I ask you: How is it 2009 already? I feel like I've just barely stopped writing "07" on my checks, and now here it is nearly a decade into this new millennium. Anyway, my discombobulation need not affect your consumption of gaming news and views. Now that the dust has settled on last holiday's crazy hectic release avalanche, I thought I'd throw together some of the more notable reader reviews from some of the biggest releases the last few months, so you can absorb a few differing viewpoints pulled straigh out of the Giant Bomb community.
But first, please forgive just a little housekeeping.
- The reviews are edited for length, so click over to the game's user review page to see the review in its entirety (plus all the other reviews).
- If you disagree or just want to express your own opinion, don't forget you can post a review of every single game on the site, no matter how old, as long as it has a release date entered into the system. If you can't post a review, check for the release date. If it's not there, add it! Just make darn sure it's the right date.
- The best way to get noticed for one of these roundups in the future is to express a strong, clear opinion. Doesn't matter if it differs from ours, we just want to see a concise summary of why you feel the way you do. An exhaustive explanation of the game's features is not required.
- Long post!
On with the show!
Left 4 Dead
Adrenaline thinks the quality of Valve's latest shooter far exceeds the sum of its paltry few levels.
But none of that matters. Holding off a ravenous horde of zombies with a few friends, desperately huddled together and waiting for rescue, is an extraordinarily exciting and memorable experience. The key to the game is how well the cooperative aspect of it works. In most other games, you can split up and do okay. But in Left 4 Dead, sticking with your teammates is vital. The game rewards you for protecting your buddies as much as yourself, and if you get knocked down or attacked by certain foes, it's impossible to survive without a friend giving you a hand. It's best if you're playing with people you know and constantly communicating, but even with a group of strangers you can develop a camaraderie before the campaign is over. Everything is scientifically designed to be as satisfying as possible.
And when did Valve become so funny? Earlier games had occasional humor, but starting with The Orange Box they've had consistently great writing, and the graffiti on the walls and dynamic conversations between the survivors are always worth experiencing. That dialogue is part of the game's pretty impressive technology that keeps the experience fresh, with the locations of supplies and bad guys always changing so you don't know what to expect. It prevents the experience from being too sophisticated, but makes it extremely replayable, which is the real goal here.
I do wish there was a bit more to play with. We can count on Valve coming out with some new stuff, hopefully an entire new movie or two, but I'm certainly glad I got it for $45 on Steam instead of $60 for the Xbox.
LittleBigPlanet
spilledmilkfactory thinks MediaMolecule's whimsical platformer is more interesting in concept than in practice, but still holds lots of satisfaction if you're willing to invest the time required.
The "Create" aspect of LBP is startlingly in-depth. This is not the easy experience portrayed in the trailers. Sure, it's easier and more intuitive than most other level editors, but creating even a decent level will take a lot of planning and dedication, not to mention lots of trial and error (especially during your first few hours of editing.) Bear with it, and the rewards are great. Actually completing a level, a task that, if ambitious, could take upwards of ten hours, just feels great. Letting other people play on it and reading their positive comments and suggestions feels even better. Overall, the execution is much more complex than initially portrayed but it is satisfying if you have the time.
While LBP can become tedious thanks to the sometimes dull gameplay and the amount of effort that it takes to make a unique level, the reward is worth it. But let's be honest, this isn't really a casual game. The learning curve on the level editor is steep at first and the gameplay can be imprecise. Get past all of that, and LBP is a remarkable art project with a fairly entertaining game attatched.
Fallout 3
Cactusmail finds Bethesda's reprisal of the old Interplay classic really scratches the RPG itch.
The environment is intentionally oppressing, doing a great job of immersing you in this post-apocalyptic world. Unlike Oblivion the vast space available is put to great use; you won't spend 45 minutes clearing out some nondescript hole in the ground only to find it was basically a waste of time. So far every ruined building or collapsed metro I've sifted through imparted great rewards; whether it be recordings of doomed wanderers or the unique twisted humor of the Fallout universe.
