After landing on the planet, he exited the ship with Zengoroth X in hand. “What’s that sound?” he thought. An explosion occurred north from his current location. “I should check that out!” he shouted. “This might be the reason behind all of this chaos.” Jaden ran as fast as he could north. The closer he approached, the more geysers of lava appeared. The heat emitting from the geysers was enough to burn an egg on a ship’s wing.  “If I don’t watch my step, my goose is cooked..” he thought.

Roughly a mile away, an altar shined in the distance, with a shadowy figure standing in front of it. The altar was in the shape of a Z. The Zengoroth X blade began to softly resonate. The more Jaden approached the altar, the more the blade resonated. With the resonation, the blade began to slightly glow, as if it was speaking a message. The blade attempted to communicate with Jaden, but he couldn’t hear its call. Jaden was unaware of the glowing sensation.

Jaden was closing in on the altar, and he began to hear laughing. It wasn’t any ordinary laugh, it was maniacal and twisted. Shivers ran down Jaden’s spine at the thought. The shadowy figure sensed his presence and turned around. “Greetings.. fool. I am Lord Vetrox Z, I’m a Death Dragoon who roams around space. The Galactic Military has been on my ass for years, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. No petty fool from the military can stop me. With the power of my spear, Vega Z, I shall rule the Galaxy!” Lord Vetrox Z shouted.  Vega Z is a large spear that Lord Vetrox Z wields, although he is a Death Dragoon, his spear is a teal colour.

“You’re out of your mind old man” Jaden said. “Who allowed you to come here and terrorize this planet?” Jaden pulled out the Zengoroth X, to see that it was glowing brightly. “Who gave you that blade boy?” Lord Vetrox Z yelled. “There’s no way that our weapons are made of the same rare metal.” Vega Z began to resonate. “Don’t you see boy? Our weapons are brothers. They’re forged from a rare metal that shouldn’t exist. These have the power of utter chaos, which is what I have the power to do, unlike yourself.  The resonation of the weapons reveals the true nature and outlook of what life is and should be.” Vega Z starts displaying “DEATH Z”. “Ah yes.” Lord Vetrox Z chuckled. “Let me decipher the message for you. Death is inevitable and will be the end. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…” Suddenly, Zengoroth X begins displaying “AWESOME X”. “Oh, look what we have here” Jaden smirks. “In case you’re bad with words old man, let me fill you in. Life is an exciting adventure, which leaves many mysteries in its wake and that’s enough for me to kill you”

Lord Vetrox Z jumps in the air and charges for Jaden, who barely dodges out of the way. “I’m going to kill you boy, and after that this planet is turning into space dust.” He said while lunging towards Jaden. Jaden blocks with his blade as Vetrox attempts to pierce his chest. “I’ll rip your heart out with the tip of my spear” he gloated.

Geysers of lava start pouring up from Shenzae’s surface, surrounding the area around the altar. “It’s a matter of time before this planets destruction. Just give up and die boy.” Vetrox stated. Jaden determined, fought on and on. “I will never give up; I will save this planet and the galaxy from harm. You will feel the retribution of all the people killed and harmed by you” Jaden screamed. Jaden charged towards Vetrox and launched a concentrated energy wave from Zengoroth X, which knocked Vetrox onto the ground and Vega Z flew out of his hands near the altar. Jaden, enraged, stomped on Vetrox’s neck and applied force. “WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING…?!” he gasped for air. “Giving this galaxy the future it deserves!” Jaden shouted. Jaden began to concentrate his energy into his blade. “In the name of all that is good, to those who wish to live extraordinary lives and experience the greatest things in life.  The tyranny that is Death Z is vanquished at the hands of me, Awesome X. Feel the pain of all the suffering!” he shouted while beheading Lord Vetrox Z.

