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Dark Arena

Moby ID: 10797

Game Boy Advance version

Different in a good way ,but a little bland in a bad way.

The Good
I will keep this review short. THIS GAME IS kinda OK ! As far as portable fps games go ,Dark Arena is one of the best. OK , most most will write this off as as another Doom clone, but come on ! This is handheld were talking about , what were you expecting? Golden eye ? To be fair, this game is quite a bit different from most other games of its kind. The graphics mainly set it apart,not by being any better, but more colorful. The architecture in some of the levels is really cool. Tall obelisks, towering archways, and visible sky, albeit low resolution, is still a nice touch. The monsters ,predictably ,are a bit on the bland side of things. Even the boss in the last level is hard to tell apart from the other creatures. But one ,the half lizard robot on wheels thing is totally cool ! And hard to kill.And the graphics mention should go to the rising platforms,and the door buttons. The move smoothly,and light up appropriately. Now on to the sound . Actually, there isn't much.The weapons sound decent, but lack that big BOOM sound.Even for the rocket launcher ! Oh well, at least the story is kind of interesting. Or more precisely,the ending, I finished it on the medium difficulty. It teased me with a description of what happened, instead of a visual. I won't tell the description,but you'll have to beat it on the hard difficulty now won't you ?I didn't play the multiplayer, but I sure it would have been the same as the single player, only with more spawn point killing.

The Bad
The frame-rate in this game sometimes...ooh............ IT BLOWS ! BAD ! LIKE RAINBOW SIX ON PLAYSTATION BAD !!!!! The frame-rate can go from about 30 frames per-second, to about four. Too many enemies on-screen at once can bog it down so much, you can't even aim right ! And the big inconsistency in the game is , if you're playing a girl, how -come when she's hit, it sound like a guy ? But other than the APPALLING FRAME RATE !, I have no other complaints.

The Bottom Line
If you like fps games , check it out , or get it at a game store[ I got mine for three bucks !] If you're looking for a game on the go,on the road,this game definitely hits the mark. If you don't like fps games ,then ..I don't know,go play Tetris on you're cellphone or something.

by GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) on October 5, 2007

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