Xenogears Review

Originally Posted by Formalhaut

Great reviews, both of you. You should definitely carry on with the series Tori. If you can play the Professor Layton series as well, that'd be awesome so you can play the crossover between the two.

Trials & Tribulations is already next on my list if I can find a copy for a reasonable price. Blasted thing is going for one-hundred dollars on Amazon.

Originally Posted by Sephex

Whoa, caught up. Nice review on Wold Among Wallstreet Us! I thought it got silly at the very end (action wise), but it was another solid entry from Telltale ultimately!

The Bigby/Bloody Mary fight was ridiculous, but so, so satisfying.

Excited for your next reviews!

Originally published on 12.26.11

Mega Man Legends is an action RPG developed and published by Capcom in December 1997 in Japan before coming over to North America in the late summer of 98. It presents a new spin on the Mega Man franchise making our main character a Digger, who just happens to look like a robot.

We open up to find our world is flooded in water (this must be where Nintendo got its inspiration for Wind Waker). Only a few islands remain in the midst of the flood with energy sources being rare. To cope, various Diggers go around the world finding quantum refractors in ancient ruins to use for energy, the shards being used for currency. However, the item that every Digger looks for is something called the Mother Lode, an item of suppose infinite power that will take care of the world energy needs in one fair swoop, but the Diggers don't seem to be anywhere close to finding it.

The game stars Mega Man Volnutt, voiced by Corey Sevier (that's right, before he was Apollo, he was Mega Man!), a Digger aboard the ship titled Flutter, living there with his Spotter Roll Caskett and her grandfather Barrel Caskett.

Roll, Barrel. Barrel, Roll. Roll, Barrel. Barrel, Roll.

Mega Man, do a Barrel Roll!

The game's antagonists come in the form of pirates known as the Bonnes, though their service bots look more like legos. They want to steal the legendary secret treasure said to be on Kattelox Island. Led by their leader, Teisel Bonne, and his sibling, Tron Bonne, they quickly become obstacles for Mega Man and his team to overcome.

Mega Man has two weapons that he can have equipped. The first one is on his left arm, the second his right. If neither arm has anything equipped Mega Man will perform a kick in their place.

The overall gameplay of Mega Man Legends can be a lot of fun. You have room to run around, jump, blow up enemies, and chase after cars. Just be sure not to get hit because, as you'd imagine, that will hurt. The storyline gives us a new spin on Mega Man, mainly because this isn't the same Mega Man. Reading up more on the Mega Man Legends series I found they take place thousands of years after the ZX series, and Professor Barrett found this Mega Man alongside Data, a monkey which only Mega Man can understand.

The dialog and voice acting is cringe worthy at times. It's what you can expect from a game mostly aimed at kids, but I didn't see anything that talks down to them or insult their intelligence. The villains are over the top and hilarious. Not very menacing, but for what they are they do their job well. The graphics now is another story. They're bad. Crash Bandicoot and Croc, two games made around this time are far better in the graphics department. Even Armored Core has this thing beat.

You can upgrade Mega Man weapons by buying parts or finding them on your journey These upgrades will help make Mega Man stronger, something you'll want to keep an eye on. Because there's nothing more embarrassing than getting beat up by legos. A lot of the enemies look really cool, and you can make Mega Man look even more like the classic robot we all know and love by getting all the appropriate parts. In conclusion, if you can get over inferior looking graphics and hideous voice acting, Mega Man Legends can be a lot of fun.

Try it

Hello and welcome to ToriJ's Video Game Reviews. Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone is a tactical role-playing game by Atlus that was originally published on the Game Boy Advance, and then later ported to the PSP. The game stars Princess Yggdra who assembles a Royal Army to battle the evil Bronquian Empire.

No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace!

We start off with some images and a text scroll explaining the plot before being led to our title character escaping from Imperial forces. She takes refugee in a thieves hideout, so the Imperials do the only rational thing and burn it to the ground.

When their leader, Milanor, comes back, he decides he doesn't like that one bit and the battle is on, but first a tutorial, and another tutorial, and another tutorial, AND ANOTHER TUTORIAL! My god, there are more tutorials than game modes, just get to the point!

Roll the dice, play your cards, break the rules that's who you are, whoever said play it safe never played the game.

Yggdra plays a lot like a board game. You can move each character a certain number of spaces that's allowed on the card you chose, and engage in battles with enemies when you're close to them. Steps are counted for every character instead of individually so choose your movement wisely. The game takes into account stats, and what weapon you're equipped with to improve your chances in a fight.