Lord Vetrox’s head landed into lava and began to ignite and turn to ash. His body, left motionless. Vetrox was dead, but the planet was still suffering. Jaden decided to burn the body and wreck the altar down. Vega Z lay on the ground, a vibrant and dangerous teal spear. Jaden grabbed it and headed down the path that was behind the altar, the only area not yet soaked in lava.

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Story

In Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! you’re thrown into the pants of the Headless Kamikaze, and must chase down Sam Stone while screaming your brains off… while screaming your pants off, to blow him to BFE. Pretty simple right?

Gameplay

Kamikaze Attack! is a 2D side scrolling platformer. Our headless friend automatically runs from the left side of the screen to the right while slowly increasing his speed. Players must control him by jumping or attacking to dodge obstacles such as bombs, missiles, trees, cacti and pits. The game features 40 levels, 20 in a desert, and 20 in a jungle setting. Each level contains a bonus objective that can be completed to gain extra points and goodies. The objectives revolve around five different goals which are rehashed and reused but add more to destroy. Players will punt frogs, kick missiles, destroy trees and cacti, bounce bombs and attack Sam Stone.

The kamikaze has a rage meter, the more you attack, the more the meter fills. When the meter completely fills, you explode and lose a life. Completing levels will bag you more lives, and cool down time so that you can freely use your attack without exploding as quickly. It’s not an insane difference but it’s enough to pull off some cool little tricks. You can also unlock some heads to reduce cool down and better your chance at a perfect, but that requires installing specific applications on a list to earn gravy and unlock them by paying 25 gravy.. okay.. pretty random but it works.

The game features two endless modes, to rack up as many points as possible. The first one is just running through all the obstacles and seeing how far you can get, while the second one only gains points by punting frogs.

Presentation

Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! features hand drawn backgrounds. As of now, there’s only the desert and jungle environments. After playing the game for a few hours, eye strain might occur, causing the game to be more difficult. The music is the same thing for each level, which might cause annoyance. The ability to turn off music and sound effects are in the options. The sound effects consist of explosions and screaming.

Conclusion

Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! is a very affordable game, currently a whopping $0.99 on the Apple and Android Market for it’s release, but will shoot up to $1.99 eventually. The game will last you roughly five plus hours. The game should only be played by fans of theSerious Sam series. If you’re travelling on a bus, car, hanging out at a friends, or just plain bored, Kamikaze Attack! is for you. It’s a great way to obtain some laughs, or manifest anger at trying to blow up Sam Stone.

Score: 8.0

out of 10

Pro:

• Affordable
• Challenging game play
• Serious Sam Humor

Con:

• Sound annoyance
• Eye strain after long periods

This article is also on http://www.thespeedgamers.com

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

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Dumpsters of revolver ammo. Throughout Alan Wake, you come across these dumpsters. The idea baffled me, seeing as this was behind a house. I mean, who the bloody hell is going to keep a dumpster, filled with nothing but revolver ammo, in their back yard? The Revolver is probably the most common weapon in the game, seeing as if you get the chance to obtain it. Which is most of the time. In Alan Wake, Light is your friend.

This next one made me chuckle a little bit.

Alan Wake did a good job of having in game advertisements for specific items, such as, Energizer Batteries. So seeing the Xbox 360 Console with a game called “Night Springs” Gave me a laugh. Night Springs is this television show that the player comes across while playing Alan Wake. You’ll randomly find teles in different locations that will have the show playing on them. I believe in one of the Downloadable Content Chapters, you have to collect those Night Springs video games.

About more than half-way through Alan Wake, you run into these old geezers.

You might be asking, why do we care about these old guys? Well, they’re actually in a band called “Old Gods of Aesir”. Their farm house is called Valhalla and a bit of a distance from their farm house, they have a rock and roll stage with a dragon that breathes fire. They were so into the Gods of Aesir thing, that they changed their names to “Odin” and “Thor”. Can you guess which one is Thor?

The next and last image made me facepalm and ask myself.. “..what the hell..?”

