Death Jr. II: Root of Evil

"It's true what they're saying. If you see this game for 10 bucks and buy it, you've been ripped off."

I'm a hopeful. When people give games universally good/bad reviews, and I'm interested in the game, I like to go along with the idea that it's going to be as good as they say- but there's always that nagging thought in the back of my mind--

"Who are these guys who rate video games professionally? What qualifies them? It's a question of taste! Is it the fact that most of them have been sitting around since playing systems like the NES and the Atari since whenever? Are they as smart as I am? Do they look for similar things like I do in a game?"

And who are you to read this review? Who am I to write this review? You don't know who I am; you can only go so far as to trust my opinion, hope I'm not full of **** and be on your way.

Zelda: Twilight Princess garnered critical acclaim; like 100's on metacritic and all. But personally, it didn't match the Ocarina of Time or even the Wind Waker in my opinion. The gameplay was fantastic, but the story was poor. There was no emotional attachment whatsoever. That's why I'm always skeptical when I see uninominaly good/bad reviews; I think sometimes they cater to the fanboys a liiiitle too much. Take the guy who's always on just about all the video reviews on gamespot.com who gave Twilight Princess a seven. Good for him; but it was controversial in the gaming world; I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't get hate mail and death threats over that one.

I think sometimes because I'm growing up things like that just don't have the aweing impact they did when I was a boy. And years ago, the idea of the son of the grim reaper hoping around blowing stuff up would've appealed to me, and thats part of the reason I picked it up. "I know I would've liked it when I was a kid... dark magic..."

I can tell you right now there is no magic in this game at all. All the effort went into stuff like lighting techniques, colour variation, camera and control (and even then they're still flawed.) DJ2 is a poor, unimaginative, derivitive, tedious mess, which has a wealth of rich story elements to draw upon but neglects it in favour for mindless shoot 'em up action, which is still not well done! WHY are they fighting through SHOPPING MALLS? WHY is there like FIVE thirty second cutscenes?! WHY is the story weakly jumping all over the place? For favour of the kids in highschool who say 'random' all the time? Is that the audience they're appealing to? Let me tell you this; everyone in the world, regardless of race or creed or upbringing, appreciates a well thought-out story. I had to PUSH myself to finish this game; because it's unfair to review it unless I see it through! It's just typing I realize how much I hated this game!

The sound? Truly awful, dull, repetitive AND annoying music. The voice acting is pretty good, except for the last scene where the actors are obviously ad-libbing lines, and you have to wince through some terrible stuttering by the guy who plays the conjoined head-twin. But I really can't say how much I really hated the music.

But the worst... the worst it the gameplay. Oh my god its so bad and dull and terrible. Please- of you see this game for like 10 bucks, your getting ripped off.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 11/19/07

Game Release: Death Jr. II: Root of Evil (US, 10/31/06)