Morale is another thing you have to watch out for in this game. Your morale goes down if you lose a fight and if it reaches zero the game is over. The enemies have morale too and you need to take that down to zero in order to defeat them. The PSP version is a little more forgiving with morale boosts since you're gain some back upon leveling up.

You can find items to aid you on your quest by exploring the maps of each stage, but you have to land on the space the item is on. You can also visit villages and get advice or assistance from the villagers you interact with, so it's worth it to explore a bit despite how linear it can all feel.

Saves happen in-between stages, and there are checkpoints in longer stages which reset your cards so you can use them again, but heaven forbid you have to shut the game off for any reason during the checkpoints because then you have to start all over. I was so exhausted during stage three because it just went on, and on, and on!

Can't counter!? I call hax!

Engaging an enemy takes you to a separate screen where the two armies battle it out for supremacy. Whoever the attacking army is is the one who gets the first charge, and then the defending army gets a chance to counter-attack. Needless to say, the army who gets the first strike has the advantage.

There isn't exactly a whole lot you can do on this screen. You can toggle between passive or aggressive, but for the most part you just watch the two armies fight with your fingers crossed. If you hate repetitiveness in your games, you're not going to have much fun here. At the very least, you can speed up the fighting so it's over with quickly.

Cardcaptors, a mystic adventure! Cardcaptors, a quest for all time!

Cards make up the basis of your entire party. Run out of cards and the game is over. The further you get into the game, the more cards you find and can equip before a battle. Power determines how much damage the enemy takes in a fight, while the Ace is what weapon the Union leader requires for the card to be any good.

Each card has its own skill that is useful in battle. A few examples of this include restore allies, kill all enemies, change the field, and invincibility. The power level of the card determines how much damage your enemy takes, and the Ace matches what kind of weapon the Union Leader needs in order for it to be of any use.

Sulu. You can call me Mr. Sulu.

The characters are all interesting enough and the voice acting is solid. I swear Yggdra sounds so much like the voice actress for Rebecca in the first Resident Evil game, but I checked and it's not her. Actually, nobody seems to know who Yggdra's English Voice Actress is. Or any of the English voice actors for that matter.

Yggdra has a certain innocence about her, but when it comes time to start cutting bitches, she rises to the challenge considerably. Milanor is your laid back thief who's a little bit of a ladies man, and then you have characters like Durant who is honorable, loyal, and performs his duty well. I like his spear. You can never go wrong with a good spear. Unless the other people have axes.

I like the animation of the characters. Every character that talks has their own animation you can see on the left side of the screen while they're talking that's pretty well done, and a sprite on the right that's charming to look at and provides other expressions for the characters in certain scenes.

Kind of a sweet subtitle when you think about it.

Bottom line? Yggdra Union edges on the boring and repetitive side. The characters are all interesting enough, but it just doesn't balances out how lackluster the gameplay is. On the bright side, it's one of those games where you know right away whether you'll like it or not. The things seen above with the board and battle screen? That's basically the whole game. If you get past that you may enjoy it. If not then you're gonna have a bad time.

Try it

I might look in to it~

Mega Man Legends should be a "Get it" but I'll admit the game didn't age well and he does control a little stiff. Still, everything else in that game is fun!

Originally published on 01.02.12

Late into the PlayStation's life, one of the games we received was based off the direct-to-video spinoff/prequel to the 1995 featured film, Casper. Casper: Friends Around the World kicks off with Casper playing with all of his friends when Kibosh, an evil ghost who runs a haunting school, is sickened by what he sees and casts a spell that sends Casper's friends spread out through the world leaving Casper with no choice but to find them all and bring them home.

Before I go any further, I hope you guys like hearing one person talk constantly because when you get to the title screen that's all you're going to hear. Every time you go to an option on the title screen you hear Casper speak. Every. Single. Time. It's like the video game designers were afraid kids would get bored if Casper didn't speak every minute or so.

You start off with a default map of Hollywood which represents the first level. The goal in each level is to find your missing friend and the map. There's a floating knob you can find that leads you to a mini game featuring Casper's uncles Stretch, Stinky and Fatso. The minigame plays like Ping Pong. Don't worry if you miss it because the game will bring you to it at the end of the level if you do.

