The Final Fantasy series started with the original release in 1987, spawning a game franchise that has since become Square Enix's most successful series and overall has sold over 85 million units worldwide as well as often serving as the benchmark that nearly all roleplaying games are compared to.
Details are sketchy at best right now, with nothing more than a set of screenshots released on Square's Facebook page. With a release date of "TBA", both games appear to be the same highly refined versions that were released on the PSP.
Final Fantasy:
Final Fantasy II:
As huge Final Fantasy fans ourselves, I can guarantee we will be keeping a very close eye on these games and their impending release.
Tapulous announced today that their much anticipated musical racer will debut in the App Store on February 8th. They've also released a new teaser video featuring music from the Black Eyed Peas.
We first heard of Riddim Ribbon back in September when the game was previewed at Apple's media event.
The game puts you in the role of the DJ as you race down a ribbon. Your job is to follow the groove as best you can using tilt controls. You can choose to remix your songs by choosing different paths on the ribbon.
Nothing says "shear terror" like a good old fashioned brother vs. brother llama farm cannon battle, and Fleeced! - Shear Terror (developed by Bight Interactive Inc.) delivers that action in spades. This is the a revamp of the "castle defense" genre that absolutely works, and it even comes with online multipalyer.
The premise of Fleeced is quite unique, to say the least. You control one of two brothers in the midst of a hardcore sibling rivalry, and they've decided to settle their rivalry by setting up fragile llama pens about 100 feet from one another and firing cannons at each other. In a completely unrelated incident, there is one "llama rustler" prowling around the outskirts of both brothers' pens, and any time a wall is brought down by cannon fire they'll pounce on the unsuspecting llamas and shear some of their valuable fur.
Victory can be achieved in these 1v1 faceoffs by opening up your opponent's wall repeatedly to let in their local llama rustler in enough times to fully shear the llama. I have absolutely no idea why making your brother's llama naked would make you victorious in anything, but that ridiculous plot setup makes for an extremely fun, competitive game.
As an angry llama farmer, you have several options available to you in your battle against your brother. There are four different types of cannons that can be built, but building a cannon will cost you several coins. Luckily for you, coins randomly apparate within your llama pen at a constant rate throughout each match, so all you'll need to do is run over these coins using the on-screen dpad to pick them up. The walls of your pen will require constant maintenance as your brother attacks him with his cannon fire, but repairing them is as easy as walking over to the wall in question and tapping the "repair" button, and repairs don't cost a player any coins.
The actual act of firing a purchased cannon on your brother is an interesting event in which the game camera follows behind the slow-flying cannonball and tilt controls are used to direct the ball's flight path to a desirable impact point (preferably right in the middle of two walls right near the ever-prowling rustler; hitting a wall right in front of the rustler allows him quick access to your opponent's soon-to-be-nude llama). The tilt controls work extremely well, and after only a few games nearly anyone will be able to master them without trouble. Fleeced uses some extremely intelligent auto-calibration so you'll be able to play the game even wile laying in bed without problem. This is a feature that I cannot express enough my appreciation for, and more developers (I'm looking at you, Super Monkey Ball dev team) should take note.
Cannons and walls can be upgraded, but in my experience the game's balancing was a little bit off in both of these areas, as the reward for delving into the upgrade system really wasn't ever worth the cost. Fully upgraded walls are still pretty weak comparitively, and it would cost dozens upon dozens of coins-- coins that could be better spent on more cannons-- to upgrade all the walls in a pen (especially in the single player game's later levels, where the llama pens become enormous and difficult to manage).
The single player mode is really more of an introduction to Fleeced than anything else, especially given its incredibly short length. The real draw in Fleeced is the arcade mode, where players can face either an A.I. opponent or their friends via wi-fi, bluetooth, or even internet connections. Arcade mode lets players set perimeters like the size/shape of their llama pens and strength of the wind during the game (which will determine how hard it will be to steer your cannon shots into their targets). It's worth mentioning that when selecting to play online, a popup message that says "Internet play is free for a limited time" appears. Assumedly due to the negative feedback that this message generated, Bight Interactive has confirmed in our forums that online play will always be free, and that the scary message will soon be removed.
While I hope that a little bit of balancing to make upgrading walls and cannons more of a worthwhile investment will be done in a future update, it's safe to say that Fleeced! - Shear Terror is already a great multiplayer game. The quirky art style melds extremely well with the high-quality 3D environments, and the game ran consistently smoothly for me. Fleeced is worth every penny of its asking price.
