T.R.A.G.

"Give this game a second chance, it is not as bad as it seems."

Like most reviewers, when I first tried playing TRAG, I was disgusted. For one thing, the inventory took about a few seconds to load showing the message ''Now Loading'', unlike resident evil which goes straight into the inventory screen. Also, the story is very lame and cliche, and the enemies look pathetic (some punks and spider-man wannabe). Needless to say, this disc was left somewhere to collect the dust.

However, out of sheer boredom, I decided to try this game again and I'm glad I did. This game may not be as spectacular and fantastic as RE but it is enjoyable nonetheless. This is a great game to just pass time with.

Story 4/10: Here goes:- a group of terrorists had occupied the Togusa Building, members of T.R.A.G infiltrated into the building and try to stop them. Unfortunately, there is only two survivors, Alex and Michelle, and it is up to them to save the world! Ok, that sounds pretty lame and the rest of the story line is predictable, the only good points of the story are that at least most of the events are explained clearly unlike ''Clock Tower'' and there are some funny moments in the game which make the characters more endearing, I guess.

Gameplay 8/10: This game is fun, there are great actions and puzzles. The puzzles are relatively easy, so no frustrating time deciphering them but there's not much challenge though. There are different characters to be used in this game and all of them have different moves and combos (some of them looks pretty cool), so its up to you to find out how to execute them. Also, you have to interchange between using the characters to accomplish your mission, which is interesting. The personalities and fighting styles of the characters vary greatly from each other, so the feeling of using each character is totally different. Also, there is health management in this game in which there is this EX bottle which can be used to increase the capacity of the health of the character, but if you use the item on the wrong character, you may find yourself in for a tough fight with the boss since you may need to change character when the other one is dying and some character is more effective against certain boss.

Backtracking is minimum in earlier part of this game and there is this nice little radar showing the positions of the enemies at the top right hand corner. For a challenge, you can opt to turn it off. Also, the bosses are innovative in a way that you need certain strategies to defeat them, so it is very satisfying when you finally beat them.

Controls 7/10: This game is similar to RE, so the controls will not pose any difficulty to RE veterans. In addition, there are special moves which can make the character dash forward to attack or flip backward out of danger, so it is better than RE's controls in a way. The inventory was slow to load for a reason: to allow changing of the character, so it is ok to forgive the game for the slow loading of inventory.

However, the buttons are pretty unresponsive, so it is difficult to execute some of the combos or diffcult moves.

Sound 2/10: The music is not memorable and doesn't help to build up the atmosphere at all. The voice actors don't sound convincing in any way.

Graphics 6/10: The backgrounds are bright and anime-like, considered decent, and are actually pleasing to the eye. The camera angles do sometimes pose a problem in fighting the enemies but luckily, for most of the time and boss stages, it is okay. The characters are well-rendered and good-looking. But the enemies look really horrible though. The CG movies can be considered pretty good for a PS game showing realistic waves on the sea, nice sunset and, smooth and quite convincing characters' movements, the expressions of the characters look wooden but the characters themselves look pretty good.

Conclusion: Look beyond the flaws and you'll enjoy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/20/02, Updated 10/27/02