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It seems that there hasn’t been any updates on games people are playing on DDN for a while. Time to break the silence. Today’s feature is on both a renowned shooter and a not-so-renowned Strategy RPG, after being scrutinized for a few days or so.

Looking at the reviews on Bioshock, 2KGames’ latest, I was a bit skeptical about the glowing praise and full high scores it was awarded. The last game that got such praise was Jade Empire, and it was mediocre at best. Despite that, I got my Limited Edition from the closest EBGames and popped the bad boy right in. After a few days of playing and absorbing the atmosphere that is Rapture, it’s safe to say that there’s nothing bad I can say about Bioshock.

The introduction to the world itself as you’re going down the open-glass elevator is breathtaking, followed up with a stunning vision of a Scalper, the fodder villains you will see in the game, stalking you and driving you out of your elevator. Every object is in painstaking detail, every furniture and object given so much life in its “50s era” bleakness of the once-thriving paradise of Rapture. As you are on your quest to get out of the former utopia, you get a hard knock lesson in using your plasmids, using the environment and the big hulking gentle giant Big Daddies to your advantage, and having you choose between saving or killing young girls for power. The whole atmosphere and curiosity is its selling point. No other shooter other than Half Life gets you wondering about the fate of the world the player is in. You’ll be searching every nook and cranny for the many recorded diaries in the game, just for the sake of hearing the lamentings of the former denizens and the chaos that ensues.

I will say that it gets a tad hard. The freaks and enemies you face here don’t fuck around. They will lure you in or use tactics out of the norm to gain the upper hand. The Big Daddies you encounter will give you a hard time. Not much can dent them, so a bit of dodging and smart fighting could get you out of a tight spot. Then again, I am pretty bad at using the 360 for shooters, so veterans might feel more accustomed to blowing through the game.

In short, this one’s a keeper.

Luminious Arc seems to be positioned as a Final Fantasy Tactics Advance clone, judging from the reviews I’ve seen, and they’re half-right. Even the main character of both games sports the traditional anime cowlick. Upon further inspection, the game resembles more of a Shining Force-lite (the strategy RPG game, not the recent hack-and-slash tripe). Your party isn’t filled with nameless soldiers you customize on your own. You get your troops via the storyline; each of your soldiers have their own names and personality. The lecherous scientist, the braggart powerhouse with the sword, the quiet bespectacled cleric, the maid with a broom fetish; yes, they’re anime stereotypes filled to the brim here, but you get the sense that you’re commanding people here, not military tools like in the FF Tactic game.

Unfortunately, the gameplay in Luminious Arc treads a lot of familiar ground set by the Tactics Ogre and Fire Emblem series. Positioning your troops correctly to get as less damage as possible, higher ground playing a big role, you know the drill. They even give you an abundance of items and money for the random fights you get into, which means that the art of power-leveling is made open. Thus, easy playthrough. Of course, there aren’t that many SRPGs for the DS, so I’ll take whatever I can get for now. This title’s solid due to its portable nature, but when compared to the likes of Nippon Ichi’s masterpieces, it lands on the slot of “plain” and “mediocre”.

Technorati : FPS, anime, bioshock, luminious arc, rpg, shooter, srpg