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| A childhood classic. |
Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing is a kart racing game inspired by Mario Kart, which I've played back when I was a kid on PS3. It's made by Sumo Digital, creators of another childhood game of mine, OutRun 2, which I played on the arcades. Featuring icons like Sonic the Hedgehog, Beat from Jet Set Radio, Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue, and even lesser known ones like Billy Hatcher from his self-titled game, it was a blast to play back in the day. I got it a while back on Steam and thought I'd give it a play and take a trip down memory lane.
All-Star Racing packs your standard modes like Grand Prix, Time Trials, Time Attack, and Missions. The roster was impressive featuring popular Sega characters like Sonic, Shadow, Beat, Ulala, AiAi, and Ryo Hazuki to name a few. Probably the only downside is that there's a lot of Sonic characters, especially unnecessary ones like Big. The tracks are all picked from Sega games as you'll racing around the streets of Jet Set Radio's Tokyo-to to the haunted Curien Mansion of The House of the Dead.
Characters has their own rides, each packing their own stats with Karts being balanced while Bikes having more acceleration. All-Star Racing holds up for a 14 year-old game as the colorful backgrounds and stylish character designs give the game its charming look. I will say that some models did look stiff upon a closer look. The soundtrack was fantastic, having tracks from various Sega games and even the in-game ones like the menu and ending themes were awesome. All in all, I'm happy to say that Sonic & Sega All-Star Racing was a fun racer that's held up nicely many years later.
Crysis (XSX)
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| Control an alien crisis. |
Crysis begins when a Special Ops team is dropped into a North Korean occupied-island to locate missing researchers after they sent a distress signal. Nothing is as it seems when your teammates and the enemies get decimated by an unknown entity. Turns out, it's a fight for survival as aliens are coming out of the island! The story was a decent one as I especially enjoyed the early hours where you're piecing out the mystery behind the mission until it goes full-on action ride by the end. Characters didn't leave much of an impact as they were a generic bunch, aside from your whimsical teammate Psycho and loud-mouth commander Strickland.
Crysis is a first-person shooter where you play in a futuristic suit called the "Nanosuit" as you explore the jungle. Completing objectives and shooting enemies. The Nanosuit has unique abilities to aid you on combat as it can reinforce itself for you to absorb extra damage or go invisible by cloaking yourself and sneak past enemies. Both of which will deplete the suit's energy, so they're best used with caution. The game's loaded with a variety of weapons to choose from like assault rifles, handguns, shotguns, and rocket launchers to boot. Also, you can use vehicles to quickly traverse the semi-open world jungle and one mission had you controlling a tank that was fun to use.
Sadly, there were a few downsides as enemies are bullet-sponges, often taking many hits with a shotgun to down. That and the AI was odd at times with enemies either spotting you from insanely long distances--even when cloaked-- or space out when you're in plain sight. Crysis was a technical showcase in 2007 but the game shows its age with stiff character animations and flat textures. The lighting and island designs were impressive and hold up well today. The soundtrack was good and had many epic tracks. Aside from some shortcomings, Crysis was a solid shooter thanks to its unique suit abilities and captivating island setting.
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