Following the unexpected release and somewhat confusing removal of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II: Discovery, we managed to get producer Ben Mattes on the phone to discuss the game, but more importantly, the future of Ubisoft's involvement in the App Store.
We were able to clarify what most people have been wondering about, and found out that an updated version of the game will be re-released on February 1st for $9.99, a price that Mattes described as "more than a good value". If you were lucky enough to purchase the game when it was available for a few hours, it appears the updated version shares the same iTunes app ID, and you should be able to download the update following the re-release without issue.
Prior to Assassin's Creed II, Ubisoft utilized their partnership with sister company Gameloft, allowing them to take Ubisoft properties and run with them on the App Store. H.A.W.X. was the most recent product of this partnership, and Discovery represents Ubisoft's first foray in to serious iPhone development.
They've taken the Nintendo DS version of Assassin's Creed II: Discovery and revamped it in nearly every way imaginable from higher resolution graphics, higher bitrate audio, additional game modes, and other goodies such a story designed to supplement the "full" version of the game on home consoles while creating an experience strong enough to stand on its own if you've never played Assassin's Creed II on the XBOX 360 or PS3.
Going forward, Ubisoft plans to treat the iPhone and iPod touch as a serious gaming platform, with games that draw from their extensive library of popular gaming franchises with the same gameplay quality that you would expect from a big-name game studio. Ben Mattes was reluctant to go in to any more detail, but did say to expect some "super-cool content" coming in the following weeks and months, with some of it announced sooner than later.
Mattes foresees multiple iPhone development teams working at Ubisoft for many different games that will spread the gamut of gaming experiences and price points-- With everything from cheap and simple casual titles to "premium" games like Discovery.
He assured me that Ubisoft is committed to coming to the App Store in a "big way", but admitted that they have a lot to learn, and quite a bit of information to digest before determining how to best utilize the massive pool of game development resources that Ubisoft has on hand. Ben explained that they're interesting in exploring as many opportunities as possible with the iPhone and iPod touch, which should excite any App Store gamer.
Rocket Powered Games has dropped the price of their four games to $0.99 a piece. The sale runs until Saturday, January 23rd and include Bloodlines: The Alexa Holmes Chronicles, SKATE or DIE, Zombeat, and The Deep.
The two games we've liked and covered before include:
Meridian has released a new game in the App Store which is a departure from their recent games such as Alive 4-Ever and Against the Fire. This time they've returned to the time management genre with a nice doctor-themed game called Are You Alright?.
Chloe is a brilliant doctor that strongly believes the medical machines invented by her dad will bring great benefits to a lot of patients around the world. She continues to work at hospitals in different countries to demonstrate the machines so that they can be widely used and recognized.
Like most time management games, you are tasked with keeping your customers (well, patients in this case) happy as you direct them from station to station. The story mode for Are You Alright takes you across 70 levels with 50 additional Time Attack levels.
Are You Alright? keeps things interesting by adding station-specific mini games such as X-Rays, Bacteria Testing, Plaster Casting and more. You need to take the time to properly complete each task before moving on.
As you earn money during levels, you can upgrade your equipment and hire additional help that will help keep the flow of patients moving. But, take too long with one, and they might not make it out alive.
This gameplay video shows an early level:
We've only spent a short amount of time with the game so far, but we've found it to be a fun and well executed time management game.
Gizmodo reports that Sega is about to release a free iPhone emulator called Ultimate Genesis which will offer SEGA Genesis games to purchase via downloadable content (DLC).
The free app will include Space Harrier II and offer the following titles as additional purchases.
Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99
Golden Axe: $4.99
Ecco the Dolphin: $2.99
Shining Force: $2.99
The move seems like an obvious one, but has been made possible due to some changes in Apple's rules. The new app is supposed to appear in the App Store sometime today.
Update: It appears this emulator isn't coming out until February.
In the wake of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [App Store] our forums have been host to a great discussion surrounding the game, and something that has been popping up quite a bit of debating the merits of each of the different platforms that Chinatown Wars is available for. The iPhone currently holds the advantage when it comes to pricing, but without real physical controls or good targeting system for fighting, both the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP versions hold their own in this battle.
