Original release date:  September 9th, 1999

Release date on PSN: December 17th, 2009

Price: $9.99

Story

Final Fantasy 8 has you taking control of a group of elite mercenaries called “SEEDS” and you start the game in their training site the “Garden”. There are a few more characters that join your party from other Gardens, and there does seem to be a bit of a rivalry that goes on with one particular character that you see in the opening cinematic, but it does feel like the story treads a lot of water, there are a few aha moments, but I really didn’t find myself invested in the story, it just moves too slowly, but that’s more of the gameplay department’s problem than the writing department. Your main character Squall is the standard FF hero, sort of a loner with gorgeous girls falling over themselves for him and he can’t get a clue. I have friends that say this has the best story of the three final fantasies on the PSone, but sadly I couldn’t get invested into it.

Gameplay

This is by far the worst part of this game. It has a turn based battle system that is evident in all the FF games released on the PSone, but the problem here is with the battle system. It pads out the game forever, and makes playing this more of a chore than a joy. It most RPGs like FF7 perhaps; there are hit points HP and magic point MP. When you get hit you lose HP, when you cast a spell you lose MP. Not so in this game though, you have to draw every spell you want to use from your opponents. So if for instance you find a great healing spell that you want to keep for all your members you have to wait, and draw the spells out of the opponent while they continue to battle with you. Each spell can only hold 100 casts though, (these get tied to some of your attributes), but it still takes and agonizingly long time to get enough casts for everyone, and most of the time you find more than one new spell with a new monster so you can spend 10-15 minutes on a battle that would take FF7’s battle system to finish in about 2 minutes. This makes the game move about as slow as a glacier, and really if it moved a little faster I could have gotten into the story a bit more.

I will admit that the junction system is really deep, and that there is a lot of changes you can make to beef up your character, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that it is incredibly slow.

Graphics

I will admit to the graphics in this game being WAY better than FF7s. People look like people all the time in this game instead of funny looking triangle sprites, the music is good, the backgrounds look nice, and the cut scenes are really spectacular. They also meld right into the gameplay seamlessly. FF7 never managed to pull this off, you can tell that FF8 was given a lot of love in the graphics department. Character design isn’t that bad either, and the animations are nice and fluid, not the best I’ve seen on the platform, but certainly nice.

How it holds up today

After spending 30+ hours on this game I couldn’t really tell you when it got interesting to me. Any developments in the story that caught my interest were soon buried by the incredibly slow gameplay you spend the overwhelming majority of this game doing busy work to pad out the game, and really it’s just a chore, I’ve played 3 other PSOne classics in entirety while trying to get through this game. When I realized I’d played 30+ hours and was only on the second disk (of 4) I Just felt like it wasn’t worth it. The gameplay really fails in this regard, the story line also jumps in between two different timelines and groups of characters, and really when you’re that far in and you’re not yet sure of your motivations, it’s hard to continue.

I know this is a loved and much disputed game, but in my humble opinion there are better games out there to spend your money and time on.

5/10

Square Enix producer Yoshinori Kitase said recently in interview that he would love to get Parasite Eve 1 and 2 released before the up coming entry in the series, The 3rd Birthday is released.

This makes perfect sense really, the original games were released ages ago and only now is a sequel being developed for a wholy new audience. It’s worth giving the die hard fans a chance to refresh their memories and letting those that missed it the first time (namely me) a chance to experience it for the first time. I’ve heard it’s a mix between Final Fantasy and Resident Evil, a sort of Horror RPG with shooting mechanics. No matter what, the 3rd Birthday looks spectacular and I’d love to delve into the series.

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Original Release Date: September 30th, 1999

Release Date on PSN: AUg 10th, 2010

Price: 5.99

Story

This is a Kart Racer, but oddly enough there’s a little bit of a story mode in here, it’s nothing to write home about, but it’s better than just going through tournaments over and over. You can pick from a number of racers to complete this adventure, but your ultimate goal is to save the world from an Alien threat by… beating them at Kart Racing… Ok so it doesn’t make any sense, but it was actually quite enjoyable. There is an overworld to drive between tracks, and even bosses to compete against after you win trophies in enough races. Most of the time the regular tracks are the most fun though.

After you defeat all the bosses with your excellent Kart Racing skills you can go around and pick up Time medallions to get another shot at the big bad guy to prove “once and for all that you’re the fastest”. It sounds like just busy work to pad out the game’s length, but the collection stages are actually pretty fun, hard enough that you can’t beat them the first time, and they get harder and harder as you go along, testing your accuracy by putting explosive boxes in close proximity to the collectables, all in unique levels not just re-tooled tracks.  Pleasently surprised with this one.

