack

Cons:

Review by Jason M Ritenour:

I never had a Genesis, so I missed out on a lot of great games. I’ve played the first Sonic, and some of these games in the arcade, but overall, I never got to experience the glory days of Sega. Also, it’s hard to find PS3 games that appeal to my fiance, and she was excited at the prospect of playing Ecco the Dolphin & the Sonic games again.

There are nearly 50 games on here, and when you consider how much the various games would cost on the Wii virtual console, or Xbox Live arcade, this is an amazing deal. Even at , this would be a great deal, but at , it’s a no brainer.

The presentation is pretty slick, the main menu looks like a Genesis unit, and the games are a stack of cartridges you sort through. You can rate games on a 5 star scale, and then sort them in the order you rated them, so your least favorite games will fall to the bottom of the list.

The only complaint I have is that the line “all titles have been converted to high def” is wrong and misleading. A filter has been applied to make the games look better at a higher resolution, nothing has been reworked or remade to take advantage of HD. The good thing is you can switch between 4:3 and 16:9 on the fly, and turn the filter off if you want. I will say that the games on this collection have looked a lot better than their Virtual Console counterparts on my TV.

Overall, you can’t go wrong with this collection. Whether you’re an old Genesis lover wanting a trip down memory lane, or someone who missed out on Sega’s golden age and want to see what all the hype was about, this is a must-buy.

Review by The Matrix Fan:

+ Pros:

+ 40 Genesis games and 9 extra games for less than a dollar apiece

+ Setup options including widescreen, graphic smoothing, and button configurations

+ 3 Save slots per game

- Cons:

- No “Lock-on” option to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2 or 3

Ahh yes, the 1980’s and 1990’s. Two great periods of video games for the Sega franchise.

First, the arcade stand-ups – their machines called out to be filled with quarters offering level after level of difficult challenges to overcome. When the 1980’s were drawing to a close and people were ready to move beyond the limits of 8-bit Nintendo games, Sega introduced their 4th generation home video game console, the Sega Genesis. This 16-bit system offered better graphics, longer Role-Playing Games, and one speedy hedgehog that tested the patience of even the most seasoned gamer.

This compilation combines 40 games from Sega’s Genesis library, 7 of their stand-up arcade ports and 2 games from the Sega Master System, all on one disc.

Games:

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

Alien Storm

Altered Beast

Beyond Oasis

Bonanza Bros.

Columns

Comix Zone

Decap Attack

Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine

Dynamite Headdy

ESWAT: City Under Siege

Ecco the Dolphin

Ecco: The Tides of Time

Fatal Labyrinth

Flicky

Gain Ground

Golden Axe

Golden Axe II

Golden Axe III

Kid Chameleon

Phantasy Star II

Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom

Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium

Ristar

Shining Force

Shining Force II: Ancient Sealing

Shining in the Darkness

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master

Sonic & Knuckles

Sonic 3D Blast

Sonic Spinball

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Streets of Rage

Streets of Rage 2

Streets of Rage 3

Super Thunder Blade

Vectorman

Vectorman 2

Alien Syndrome

Altered Beast

Congo Bongo

Fantasy Zone

Golden Axe Warrior

Phantasy Star

Shinobi

Space Harrier

Zaxxon

Some of these games are initially locked, but they can be unlocked without much difficulty.

Graphics: First off, let’s be honest – since these are 3rd and 4th generation video games, graphically they are not “cutting edge”. If your earliest gaming console was a Sony Playstation, these games will look pre-historic to you. Most of the games have a faux background and the gameplay is centered in the middle of the screen in a 4:3 default format. The aspect ratio can be changed to letterbox (16:9) and there is even an option to smooth the graphics – but with games like these, smoothing actually takes away from the nostalgia.

Options: I love the options this compilation offers! Not only can you set your own button layouts and turn on/off the rapid fire option, but you can save your progress on every single game! Games like Sonic the Hedgehog were very unforgiving and had no save points when they were first released…but with 3 save slots at your disposal, you can take your time to complete the games at your own pace.

Gameplay: With 49 games to choose from, there are several genres at your fingertips:

Want a platformer? Try Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle.

