OLD REVIEW: Disaster: Day of crisis

READ THIS BEFORE THE REVIEW: since in the past I posted other reviews
with the wiikly news reports I'm gonna post them here too, so that you
won't miss them. I'll post an old one each day until we are caught up
with the current ones ^^

Keep in mind that those reviews are
old...I did this one almost one year ago, so my writing and my way to
explain things may have been quite a bit worse back then (and were also
shorter than now), but I figured it would be interesting ^^

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BACK TO THE PAST: Disaster: Day of crisis
Genre: action/various
I'll start with saying that this is a quite unique game. Not becuase it
tries anything different plot or concept-wise, but because it can't
have a classified genre, being a mix of many genres...exploration, gun
survivor, driving, quicktime events, mini-games and puzzle games.

the story is about a man named Raymond Bryce, a former agent of a
rescue team, who quit after being unable to save his friend during a
volcano eruption. "you can't save everyone" those were the last words
of the friend and that during the game will be the focus of the plot
that is quite well-made, working like a sort of disaster movie: an
earthquake strikes the city where Ray is working and a group of
terrorists takes this chance to steal nuclear bombs along with
kidnapping the sister of Ray's deceased friend. the story starts like
this bringing Ray trough a chain of events and natural disasters while
he tries to go after the terrorists. Perhaps it isn0t anything too
original, but it surely gets you until the end of the game.

the movie-like structure of the game will bring you trough different
situations of gameplay...driving sessions during the natural disasters
(seeing a huge piece of building falling toward you is really...really
scary o.o), gun survivor sessions to get trough the waves of
terrorists, exploration sections where you can find objects to heal
yourself and also help people trough some sort of quicktime events and
minigames...Disaster is really hard to describe for its unique series
of different gameplays.

now, health-wise this game have a few nice additions...beside the
normal HP gauge there are other three things to keep an eye on...the
resistence bar, that will go down everytime you walk, run or do
something that needs your strenght and you will need to eat the food
you'll find in the levels to restore it. if it ever goes to 0 your HP
will start to go down just like the resistence bar. the other two
things to keep healthy are your lungs and heartbeat...there will be
toxic areas that you'll have to go and run trough that will start
poisoning your lungs...to clean them up you'll have to press the z
button and breath deeply in clear areas. the hearthbeat will also speed
up depening by how much you run...the more you run the more faster the
heartbeat will go and this might make you weaker if you wear out your
strenght.

now, about the different gameplay sections: like I said there are
different gameplays: the exploration sessions are quite calm and will
let you explore the levels, break stuff to find items and help people
trough simple mini-games, either trying to pull them out of cliffs,
trying to revive their heart trough a cardiacal massage (did I spell
this right ? x.x) and other things.

then there are the gun survivor sections. Now those are fun sessions,
not only for the different situations you'll face (the fight against a
boss on a bridge, while a HUGE tsunami is coming down on you in 5
minutes well…it’s more than thrilling, I guess o.o; ) but also for the
fact that, during the levels, you’ll be able to earn points to use in
the save-points to power up Raymond’s stats and also unlock and upgrade
new weapons.

Then there are the driving sessions, used just with the wiimote like in
Mario kart, driving trough volcano eruptions and earthquakes. The
controls in this one are precise enough I believe, but at times you’ll
have to go trough very difficult situations that will kill you more
than once.

Of course the usual quicktime events can’t be missed…while they won’t
do anything too original, beside a few very nice ideas, they’ll surely
make you waggle wiimote and nunchuck like mad, really making you feel
like Raymond during those events XD

The graphical look is probably the big flaw of this game…while the
models of the main characters are well-made and animated, at times the
backgrounds will look bland and not too detailed, beside a few
exceptions (the effects of the natural disasters are quite well-made).

the soundtrack of the game is very nice, I must say...you'll probably
like the main themes that are very nice songs on my opinion...if
anybody knows where to download the soundtrack please tell me! XD ahem,
anyways, like I said, the soundtrack takes you trough the game in a
nice way, never being too imposing, but also giving the right feeling
to what you are actually doing.

to end the review, disaster is a worthy game if you like action movies
and different games. the only one big flaw is the graphic look not
always perfect, but if you aren't one of those HD graphics freaks I
guess you'll enjoy the feeling this game will give you...for all the US
gamers I'd suggest you to import it since unluckily it looks like for
now there aren't any plans for an american release x.x

here are a few screens:



things are getting hot!



rape scene incoming ? >



the game will let you save people in quite a few different ways



run, forrest, run!!



one of the gun survivor sessions

here are a few videos:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40149.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/39963.html