WarriorCall

Here we go, the first positive game review in the first edition of The Warrior Call for the year 06'-07'. We're going to mix up the themes this year, but the first review is for those RPG (Role-Paying-Game) fans like myself.

Recently, the long anticipated continuum of the worlds most loved RPG, Final Fantasy VII, came out under the title "Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII," classified as an action-RPG-shooter game.

The main character is Vincent Valentine, the lovable, fluffy, kind...undead. Lovable, of course, if you love blowing everything up with one shot from a handgun that makes a .50 cal Desert Eagle look like a child's cap gun. Fluffy, if you consider someone who can turn into a fireball wielding behemoth or an invincible, death-dealing demon known only as Chaos to be...fluffy. Kind? Only to those he knows well will he show a slightly less cold attitude.

This character suits his role well as you play through this game and shoot everything that moves. The graphics are to be expected for a PS2, but the cinematics are spectacular. The mini-games in this are immense and practically don't stop coming. The controls were pretty easy to master, and with them you can do everything that you need to win, that is, point and shoot.

Concerning actual play-time, the cashier at GameStop, a renowned game store affiliated with EB Games, said it best: "If you play this game to get to the end, you'll probably be done in a day or two. If you play this game to unlock everything, be prepared to stare at your TV screen for hours on end each day for a few weeks." A month later, I still have yet to get half of everything unlocked.

Now it's my turn. The bad side.

Dirge of Cerberus is a nice game...for five-year-olds. The Auto-aim feature takes all the fun out of the game, but you can switch it off if you want to lose.

Another problem that deserves trash talk would be the cut-scenes (those little sections of game-play that seem almost like movies, but the graphics aren't quite as good). It's terrible. I would have to say that about 80% of the game is nothing but cut scenes. Not only are there a lot of them, they're random, and hard to follow unless you have played Final Fantasy VII, and even then its confusing.

Let's talk about graphics for a second. While playing through, I noticed that almost all of the hallways are either brown or green. While they were probably trying to make the game more serious, all they succeeded in was making my eyes bleed (not seriously, but I think you get my point).

The game should also be more interactive. All you do is go around and shoot stuff, which personally I think is a fine thing to do, but it gets really boring. So case in point, play Final Fantasy VII before playing Dirge and prepare for the most confusing 30 minutes of your life.