Fancy a beat `em up? Altered Beast is calling you.

Itching for an epic RPG? Try Phantasy Star III.

How about a puzzle game? Stack up the Columns.

Maybe an action game? Suit up with ESWAT.

Side Scroller fan? Ecco the Dolphin needs your help.

Hack & Slash, eh? Grab some grog and try out Golden Axe.

Perhaps you prefer a shooter? Space Harrier is all about the bullets!

You’d like a good old fashioned Run `n’ Gun? Look no further than Vectorman 2.

Whatever type of gameplay you like, it can be found in this collection.

Extras: There are interviews with several Sega employees made specifically for this collection. You can tell each person put their heart & soul into their game of choice…it was a different time. Nowadays, people like Hideo Kojima have 200 people at their disposal, whereas most of these games were made by very small teams. There is a brief history and graphic artwork for each game, a nice piece of nostalgia.

Trophies: The trophies for this game are a mixed bag. Some trophies are laughably easy (such as Ecco the Dolphin – this trophy is earned by simply talking to another dolphin!), while others like Dr. Robitnik’s M.B.M. trophy (beat the game) are tooth-grindingly difficult. I thought the trophy for “Final Oasis” was a good example – the goal to free the water spirit took some time, but didn’t require completing the entire game. I loved the trophy requiring every game to be played at least once.

As far as negatives, there is only one that comes to mind, the exclusion of the “lock-on” gameplay for Sonic 3, Sonic 2, and the Blue Sphere levels. This allowed gamers to play as Knuckles instead of Sonic, which could not be done at the time due to software/hardware limitations. Since the Playstation 3 is a 7th generation video game console, I was surprised these were excluded. I hope they will show up as a download from the Playstation Network before too long.

Conclusion?

If you want to take a trip down video game memory lane for a great price, this is the best collection to do it with – it breaks down to less than a dollar per game. For your portable needs, I strongly recommend the Sega Genesis Collection for the PSP.

Review by Daniel Dearden:

I don’t quite know how to describe how great this game really is…I just sat down for 15 hours straight and couldn’t put the controller down until the end of the credits. This game combines everything and anything you could ever want in a movie, a game or any entertainment experience. Uncharted 2 has incredible characters, wonderful story, some of the best acting I’ve ever seen (Not just the voice acting, but the actual animations of the characters, their facial expressions), everything is done so beautifully I’m absolutely speechless. Among Thieves exceeded the hype in my mind, it immerses you in this incredibly detailed and lush environment, seamlessly bouncing you back and forth from gameplay to breathtaking cinematic wonder, and most often, combines them both at the same time. Just the attention to detail is astounding. I wish I had a better vocabulary so I could give this review justice but you should just see for yourself! You will not regret this purchase one bit, the multiplayer is even fun! If you own a PS3 and don’t have this game, then you should sell your PS3.

Review by A. Nowak:

I’m sure if you’re reading this you’ve already read countless other reviews praising the game for it’s superb voice acting, mind blowing graphics, wonderful story telling, and it’s riveting gameplay. I’m only writing this to enforce all of these things and hopefully tip you over the fence into buying this game immediately. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves contains almost every element that was in the first and improves upon it. For those of you who haven’t played the first game it is essentially Gears of War meets Tomb Raider + Awesomeness all rolled into one. For those of you who did play Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune you’re all too aware of how short the first game was and I’m pleased to tell you that this game is substantially worth it. Not only does it last about 3-4 hours longer buy it features something to do when you’re done, multiplayer. The multiplayer is essentially what you’d expect from Call of Duty 4 with and a 3rd person twist and several unique modes to shake up the formula. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is like buying a three entree plate from Panda Express. It leaves you completely full and satisfied and although you’d happily enjoy another serving of Orange Chicken you can leave the restaurant knowing you got what you paid for. Buy this game and enjoy it because although it’s built upon the qualities of other games, there’s really nothing out there quite like it.

Review by taki renzaburo:

Hideo Kojima has done it again. MGS4 is the most detailed, convincing, and well-researched game I have ever played. It offers a compelling and imaginative glimpse into the future of high-tech warfare, a nuanced, intelligent storyline, vastly improved gameplay, and incredible graphics.