The DS obviously lags behind in the graphical department, but makes up for it with the second dedicated screen for navigation and stylus mini-games-- All of which feel much more immersive than the button mashing alternative on the PSP. In regards to whether the PSP or iPhone is host to better graphics, it really seems to be a toss up. The textures in the PSP version appear more crisp and detailed, especially when looking at any signs and the PSP features better shadows, lighting, and reflections. The higher resolution (and seemingly higher quality) iPhone screen combined with the softening of textures and edges of in-game objects makes the iPhone a worthy competitor in visual quality, especially when combined with the high frame rate the game runs at.
Something that isn't immediately apparent until you're comparing the games side by side is how quiet Liberty City is without the pedestrian chatter. You can go rampaging through the streets and it seems everyone is yelling at you on the DS and PSP. It creates a noticeable lack of atmosphere on the iPhone when switching back from the other two versions.
Which version is the "best" is really a matter of personal taste. The PSP's higher quality textures can often look gritty at times, and while some may prefer the softer look of the iPhone textures, others could see them as blurry. It's hard to compare the DS, especially because of how different the game feels with two screens and how obvious it is that the touchscreen mini-games were designed for a stylus, not buttons or fingers. Also, neither the PSP or iPhone can compete with the requisite DS microphone gimmick of actually whistling to hail a cab.
So which version do we recommend purchasing? Really, you should buy Chinatown Wars for whatever platform you have with you the most when you want to play games. For many people this will be the iPhone, but if you prefer to conserve your battery and play 3D games on a dedicated gaming device, both the DS and PSP versions are totally worth having. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a great game, and it doesn't really matter what platform you're playing it on, as long as you're playing it. You really shouldn't miss this game.
Zombie games come a dime a dozen on the App Store, but most take form as some sort of shooter, so it's refreshing to see somebody trying something new in The Raging Dead, developed by GhostBird Software. Using either bombs or a machine gun players of this fresh zombie game are tasked with quickly eliminating a zombie threat in over 22 different areas of a metropolitan city from a bird's eye view. With agressive zombie A.I. that will hunt down civilians and convert them to their undead army in only seconds, The Raging Dead will require a quick eye and an even faster finger to find success.
Each level in The Raging Dead consists of a single screen with hundreds of dots that represent people milling about. Blue dots are humans, and red dots are zombies. At the start of a level there will only be a few red dots (or more, depending on how far into the game you've made it) but that quickly changes as the evil little red dots begin quickly catching the little blue people, pausing only for a second or two to convert the former human into another red zombie dot, which will then join in with its attacker to catch even more humans.
As you might imagine, entire cities can be completely overrun with zombies unless the undead are stopped quickly, and that's where the player comes in. Tapping on the screen will drop a bomb (or fire the machine gun, if that's your preference), killing all zombies in the impact area. That impact area is painfully small at first, and that combined with the extremely zoomed out view in each level makes precision a bit difficult. Luckily, weapons can be upgraded with money earned at the end of each level to allow for a more forgiving blast radius, so players will be able to eliminate the zombie threat quickly and efficiently.
The interesting part of the game becomes apparent when you realize that your weapon has limitations like reload speed time, and you must sacrifice some civilians in order to prevent the infection from hitting everywhere in the city at once. The strategy is to quickly eliminate all the scattered zombies at the start of the level, and by the time you've done that it's likely that the one or two that you missed have created a small army around their locations. That's just the sacrifice that you'll have to make if you want to be successful, because the only way to win is the eventually get all the zombies in a corner where they have no more civilian targets to infect and wipe them out all at once.
Bombs are great for killing many zombies at once, but you'll run the risk of killing humans and damaging the city if you spam them. The machine gun can only kill one zombie at once but its very useful once you decide to start going for "A" rankings by avoiding avoiding city damage and keeping more civilians "unzombified."
There are four different rankings that can be awarded at the end of each completed level, and more money is distributed to the player for higher rankings. Levels can and will likely have to be replayed to farm money (especially towards the beginning of the game, where everything is just a tad too hard), but it's likely that you won't mind, as levels can be completed in only seconds if you're good enough and you'll want to improve your level rankings anyway.
GhostBird Software has stated in our forums that multiple profiles, more levels, more weapons, more behaviors, and different modes like challenge and survival will be added in the future.