Gameplay

As you can guess, if you’ve played another popular Karting game (which will go unnamed), you know what this game plays like. With a few little additions. The drifting that gives you your boost you have to pay closer attention to as you have to watch for dark smoke to turn on your boost, and you can jump, which becomes important when you find out if you get enough air, you get a boost when you land, some tracks even rely heavily on that skill. Other than that though the gameplay is identical to… the leader in Kart racing games… except shells become missles, banana peels become potions, etc. It would really be difficult to improve on the standard gameplay that other Kart games adhere to. But the few additions add a bit more depth to the gameplay.

The tracks in the game are really well varied if a little derivative. But more than once I was caught offguard (in a good way) by interesting  short cuts, and boost ramps that you have to hit just right to get ahead, and if you don’t come first in every race you have to try again to continue the “story”  it kept the game interesting and challenging, and was just fun.

Graphics

Crash Team Racing is a good looking game, it’s colourful, runs fast, and it’s easy to see where you’re supposed to go and when. The animations are great on all the characters, and the sound is great. There’s not much to complain about with this game, I loved the presentation through and through. Not much else to say really, you can expect technical marvels from the developer, Naughty Dog who is responsible for the best looking game I’ve ever seen (Uncharted 2).  It’s one of the best looking PSone games I’ve seen and on the PSP it really pops. It’s easy on the eyes for sure.

How it Holds up today

ALRIGHT FINE! If you’ve played MarioKart in your life and enjoyed it you’ll really enjoy this title. It runs great, looks great, and has lots of replayability, there’s a reason why so many people I know love this game, and now I know why. It’s the best competition to MarioKart I’ve ever seen. It would win out if it did a bit more original but it’s still great fun and worth your time.

9/10

On the Playstation blog’s post about the store’s update she was asked when the beloved game would be released she answered a simple “Look for it next week”. This is a rare moment to get word from a Sony representative when a psone classic game will be released, hopefully more announcements will follow (and hopefully louder ones!)

Crash Team Racing is considered by karting purests to be one of the best competators to Nintendo’s MarioKart series. The original game sold over 2 million copies before it became a greatest hit, and it received a sequel, Crash Nitro Kart on the PS2. This game was developed by Naughty Dog, the same great studio that brings you new gamers things like the brilliant Uncharted series.

Keep rolling out the classics PS Store, we need more of them to compete with the summer game drought.

Check it out at The Playstation Blog

PSoneclassics.com

Original release date: November 11th, 1999

Release date on PSN: June 2nd, 2009

Price : 5.99

Story

Medal of Honor is a truly legendary game, and the story that goes along with it is legendary as well. This one started the craze of WW2 shooters and I can tell why, it’s engaging and there are always a place to go and nazis to shoot along the way. The real propaganda videos spliced between missions are great to watch as well, you get a little bit of history with your gaming expercience and it’s a refreshing change to most shooters.

You play as nameless agent X, an American service agent who’s particularly good at killing Germans, so you get these special missions helping out the French resistance, taking out German artillery, etc. etc. It’s light on the story but the gameplay makes up for it.

Gameplay

This is ace shooter glory, the controls are great, and within a few levels I could headshot every enemy that made it across my path, even on the psp (the psp’s controls are much superior in this regard seeing as you can change them to your liking, on the PS3 the controls are clunky at best and unplayable at worst, coming from my roomate who plays shooters almost exclusively).

There are a mulitude of weapons to choose from, grenades, rifles, machine guns, pistols, all seemingly authentic, they sound great and seeing the hand snap back after every shot makes it all the better. Probably the only well playing (gameplay wise) first person shooter I’ve played on the PSP (best third person shooters are the PSP Syphon Filter games). The gameplay in this game is truly great.

Graphics

Once again, on the PSP this game is a looker, there are a few things that look horrible, like the attack dogs, but the animations on enemies if you shoot them are really authentic (looks like they even used motion capture on them) they limp if you shoot their legs, slump if you shoot them in the head, first rate animations all around. The level design is great too, it takes a little bit of exploration to find your way, but not too much, and you always get rewarded for straying off the beaten path.

Music and voice acting once again are top notch, the music was composed by Micheal Giancchino, who’s work you’ve now heard in major movies, like the lastest Star Trek, Mission Impossible 3, and TV shows like Lost. The music is one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard, great orchestral crashes keep the action exciting, sometimes sound effects blended into the music think there’s a baddie walking around the corner when there isn’t, but that’s forgivable with such stirring music.

