April 06, 2010 by Greg Noe
I received Borderlands from my brother-in-law for Christmas, but didn't have the opportunity to play it until my other brother-in-law was over to visit and asked to play it. I watched him play while trying out the new Miles Edgeworth game, but Borderlands really grabbed my attention.
He chose to play as a berserker, and after the initial bus ride cutscene, he was on Pandora and kicking butt. The game was very open but it always seemed like he had something to do. There were a couple of quest givers, he was leveling up, finding new guns, shooting more and more enemies. He played for about two hours and had taken out the game's first boss after a few attempts, and then it was my turn to give it a go.
I can't believe I left this game on my shelf for so long, it's... awesome. I haven't played a game like it since World of Warcraft. The open world feels big and intimidating, but it's one of those perfect examples of sandbox non-linearity with just the right amount of linear guidance. The quests keep coming and I just kept leveling up. There were skill points to earn and bigger and better guns to collect. I'm already hooked.
Read moreApril 05, 2010 by Ian M. Bagley
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber is a mixed game, and has had mixed reviews. Some hold it as the holy grail of RPG/Strategy gaming, while others find it about as entertaining as a box of rocks.
I’m of the former. When I saw this game in Nintendo Power, and read about it, it was all new to me. I never played its SNES predecessor. But it looked so awesome. Being an RPG fan, and desperately wanting a reason to play my Nintendo 64 other than to play Super Smash Bros. or Star Fox. The game Quest 64 left a terrible taste in my mouth and made me desperately want a Playstation for some good RPG games.
Read moreApril 02, 2010 by Paul Eastwood
Glory of Heracles is a DS RPG published by Nintendo and developed by Paon. It attempts to harken back to the old school of RPGs, leaning toward the SNES era.
The playing of this game by me will discover whether this game achieves that goal, and if that goal is worthy. Are SNES RPGs still relevant? Have we moved on, or will the sense of nostalgia be enough to reel us in?
Glory of Heracles was actually a series of games in Japan published by Data East since 1987. Nintendo acquired the rights when Data East went bankrupt in 2003. This is the first game to make it to the west; apparently Nintendo is hoping to pull a Fire Emblem.
April 01, 2010 by Paul Eastwood
Here it is, the fifth episode of The First Hour Podcast! In this episode, Paul and Greg discuss their views on the 3DS announcement, another writer (also named Paul) drops in to talk about the latest Pokemon games, and Mike returns to give his opinion of Final Fantasy XIII. And that's not all!
Download Read moreMarch 31, 2010 by Ian M. Bagley
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is a game I knew very little about. When I was about eight years old, a few of my friends said it was "the destroyer of worlds." Not just difficult, but impossible. None of my friends could progress very far, and as an eight year old, I wanted to prove to them that I was superior. Unfortunately, none of them would lend it to me, and I never really had the money to buy it and every time I went to the video store to rent it, it was always out. I don't know if it was just that popular, or if they lost it. I'm guessing the latter.
Now, I understand that it was made in 1991 by Capcom. It’s been ported to a bunch of different gaming platforms including the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation Portable and Virtual Console on the Wii.
It is the sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and also loosely related to Demon's Crest. I've played games like Contra and got pretty far before hitting a mark that was impassable for me, even at the wee ages of nine. So I figured… how hard can this game be? Here's the first hour of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.
Read moreMarch 30, 2010 by Steve
This spoiler-filledAudio Visual Experience of Time Gentlemen, Please! contains bothpotential puzzle/adventuring hints as well as possibly directspoilers, up to and including the ending of the game. If you areinterested in playing the game and have yet to do so (check the lessspoilertastic article on the game),then you may wish to avoid this article. Otherwise, enjoy theexperience of this fun little indie adventure game. Also as asidenote, due to a bug with the game engine, no dialogue was capturedon the images until the last few images, when some setting changesfixed the issue (as a result, somewhat reducing spoilering but alsoreducing fun). Warning: potential spoilers below.
March 29, 2010 by Steve
So as I'm moving through my Steambacklog, my next games are the adventure duo Ben There, Dan That! andits sequel Time Gentlemen, Please! Both are old-school 2d adventuregames, harking back to classics such as Maniac Mansion, Loom, MonkeyIsland and Sam & Max (admittedly, none of which I have playedaside from the free Sam & Max episode on Steam).
In case you aren't familiar with the PCadventure game genre, they're dialogue-heavy puzzle/detective gamesof a sort. You walk around, talk to people, pick things up, interactwith objects and generally figure out ways to progress to your nextor overall objective. It's generally very simple to play, notrequiring twitch skills or muscle memory like most modern games andcan be taken at whatever pace you wish. The humor of the games areby far their biggest draw, with large amounts of clever,lighthearted, endearing dialogue. Of course, then the dialogue isthe main draw of the genre and allows it to stand out over say, anelectronic version of Clue. Other significant factors towards thefinal product include ambience, intelligent pacing and a basic yeteffective control scheme. The genre as a whole has a fairly rabiddedicated fanbase. This is in contrast to the majority of the gamingworld, who doesn't even know that the genre exists.
Read moreMarch 28, 2010 by Greg Noe
The First Hour generally writes two main types of reviews: first hour reviews and full reviews.
March 26, 2010 by Greg Noe
I loved Super Mario 64. It was the first game I ever played on what isone of my favorite consoles, and my memories of the game have stuckwith me to this day. The running, the jumping, the exploration of hugelevels, it was incredible. Mario made the best transition to 3D ever,well, until Ocarina of Timecame around. The next 3D Mario iteration was Super Mario Sunshine,which I was less then enthused about. I'm not sure if it was the waterpack gimmick or what, but I was never convinced that it would be worthplaying. Nintendo has finally delivered its third true 3D Mario game(well, two and a half years ago) with Super Mario Galaxy. While it is almost unrecognizable in terms of what a Mario game should be like, it plays just like Mario 64 did 14 years ago: awesomely.
Galaxy's gimmick is that instead of featuring one giant, flat plane, each world is made up of small, Little Prince-likeplanets and objects. Gravity and physics are now Mario's biggestfriend and foe, as you're constantly being challenged in new ways tojump and explore. I love games like Braid and Portal that challenge me to think and play different, Super Mario Galaxy joins that elite group, in my opinion.
SuperMario Galaxy 2 is due in less than two months, and it'll probably bethe first Wii game I buy at launch in over three years. I'd love tohave a first hour review of that game at launch (hint, hint, Nintendo),but I've got a first hour review of this game also on the back burner. Here's my full review of Super Mario Galaxy. I collected all 120 starsin the game which took me about 25-30 hours.
March 24, 2010 by Paul Abbamondi
Besides Super Mario World, SimCity was one of the first games I got for my Super Nintendo Entertainment System way back when. Countless hours were spent creating the most glorious cities…and then throwing total havoc their way. It was one of the first simulation games I’d ever played, and watching the seasons change, residential zones flourish, and roads fill up with traffic was extremely satisfying. Alas, I traded in my SimCity cartridge for something else (hopefully not Shaq-Fu) because I was young and stupid once. Now I’m just less stupid. Moving forward, I dabbled in later PC versions of SimCity, but never found any of them to be what I used to love. Maybe SimCity DS will be the one to warm the cockles of my heart?
Greg reviewed the DS sequel, SimCity Creator last year.
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