Disaster: Day of Crisis is a game that hardly anybody seems to notice or even care about. At least that is the impression I get from hanging around on American videogame sites, so maybe my view is a bit flawed since the game came only out in Japan and the PAL territories.
Anyway, I found this game two weeks ago in the used games section of my local videogame shop and bought it right away for 20€. I heard many different things about this game, also read some reviews that gave it scores that varied strongly. Some reviews really trashed the game, other reviews tended to be more forgiving and focused more on the strong points of the game. It took me only one week to complete the game and I waited for another one before writing this review.





Let's start off with the story. Disaster seems to be trying to emulate the experience you have with a summer blockbuster movie. The story is pure insanity! In 24 hours, one city gets in the middle of three different natural disasters plus an invasion by terrorists who stole three nukes. The protagonist Raymond Bryce is a former member of a rescue team, who lost his partner in a mission (which is at the same time the tutorial level of the game). He is looking for the sister of his former team member in order to fulfil his last promise to him. Turns out the terrorists also kidnapped a professor and ,of course, the sister of his former partner.
The cut-scenes are long and there are plenty of them. Sometimes the dialogue is good, at other times it is quite cheesy, but altogether, you will enjoy the story, even though there is nothing truly remarkably or memorable about it. The pacing is all right and will keep you interested. The characters are a bit two-dimensional, but interesting enough, if they actually manage to live longer than 20 minutes. The protagonist is hit and miss: At one time he seems like a total bad-ass, at other times he is naive, dumb and weak.





The graphics are on medium Playstation 2 level. The realistic style of the game does not work at all for the Wii, even though some effects, like collapsing buildings, work well. Textures are very often a mess and the characters have a low poly-count. It is still bearable if you compare it to other Wii games, but you certainly have seen better stuff on this console. It is really strange that a game that has been in development for such a long time is not even on par with Gamecube games. On the other hand, this seems to be the norm for Wii games. At least, the graphics don't get in the way of the gameplay too much. Sound effects are also really lacking. The music on the other hand is memorable and fits the mood of the game.





The gameplay is kind of hard to explain. This is mostly due to the fact that the game tries to do way too many things: You have QTE's, On-Rail Shooter passages, Exploration mixed with Trauma Center-esque rescuing bits and driving sequences. The Exploration part is interesting enough to keep you on track, but there is nothing mind-blowing here. Driving sequences are often very frustrating and you will have to repeat them several times, because, even though (or because?) the game sports the Havoc physics engine, your car will be turned over by even the smallest rock or stone on the road. Somewhat sloppy motion controls in this part only make things worse. A different Control option would have been nice!
The On-Rail Shooter passages are easily the best parts in the game. In the best moments it is almost as fun as Time Crisis. It is also a very easy segment of the game and I never died in those fights. The game tells you when your enemy is going to shoot, so it is quite easy to get back into cover, reload your weapon and then pop out again in order to shoot those guys. Motion Control is also used for the countless QTE sections in the game, and they are quite a pain in the ass, since sometimes the game just refuses to acknowledge your movements. The Trauma Center moments of the game work well, but they are not very deep.





Between the missions, you will get the opportunity to upgrade your weapons and the skills of youre protagonist. The upgrade are not really important, and most of the times it is hard to notice the more subtle changes. Other upgrades, like the ones that let you carry more ammo or give your weapons bigger clips, are really great and enhance your experience. There is also a shooting range accessible in between the missions, where you can unlock new weapons. This is, of course, completely mandatory since the three main weapons, pistol, shotgun and automatic rifle, are enough to tackle every fight in the game. Also the on with the bear. It's amazing how many bullets he can take. Same goes for the bosses. Speaking about the boss battles: They are easily the highlights of the game, event though it is downright frightening how many bullets one single person can take. At least, the battles are always frantic and engaging because they always take place in a natural disaster, which mixes things up a bit.

The game is about 6-8 hours long in your first playthrough. Since it has an upgrade system for Raymond and for his weapons as well as some unlockable weapons and outfits, there is some replay value. 100 achievements and an additional difficulty setting provide further motivation for a second playthrough.

I enjoyed the game for the most part. While it doesn't excel in any part, it is quite competent overall. I would give it a 6.5 out of 10. Nothing excellent but nothing really terrible can be found in this game. Worth your 20-30€.

After a long break, the Video Game Canon gets finally a new update. Since last week was fully focused on the Dreamcast, there are some new games that made it on the list:

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Possibly the greatest fighting game ever made. It's not a game whose depth comes from five different meters to keep track of, but it's amazing depth comes from it's actual mechanics. (LK404).

Samba De Amigo
DDR is intimidating; Samba De Amigo is welcoming. Shaking maracas is so charming that even people who play on easy are smiling while they play. Instead of weird, high-speed techno music, Samba De Amigo had cheesy, upbeat songs like Ricky Martin's "Cup of Life." (LK404)

There are still many games on the list that don't have any explanations yet. I'll keep them up there for another week, on the next update, I will only leave the titles on the list which have a full explanation why they are there. That update will then be considered Version 1.0 of the Video Game Canon. If you want to participate in the discussions or suggest new games, head over to the Forums.

