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Platform: PlayStation 2 I think everyone knows what happened to Sega here over the last few years. While the company has always had a fairly strong arcade division, and came out very strong years ago with the Genesis, they’ve made some bad choices. The Saturn failed to even make a dent in the market that Sony was gaining an increasingly good foothold in, and after they abandoned the system, opting to release the Dreacast, their fate in the home console market was pretty much sealed. These days, Sega develops games for everyone else, something that in my opinion they should have done long ago. However, they continue to make mistakes, this time it’s Gungrave. You assume the role of Death: Beyond the Grave, an assassin with a bone to pick. A syndicate is gaining control over the city, and it’s up to Grave to take them out. Armed with his twin guns, Cerberos, Grave is off on a one-man killing spree to put a stop to their reign of chaos. This of course means destroying everyone and everything that gets in his path, except for innocent bystanders, and it’s going to mean brining hells wrath down on everyone who crosses his path. I really hate to bash a game right from the start, but Gungrave is a title that has little to no redeeming qualities. While it tries to capture an anime look, and there is actually a series for Gungrave, although I’m not quite certain which came first, and I honestly don’t care at this point, Gungrave lacks in just about every respect. First off, let’s take a look at our “hero.” Problem one is obviously the name, Death: Beyond the Grave. He couldn’t simply be called Death or Grave, or even Mr. Grave; instead he has one of the longest, most unoriginal names in gaming history. Grave himself moves at a slugs pace, trotting along from place to place, destroying everything. The character, obviously inspired by Spawn, is uninteresting overall with the only real point of interest being some of the gun battles. As Grave continues, he gains more and more special abilities, and while some may look slightly cool, they really are unimpressive, and that also includes his ability to swing his coffin at foes. Visually, the game does look fairly good, but that’s really about the extent of things here. The enemies have fairly simple AI, making most nothing more than cannon fodder, probably intentional, and the bosses really aren’t anything that’s too difficult. Most in fact can be defeated the first time you encounter them, and much of the time simply standing in one spot is more than enough, although there are the occasional ones where you need to actually move, but it’s not too often. I also will give Sega credit for leaving the Japanese voice actors in, something that Capcom taught many companies was cool back with the original Onimusha. Are they good? I really have no idea. However, voice acting and Japanese dialog really isn’t enough, and while you can gain some minor bit of information at the end of each stage, the story really isn’t anything that’s going to pull anyone in with some deep and intricate storyline. Where the game really falls short though is in its overall length. Gungrave can be completed in a little over an hour, depending of course on how good you are. It’s the type of thing that makes me want to go back and play Onimusha again, and it only took three hours to finish. Gungrave really is just a poor man’s excuse for Devil May Cry, but not nearly as cool, and definitely not as innovative. Pac-Man had more heart and soul than what this game does. If senseless violence is your thing, then by all means, pick this up. However, if you’re looking for story and a lengthy game, there are plenty of other titles that are available to fill in that void. Really, this may very well be one of the worst games made for the PlayStation, and definitely goes onto my list of top 10 games not to own. In fact, I wouldn’t even suggest it for a rental, and that’s pretty bad. Avoid it. -mike- |
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