Fortress for GBA

In MST3k terms, Fortress is the Hercules Unchained of the Game Boy Advance. Staggering plot, confusing levels, many things that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Well. There's only two words for that! That's right...

DEEP HURTING!

DEEEEEEEEP HUUUURRTINGGG!

Yeah, i'd rather watch that miserable, hour-long scene where Steve Reeves is out traipsing through the friggin' desert for the rest of my life than play this game for a month. And trust me, i tried.

I know what you're saying. "Hey, didn't you make this blog to bring out the better side of games that, otherwise, sit on the shelf collecting dust until some old-yet-well-intentioned-lady buys it for her grandson that will unwrap it, grimace, toss it in some darkened corner of his room, and never play with it because it isn't Pokemon or Halo?" And yes, you're right. But i also made this blog to warn against such games. They do sit on the shelf for a reason. And let's not overlook the fact that this little beauty was scored a friggin' 6.6 by GameSpot. The first thing wrong with that score?

"Fortress, by Majesco, is a competitive puzzle-strategy game that answers the question, 'What if Tetris were a battlefield?' "

Okay, ways to tell if your game sucks:

1. It was made by Majesco (Which is not entirely true; they did make Cooking Mama and some other really great games! Use only when Rule #2 applies!)

2. It tries to cross genres. In this case, Tetris mixed with some sort of odd-ass shooting game.

First off, there's no intro to the game. You're given the option of playing against the computer or another person. Wait..don't i get a tutorial? Don't count on it. In fact, don't count on anything in this game, as it'll turn on you like a Thief SATA-ing a Summoner's pet.

Hahah...Summoners. They never move their pets...

Then, you are given the option for the level in which you will play. Will you be the meathead cavemen, the castle-building knights, bawdy pirates, or futuristic spacemen? It really won't matter, considering you won't know what the hell to do with the damn pieces they give you. Yes, some of the gameplay is simple: if you put a piece over a hole, it will crumble down into the hole. But sometimes the pieces sporadically fall. The enemy is constantly shooting at your cave/castle/ship/space station, and the three cannon pieces you do get instantly fall apart as soon as they touch ground. Why? No one knows! Because it's fun!

Three things you must consider before turning on this game:

1. You will lose. If you win, you must've put magnets on the game cartridge.

2. Babbages doesn't do returns, so once you get it, it's YOURS, sucker!

3. Know beforehand if there is a 7-year-old with a Game Boy on your block. This will totally make his Christmas. Or fix his wobbly chair.

Also, it's out of production, which means you will have to get it used. Used. As in no guidebooklet to go with it. Which means you won't know what to do for the first fifteen minutes you play it. See Consideration #1.

Duel Masters - Limited Edition

Today I give you Duel Masters, an odd little Playstation 2 game by Atari based on the collectable card game of the same name. To be honest, I only bought this because i had a major jonesin' for Digimon Digital Card Battle, but since i seem to be stuck on BlackWarGreymon and just too lazy to upgrade my deck, I decided to shell out the $7.50 for this little number. I really have no interest in Duel Masters as a brand. It seemed to me like a cop-out of Yu-Gi-Oh!, a premonition that proved very, very correct.

While nowhere near the caliber and fun-ness of DCB, this game does have the card-based strategy i crave. It strongly resembles Magic: The Gathering in terms of initial play: you have to get mana in order to summon creatures; the player is given a set number of "shields" until they lose; the monsters attack the player directly. It diverges from Magic at the rules of combat. Only a tapped creature can be attacked, only certain creatures can block, certain creatures have dual-shield-breaking abilities, and creatures can evolve. All in all, a fun game if you're familiar with Magic or a similar card game. The benefits of a console card game are still there: no refereeing the rules as the computer does it for you, you save a lot of time from shuffling and dealing with decks, and, of course, you don't bend up that precious rare card. In fact, you can sell your rarest card (for annoying "store credit" - the average credit is 10 and packs cost 125!) and not have to deal with the loss of something actually worth value. Then again, this is Duel Masters we're talking about. I don't think there'd be many tears in real life if you used the most rarest card for a bookmark.

Ah, but we're missing the true value of any game! Let us now focus on that meaty, juicy plot; that storyline that grips us fishlike by the gills and reels us in!

Yes. Well. Duel Masters doesn't really offer anything in the way of plot. Some creature has escaped its prison in suchandsuch place and the five organizations (nature, fire, water, light, and dark) send special monks to find the five best duelests for some reason. Like Yu-Gi-Oh!, it's another case of "Does this card game REALLY affect the real world? And if so, why do they let preteen boys play it?" While YGO does, ehh, a decent job of explaining this, DM just lets it go. Reminds me of something else... At least with Digimon Card Battle it's the Digital World you're saving, not Earth. That's a little bit more believable.

Essentially, you play as 5 different characers: Rusty (fire), Luc (light), Flynn (dark), Rebecca (water) and....um...the loser kid (nature). Awesomeness point - Luc is African-American! :D And he's incredibly cool! :DD The rest of the gang are kinda stereotypes. Rusty's the little monkey-brat, Flynn is the emo, Rebecca is the smarter-than-men chick, and the loser kid is a whiny brat who can't win any battle he's put against and WHY DO YOUR CARDS ALWAYS LOSE, NATURE CLAN!? WHY!?!

Ahem.

The graphics in the game, along with the voice acting, are laughable. Characters' outlines ooze in and out of their colors; faces, mouths, and noses disappear; and they give the overall appearance of a bad marionette show. Though the graphics in the battle scenes, which you will thankfully be spending most of your time, are ten times better, the cinematics are horribly dull and repetitive. I ended up turning them off after i froze the game trying to skip through them. Really! I looked and looked for a game with cinematics like Digimon's and then end up hating them!? Where is the justice?!

Not that the cards are much to look at. Since the plot of the game is based on the TYPE of card rather than the CREATURE, your battlers only resemble a hodgepodge of Tolkien-ish mush. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the logic behind these creatures. Why is that floaty airship part of the light clan? Why is that computer virus in the water clan? It simply gets annoying.

No music in the battle scenes, but some of the creatures grunt and growl. While initially amusing, this can grow VERY tiresome VERY quickly. The only battle music is at the end of the battle, where the character does a little signature pose while their victory theme plays. Loser kid's pose is particularly amusing, as he looks like he's going to break into a full-scale Broadway show-and-dance. He whirls out his jazz hands but at the last minute remembers he's a duel master and just kinda twitches before looking his ultimate loserest.

All in all, it's not a bad game. The card battles are pretty fun and the plot is make-fun-of-able at best. It's at least worth $10 or a night's rent.