Aside from that, it's your basic side scrolling game with 3D elements. You can jump, float, parachute, bounce, duck and shoot ghostly spheres at enemies. Casper has a life bar, extra lives you can find, and continues when you run out of those lives. Fall into something like say, water, and Casper life bar takes a dive. What is it with some games making water your enemy? Casper may not be able to swim, but the boy is a ghost! How does that hurt him? Oh, and if you think you can go through walls or doors in this game, forget it. If you find a closed door that needs opening you can't just walk through it. I know they don't want to make it too easy, but come on! What's the point of playing as a ghost if you can't even go through walls?

I don't have any complaints about the gameplay. The graphics and voice acting is decent. As for the story itself? It's so-so. Nothing great, but nothing flat out terrible either. It's a pretty straightforward premise, and you know right away what your goals are so there's not much I can see to pick apart. The game offers a reasonable challenge without going overboard with the difficulty. It's something that kids could enjoy, especially if they're fans of Casper. Heck, if you're feeling nostalgia for some Casper older people may enjoy it, too.

Try it

Oh man, I just watched a video of that Casper game and he makes Gex seem quiet. x.x

Hello and welcome to ToriJ's Video Game Reviews. Over the years superheroes have undergone a lot of retellings and reimaginings. One such example that stands out even today is Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson taking on a much darker side of the Dark Knight that comic book writer, Frank Miller made popular again.

With the popularity of the movie it only made sense to create a video game tie-in to profit even more off the success of the movie. This gave us video game adaptions on the NES, Sega Genesis, and the Game Boy, but today I'll be doing a Compare & Contrast of the NES and Genesis versions of the game to decide which one is the best. So, hang onto your seats because we're going to Gotham!

I'm Purpleman!

Gameplay wise both are pretty straightforward. The NES version has a button for jumping and attacking while allowing you to toggle between different weapons you pick up along the way. The Genesis version starts you off with batarangs right away and makes use of the C button to throw them.

While you don't get as many batarangs as the NES version, I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Nintendo gives you so many batarangs you'd have to go out of your way to run out of them, whereas the Genesis forces you to use them more sparingly to make each batarang count. It's more realistic in the long run as Batman doesn't just have a million of them to pull out of his ass any time he wants.

Chances are you're going to be punching a lot regardless of which game you play. On Genesis you'll be punching air because if you get too close to a bad guy he'll hurt you. But on the NES? You're going to be punching like a madman just to get at the enemy before they come charging at you and even then you'll still miss on occasion. They may as well call the game Batman Punch Out!

Another thing you're going to be doing a lot of is wall jumping. It's like the developers were playing Ninja Gaiden while making this. You need to get the jumping down precisely by level two if you want to get anywhere in this game. Some times you have to fall off a platform and then quickly jump off it to avoid danger. At least the Genesis version gives you a grappling hook! The Genesis version requires a lot less jumping.

You can't even go to the museum in this town without being shot at!

Both games are loosely based off the movie, but the Genesis version is closer to being a faithful adaption in level design. You get stages based around the chemical plant where the Joker is made, and the art museum the Joker and his men attacks. You even get to ride in the Batmobile and the Batplane.

In the NES version the stages are barely recognizable due to the limitations of the Nintendo and the enemies make no sense! You're fighting ninjas and robots. Since when in the hell did the Batman movie have robots? Is that supposed to be Firefly at the first boss stage? I'm fighting Firefly! Actually, that's kind of cool.

Another point in the Genesis version is there are a couple more stages and challenging boss fights in it. Even if you're doing a speed through of the game you get ten more minutes of game time than you would in the NES version.

What the hell is that green thing supposed to be? An alien? A robot? A demon from the lowest depths of hell?

When it comes to graphics, it isn't a fair comparison. The Genesis wins hands down. Better all around console and they just rendered everything with more detail. Batman looks like he does in the film, the backdrops are clearer to what they represent, and when they do show clips the images look like they were ripped right out of the movie.

I realize that the Genesis version doesn't have as many cut-scenes as the NES, but what the NES has isn't that great to begin with. We get some animation of the Batmobile and them overusing the “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight” line, and that's mostly it. The Genesis version cuts to the chase and the few cut-scenes you do get are a lot more enjoyable.

Case in point, you get to knock the Joker in some chemicals. What more could you ask for?

At the end of the day, Batman is one of the few video game adaptions of a movie that's actually good. Batman looks great, the stages are all inspired by the movie, and you get a kick ass final boss fight with the Joker. If you really want to experience Tim Burton's Batman movie in video game form, then you can't go wrong with the game on Sega Genesis!

