Gungrave

Imagine for a moment a game where you're control a guy who is quite literally a behemoth. A towering mass armed to the teeth who's only real goal is to gun down anything that moves, striking fear into anyone who catches even a glimpse of him. The same kind of guy who is almost unstoppable in his quest for blood. That, my friend, is Gungrave in a nutshell.

There's certainly an element of flair to the game. It's done in something of an anime style with cel shaded 3D graphics but the colours are notably more muted than that of most cel shaded games, perhaps to match up with the much darker themes present. This is a good style to opt for and provides some grittyness to proceedings. You'll come across some interesting areas too. The last level inparticularly looks striking even if it marks such a drastic departure from the style of the rest of the game while the earlier stages hammer home the idea of a dark urban city in ruin. Sometimes though, other areas...

THE GOOD:
Graphics and controls. I never really found myself lost.

THE BAD:
It got boring really fast and too many levels. Need more moves.

SUMMARY:
My friend just recently let me borrow Gungrave. Watching him play for about half an hour, I enjoyed checking out the details and how I liked the anime theme that was applied to the game. After putting my hands to the test, I found myself doing the same thing ever level: run, shoot, kill, and repeat. The only thing that got me through the levels was wanting to know how the story progresses with Grave and the syndicate. I love Anime stories and the plots that go with them are ingenious sometimes. But the levels seemed the be too long and repetative to keep me interested with the plot. The music was great as I found myself more into it than the game. I beat the game easily and came to the...

THE GOOD:
Characters, Good Idea for Storyline

THE BAD:
Short game, cutscene animation, undeveloped storyline, extremely repetitive

SUMMARY:
The game had cool characters, Grave and the Villains, but the mindless repetitive shooting wasn't really all that cool, after about the first five minutes. The game is 6 levels long, and took me 2 hours to finish it two times. The cutscene animation; i don't know what was going on there but, it was weird. The storyline was an extremely good idea, but the fact that it was scrunched into such a small game was a waste of a good story. It wasn't extremely terrible, but at a 50 dollar price tag, it is WAY overpriced.

THE GOOD:
storyline. graphics. music.

THE BAD:
majority of gameplay is monotonous. only six stages. significant lack of power-ups, weapons and skills to learn.

SUMMARY:
Being a die-hard Trigun fanatic, I was long awaiting Gungrave's release before it ever actually hit shelves in the U.S. But, I must admit, after finally obtaining it, I am a bit disappointed.

The aesthetics are impressive. The character designs by Yasuhiro Nightow and music by Tsuneo Imahori are no less than stunning, exactly what I expected from the makers of my favorite anime. I also was glad to hear that the original Japanese voice-acting was left in tact. And I have to give props to the interesting storyline that unfolded during gorgeous cut-scenes.

However, the gameplay is a bit...lacking. Don't get me wrong, this is one fun game, but rather shallow. Just keep tapping the fire button, and you'll make it through the majority of...