Racing fans start your engines. The Gran Turismo series is one of the most celebrated and realistic racing simulators to grace our videogame libraries. So it comes at no surprise that GT4 maintains that excellence. However, it seems that Polyphony Digital doesn’t want to take any chances and add innovative features to their franchise. Or they might have caught the Halo 2 bug and were just lazy. Similar to Halo 2, GT4 was given four years to be made. To add what they did makes you think what PD was doing during those four years. Sure the game has 650 cars and very nice graphics, but there is no way it took them four years to update some race tracks and make computer generated cars. Just because a videogame series maybe successful doesn’t give the manufactures the right to slack off and create something that is simply mediocre compared to the other games in that series.

This leads us to the only down side to the game. People who played GT3 are going to get a very familiar experience. The tracks from GT3 return and only a few new ones are offered. They did add B-spec mode. In this mode you give commands to your car. PD wants people to think of this like a manager mode. You don’t race but you determine when your car passes others, takes pit stops, and how fast it goes around corners. I thought this was boring at first but it does have good uses. I used B-spec during endurance races. Instead of sitting in front of the TV for two or three hours on end, you can get up and do something else. Just set your car to pass others and it takes pit stops when it needs to. You can regain control if you want during trips to the pit stop. For anything other than an endurance race B-spec isn’t useful. Hopefully GT5 takes a more daring leap forward.

Like I said before GT4 has beautiful graphics. The cars look more realistic then ever and the tracks are gorgeous. It is the little details that make GT4 a visually stunning game. If you go off course, remarkable puffs of dirt bellow into the air and then settle. Photographers and fans standing along side the track during rally races are 3-D creations that move away from your oncoming car. Props to PD for finally addressing this overlooked issue. And in some of the levels the backgrounds are real. They took pictures of the locations and placed them in the horizon. They did this with the Grand Canyon and it looks amazing. Simply put this is the beat looking racing game of all time.

The audio in GT4 is outstanding. Each car has its own sound that makes each unique. And if you buy new exhaust or a turbo set the car takes on a new sound. If you are racing in first person mode and accelerate beyond about 100mph, you will start to hear the wind hit the car. But if you are driving behind someone and going 100mph, the wind sound stops because the car ahead of you is displacing the air and when you pass them or move to the side the sound will return. These are the little things that make this the best racing game available. The soundtrack in GT4 sports over forty songs. They have artists like Judas Priest, Van Halen, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Donnas, Jeff Beck, Joe Satriani, James Brown and Jimmy Eat World. This offers the player a good choice of songs they want to hear and songs they don’t want to hear. Luckily you can pick which ones you want to listen to while racing.

The gameplay is as close to real as you can get in a racing videogame. The GT series has always set the standard for car physics and GT4 is no exception. It takes longer for heavier cars to brake or certain cars may not handle as well as others and if you go off track four wheel drive cars will be able to go faster than say front wheel drive cars. PD took the time and made sure that everything feels like the player is driving the car.

GT4 is the complete package when it comes to a racing game. Hundreds of cars, beautiful graphics, excellent sound and a great gameplay make this a wonderful game. Unfortunately, GT3 was the same way. For those who played GT3 this game won’t seem as great as it is because so there is so much you will experience for a second time. If you aren’t sure whether to buy or pass on this game go rent it and decide for yourself. But for people who missed GT3, GT4 should be a welcomed entry to your game collection. Ultimately the final verdict on Gran Turismo 4 comes down to whether or not you played Gran Turismo 3.

I loved Star Ocean: The Second Story for the PS1 and could hardly wait for the sequel to come stateside. But when I got the game last September, my enthusiasm wore off. I don’t know why but SO3 didn’t grab me like the second one did. Everything about SO3 seems very mediocre and it felt like everything had been done before. Maybe my standards were too high from SO2 but this is still a fun game.

The graphics are nicely done. They won’t offer you anything you haven’t seen before but they get the job done. The characters are the real complaint. They lack emotion and detail. Everyone looks the same and most characters, when they do show emotion, either show it too much or not enough. The characters reminded me of Final Fantasy VIII. The main character was quiet and serious, and the supporting cast fit a wide range of clichés. I had seen all these people before. I was impressed with the environments. Planets that were suppose to look like 15th century Europe actually looked like 15th century Europe. Forests were teaming with life, and deserts lay desolate. A nice touch is that you are given rewards for exploring every inch of a dungeon. So you get to experience the beauty this game has to offer (just look away from the character running around). Kudos to the people that designed the settings.