NES Batman: Skip it
GEN Batman: Get it

Out of curiosity, do you think that Batman on the NES would have been a better title without the license?



Also, as an aside, every time I see the boxart for these games I can't help but remember . . .



I loved that stuff as a kid.

That was real?

And maybe. Still would have reminded me of Ninja Gaiden more than anything.

A couple of things:

A) Did you manage to beat the Joker on the NES version? I think this is one of the hardest games I've ever beaten in all honesty. There were a few parts where I was having to spam my projectiles and I was actually running out of them during the game, so getting the Joker was pretty difficult for me. That fight was pretty crazy if I remember right though.

B) What did you think of the music? This is one of the things I really like about Batman on the NES. I haven't played Batman on the Genesis, but I'm sure I'd probably like the music there too. I just generally like the soundtracks on those old Sunsoft games.

Originally Posted by Scotty_ffgamer

A couple of things:

A) Did you manage to beat the Joker on the NES version? I think this is one of the hardest games I've ever beaten in all honesty. There were a few parts where I was having to spam my projectiles and I was actually running out of them during the game, so getting the Joker was pretty difficult for me. That fight was pretty crazy if I remember right though.

B) What did you think of the music? This is one of the things I really like about Batman on the NES. I haven't played Batman on the Genesis, but I'm sure I'd probably like the music there too. I just generally like the soundtracks on those old Sunsoft games.

A) Didn't get that far sadly. I'm only aware of how the boss fights play because of the longplays I sat through.

B) I actually don't remember anything about the Genesis' soundtrack. Both opening songs are the same and the NES' music stuck with me more. I don't usually talk about the music in things I review so it got left out.

I spent days with my NES left on so I wouldn't lose my progress while I tried to get to the end and beat Joker, haha.

I know you don't tend to comment on music, I was just curious what you thought. The soundtrack was what original drew me to the game. I've been wanting to check out a bunch of other Sunsoft games just because I think they tend to have good soundtracks.

Speaking of Batman reminding you of Ninja Gaiden, I still need to try to beat the first one. I got pretty close to the end, but I haven't been able to play my NES in quite a while now.

Originally published on 01.09.12

Harry Potter. Does this even need an introduction? Screw it, I'll give one anyway. Harry Potter is a book series about a young boy wizard written by author J.K. Rowling. The first book was published back in 1997 in the UK before being brought over to America a year later. It would soon be followed up by sequels and its very own Movie Franchise in 2001. Since then it has integrated itself into our culture. With the growing success of the series it was only natural for it to expand other mediums. This brings us back to 2001 for the PlayStation release of:

The first in a long line of video games based on the Harry Potter series would be published by EA Games. The plot? Well, everybody knows the plot. Once upon a time there was this really bad dude who did bad things to good people.

Lord Voldemort
I'm going to kill you now.

Lily Potter
NO!

Harry Potter
Momma!

Lord Voldemort
I'M MELTING!

In his attempts to kill Harry something happened, something that nobody knows, and Harry Potter got out of the incident with nothing but a scar (why is it lighting shaped?) and Lord Voldemort was no more. With his parents dead, Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, took the young Harry Potter to live with his only remaining non-magical (otherwise known as Muggle) family.

Professor McGongall
Dumbledore, why are you leaving him with these people?

Albus Dumbledore
Because they are the only family he has.

Professor McGongall
But they're douchebags! Mark my words they'll have him living in the cupboard under the stairs!

Albus Dumbledore
Oh, don't be silly.

Eleven years down the line Harry Potter is miserable, go figure, but that all changes when he gets his invite to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Since his Aunt and Uncle tries to fight him on it they have to send Big Foot to get the kid.

Hagrid
You're a Wizard, Harry!

Harry Potter
Will I get to pull a bunny out of a hat?

Hagrid
No.

Harry Potter
Saw a lady in half?

Hagrid
No.

Harry Potter
Make my Aunt and Uncle disappear?

Hagrid
No.

Harry Potter
Do I get a wand?

Hagrid
Yes.

Harry Potter
Woohoo!

So, he goes off to Hogwarts, is sorted into Gryffindor, and we begin the game!

None of the actors from the movie reprise their roles in this game, but some of the voices they do get does a pretty good job at impersonating them. Namely Harry, Ron, Neville, and Snape. I couldn't hear the difference much when I was a kid. The game does a good job of making the characters look like the actors from the film and even incorporates things from the books that were left out of the movies, like Peeves. Although, Hermione Granger's hair is so bright it looks blond. You know what? I think that is blond! Yeah, because you all remember how J. K. Rowling described her in the books with locks of blond hair, or how for the movies Emma Watson had to dye her hair blond? No? Of course not. Because her hair is brown!

