Disaster Report

Disaster Report, an old game from a couple years ago. Now this game will most likely be in your local game store’s bargain bin. Also I would like to call this a cheap gem of the PS2. I can see this game not doing well when it was full price, but since it is extrememly cheap (bought it for $7.85 after bargaining it down a dollar at Gamestop).

This game takes place on a man made on called Stiver Island. It has recently been destroyed toyed around by earthquales. Luckily for you, you arrived at the airport and hopped onto a train right when a major earthquake comes along and screws you over. So now you are stranded, having to cross the collapsing bridge and get to the island, and hopefully off it. On your travels you meet allies like Karen and Greg. Also you meet enemies, but we will get on that later.



Right when the game starts, you can tell the graphics are not the high point of the game. You get the start of an article for a newspaper written by him, then the name of the game appears. If you ever saw the logo for the show Dallas or any other plane white text with maybe a shadow behind the letters, that is what you get. Nothing special, but it doesn’t really need a fancy logo.



There is one highly graphics movie around the beginning of the game. When I mean graphical, I mean something you get from a game back in 2002. The hair is the paper/polygonal style for your main character. The enviroments are another thing. They don’t look that great, but has a real look to it, sort of. It makes you feel like you are really in an almost abandoned, destroyed island that is slowly sinking. Seeing the places you wer just on and walking around, fall into the ocean is a cool touch. Also walking along a street, another earthquake hits and bits and pieces of a building falls either right where you are standing or around you. When the piece of debri is falling above you, you can tell because there is a shadow indicating “Hey you, ya you the player. There is a big ole piece of building that is about to fall right on top of you. Why don’t you move out of the way so you won’t DIE LIKE AN ANT!”



Gameplay is really addicting. Since this is an adventure game, you have to collect things and explore your enviroments to go on in the game. You might find a jack and don’t pick it up. So you walk along and there is a gate that needs to be lifted a little, so you run back and grab it. In the game you have a backpack that holds your items. When you grab an item, it goes into a certain arangement in your backpack. So you can’t hold every little thing you obtain. When you go into your menu, you can see how much space you have left in a 3D grid of the inside of your backpack. Over time you can get bigger back packs, increasing the amount of things you can hold onto.

Another addition to the game is a water meter. Now you have health bar and can get hurt, but having your water meter up is more important. While you play the game, it slowly goes down. You can go to a water source and drink some to replenish it, but you can also get water bottles to store water for you, so you don’t have to scurry around for a water fountain or hose. I played the game on normal mode instead of difficult so I can’t really say much about it, but there are WAY too many sources of water in the game. You can probably go through the game without using a bottle except for maybe a couple points. You may be thinking “Hey, why do I have to worry about my water meter so much?” Well if you let it go down to zero, your health will go down, then you die. You will find health packs and stuff to replenish the health you lost because of this, but you will need those for major parts in the game. Not to waste your health because you think having water isn’t important.



Also the controls are a little different than normal. When you play around the game, the O button is the action button, while in your menu it is the cancel button. You can change this if you want, but why make a button the opposite of each other in a menu? Other than that the controls are pretty decent.

There is a couple things I have to complain about. First off is the voice acting. Now not all of it is really bad, but sometimes they get a voice that is for a character, and shouldn’t even be FOR that character. One instance is the main villian in the game. Here is an example of how it works. Get a voice like Chuck Norris. Now because you seen how he looks, the voice is kinda actiony (bad example, but deal with it). Now get his voice, and put it on a fat guy in a suit. Does that work together? No it doesn’t. When you first here the guys voice, it is through a recording device, so you think he might be skinny, strong maybe, etc. Then you see the guy, he is weak, fat, and has no emotion. Also the faces don’t have many reactions either. It’s funny when you watch a cutscene with the guy I was just talking about, talking like is is very pissed, and have his character be smiling and not even move his lips. Also the game is about 5 or shorter hours. It goes by pretty fast, but makes up for it by giving you multiple endings you can watch depending what you do throught the game.

Now since the game was only $8, it gets a higher score. Yet if this was $50 to buy, then this would have been lower than I gave it. So if you have about $8, and it is at a gamestop or somewhere you can obtain it, check it out. Nothing to lose except the $8.

4 star(s) out of 5

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