The Raging Dead is an interesting game, especially if you remember the Zombie Infection Simulator java applets that made the rounds online quite a few years ago. The strategy the game forces you to use in choosing which humans to sacrifice to save the rest of the population from the zombie infection is a unique gameplay element that we enjoyed.
A new trailer for Chillingo's upcoming dual-stick shooter Guerrilla Bob was released today. We've already posted about the game in the past, but this new trailer reveals a new gameplay detail which may not be too surprising...
If you watch it all the way to the end, you'll find Guerrilla Bob himself in a gun fight with the one and only John Gore of Minigore, a game which has recently become the near undisputed king of character tie-ins from other games. Believe it or not, John Gore is apparently the end boss of Guerilla Bob.
Chillingo also sent us a whole set of new screenshots:
Guerrilla Bob should be submitted this week, the game itself is complete and all that is left to do is last minute testing and tweaking of Chillingo's Crystal integration.
Back in October we highlighted an upcoming 2.5D sidescrolling puzzle platformer that drew inspiration from classics such as Metroid and MegaMan.
Original Teaser Video from October
The game was originally planned for submission in November, but after all the feedback he received in our forums, the developer decided to bring on more people to try to take the game to the next level. Two additional team members were added to work on artwork, sound and level design.
New screenshots are provided:
The latest developer update promises a well rounded and complete game:
We followed community feedback and as many suggested, we are taking the time to make a nice polished game. I can give you a hint at what to expect, +60 rooms (+30 unlockable with free updates), all filled with platforming action, physics-based puzzles, battles or all 3 Several ecosystems with nice artistic treatment and painted sceneries. Custom music tracks and sounds fxs. I know you will love the bosses and the story. The game is filled with hidden rooms, secrets and rewards. And as promised, full 60fps of pure gameplay response (we will even let you see the fps on screen if you want; its a geek thing)
The developer is working on a new gameplay trailer which should be revealed shortly along with the actual name of the game. We'll let you know as soon as we do. The developer is continuing to participate in the upcoming thread in our forums.
Taito has unleashed a free Lite version of their amazing Space Invaders Infinity Gene game which we reviewed back in July.
We described the game as an amazing effort by Taito to bring a fresh and modern version of Space Invaders to the iPhone. The loads of unlockables, varied gameplay and music-generated levels made it a strong recommendation and gave it a spot in our Best iPhone Games of 2009.
The iPhone version of the game is an expanded version of the Japanese mobile version and walks you down an evolutionary path of shooters starting with a brief glimpse of the original Space Invaders. Each stage adds new capabilities and weapons to your ship and can even unlock additional menu items and options for the game itself.
The Lite version is rather short and does not include the cool ability to create levels based on your music, but gives you a taste of the game.
Bight Games has recently released their latest game Fleeced [$3.99] into the App Store and in celebration has dropped the price of Puzzlings [App Store] to free.
Puzzlings is an incredibly well done matching game that we reviewed in July.
At its core, Puzzlings is a Match-3 but offers both swapping and rotating mechanisms to achieve matches. Instead of just swapping adjacent tiles, however, you are able to reverse entire lines by simply dragging your finger across. Draw a square and that entire field will rotate. The controls for the game work very well with the iPhone's touch screen interface and the game does exude a console level of quality. The game adds difficulty by introducing larger shapes (2×1 and 2×2) that can only be moved in specific ways.
Overall, we described it as an incredibly well executed game, though the difficulty ramped up a bit slowly. It's still easily worth a download for free and should offer hours of fun.
Due to a change in publishers, Puzzlings is now called PuzzlingsXXX in the App Store.
Now the game that they are promoting with this effort is a new one called Fleeced [App Store] which was just released into the App Store. The game pits you in a back and forth battle trying to tear down the walls of your opponent's llama pen.
The early responses to the game have been very positive, and we have a full review cooking.
Back in 1997 when the first Grand Theft Auto hit the PC, I doubt anyone at Rockstar (known as DMA Design at the time) expected it to spawn a series that would span ten different games and four expansions over the next thirteen years. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [App Store] for the iPhone is an excellent adaptation of a game previously only available on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. These prior versions of the game were met with universal acclaim, and according to Metacritic.comChinatown Wars for the DS holds the title of the highest rated game available for the platform. On the PSP, Chinatown Wars is a close second, beaten only by God of War: Chains of Olympus by a single point.