The metal gear franchise has always pushed the boundaries of what a game could be, and challenged the preconceptions of the audience. MGS4 starts out with, of all things, a short live action film about marine fauna. The in-game store discounts weapons (in real time) on wednesdays and sundays. These are just a few examples, but there are many more. The story has both the philosophical and political musings as well as the bizarre humor and one of a kind characters that fans expect.

The gameplay is more open and the action is more intense than in prior games. The environments seem much bigger and are bustling with npcs engaged in building to building warfare. Snake can join either side in the conflict or ignore them and sneak by. He has a ton of new weapons and gadgets as well.

The graphics are among the most impressive I have seen in a game. The characters are solid physical presences with subtle, lifelike facial expressions. The mechs move with an animal grace and hunt with a keen intelligence that belies their artificial construction.

Overall, the game is an experience that should not be missed by anyone with a PS3. If you don’t already own a PS3, this game alone would justify its purchase. It is by far the most creative, original, and technically polished game to appear on the system to date.

Review by SuperSlugger2134:

Before I start… I do my fair share of gaming, but I’am by no means a very obsessive gamer. So I never really knew about Metal Gear Solid until I bought this game. I’m a huge fan of first person shooter games like COD, Resistance, etc. So I saw the ads and thought it was another military type shooting game so I went out and spent the .99 and got the game. I put the game into the PS3 and after about an 8 minute wait (becasue the game is so amazing that it needs time to load some stuff on to the PS, but you still need the disk to play the game!) the game started and I was completely blown away. I have played some really good games in my time and on many systems, but this has, by far, been THE best game that I have palyed on ANY system before. The quick down low on this game… the graphics… I give a 10/10. The detailing of the all the characters, the details on the machinery and the surroundings, it was awesome. The thing that made is so spectacular was the fact that the developers did put so much attention to the details that they did a very good job of simulating real life as best as possible. Another big pet peeve of mine is the acting of the characters in the game. I feel like it plays a big part in the gaming experience and people don’t give it much credit. So for the acting another 10/10: the character voices fit the characters, and the voice acting was done superbly. The animation was also done extremely well, my only fuss about the animation is that you can’t really read how the character is feeling by looking at thier face: the pretty much always put on the same face… but no game has ever done that really well either so I looked over that fact. Finally for game play I give 9/10. I give it such a “low” rating because quite frankly this game is a bit tough to get accustomed to (all though once you do… you’re pretty much ready to kick some MAJOR BUTT). I guess a more crazy gamer would have managed to get all the controls down quickly… but for me it took me a while to figure out how to use all the controls. At first the menu that shows all your items, weapons, and an array of other things was very difficult to figure out. Once you got past that you had to actaully figure out how to use the items, weapons, etc. It took me the longest time to figure out how to use Med-packs… but that could also be due to my inabilities :-p. So basically thats why the gameplay is 9/10… overall its just a confusing interface to get used to, but once you do it gets very fun. Also the interactions in the game is awesome. Like the bad guys can figure out when you are there just by bascially seeing you (obviously), hearing you (also obvious), and smelling you (Yea… thats a new one on me too). So its really fun trying to sneak around all the levels w/o getting spotted… but fear not my first person shooter fans… there are thrills here for you too… if the baddies spot you, you’re gonna’ be pulling out some very nifty guns to shoot them: my fav. is the p90. Just before I end here, if you don’t know about the Metal Gear Series (like myself) you won’t really know what’s going on in the game. In that sense it really sucks because you’re just shooting and sneaking around w/o really knowing what’s happening. The developers just assumed that you played previous versions so they just build on the stories of the last one’s so you miss out a lot of the stories and things like that. But, I went on Wiki and basically read the story like a book so I was all set! And lastly (I promise this time) the game does feel like its more of a movie with some player interaction becasue the cut scenes are ridiculously long… so if you are’nt a cut scene type of person… you might not like this game. As for me…. I loved it!!!So basically this game is wicked fun and if you haven’t bought it yet… you HAVE TO!!!!!