It’s a lounge chair and a 6 pack of I’m guessing beer. You may be asking, “So what?” Well, I just climbed up this wall area, from trying to leave one of those power grids for a power plant. Then I get to the top, and see this, just sitting there, directed towards the water and the power plant. Laziness on the job at it’s finest.

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Jaden was currently on Xentor, a thriving and populous Space Port in the west region of the SomXe Galaxy. It’s famous for its large market and port. “If I had my own damn ship, I wouldn’t have to wait for the military dogs to take me away to Bezade headquarters” he said to himself. A military grunt who was sent out to find and escort him back to Bezade located him. “Come on sir, I’ve got to take you back to Headquarters” the grunt said. “Alright, alright wait just a damn minute.”  Jaden sighed. They both boarded a military ship called “Draigon V” one of the finest ships in the military’s fleet. “This ship is too large for my tastes.” Jaden complained. “Although it’s powerful, it’s not as fast as some of the other ships out there”.

The trip lasted a few hours. Planet Bezade is located in the east region of SomXe. Bezade is a tropical planet. It mostly contains water and islands. It’s a moderately populated planet. Very important people of the galactic military of SomXe live here due to the climate. Bezade also resides one of the headquarters of the military on it. At the docking bay Jaden debated on visiting his home before the summoning. “I haven’t been to my apartment in a while” he thought “I should probably check on it.” No sooner that the idea ignited in his mind, he was rushed out by the grunt to receive his punishment.

At the front gate, the two were greeted by the guards and let in. “Is it me or does this place seem to have more guards?” Jaden asked. “Yeah.” The grunt replied. “A gang tried to break in and steal information from our mainframes a week ago.” After walking down a series of hallways and riding a few elevators, the two reached the main control room. The Leading Commander had his back turned to the two. He was a tall man wearing a large black military rain coat. He had short blonde hair and wore a hat on his head. “Commander Klodaed..?” Jaden said. The tall man slowly turned around. Jaden’s heart sank a bit and grew uneasy.  They slowly made eye contact. “Tsk Tsk Jaden..” Claus Klodaed smirked. “You should know better than to keep pulling these ridiculous stunts. You’re going to have to spend some time in the brig for this one. You have so much potential, yet it’s wasted because you don’t want to follow the rules.” “You know how I am.” Jaden replied. “Evil has to have justice and I feel like I’m the one who can do it, at the risk of a few petty rules.” “This is why you aren’t a Captain yet!” Claus Klodaed shouted. “I don’t need a retarded title to be great!” Jaden yelled.

“Commander Klodaed! There’s an intruder!” shouted a grunt. “They’re going for the mainframe!” “Not if I have anything to say about it!” Claus Klodaed replied. The leading commander headed off to find the intruder in the base. Jaden was left alone in the main control room. “Man, I’m bored. What do I do now…?” He pondered. All of a sudden, a transmission from the main computer was coming in, it was a distress call. “HELP HELP, WE’RE UNDER ATTACK, THE WHOLE PLANET IS UNDER ATTACK. WE NEED RE-FORC-MENT. H-LP!” The transmission cut out. “That was a signal from Shenzae!” Jaden shouted.

Shenzae is the location of the main SomXe Galactic Headquarters. It’s a moderately sized planet that consists of mountains and grassy plains. While there are many villages spread about, the SomXe Galactic Headquarters was created and built into the Temi Mountains. Shenzae is a very important planet to the SomXe Galaxy. “This can’t be happening! Shenzae is the pinnacle of our military. If the planet falls we fall! I have to do something!” Jaden shouted in a great panic. He created a plan to travel to Shenzae by himself to check out what was happening to the planet. Jaden decided to steal the Draigon V from the docking bay. “The worst that’s going to happen is more time in the brig” he thought.