The recently released iPhone Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars seems to be a hybrid of both the DS and PSP versions, with graphical quality that lies somewhere in between the two games, tutorial elements that reference PSP buttons, as well as some of the cell shaded graphics and all the stylus mini games from the DS. The main difference is how the controls have been adapted to the on-screen virtual joystick and buttons of the iPhone. Like other games that use a similar control scheme, there is always an inherent lack of precision without physical buttons that take a little getting used to, but this didn't hamper my enjoyment of Chinatown Wars in the least bit.
While on foot, a virtual joystick controls character movement, with a button for using whatever weapon you have selected (or your fists) as well as buttons to kick and leap over short fences. When you approach a car, a button appears on the bottom of the screen that you can touch to get in. If you're stealing a parked car, this will often trigger a timed touchscreen mini game where you need to turn a screwdriver in the ignition, twist some wires together, or even insert a PDA and crack the car's security system in order to get the car running without triggering its alarm.
These sequences are pretty neat the first few times you do them, and do an excellent job at adding suspense to police chases as you hastily hotwire a car before the cops converge on your location. Once you're in a car, one of five in-game radio stations start playing and the on-screen controls switch to buttons for accelerating, braking, firing your gun, and by default two buttons to steer right or left. Also available is an analog stick for steering, configurable in the game's options.
The biggest control hurdle new players will come across is learning how to cope with Chinatown Wars' driving assist system, which will automatically keep your car going straight down a road. This can be disabled, but without it perfectly lane splitting on a motorcycle seems to be nearly impossible. I've found myself preferring the default steering buttons over the optional joystick because very little control is required when driving. You really only need to hold a direction to turn, or just tap a direction to make minor adjustments to your position on a road. It feels a little strange at first, but after you make it through the tutorial missions you will be flying through Liberty City without issue.
The plot of the game is classic Grand Theft Auto, with an asian spin, made obvious by the game's title. You play as Huang Lee, the son of a recently murdered Triad boss who comes to Liberty City and unsurprisingly enough winds up knee deep in gang drama. Initially you complete tasks assigned by your Uncle, but it doesn't take long for you to meet other contacts who also require your services. The game continues like any GTA game with missions that involve killing people, stealing cars, driving people around, and other often illegal activities.
Of course, like other games in the series, once you complete the short array of tutorial missions you can disregard the main storyline entirely and instead spend your time roaming around the city, completing the various submissions, seeing how long you can survive with a high wanted level, and dealing drugs to increase your net worth.
Chinatown Wars is packed with a surprisingly fun and full featured drug economy that is highly reminiscent of the Texas Instruments calculator game Dope Wars (Originally a DOS game released in the mid-80's.) that I spent an embarrassing amount of my teenage life playing. As you drive around the city you will meet drug dealers, who are all selling or buying various drugs at different prices. Prices change depending on whose turf you're in, but you have to exercise caution because if you get busted with a car load of coke, you lose it all.
Drug dealing is just one of the many other activites that exist inside the game. Of course Chinatown Wars also has the standard taxi, ambulance, firefighter, and other driving games along with tons of secret items and locations to find. There are scratch off lottery tickets you can try your luck on, and random encounters with pedestrians who will also have various things to ask of you. The amount of depth in Chinatown Wars is unbelievable.
Since the inception of the App Store, quite a few developers have tried their hand at making an open-world crime game. Without much serious competition, most of these games seemed quite good-- But even the best pre-Chinatown Wars iPhone games pale in comparison to a real Rockstar Grand Theft Auto. The level of depth is completely unmatched, but most importantly, Liberty City feels alive.
Games like Gangstar are far too sterile, with spotless city streets, stereotypical characters with no personality, and very little to make the environment the game takes place in feel like anything more than a basic sandbox. The streets of Liberty City are filthy, filles with cars, pedestrians, trains, people fighting, and emergency vehicles racing through the streets responding to randomly spawned traffic accidents. The mood and lighting of the city changes with the clock in-game, and even though the story and characters you come across aren't really anything revolutionary compared to other Grand Theft Auto games, the people you meet are usually amusing and of course the game is absolutely loaded with expletives and other racy material that the GTA clones haven't dared come close to.
There are a few issues with Chinatown Wars, the most serious being the lack of a solid targeting system. When you hold down the attack button to shoot or punch, you simply attack whoever you're facing. There isn't a way to cycle through targets, and the only way to stay locked on one target is by holding the attack button which often results in quite a few wasted bullets. It seems like there is a lot of lost potential in not having a touch-based targeting mode.
