Shenmue

I may find lots of defects now but this is probably the highest production game ever made by Sega.

It looks astounding, models are (were) very detailed and proportioned, then add very detailed open world setting that took place on a very realistic japanese town.

It is the first fully 3d open world I've ever seen, everything looked alive because the town was populated with tons of people with their own daily rutine. All this was new to me, so my experience was awesome.

The story is about vengeance, kinda typical but at least it had interesting characters. The gameplay is about exploring and finding clues that lead foward on the quest and fighting when needed. Of course as any good open world offered lots of sidequests, minigames and collectibles to find.

Combat is played as a beat'em up with button combinations that remind to Virtua Fighter, where many new techniques can be learned by training or finding a teacher. There are also many quick-time events that give some gameplay variety.

On the bad say I would say that the game is short and its pace very slow and can get tiring for people who are looking for action.

Did I like it? Yep
I think you will like it if you:
- Want to see what sega and dreamcast were capable of
- Don't mind the slow pace

I rate my experience with a 8 out of 10.

Shenmue 2

This time Sega outdid themselves, they listened their fans and gave us an excellent sequel.

The game is way longer, bigger as it has more than one town this time, with better graphics and more detailed places (the city is awesome!), lots of new things to do and finally a improved pace that make the game way more entertaining.

The only complain that remains is the story being a bit weak, but the setup makes me forget about that.

Did I like it? Yes!
I think you will like it if you:
- Enjoyed the first game

I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10.

Phantasy Star Online

My first online  game! I played for tons and tons of hours though I never got any character to level 100, thats because the lack of content forced the player to repeat over and over the same missions and places.

So the main attraction here was the online gaming, being in a game with so many people, playing with them, making strong friendships in a different way than usual, everything was new and exciting for me as a teenager :P.

The combat system is a bit simplistic but fun and accesible, player can choose between a few classes (ranged, melee and mage), races and a little companion that could be feed and evolved in many different ways improving the character status and giving some special attacks.

The game had high production values so presentation, graphics, music and interface are excellent.

Did I like it? YES!
I rate my experience with a 9 out of 10

Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst

More content added, if this had come sooner PSO would have been saved for me, too bad I was already tired of it and I found some new and bigger MMORPGs.

Did I like it? Nope.
I rate my experience with a 5 out of 10.

Phantasy Star Online Ep3 C.A.R.D. Revolution

Another iteration, this time using card battles, I didn't play for more than 1 hour.

Did I like it? No, I didn't.
I rate my experience with a 4 out of 10.

Phantasy Star Universe

It tried to increase the mmo experience and added many improvements and also a few bad things like separating the online and offline game. To me it felt very dated, I played PSO too much and this wasn't what I wanted on a new MMO.

Did I like it? I got tired very soon.
I rate my experience with a 4.5 out of 10.

Phantasy Star Online 2

I've played the beta and the japanese release, it is entertaining and has improved in many ways, combat has more options and a different pace. Now it depends on the amount of content and customization and when the english version is released.

I rate my expectations with a 6 out of 10.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

I didn't finish this game, I reached 93% done on Sonic and tried hard to have fun with this game and I barely found it. This game is really rushed, there are lots of technical issues like:

· The camera doing ninja moves.
· There's plenty of places to get stuck, I got stuck like 10 times meaning a level restart as It seems I couldn't restart to last checkpoint, sometimes way back if I didn't save the game.
· Nearly every-time I touched a button/joystick while on a "auto-pilot" running scenes ended up with a dead Sonic, it's better to not touch anything and just look until the game gives you the control back.
· Weirdly placed loading screens, let's say a loading takes 5 seconds, this is what it takes to start and retry a quest: Talk to the NPC -> accept the quest -> Loading Screen -> NPC 1 sentence speak -> Loading Screen -> Mission start -> Fail the mission -> Loading Screen -> NPC 1 sentence speak -> Loading Screen -> Talk to the npc again, accept the quest -> Loading Screen -> 1 sentence speak -> Loading Screen -> Mission Start. That's an awful lot of time.

Most of Sonic main levels were quite enjoyable, long and fast with many diferent paths to take and sub-objectives to do but closer to the end I got overwhelmed by the technical issues and quited. I tried to play with Shadow with his vehicle levels or Silver and his mental powers but I think it was too late, I lost my mood.
 Between main levels there's a little of clueless exploration to do around the city, there I could find hidden coins and quests, boring quests. I wouldn't have included this part in the game, I prefer direct action.

Did I like it? Sometimes, but no.
I think you will like it if you:
- Can ignore the technical issues
- Enjoy other playing styles like Shadow and Silver

I rate my experience with a 4 out of 10.