The various mini-games found throughout can go from fun to annoying depending on your preference. Flying is basically Harry Potter going through rings (I'm having Superman 64 flashbacks), a race the clock challenge to get to class, pressing the buttons on the controller the Professor points at during class, a shooting range (what?), oh and for a boss battle we have Draco Malfoy throwing firecrackers at you. I'm not even kidding. Yes, they're given the label of Wizard Crackers, but bottom line is, Malfoy is trying to kill you with firecrackers! Why be sly, cunning and manipulative, when you can blow up your rival in broad daylight!?

In closing, if you're a huge fan of Harry Potter then chances are you'll enjoy this game. If you aren't, why would you get it in the first place? This is ToriJ signing off.

Try it

Hello and welcome to ToriJ's Video Game Reviews. Allow me to introduce to you Disney's Month! A time set aside where we look at various video games through the years based on memorable Disney's characters that we all know and love. And what's better way to start than with the mouse that started it all, Mickey Mouse!

The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse is the first entry to the “Disney's Magical Quest” franchise developed by Capcom for the Super Nintendo. We were going to get a Sega Genesis version, but for whatever reason that got abandoned. Next time, baby. Next time. Until then, let's see what Mickey has to offer us.

I think the bird could have chose a safer place to sleep.

Mickey Mouse is your basic 2D side-scroller where you can collect points and there's a time limit on each stage. At first all you can do is jump on enemies and grab objects, but once you get the other costumes you can unlock more variety. There are four costumes overall: Default, Magician, Firefighter, and Mountain Climber. As a Magician you can shoot magic, Firefighter can put out fires (duh), and the Mountain Climber can scale up obstacles to get to high places.

You can switch between the four costumes at any time during the game (once you have all of them that is) and each one provides their own advantages, but it's only the final stage where you need to switch between them a bit more. Otherwise, the game makes it obvious which one you need at what time. Certain bosses are more vulnerable to a set costume and there's a magic and pump meter for the Magician and Firefighter respectively.

I'm the king of the world!

The game has six stages that are divided up in four parts. Some of the stages have mini bosses you can fight and then the main boss that comes alive in part-4. Despite the difficulty levels there to force you to invest more time to it, the game is still pretty short. I was able to beat it in less than a day and it was only my first time playing. That's short even by retro game standards.

First couple of levels are kind of generic, but serve their purpose. Level design picks up at the third level when it feels like you're descending into the bowels of hell! And knowing Disney that's probably intentional, the sick smurfs. Then you have the mountain and ice levels which are a lot of fun. The final stage with the castle gives me Mega Man vibes since you can run into a lot of the bosses you already faced.

Emperor Pete? Yeah, that's a name that inspires fear into the hearts of your enemies. Pete.

Our story centers around Mickey's dog Pluto being kidnapped by the evil Emperor Pete, and it's up to the mouse himself to rescue him. Points for not making the damsel the girl in this, but I have to ask... Who kidnaps a dog? Seriously. Is Emperor Pete that desperate for companionship he couldn't chip in for his own pet?

Apart from that, and the occasional scene with the wizard in the image above and Goofy, there isn't much story as you're most likely to expect. The game has a lot in common with Mario in terms of gameplay, and it wouldn't surprise me if Capcom used those games as a point of reference. Even the plot is more or less the same, but at least nobody says, “Your dog is in another castle!”

I hate this boss with a passion, and apparently so does Mickey. Just look at how angry he is! He knows this stage is pure bulltrout.

Most of the bosses you encounter are creative and as fun as they are challenging. The first couple of bosses aren't much to look at, but once you get to stage three things get interesting. You encounter a monster who shoots fireballs at you and raises up the lava to ram you into the spike ceiling above.

Stage Four has a giant bird that charges at you from the background and you have to literally hang on for dear life to survive. You also need to take away her eggs and use them against her before they hatch and create baby birds you have to worry about. Reminds me of Queen Gohma a little bit.

On the fifth stage as seen above, you have this guy who will skate from the left and right platform shooting snowballs at you. You can jump on top of him for a hit and either freeze or dodge the snowballs. The thing is he always spends more time on the left platform, but you never know when he's going to stand on the right.