How it holds up today

Medal of Honor has great graphics, gameplay, music and story, how could this game receive anything but praise? I’ll tell you how — Glitches!  Truly unforgivable ones. I’m guessing this has something to do with the code PSN received from Dreamworks studios, but the most interesting thing happens when you succeed in a level. The music starts to glitch, stripping that pleasure away from your ears, then somewhere coming up in the level if you’re lucky, the game will hang, or there will be an invisible wall stopping your progress. That is what happens after you complete a level. If you die during the mission, the same glitch will follow you. I downloaded the game more than once from PSN, but the same problem followed me. I couldn’t even bring myself to complete the game, because to fix this glitch you have to restart the game, load up your save, then load your way back into the level. I’m really dissappointed by this, as it’s such a legendary and famous franchise, it’s sad that this problem creeps up. I probably would have put it up at the 9.0+ scale had this glitch not shown up.

3.5/10

A great, quality game, marred by a horrible glitch that kidnaps all the fun.

Today is July 2nd. Yesterday Sony debuted the video store of the Playstation network this coincided with Canada Day.

My being a good and honest Canadian means that I have a little bit of a foggy head after yesterday’s festivities, but that doesn’t mean that I was lost on the Video store being released. You can now rent and buy digital copies of movies to your PS3 and PSP and even if you can’t find anything  you like, be sure to check it out anyways, because if you’re a Canadian resident you’ll get a free copy of a pretty bad movie (Charlie’s Angels) for free.

SD rentals are 4.99 and to upgrade them to HD is an extra dollar.

Buying a movie (SD) is 19.99, and an HD copy is 24.99.

I’m not much of a movie watcher since I started playing games more, but it’s a great way to get a movie to rent without having to go to your local movie store first. TV episodes are also up for sale, they run between $1.99 (for a half hour show) and $2.49 (for an hour show, with another dollar for HD treatment).

What else is nice is that any movie or show you rent or buy, you get a free version  for your PSP.

I hope all Canadian Readers had a great holiday. Happy 4th of July to all American readers, and to anyone with National holidays coming up, take a break from playing games and celebrate your country.

Really, it’s been a big day for the Playstation Network, with the launch of the new PS3 and PSP firmwares, and the launch of Playstation Plus. So there aren’t very many new things available on the network this week, (sadly no new PSone Classics), but there are a few deals. Trine for instance has dropped price down to $9.99, down 5 dollars, LocoRoco Midnight Carnival has halved it’s price to 7.49 from 14.99.

As for new games, they’ve released Infamous as a downloadable, a truly great game, (I couldn’t put it down) for 29.99, and oddly enough an interesting game for the PSP from Midway, arcade classics, for 9.99. Most of these games are throwaways, but you do get Mortal Kombat 1, 2, and 3 with it! I might have to pick that one up just so I can play Mortal Kombat on the bus… No one can defeat Scorpion!

Check this all out on the Playstation Blog.

Now if only they could release some decent PSone classics…

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Last night at 12am eastern standard time, Sony released it’s new firmware version 3.40. Lots of new features have been added.

Photo Gallery is now Network enabled- You can now share your photos or photo albums with you friends over PSN

Video Editor – A new video editor was released for free. I haven’t started to play around with it yet, but you can see a video of it from the post on Kotaku. It looks pretty spiffy if you ask me. You can also upload your videos straight to Youtube which is a great feature that I’ll try to make use of for future reviews.

Rating system – You can now rate all the games you’ve purchased from the store. (I went out and rated all of my PSone classics, and was appauled by how low Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was rated, only 3.69 stars out of five at time of writing. Make it right vote it up!)

New Power Save settings – If you have one of the older PS3s, like myself, they tend to use up more than a bit of power. With new settings like an automatic shut off, they’re hoping to save you a bit of money on your power bill.

With this update I’m really impressed, Sony keeps giving us these software additions for free. I’m ecstatic that I’ll be able to use my Cell processor to render video. (Nice!) Check out all the info on the Playstation Blog

For 49.99 you get a year subscription, (and three extra months free) and you’re given exclusive access to betas, deals on games, and sometimes even free games, that stay yours for the duration of your subscription. Today the service launches with 2 free games, Wipeout HD, and Rally Cross (PSone Classic). You also get lots of deals on games like Midway games half off, and a few other games with their DLC available for free.

Now this does sound like a decent deal, and as the Playstation people say, you get over 80 dollars of value and savings for the first month alone, and more will be available as the months come, you also get Qore, the digital magazine from the Playstation network (usually at 24 for a year long subscription).

I do have a few problems with this though, even though I love playing games, I’m interested in owning mine, not just having them for a subscription duration. I have at the moment over 20 psone classics on my hard-drive, most at  $5.99. If they gave me a discount on all PSone games, (lets say, 33% off, or Sony’s take

of a regular PSone classic sale) I would buy it in a heartbeat, because it would allow me to own games that I’m interested in, instead of waiting for the discount gods to give me a deal. Do you think that Playstation Plus is worth it?