Review by M. D. sadek:

Fans of the previous game will be very impressed with Assassin’s Creed II. I must say that the previous game was quite disappointing. I felt it had a lot of potential as a game but the repetitive gameplay and frame-rate issues made it a big let down. This time though things have changed drastically for the good. I have yet to complete the game but have played enough to formulate a review.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the game has a very cinematic feel. The cutscenes are a bit lengthy and drive the story very well. The voice acting is pretty good and the lip syncing is almost spot on. Graphically the game is stunnning. The first Assassians creed looked very pretty but this one seems a notch above it. There is no denying the beauty of it all.

The gameplay has a very GTA style feel to it. You go from place to place to do a variety of different things. Unlike the last game where the gameplay was very reptitive where each section of the game required you to gather information in order to assassinate your victim (which only consisted of 3 or 4 different ways). Ubisoft have completely revamped that flawed style into a more enjoyable experience. Basically, think GTA but in the 15th century.

The freestyle movement is well done and easy to use. Although sometimes I had difficulty jumping up walls, Pressing the X button sometimes makes Ezio jump outwards rather than up. Having said that, its still an enjoyable experience, very much like the last game. Its also quite easy to navigate around your map.

The combat system hasn’t changed that much. There are a few minor modifications. Ezio can do a few different things this time round like snatch enemy weopons while fighting and thrusting them down there body. The combat is a lot of fun and quite easy to learn. Also Ubisoft have added a currency system in the game. You can steal money from passing citizens or search enemies for money or earn money by doing errands and missions. The money can be spent on buying weopons and armor or upgrading current items. It makes the game much more enjoyable and interactive.

One thing of note is that this game is not for kids. There is a lot of sexuality in this game. Ezio can hire whores to distract gaurds and there is a bit of dirty talk. Its fun but some might feel it to be offensive. The ESRB does rate it at 17+, young children should stay away from this game.

There are a few minor glitches in the game but nothing major. I had a problem picking up boxes in the beginning of the game but nothing major so far. Hopefully these issues will be fixed with a patch.

Overall this game is a lot of fun. Its way better than the previous game. Anyone who enjoyed Assassins Creed should pick this one up. They will not be disappointed.

Review by Michael J. Marziale:

I have been looking forward to this release for a long time. While I was a fan of the first Assassin’s Creed, the original game felt sort of unfinished. The concept was there, but the game felt like it hadn’t been fully fleshed out. The game was beautiful but repetitive, fun overall, but you can only pickpocket or eavesdrop on someone so many times before it gets boring.

This game fixes many of those issues. While I am still playing through the game, obviously, I can already see huge improvements. Water doesn’t instantly kill you. I have yet to run into a lunatic or beggar, for which I am extremely grateful. You have many more choices for weapons. These are just for starters. The game just has a better feel to it, the storyline and the characters have more depth. You will evolve into the role of an assassin with Ezzio, instead of “re-earning” the title with Altair. They have also added a monetary system to the game, and things like blacksmiths, tailors, and doctors to go along with it, which the first game could have used.

As for what they kept, the beautiful graphics and sweeping vistas are still there, you will still find yourself climbing to dizzying heights to peer out over cities from a new viewpoint. You still have your hidden dagger, in fact they’ve given you a second one to play with. The graphics have, of course, been improved, and look even better than the first one. The world is still a very open, free roaming environment, your standard sandbox game, and you still get to climb and vault all over everything, which is immense fun. The quintessential core of the original game is still there in all its glory, they have just filled in the details and improved the game play for you.

That being said, there are still one or two things in the sequel that annoy me. Most importantly, running still get everyone’s attention. I would understand that if I was talking about barreling through streets and knocking people over left and right. I’m not. Just running will draw the guards’ attention, which gets old quick. Apparently no one was ever in a hurry in the Renaissance. This has been slightly improved by giving the player a fast walk mode, but it can still take forever to get from point A to point B at that speed. This part of the AI could use some tweaking, since there is a difference between challenging and annoying.

In my opinion, the coolest feature they have added is the database function, which gives you all sorts of interesting and amusing facts about the regions, cities, buildings and people that you will be interacting with. This does a great job of drawing you further into the period and culture that you are exploring, and really helps you relate to the story. This feature adds a lot of detail to the game that most developers would have simply left out.

Bottom line, I am thrilled with the game. It is exactly what I was anticipating, and if you enjoyed the first game, you will love the sequel.

Review by Dying Fetus Mike:

Note, my opinion is based on the PS3 version while driving with Professional physics, ASM/TCS off, using a Sparco cockpit and Logitech G25 wheel.

PRICE – nearly a no-brainer buy for fans; but a little high considering it’s a prologue, limited number of events and cars.

GRAPHICS – improved as expected given the possibilities of the PS3. In a way the sensation of speed has decreased, an ironic side effect of the smooth picture quality. It’s easier to look further into the distance.

SOUND – really stunning, accurate, raspy, and powerful. Enormous help to the gameplay to hear unique exhaust notes for each car. Huge improvement from GT4.

CARS – there are plenty of great cars for everyone – rather than recreating hundreds of nearly identical and/or boring, useless-for-racing cars, this game sticks to the cars that are meant to go fast, and does them well. The sound and handling of each is unique and seems to be accurate. And the Ferrari F2007, once you beat the S races and earn the required 2 million credits, is just so cool to drive (even though its quick tune options are limited – you can’t modify the power, weight, ride height, springs, or driving physics).

TRACKS – the Daytona trioval is a lot more interesting to drive than a super speedway like Motegi. Daytona also comes with a road course, and even though I feel driving a road course in the infield of an oval feels a bit unnatural, it’s still a fun course. There’s also Fuji, Suzuka, London, and High Speed Ring. Not bad.

AI – improved number and varied driving personalities, but they still defy the rules of clean racing and the laws of physics with impunity. They drive right through you as you serve your penalties (which they often cause). You’ll see shortcutting, using runoff areas for acceleration, wallriding, refusing to back off even when their line is hopeless, and of course bumping and shoving you, leaving you to collect from the new array of infractions. It’s getting a bit harsh, but the restart button is only a menu away.

HANDLING – if you select “standard” the cars handle pretty much like they did in GT4; if you put it on “professional” then it takes on a more realistic (i.e. unforgiving) character. Default settings are a little mushy even with cars you’d expect to be nimble, and the professional physics render the supercars (Corvette, Ford GT, Ferrari) nearly uncontrollable. After unlocking the S group and quick tune, some cars can have their downforce cranked up to get some handling back, but cars that are more about beauty than function don’t have this available. Many of them remain just a tiny mistake away from an unrecoverable slide. No wonder so many inexperienced drivers crack them up (especially if they turn off the driver aids). I completed all the races (except three of the S races) on “professional” but since the AI is not subject to the same realities, you may occasionally need to set it back to “standard” in order to be competitive.

So far the game has overall been enjoyable, and much of the struggle can be overcome by selecting the correct car for each race, just as it was in GT4.

Review by Chris Longhurst:

Right up front, I’ll point out the three most obvious things about GT5 Prologue.

1. It looks gorgeous

2. The AI is abominable.

3. There is still no car damage.

To use a lovely english expression : it’s all mouth and no trousers. Look past the HD graphics and hype and you’ll find Gran Turismo 1 lurking here.

The Gran Turismo games are known for their accurate car handling and fantastic graphics, and GT5 Prologue is no exception. The problem is that it is all absolutely ruined by the other driver AI. Previous Gran Turismo titles have never exactly shone when it comes to the AI, but in GT5 it’s simply non-existent. It’s not that the AI is dumb, it’s just not there. The other cars all drive on rails, irrespective of where you are. For example, on the High Speed Ring circuit – there’s a challenge to get from the back of the pack to the front in a single lap. In the car they give you, it is 100% impossible to come any higher than 3rd, and that’s a stretch. The driving-on-rails is so accurate and predictable that you can actually predict exactly where every car will be at any given point. You’ll come up behind the Ford Focus at the end of the second turn, and don’t even think about passing him on the outside because he will always jink to the left for no reason as he goes across the bridge. If you’re in the way, then tough. The game will just force you off the track. At the next corner, the Mazda 6 will always follow the identical line inside the corner, again irrespective of whether you’re there.

