About a week ago, I came across a little-known PS2 game, pretty much by random while doing an Amazon search. It was a game that got mediocre critical reviews, but outstanding user reviews, which intrigued me. It's called Disaster Report. After doing some more research on the game, I liked what I saw enough, so I bought it. It arrived today, and I played it for a few hours. I usually don't talk about games like this, but I wanted to here because I'm really loving this game so far.

It's a very unique game, in fact it's hard to even place in a genre. But most people who played it consider it a survival horror game. The core gameplay is similar to both Resident Evil and Silent Hill, except there's no combat, and for the first part of the game at least, no enemies. Instead, your primary adversary is a series of earthquakes, which is the primary source of the horror in this game.

The game takes place on a man-made island. This island is suddenly struck by a massive earthquake. You and a small handful of survivors basically have to make your way to the center of the island for evacuation, finding your way through obstacles, solving complex puzzles (such as saving a girl from a subway car that's teetering on the edge of a collapsed bridge, without killing both of you), and most importantly, avoiding certain death from collapsing buildings, falling debris, and pieces of the level literally collapsing and falling into the ocean as you play, in real time. It's a very different kind of survival horror, but it can be far more shocking and startling than any undead creature.

There's other strange stuff about this game too. For example, you need to drink water, otherwise you get dehydrated. Luckily, you can carry water bottles that hold a good amount of water, and you can refill them on a regular basis, which is nice.

The controls in the game work fine, the gameplay as a whole is very good. The puzzles are intuitive, it's just a fun game that makes you think, and occasionally scares the crap out of you. It's nice and refreshing to see a survival horror game that doesn't have to rely on darkness or cliche monsters to get the shock value, and instead going to a more realistic disaster.

Why this game got such below average reviews from critics, I don't know. It's fun and unique, that qualifies it as a good game in my book. I'm only a few hours into it but I'll review it when I finish it. It seems the biggest gripe of the critics was the visuals, which were below average for its time (2003). The visuals get the job done fine, it's just not as technically impressive. I don't really care about visuals as long as they don't hurt the quality of the game, so in this case, the visuals are more than good enough for me. But people who see graphics as a serious issue should steer clear.

Also, people who want a fast-moving game with combat, should also steer clear. This is primarily a puzzle-solving game. So this is definitely not for everyone, but I will say that if you're looking for a unique experience, you should definitely check this game out.

I finished Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier for the PS2 today. Pretty good game, but kinda short. Here's My Review.

It's pretty similar to my blog from a few days ago. If you have the time, please check it out and leave your comments or disagreements here.

Every 1 to 2 weeks, I shop at a Walmart Supercenter in Epping, New Hampshire where I purchase most of my groceries. On the road that gets there, there's a plaza. You have to pass by this plaza every time you go to Wal-Mart and every time you leave. It's the only way in and out. In this plaza, they just built a new store. Guess what that store is? Yup, Gamestop.

About a year ago, I swore off ever buying from a Gamestop store again, because they gave me some bad service. Avoiding Gamestop was easy before, because the closest one to me was in Manchester, the big city. Now, I grew up in Manchester, but now I live in a smaller town about 20 miles away and I don't go to Manchester unless I absolutely have to (I'm not a big city guy).

But now, it's impossible to avoid it. I went in, and I bought SOCOM 2 for $5. Actually, correction, I paid for SOCOM 2, but the guy behind the counter gave me SOCOM 3 by mistake. Which is, more expensive, and I don't have it yet so, pretty good deal. It's also probably the nicest Gamestop I've been in yet.

That, plus the fact that I'm going to be driving right past it every two weeks now, it's gonna be impossible to avoid. Heh. It's such a high traffic area, it's a really diabolical spot for Gamestop to place a building. I'm probably going to end up shopping there now on a regular basis. I know they're evil, they're a big corporation of doomy gloom. They're the devil incarnate and the corporate personification of all that is bad. But I think I'm gonna buy from em now. I am a capitalist after all It's not healthy to hate something. I think Gamestop and I can build bridges.