Before Jaden reached the docking bay he paid a visit to his military apartment and grabbed his sword, the Zengoroth X. A beautiful blade made of a rare teal metal, given to Jaden by his father Xavier Princeton. Xavier died three years previously while on a dangerous mission for the military. He was a captain and his best friend was Claus Klodaed.

“Sneaking onto the Draigon V isn’t going to be easy, but I at least have to try” Jaden thought. It was risky for him to charge through the front but he had no choice. Fighting guard after guard to reach the ship took him just about an hour, due to the length of the docking bay ramp. Once inside the Draigon V, he learned that the entire ship’s crew was gone. “They must have gone out to lunch.” He smirked. He jumped towards the captain’s seat and proceeded to engage the ship for flight towards Planet Shenzae.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope put you in the shoes of Edge Maverick. A blonde young man who rises up to captain status of the SRF-003 Calnus, a space ship used for scouting planets throughout the game.

The Last Hope takes place in S.D 0010. From the advancement in A.D 2087, the new “Spacedate calender” was established and beginning with S.D 0001. The SRF (Space Reconnaissance Force) was created in secret, and was set into motion in S.D 0010 for space exploration to search for suitable planets for mankinds to thrive and survive.

The after-effects of World War III, in A.d 2064 caused the Earth’s surface not fit for the people of Earth to live on, thus the species went underground, plotting for years to travel into space to locate and save the humans from the brink of destruction.

If you’ve heard me ramble before about some of my favourite games, the Star Ocean series makes it’s mark on my list. The series was my first step into the new age of RPG titles. I’ve only play some variation of Turn-Based RPGs, and Star Ocean: The Second Story was my first glimpse at an Action-RPG. I enjoyed the game and played it again. Was it the space appeal? Most likely. The combination of space and RPG was the epicenter of something great.

After playing the majority of the previous titles, I was expecting great things from The Last Hope. The game doesn’t take too long to get into the so called “action” of it. Compared to the previous titles, it starts out at a bit faster pace. Those who have never played Star Ocean: The Second Story and plan on it will be introduced to about an hour or two before things start to kick off. Don’t fret, get through that and the game starts getting insanely good.

The Last Hope is a beautiful arrangement of sound, story, graphics and game play.

The Star Ocean series is known for it’s amazing arrangements and style of music in the soundtrack. It’s an amazing mixture of progressive rock and baroque with it’s own twist and additions seen to Motoi Sakuraba’s expectations.

The Last Hope features many different environments expanding from space sceneries to beautiful mountain, oceans snowed plains, grassy areas, space ships and much more.

The controls of the game can be a little odd at first, on the Xbox360 version, due to the fact that the previous installments were on the Super Nintendo, Playstation 1, Game Boy Colour and Playstation 2. Respective to the games in the series. So playing on the Microsoft controller took a bit to get used to. There’s the ability to Sprint with the press of the X button, which is very helpful to get away from monsters are get from on destination to another as quick as possible. Traveling through the environments may take a while if you decided not to Sprint. They’re very large and vast which is another reason why having the Sprint is great.

There’s also this weird occurrence which is every time you enter a building, like an Inn or Weapon Shop. The controlled character slows down to a very small walk. To have them run normally you have to press the Right Trigger. Every Single Time. It seems like a useless feature, unless it’s supposed to be utilized somehow, or for the fact it’s rude to run in houses.

Voice Acting is never perfect in games anymore. There’s always those few people in the entire game who have weird voices, or they weren’t done very well. The majority of the voice acting in The Last Hope so far, is fantastic. There are a couple who sound lazy and a lot of work wasn’t put into them, but it’s not enough to make me want to completely give up on the game. The fact that some people get so pissed off over voice acting is pathetic. There is options to mute specific characters for their battle voice acting, so you would still have to deal with cut scenes. In the International version, there’s the option to change the audio to Japanese.

I’m personally loving The Last Hope right now. I think it’s a great addition to the series and I can’t wait to play the rest of the game. Expect a review after I complete the entire game. Thanks for reading.