The same is true in the other types of race. Within minutes of playing this game, you will find yourself making a tidy corner only to have a much faster car come right up behind you and ram you off the track because you’re in the way of it’s pre-programmed line. To see how truly awful it is, start a race at the back and watch the 15 cars in front of you. They’ll all cut the same corner in the same way, every lap, all with the identical puff of dirt as they do it.

It is simply abominable.

The problem is that this issue was solved long ago by the likes of – well – just about every other racing franchise out there. It’s compounded by the fact that there is still no car damage or dirt in GT5. You can stuff any car into a concrete armco at 175mph and it will simply bounce off without so much as a scratch. To think that Polyphony could put out a game with no car damage and ruinous AI on a next-gen console in 2008 just boggles the mind given how accomplished the competition is (think: Project Gotham Racing).

So what about the eye-candy aspect? Well – it runs at 1080p (full HD) and it looks absolutely spectacular. The textures are crisp and don’t blur out at highly obtuse angles like they would on an X-Box. The car models are beautiful as are the various effects like the real-time reflections and the colour-flip paint jobs. There is some aliasing on high-contrast areas but detail popup is minimal. There are very noticable level-of-detail swaps on some of the cars where they swap from a low detail to a high detail version. It’s most noticable on the Daytona circuit where you’ll occasionally see the shading on the back of a car pop noticably as the model swaps to it’s higher resolution version. In fact the eye-candy aspect is only marred slightly be the fact that the game clearly doesn’t run at 60 frames per second. Well – it does on sparsely populated tracks but in the thick of the action on some circuits, you’ll see noticable slowdown which you just shouldn’t have on a console as powerful as a PS3.

What other things to know about? Well the online aspect of the game has a lot of promise but it’s buggy at best. If your PS3 isn’t set up pefectly on a broadband network (NAT type 1) it just won’t connect to the servers. If you’re lucky enough to have a good setup, then even when it does connect, the racing is a bit dodgy. It’s obvious that the sample rate for your system communicating with all the others is fairly slow as you’ll often see your opponents cars jump across the circuit from one side to the other, or suddenly appear to brake or accelerate at light speed as the servers catch up.

When you come to use the game for the first time, be prepared for a long wait. It seems to copy the entire blu-ray disc on to the internal hard drive which takes a good 15 minutes, then as soon as you connect, it will download a huge update which will take 5 to 10 minutes to download and another 5 minutes to install. So out-of-the-box to first race is about 30 minutes. That seems a bit odd to me – I was entirely expecting the game to run off the disc like many of the other PS3 titles.

So GT5 Prologue : it’s great eye-candy, sure. But the two biggest, most long-standing problems with the GT franchise are still present. Awful AI and no car damage. The press previews and talk from Polyphony indicate that the full game will have car damage, but historically, they’ve never been known to change their underlying game engines between the ‘Prologue’ and the full versions of GT. They have always claimed that they’ve fixed the AI with each successive version of the game, but honestly – GT5 Prologue has taken a massive step backwards. They say it’s better than ever but it’s actually worse than ever. So when they say there will be car damage in the full game, I say ‘cry wolf’ I’m afraid.

It’s an ominous omen for GT5 later this year. Sure it’ll have more cars and more tracks. But chances are it will have the same problems the GT franchise has always had, and that’s simply not good enough. Couple that with the questionable frame rate and online problems and that could be disastrous.

I dearly love the GT franchise – I’ve had every one of them and I’ve been hoping and praying that they would one day fix the AI problems and the lack of car damage. If they’ve not done it on the PS3, then it’s just never going to happen, and that is a sad indictment of Polyphony’s marketing strategy. I’ve played this game a lot, desperately wanting to like it but I always put the controller down and am left with an empty feeling. It’s just not exciting.

Review by A. Dent:

I did not think I needed yet another remote control because I thought the six-axis had everything it needed for movie playing on the PS3 and, yet, I bought one. There were 2 initial reasons:

- my wife was missing a ‘magic wand’ shaped remote for playing movies

- Amazon had it at a great price in one of them lightning deals

I ended up using it myself and, in fact, using it for more than just movie playing – see below.

