Round 6, Alter Echo (PS2) is over, after a pretty short period of time. Check out the review below to see why.

Graphics: Graphics are pretty good, especially for such an old game. The graphics style is somewhat hard to explain, as it’s not realistic, but it’s not cartoony either. The graphics are similar to games like TimeSplitters 2, and the models look like something straight from Games Workshop. All in all the graphics are great, and work excellent with this game’s scifi feel. Colorful, and great for its time, the graphics really shine in this game.

Audio: Alter Echo has a soundtrack? The second you turn off your PS2, you’ll forget that you ever heard a song playing in the background. Sound effects are nice, but nothing to write home about. The staple enemy screams, squeals, and grunts; character disatifaction at having to jump, swing a sword and shoot, etc. Average sound, except for the ending cinema’s track that reminded me of the ending song from The Final Sacrifice.

Gameplay: Once again here I go with the “gameplay’s awesome!” approach, but this time it really is. You live in a world with a substance called plast, a substance that only special pshycics, called Shapers, can mold. You’re one of those shapers, who finds a new plast, called echoplast. This plast has a mind, and gives you a suit made from its flesh that can “morph” in to three different forms: sword form, stealth form, and gun form. Sword form is your basic form, and plays just like any other button masher, complete with combos. Stealth form is unique in that you can render yourself invisible, and punce on enemies to attack them. The most useful feature of Stealth form is that it can be used to climb certain hidden paths. Gun form is basically a huge tank-like form that fires from a huge cannon.

That said, you can switch forms at any time, with no penalty; in fact, some combos require you to switch forms to use them. One of the most important part of the game is the “Shaping”. When you decide to shape something, you go into a little puzzle like interface that requires you to navigate a cursor with time based presses of the d-pad (similar to a dance game). Once you hit all the buttons, your sync is complete. Also, during battle, you can activate “time dialation” that uses the same puzzle interface, but this time the buttons are enemies. All in all, this is a great game, and one of the best things is the fact that there’s no pentaly from dropping from really high places, making for some really cool scenes.

Play/Replay Value: Well, this is where the game really drops in my opinion. I beat the game at almost exatly 6 hours, and as far as I can tell, there’s no extras to unlock, no new modes, etc. So basically, you’re looking at 6 hours overall of gameplay.

Will I Buy the Sequel?: The game’s ending hints at a sequel, but who knows. I probably would pick it up.

Rent or Buy?: Rent the game, because of the above reason. However, you can probably get it at the same price, or cheaper now, I got mine for 5 bucks. All in all, this is a great game, try it out if you like the genre.