Since today is the kind of official Dreamcast Memorial Day, I give you a special edition of the Video Game Canon, focussing on the Sega Dreamcast Games on the list. Unfortunately, there is only one Dreamcast game on the list until now:

Phantasy Star Online: First (and most successful, all things considered) console MMO. Strong community for years (despite the haxx0rs) 'til the servers shutdown. Utilised real time combat instead of turn based which was unusual for the genre. Gave the Dreamcast its first true killer app. (Aurion)

Kind of surprising that there is only one game from the Dreamcast library on it. Ikaruga and Virtua Fighter have been mentioned, but nobody gave reasons for an inclusion yet. You want to make suggestions for games that belong on the video game Canon? Then head over to the Forums and make your suggestions!

My Dreamcast has actually survived its second day, which is quite an achievement since the one I got before died after 24 hours. Well, still scared the hell out of my when it resetted out of no reason yesterday... about three times. At the moment everything is fine again. Anyway, since it survived longer, I should give it a name. The first one had the name Topher, so I'll call this one just „Topher the second“. That should fit. It's interesting that my Dreamcast is the only console I actually name... can't come up with good names for the others...



Continued to play huge amounts of Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter 3, along with Rayman 2, which I start to enjoy more and more. The Dreamcast has actually managed to get me into racing games, even though I totally hate racing games! Metropolis Street Racer (MSR) is an interesting mixture, since it combine simulation to a certain extend with Arcade-style driving. Up until now, I really liked the experience, and the fact that you actually have to be good at racing in order to get points, which you need to open up new courses, really keeps my motivation up. It doesn't get boring, even after your third try to be better at a certain course in order to gain more points.

Unfortunately, I can't really get into Toy Commander. Maybe I should read the mission logs? I do like the graphics though, all the little details really show some great polish! Tonight I'll probably test some Multiplayer parts of the 12 games I got for the system. Worms Armageddon should be awesome...

Many thanks to all those who wrote some comments with game suggestions in my last post!

Well, it's actually my second one, the first one died after one day. This one seems to work fine, even though it restarts several times the first time you turn it on in a day. The Dreamcast itself looks a bit used, but it still is good enough for me... so what game did I get for it?



The one game I played most until now was Soul Calibur, which is an amazing game. I loved Soul Calibur 2 back in the days on my Gamecube and everything I loved there, like the Mission Mode, can still be found here. Great package all in all. Especially the graphics surprise me. So that's how good games looked on the Dreamcast? Awesome!

The other game I played several times is Virtua Fighter 3TB. I loved Virtua Fighter 4 and 5 (to a lesser extend) but Virtua Fighter 2 on the Saturn was a let down for me. Maybe that game is too old for me to appreciate? I haven't spent that much time with the third one yet, but I enjoyed the rounds I had with it. Also, the graphics are good and so are the controls. I always imagined I would have way more problems with that controller, but it seems to work just fine for me...

Rayman 2 is the last game I played more than five minutes, and I kind of like it, since it is a good old Jump'n Run, and that is always something I can appreciate. I have the same game on my DS, but I gave up on it, because it's too dark. May sound strange, but I still have the first model of the DS, so it is really a big deal for me. The Dreamcast version is great though, very colorful environments and I'm going to play some more of it in the nearer future.

Also got a bunch of racing games like Metropolis, F355 Challenge and Re-Volt. Since I am not that into racing games, it will take some time for me to get into those. By the looks, they seem to be okay.

Well, that's pretty much it for my first day of Dreamcast goodness. I'll try to get into Toy Commander soon and maybe try some racing games. You know some good games for the Dreamcast I should get?

Sorry about my last blog-post, which is now hidden for good. Should have thought twice about it.

Anyways, this is a follow-up article to my last post where I described the many methods on how to show your appreciation for a game. But what do you do if you actually hate the game? How do you show that you do not like a game or a genre at all.

Many people would respond and say that you basically do the same stuff for games oyu hate then you do for games you love: You write about them. Articles about why certain people dislike certain games and genres are pretty common on the C-blogs, and while there is a lot of harsh criticism, some of it is quite constructive and very interesting to read. In contrast to the games described, these articles can be of great quality.

Another method is the one employed by the Angry VideoGame Nerd. He also does reviews of these games, but in a rather sarcastic and satirical kind of way. It is quite impressive, how much creativity even bad games can spawn if you consider that particular long-running series. You also have got to admit that there are a lot of imitations around that also try to trash some bad games.


Argh! My eyes!!!

But what about actually playing said bad games? Do you actually complete these games? I find myself giving up on bad games pretty quickly. My best examples would be Red Ninja for the Playstation 2 or Hoshigami for the Nintendo DS. I hate these games! I tried several times to get into them, but they are so shitty to me, that I can't get past a certain point in them. I for myself actually never talk about these games because of their shittyness.
Other people actually try to complete them, before they react to them in the before mentioned ways.

In the end, I find it quite impressive, how much creativity bad games can spawn, even though, some of these games did not deserve a place in the spotlight to begin with. But who am I to determine that?