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| Astro Boy: Omega Factor |
| Reviewed by Emerald |
| First let me say: I have no knowledge of the Astro Boy universe. The only other time I had heard of this character was when I read an add in a old video game magazine for the DVD collection. So my review will not be biased. Graphics Wow. Some of the very best on the GBA. Remember Pinobee? It was a first generation GBA game. It had and still has some of the best graphics on a handheld system. What it was missing, was game play. So, the graphics are 3-D and clean. Oftentimes pixilated. That's because all the enemies can get bigger and bigger until they are huge. Such result is pixilation, but it's not as bad as when some regular online geek wants to make a sprite 100th times larger on his measly paint program. Anyways, besides pixilation, it's great. It has parallax backgrounds and the beam animations are great. Score: 9 Sound Another good aspect of this game. The sound is great and there are many memorable tunes. Beams and punches sound good and the yells and screams are fun to listen too, and they aren't even annoying! Score:10 Game play Ah, game play. Sweet, sweet game play. The overall BEST aspect of this game. The only way I see fitting to describe this game is as a side scroller, beat-em up, shooter, platformer. Confusing? That's because it contains all of those aspects. A normal level will have you platform jumping and running will beating up enemies with your first and shooting some well placed beam attacks. Air levels are like, say, an R-type game. A side-scrolling shooter. Some, you can only face one direction and keep going forward. Other, though, are untraditional. They allow you to continue going in one direction, but face different ways to shoot the foes on either side of you. Some battles are fought this way, and they are some of the best. Boss battles are fun and very, very abundant. Some levels feature more than 2! The game is on the short side, taking very little time to complete. On easy mode that is. One normal and hard its just plain brutal, which attributes to a longer, by far, game. And one of the best things, when you complete the game the first time, you get a second quest, like in the original Zelda. In this mode the story is changed and there is a stage select. And you will need it. In the second quest, you will unlock hidden levels. Eventually, you will have beaten all the mini side quests, the main game over again, and be ready to tackle the hidden final level. Score:10 Story To me, this is an important aspect for a game. If not for the story, the game wouldn't have been as good as it is, even though it would still have the killer game play. The story involves the constant struggle of Robots and Humans. And behind all this is an ancient evil, Sharaku, who is feeding of the war and is about to take over the world, all behind the scenes. Characters are great, with some like Atlus. He is a robot with a Childs brain. Because of his actions as a human, the war between humans and robots starts. Not without help from a certain someone I mentioned before though *wink* When you beat the game, don't press start and the The End screen. If you don't you see the 'epilogue' to the game. It is quite comical and features Sharaku again. Anyways, another great score. Score:10 Overview Astro boy has great graphics, minus the pixilation, great music, great game play, and a great storyline. Because of this game, I want to know more about Astro boy. And when you beat the game you get a character gallery. And when you beat it again on another difficulty, the details will be more for each character. Anyways, my final score is Score:9.75 |