The story had its ups and its downs. The beginning showed promise. You start at a resort that is soon attacked by another planet’s space armada, and you are forced to leave on an escape pod. The pod crashes on an “under-developed planet” and you get mixed up in a war between two nations. The game focuses on you trying to find your way home, and helping the planet you crashed on. There is a big plot twist but it’s been done before. I wasn’t as surprised as I probably should have been. Overall it is a fine story that gets the job done.

The combat system is quite enjoyable. Sticking with the Star Ocean franchise is the full action combat system. Once in battle, you have 100% control of your character. You can run up and start attacking the enemy, or stay back and cast magic, or you can perform hit and run attacks. Having this much freedom is a rarity in a RPG and it works well. My main complaint about the battle system is that people can die if they run out of magic. This pissed me off on many occasions. And since some enemies have attacks that focus on draining your magic this happens far too often.

The audio in SO3 not very good. The voice acting is atrocious. Most of the characters have high pitched annoying voices that make you want to kill someone. On top of that the script writing is pretty god awful. So you are forced to listen to these infuriating voices say stupid things. The music for the most part is bad. They use bad rap and some crappy rock in this soundtrack for reasons we may never know.

All of this adds up to a very mediocre game. I did have fun playing it but I didn’t have fun paying $50. This game isn’t worth $50, but if you can find it for at most $35 buy it. If you are new to the RPG universe then I suggest SO3 because you will not have experienced other games like this. But to RPG veterans rent first.

Devil May Cry 3 restores this franchise to the good side of gaming. Because let’s face it, DMC2 was a definite step in the wrong direction. Thankfully Capcom came to its senses and made some good changes. They changed the atmosphere of the game, the graphics, and improved the story.

Capcom decided to do a prequel this time. The events that happen in DMC3 happen before the events in the first game. Dante is about to open his shop when Hell breaks loose. Literally. It turns out his brother, Virgil, is trying to obtain the power of their father. Dante has to put his shop keeping duties on hold and start kicking ass. As the story unfolds you learn more about the ambitions of other characters and things start to make sense. It is a shame that some parts of the script are badly written. With DMC you would expect over the top dialog but sometimes it is too cheesy. Overall a good turn around form DMC2.

The gameplay in DMC3 is as fun as always. Right from the beginning you’ll be dicing through and blasting holes through demons. You can equip two guns and two melee weapons that you can switch between by pressing either L2 or R2. This allows you to create awesome combos and keeps the killing fresh. Capcom also added styles that Dante can equip. With two of these he can do special melee attacks, or gun attacks. With the third Dante can dash and run on walls. And the fourth allows Dante to block enemy attacks. Picking the right style can make some bosses or levels much easier to beat.

The sound in DMC3 is good and bad. The bad being the soundtrack. It blends rap and techno into a terrible concoction. I couldn’t take it so I put on headphones and listened to music until a cutscene. The good is the sound effects. Everything has a good sound to it. Ranged and melee attacks sound great. Another positive note for the sound crew is that the voice acting is pretty good. Dante keeps his cocky, badass attitude. And the other characters have voices that fit there personalities. For example, Virgil has an arrogant attitude like Dante but he talks in a more sophisticated manner. This suits him because you would expect some twins to act differently from one another.

The graphics are the best thing about DMC3. I know that is a shallow thing to say but it is true. The cinematics are especially beautiful. The lighting is well done by PS2 standards. The environments help pull you into the game. Hell looks like hell. Debris lines the streets of the deserted city. The inside of a giant flying whale looks disgusting. The only bad thing about the graphics is the character models. They look great, but there is too little variety in them. Later enemies look exactly like enemies from early stages they just take longer to kill.

Judas Priest just released Angel of Redemption and it seems that Capcom has given us Devil of Redemption. I will offer all that take up this game a warning. DMC3 is hard. By hard I mean this game will own you no matter how good of a gamer you are. Nothing I can say will prepare you for the onslaught you will receive. As soon as you unlock easy mode chances are you will switch to it. There is no shame in doing so. Beating DMC3 on easy will train you for normal. If you are a fan of the DMC series, don’t let the second game discourage you from buying this one.