All reviews submitted by Dazzaraz
Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 25 August 2007
Some nice graphics and good music, but the game is essentially the same as previous Ridge Racers. There's also a weird effect when the nitro is activated that doesn't really give the impression of intense speed, the PSP's version of Ridge Racer is much better. 
Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 25 August 2007 Interesting idea but there's no real connection with the dull looking main character that you play. As usual it's a case of the Americans saving the day, and it is more of an american take on the UK rather than a British take on the UK. The graphics are pretty dull to be honest, all brown and greys, some of the weapons and aliens are original, but there are so many better first-person shooters out there. Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 25 August 2007 Great animation and graphics, awful music. It's a lot of fun but it's essentially the same as the original Dreamcast game. If you like tennis, this is the best tennis game out there, however if you've played any of the previous Virtua Tennis games you will feel let down. Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 17 June 2007 A very surreal game with a mixture of mini-games that are either fun and original, or dull and annoying. As a game that demonstrate's what the Wii can do it works great but it probably won't hold your interest for long. It doesn't work as well on the PS2, I decided to post this here, as my original Wii review had the wrong rating, (i couldn't change it).
Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 08 June 2007 It looks like a next generation game, but hidden underneath the impressive graphics and art design are gameplay flaws that were around several years ago. Your progress is limited to a linear path with invisible borders that halt your path and make no sense, gameplay mainly consists of on-going button bashing and slowdown is evident throughout the game. In short periods of play it is enjoyable, but it becomes very repetitive. 
Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 04 March 2007 Set two years after Final Fantasy X, this game continues the story of Yuna and friends after the defeat of Sin, and how the aftermath of that final battle has affected the world of Spira. This is an interesting and brave step for Square as it’s the first sequel to an existing Final Fantasy storyline. The game itself is also done in a different way to previous Final Fantasies and it’s mainly this reason that the game has come under a lot of fire.
For starters the lead character’s are female. Yuna spends most of the game unsure of her destiny, Paine is mysterious, and Rikku is cute and sometimes annoying, as you progress through the game you find yourself growing attached to the girls and you will probably end up with a favourite one. It’s the same as watching a movie, TV show or reading a book with a female lead.
The dress-spheres are another thing that has been criticised, when in fact it’s an excellent fighting system. It allows you to switch jobs when in battle with some impressive cut-scenes (which can be shortened) but because the characters change clothes it’s considered wrong! The battle system is very quick and is probably the fastest system an RPG has used, it also allows for a lot of customisation with the different dress-spheres and garment grids that can be found.
The majority of the game is based around different mini-games and various missions and it is a lot more linear than previous games. Overall though it is a lot of fun, and several of the mini-games are addictive. If you are looking for a more casual approach to an RPG that is fun with some great graphics (probably the prettiest on the Playstation2) with some great music and amazing cutscenes, along with a good story and an exciting fighting system then I recommend this.
Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 09 July 2006 It's a good game but it's over-rated. For the first half of the game it is amazing; good atmosphere, great sound and the appearance of The Flood gives a sense of an overwhelming alien force that is unstoppable. However once The Flood make their appearance the rest of the game's quality just drops, it becomes the same thing over and over again; the same aliens, the same bland purple environments, the same weapons. It's at that point that it stops becoming fun and becomes more of a chore, the indoor maps are dull and easy to get lost in, everything just looks the same...the impressive graphics of the outdoor environments just disappear. There are still a lot of great touches to the game and most of it is well done, but a lot of the features have been done several times before on several PC first-person shooters, which doesn't really make it as original or awe-inspiring as a lot of people seem to claim it is. Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 01 July 2006 An original game where the focus is to set various traps around a mansion in order to stay alive. The main character, a princess, is accused of murdering her father and somehow ends up becoming possessed by a demon. With the whole town after her and the demon demanding sacrifices, the object of the game is to create traps in each room and join certain ones together in order to create combos and kill off the various bounty hunters.
After a while the game does become very repetitive, and you end up finding yourself just activating the same traps over and over again just to kill one bad guy. It's a good idea and it's original which is refreshing, but Trapt is flawed.
Reviewed by: Dazzaraz on 07 February 2006 It’s taken a while coming, but finally a Matrix game based around the main protagonist of the movie trilogy has finally been released. Personally I wonder if anyone is actually interested in the Matrix universe after the backlash the final two films received. For those who are still fans, this game allows you to progress through all the major set pieces from the trilogy along with a selection of original locations and training scenarios. On paper things sound great, but unfortunately the game has a selection of flaws, one of which makes it virtually unplayable. The opening level takes place in the famous lobby scene and determines the level of difficulty the player can play the rest of the game through, however this level is so frustrating most people would probably quit after struggling to learn the controls while being attacked by relentless bad guys. Things get better after this, and for a while look good, the hand to hand combat and the use of weapons make for some impressive looking moves and animation (even if you are really just pressing one button multiple times). For a while the impression of being in the Matrix movies is conveyed well…until you pick up the guns.
Various games over the years have struggled with creating a decent targeting system when using weapons in a third person perspective, this game seems to have forgotten any lessons that have been learnt. Targeting an enemy is unpredictable, when facing multiple enemies, each one has to be selected manually, sometimes it doesn’t lock-on, sometimes it locks onto some object in the background, sometimes it doesn’t unlock from the corpse of the guy that just died. The lock-on works so randomly that it leads to severe frustration and usually death when in the middle of a big fire-fight. Overall the game started bad, got better and then got a lot worse making it unplayable.
Add to this, un-skippable scenes from the movies, a strange blurring effect on some backgrounds, a lot of low-res textures that make certain levels ugly, and one of the worst game endings ever and you have to wonder why they bothered with another Matrix game and more importantly do people even care about the Matrix anymore?
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