Chinatown Wars also doesn't have any kind of save state system to save your progress if you get a call or need to answer a SMS when you're in the middle of a mission. Instead the game just quits, and the next time you launch it you're back at your apartment. This can be annoying, but thankfully Chinatown Wars was designed to be a portable game, and as such the missions are usually never more than a few minutes long so the amount of progress you lose is fairly minimal.
One of my favorite things about Grand Theft Auto games is the soundtracks, but the radio stations in Chinatown Wars are fairly limited and it seems that all the pedestrian chatter was also cut. However, once you get sucked in to the game these problems fade away as you immerse yourself in Liberty City.
Chinatown Wars is a massive game, so much so that the few things I've mentioned in this review barely even scratch the surface of what there is to do and all the different features that help you to do them. An excellent in-game GPS system guides you around the city, periodic email messages tip you off to new missions and other things to do, safehouses scattered around Liberty City can be purchased once you're wealthy enough, and there's even multiple save slots so more than one person can play the game on a single device.
Performance on my iPhone 3GS is absolutely outstanding, and according to forum members, Chinatown Wars also runs without issue on the entire iPhone and iPod touch product line. The game is restricted and won't install on the first generation iPod touch, but apparently with a little tinkering can be played just fine. Something worth mentioning is while the download itself is only 188MB, Chinatown Wars requires a little over 600MB free on your device to install.
There is so much to do in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars that completing the whole thing will likely necessitate a trip to GameFAQs to consult the various guides and maps to find every hidden object and complete every mission-- A task that will likely take days of concurrent playtime. For $9.99 App Store gamers can get their hands on a game that sells for two to three times as much on other platforms, representing a substantial value even at a price point reserved for "premium" games on the platform.
Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's vice president of sales and marketing described Chinatown Wars' sales on the DS as "frustrating", and sadly the PSP version didn't perform any better. In less than 24 hours following its release on the App Store, Chinatown Wars is already the #1 top-grossing app-- Something that hopefully other giants of the gaming industry are noticing, as I doubt I'm alone in hoping even more of these "full" console games make their way to the iPhone.
If you're at all interested in open-world crime games, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is by far the best available on the platform and simply cannot be passed up. The sheer amount of content, the amazing graphics, and gameplay that will keep you coming back for more whether you choose to follow the story or rampage through Liberty City on your own is absolutely fantastic.
Now, if you'd excuse me, I've got $50,000 worth of heroin to unload.
Horror movie based game Dawn of the Dead finally arrived in the App Store this evening after a brief premature release a few days ago. The game is based on the 1978/2004 horror film and gives you the opportunity to try to survive the zombie onslaught.
The game offers both Story mode and Challenge modes while playing with one of three different characters: Salesman, Police Officer, and Nurse. Each character has different Speed, Attack, and Shooting attributes to try to give you some variety in different play throughs. The Story mode and Challenge modes have multiple difficulties, but total gameplay time is not very long. You can easily finish the game's story mode on easy in one session, which then unlocks the hard mode. Story mode consists of 5 different levels of varying goals. While these goals include some mild variety over the standard survival tasks of similar games, they are still ultimately pretty shallow. Goals include killing all zombies in an area, surviving a certain time limit, and finding an exit.
Challenge mode adds a few more individual goals (kill x zombies, survival a time limit etc...) that you can play over again to try to best your previous high score. The game offers both melee and range weapons to battle the zombies, and are demonstrated in the following video:
Controls include the typical left/right dual stick controls for movement and shooting, but the shooting control had some consistency issues resulting in moments of frustration when you'd turn around unintentionally.
Ultimately, for such a short game, the replay value relies on how much fun you had playing the first time through, but given some twitchy controls and slowly paced gameplay, we didn't see much reason to go back. Aside from the movie tie-in, there isn't much to make the game stand out.
The Final Fantasy series started with the original release in 1987, spawning a game franchise that has since become Square Enix's most successful series and overall has sold over 85 million units worldwide as well as often serving as the benchmark that nearly all roleplaying games are compared to. 
Following the 
In the wake of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [
Back in 1997 when the first Grand Theft Auto hit the PC, I doubt anyone at Rockstar (known as DMA Design at the time) expected it to spawn a series that would span ten different games and four expansions over the next thirteen years. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [
