The first Mass Effect was a great game, it had an amazing back story, suitable combat mechanics, and an great choice system. This was the first game I’ve played that I felt that my choices actually altered the game (sorry Fable). The only flaws in the game were poor conversational paths, extremely repetative side missions, graphical glitches, and an extremely ineffective inventory system. Although overal I had an extremely enjoyable time when playing Mass Effect. Enough fun that I felt it necessary to beat the game four times. It’s a bit obvious that I’m a big fan of immersive RPGs, so hearing news about Mass Effect 2 naturally gets me all wet and excited, and what better to get me moist than small teaser that Bioware has released for the game on their Mass Effect 2 website.

Watch over the trailer, it doesn’t take that long. If you’ve played the first Mass Effect you may be a bit concerned about the “Status: Killed in Action” that flashes on the screen. Does this suggest that Shepard (the main character from Mass Effect), is dead? I hope not. Shepard is one bad ass dude, at least the Shepard I created is. Still, Well we can see a Geth creature in his suit, which could mean perhaps he’s been captured by the Geth and has been reconstructed as one. That’s just wishful thinking though. One this is for sure though,  if Mass Effect 2 is anything like the first, I’ll be a happy customer.

On a side note, what the hell is up with the whole trend of adding boxes to your logos, I mean first Mirror’s Edge and now Mass Effect 2? Boxes are pretty trendy.

Let me start out by saying Bioware is good at what they do: Making RPGs.This game is no exception.

Sonic Chronicles is a fairly decent game with some oddities. My real complaint was the kiddy sound effects. Every time something goes down in battle you get a cartoonish “boink” sound. Not something to go on about, but it is mildly annoying. My real thought on this game is that it should have been on PSP. The story is your normal Sonic mess-up: Knuckles gets kidnapped and Sonic and company need to rescue him.

I gotta stop here: How the devil does Knuckles get kidnapped all the time? Isn’t he a badass warrior type? I mean, yeah he can be overpowered like any person, but he’s one of the strongest guys in the Sonic Universe. Then all of the sudden BAM someone bigger and badder than Knuckles comes around. That’s one of Sonic’s biggest flaws right now: New characters. They should have stopped when all they had was Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles and Robotnik. That was perfect. Anything more was really ruining it. In Adventure and Adventure 2, they did okay with having Chaos, Tikal, Rouge and Shadow, but only because they fit. Shadow dying after SA2, while sad, was necessary. Then Sonic Heroes came along and not only brought Shadow and Rouge back, but introduced another new character as well. One thing that Heroes did do right was bring back Team Chaotix. That was a good move, but enough about that.

Sonic Chronicles does a good job at what it’s core gameplay is, it’s a solid RPG. A nice challenge at the start and a slope the entire game. It can get frustrating at points, but nothing a little grind won’t cure. The story, as said before, is honestly mediocre. The overworld is navigated entirely with the stylus, which is okay for the most part. The buttons are hardly used, I fail to remember using them at all. The actual battles are solid turn-based combat. Attacks are in order of who is fastest in both parties and the stop screen displays the order and number of times your team has a move. Special attacks are executed by cues for sussessful taps on one circle, a single timed tap on once circle, or a slider ala EBA. The enemies you fight have a ton of HP, and the robots are often a menace to fight since some of them have auto repair, so even if you kill them they just come right back. That can get frustrating after a while since different robots have different weaknesses.

The equipment system is in two parts: You have your basic equipment, gloves, shirts, shoes and the like and then you have Chao. The Chao are found in eggs all over the game and when you wait long enough, the eggs hatch. You can have every character “equip” one Chao that will give it boosts, elements or effects in battle. Finding out what enemies have what weakness is really hit and miss: Not all of the robots are weak to one thing, not all the animals are weak to another, but once you know, it’s not hard to exploit it. I have one final issue with the game: When you die, you are asked if you want to retry the battle for X number of rings. Doing so will put you back at the start of the fight at full health and everything… But you will have none of the items you may have used. Now, it does give you the option of going back to your last save point, but what if that was hours back? Other than that, the combat is solid.

All in all, I honestly wish I hadn’t spent my money on it since I was trying to play other things at the time, but I am very glad I played it. All in all, I think I would give it a 7.9 out of 10. Pretty good, pick it up if your bored, otherwise, just borrow it/rent it.

~Jumpluff~