Reviews

I am a man of many tastes in terms of video games. I prefer games that go against the flow rather than with the flow. Okage: Shadow King is one of those games. It's animation resembles Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas". That is a good thing too. The characters are deep and diverse, ranging from a Ghost Scholar, an over-weight fighter, a spoiled bratty princess, to a quiet boy named Ari, our main character. The title Okage means shadow king in Japanese. Plus it refers to the other main character; Stanley, the descendant of a great evil king.

Now, all the chaos starts when Ari's sister gets sick and can only be cured by Stan who is a Shadow Evil King, how one becomes a shadow Evil King i'll never know. So, the only way Ari can save his sister is to make a pact with Stan to become his slave and let him haunt Ari's shadow until Stan is put back into his power. Ari of course agrees and thus begins his journey to raise Stan back to his former status. As for the rest of the plot.... you'll just have to discover for yourself.

The game itself doesn't take itself seriously, the best humor comes from the characters fighting with each other. Stan has to be the funniest character in the game, mostly since the world is to small to contain his ego and your characters are quick witted enough to shoot him down and make him fight with them and it goes back and fourth.

The only bad things about this game are the dungeons, they can become very cumbersome and a large pain. But that aside the game is fun to be had.

I give Okage: Shadow King a 3.5 out of 5.

The first time I saw Rez it was in a store and I like many people before me dismissed it because of a less than stellar box art and lack of reviews and popularity. I wish I hadn't. This game is the hardest to find. It's based on the premise that you are a computer hacker and must go through a revolutionary computer mainframe and eradicate viruses. It looks amazing as the graphics resemble a wire-frame based paradise that look as crisp as it sounds. You move on set tracks and fire on the aforementioned viruses and release an evolution in your form and discover the game is set at a syncopated beat and quickly becomes like your entranced. It's a truly organic experience. It's like listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with headphones on and watching a strobe light flash different colors. I have don't that and the experiences are similar.

This game should not be passed up by anybody. It's is a rare game that you don't so much as play it, but experience it.