He skates over to the right only to go back to the left, and when he finally does land on the right it's too late for you to react. You keep getting hit every time. You can also run out of energy for the pump and only have the Magician left, but magic doesn't do jack trout against this guy. All you have left is the jump and good luck with that.

Then there's Emperor Pete himself. Holy smurf, this guy is tough. It's like he heard all the jokes you made at his name and was hell-bent on making you pay for each one. First of all, there are minor enemies that attack you during that provides power ups when you beat them, and Pete fires electricity trout at you.

I lost count of how many times I had to hit this asshole before he finally went down. I wasn't even sure if I was causing damage as he kind of just flickers in and out. For all I know that was a glitch or just a regular effect or something. It wasn't until he started changing color that I knew his health was going down. After you beat him you find Pluto and the game comes to its conclusion. Let's check out the ending.

A dream? A dream!?

The last couple of hours I spent chasing that stupid dog around was all just A DREAM?! I ran across an entire world map for that dog! I literally made a descent into hell! I climbed a mountain! I went ice skating and kept falling off trout! I went through a castle, ran out of water pump, and had to start the whole level over again! I spewed out so many profanities that every single church in my city burned to the ground! And you're telling me that it was all just A DREAM?!

SMUUUUURF YOUUUUUUUUU!

Okay, I might have overreacted just a tad – Smurf you! Smurf you! Smurf you – I am at peace. I'm on a sunny beach with birds singing and blah, blah, blah!

The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse! What more can you say? It's fun, it's challenging, it's a disturbing insight into what goes on in Mickey's head. If you like Mickey then you may enjoy it, but if you're looking for something a little longer you may be left disappointed. I'm ToriJ, and I haven't even gotten started. See you all next week!

Get it

I really need to play this game again.

That game brings me back to that mega issue of Nintendo Power I had where they published reader's designs for potential Mega Man robot masters! The cover was Mickey with that Fireman stuff on!

Originally published on 01.16.12

SimCity 2000 is a simulation, city-building game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was originally released for the PC, as all Sims games are, before being ported to a wide-selection of platforms through the years, eventually making it way to the Sony PlayStation.

Right off the bat I have to comment about the box. For some reason the box is made to contain three different discs, but there's only one. Is there something I'm missing? Why can't it just be a regular case? What does it need all the extra space for?

You know how when you get a new game, you're excited and you put it in without even touching the instruction manual? Yeah, you're not gonna want to do that with this game. This is the kind of game where you're gonna want to read the instruction manual before playing, otherwise you're going to be lost. Fortunately, the manual has a boot camp that doesn't take very long in order to learn the basics.

If you don't feel like creating your own city you can load up one of the many pre-made ones. No matter where you are you'll have a cursor you can move around. While in your city you can move this up to the many different icons (these are your tools) on the top, left, right and bottom parts of the screen. Highlighting one will show you a set that goes with it.

As Mayor, you are responsible for the health, wealth, and happiness of the Sims living in your town. In order to do this you'll want to plan your strategies well. You'll want to keep tabs on things like water, power, and transportation. Provide government services, education, recreation, work on the city's budget, taxes, and land manipulation. Don't worry about building houses, stores, factories, or other buildings as the Sims will take care of that themselves. They're almost like people that way.

There are several menus in the game you can check out any time. Speed, Options, Disasters, and Newspaper. Speed allows you to change the speed of how things run, options let you edit sound, music, budget, have it automatically go to an important event in the city, and turn off disasters. Disasters range from fire, flood, airplane crash, tornadoes, earthquakes, monsters, hurricanes, and riots if you really want to be mean.

With the Newspaper Menu you can have a Subscription, which delivers a newspaper to you twice a year. You'll receive an extra copy only during reports of important occurrences, inventions, and major development. Depending on how large the city is affects how many Newspaper selections you have.

When you get into building your own city you can choose the difficulty setting and the year. Depending on what year you choose will affect the tools you can use. At any time you can edit the map through the Edit New Map option on the main menu. There is also a Load Scenario selection on the main menu, which is actually recommended before going through boot camp.

All in all, this is definitely a thinking and patience game. If you're not big on patience or just looking for a game that doesn't require much thinking, this is definitely not something you'd want to pick up. If you are a patient gamer and like to be challenged intelligently, this is the game for you. I'm not sure if it matters which port you get it on, but I'm going to take a leap of faith and say the PC version is probably superior, but there's nothing wrong with the PlayStation version if you'd rather play it on that.

Try it

I remember playing this a while ago. Man was I a bad mayor!