But, let’s do a quick inventory of features:

= It’s blue-tooth enabled and, therefore, it’s not taking any ports on your PS3. This is probably important for anyone who has a “2-USB ports console”.

= It’s wand-shaped, allowing the non-gamers to control their movie-watching activities while holding a familiar-shaped device in their hand.

= It maps ALL the six-axis buttons and performs everything a six-axis would do, except for the joystick features of R3 and L3 (but you do have the push-down or ‘click’ abilities for them).

= 2 AA battery powered (still with the original Sony batteries after 4 months of use)

= Includes additional buttons that the movie-only users would expect on a remote such as:

+ a number pad

+ eject

+ red, green, blue, yellow buttons

+ play, stop, pause

+ slow(step), scan(left/right), prev/next

+ display, top menu, pop up menu, return

+ subtitles, angle, audio

What is interesting about this remote is that you can use it for much more than movie-playing. Given that it has all the six-axis buttons, guess what? You can use it, and I do use it to:

- surf the web

- play music

- shop at the PSN store

- play certain games such as Sudoku

- turn the PS3 on/off when your six-axis controllers are in the charger and I am playing GT5 that is using a racing wheel

And, yes, you CAN turn the PS3 on and off with this remote. Turning it on is easy – you simply press the PlayStation button and the PS3 turns itself on. To turn it off, you either go as far to the left on the X-bar and all the way up and press Enter (the turn-off PlayStation icon will be highlighted) or you simply hold the PlayStation button pressed for a few seconds and then select ‘yes’ and press the X button a couple of times.

Overall: I am happy with this peripheral. Yes, it’s one more remote control but it’s a pretty good one, for the reasons I stated above.

_______________________________

Notes – Aug 29, 2009, after 16 months of use

I find that I’m using the remote more and more, not only for playing movies but for navigating the XMB and at the PSN Store, also when playing music or slideshows. Due to its very convenient arrows wheel with an ‘enter’ button in the middle, navigating the PS3 and doing just about anything other than playing games is a lot easier than using the PS3 game controller. Unlike the controller which normally requires two hands to hold, this is basically a one-hand operation where you hold the remote in one hand and operate the wheel with your thumb. And because it’s Bluetooth, not IR (Infrared), you don’t even need to point it at the PS3.

And, one word on battery life. After about 15-16 months of operation, this is probably the third set of batteries so I’d estimate battery life to be about 4-6 months. Not too bad.

Review by Lisa Shea:

Most PS3 owners enjoy not only the gaming abilities of their system, but also the built in Blu-Ray DVD player. The Sony remote control accessory lets you play those movies with great ease.

The remote combines the regular buttons of our other DVD players with the funky look of the PS3. You have a red, green, blue and yellow button – labelled with their color names! You also get a circle, X, square and triangle to do a few things like brinigng up the options and back choices.

The main buttons – play, stop, forward, back – are laid out reasonably nicely at the bottom of the remote with large buttons. There are small buttons up on top for the number keys, and a very tiny eject button.

Missing completely is a power button!! You have to hit the PS button in the center and go through the regular PS3 menus to get the power to turn off. In fact, while I was writing this review, I accidentally hit a button on the remote and the PS3 turned on. We were watching regular TV, so now I have to wait until our show is over, switch over to the PS3 and use the buttons to turn the system back off again. That doesn’t make much sense at all to me.

Also, on our Oppo DVD remote, the buttons glow which makes it REALLY nice to use in the dark or dim light that most people watch movies in. This unit is completely black with black buttons. This makes it pretty much useless in low light conditions until you memorize all of the button locations. You would think by now that remote control makers would have their buttons backlit or at least glow-in-the-dark to handle this.

The unit takes two AA batteries which makes it a bit heavy, but certainly within the normal range of remotes.

It’s easy enough to sync up the remote with the PS3. It’s bluetooth powered, so you go into the PS3 menu and use the options there to indicate you have a new remote. Note that the base level PS3 will not handle this – you have to have a connection to the internet from your PS3 and run an update routine. If you don’t have an internet connection for your PS3, you have to create an update CD on your PC to do this update.

Well recommended – but it really could be much better to be great.