Fallout has always been a series that stood up to a second third or even forth play-through while still offering new things to experience and Fallout 3 is no exception. The choices you make and things you do have a satisfying impact on the world without feeling forced or ambiguous.
Fallout 3 is a great game worth buying and worth replaying. Although twitch gamers may be bored by it and young gamers will probably miss most of what it offers (it is an M game after all), anyone wanting to bunker down this winter with a substantial experience designed for the hardcore will not be disappointed by Fallout 3.
While we're on the subject of Fallout 3, some users have posted a pretty damn impressive, pretty damn enormous Fallout 3 Megaguide that you might want to keep on speed dial if you're playing through the game. It's also a great example of what you can accomplish with our whiz-bang next-generation game guide tools.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Oni thinks this reborn fighter is equally recommendable for hardcore frame-counters and fighting game neophytes alike.
"Easiest with Dee Jay:
crossup j.MK, c.LP, c.LP, Machine Gun Upper (charge d, u + mash punches)"
When you break down the game on a mechanical level, it has a pretty scary amount of depth. Advanced players count frames so they know exactly when to perform certain moves, and knowing how many invincibility frames certain moves have can, in some cases, mean the difference between winning and losing. The old paradigm "easy to learn, tough to master" definitely applies to this game. Playing the game against an opponent of similar skill level is almost guaranteed to deliver a fun match.
You don't need to be a seasoned Super Turbo vet to appreciate the attention to detail Backbone and Udon have put into HD Remix. The quality of the redrawn backgrounds and characters is fantastic, though the art style may not be everyone's cup of tea, I feel that it's a logical evolution from the game's original look and the aesthetic of the series in general. And really, when you're busy trying not to get Hadoken'd into submission, you don't have much time to look at Blanka's face.
What's most impressive about HD Remix is how well the online portion of it works. Online fighting games have a somewhat spotty record, with anything less than a very good connection on both ends usually leading to pretty broken matches. However, the net code in HD Remix is built to compensate for lag up to a point. When performing a move, the game will check if the opponent didn't block beforehand on his end, even though the lag might have delayed that action, the game will compensate for this and "count" the block. In somewhat laggy games, this means you can sometimes see health disappearing and almost instantly reappearing on your opponent's health bar, but it never feels like the game "gets it wrong", so to speak. As a result, you can jump into almost any game and have a pretty good experience, regardless of where your opponent lives.
The quality of the game used as the foundation for HD Remix and moreover the amount of care put into this remake is quite impressive. Backbone has succesfully rebalanced a classic fighting game and remade it to appeal to newcomers and veterans alike. Even if you think fighting games aren't your thing, HD Remix just might be the game to get you to care about one, as it was for me.
Dead Space
Ping5000 goes against the grain, calling EA's sci-fi shooter rote and derivative...but still grants it a respectable four stars.
Welcome to the USG Repetitive.
Peeling back Dead Space's shallow and flawed exterior reveals a functional and fairly enjoyable shooter. You start with the plasma cutter, which as the name implies, cuts stuff. That's great, because the game's combat emphasizes cutting off the limbs of necromorphs in your way. In fact, the game wants you to utilize this so much so that it reminds you three times in the course of five minutes. It's mildly insulting, but it is an important facet of the combat if you play the game on a difficultly above Normal. Besides the fact that cutting off limbs does extra damage, cutting off legs will force necromorphs to crawl, which gives you some breathing room to reload, run away, or use the game's inventory system, which doesn't pause the game. This basic step in the game's combat doesn't change much, with the exception of a few enemy types. The larger issue is that you're going to do a lot of it and there's little variation in it, because the AI mostly rushes you with reckless abandon. Some fall into rudimentary patterns that are easily discovered and the bosses, while huge and daunting are uncreative; shoot obvious weak spots and that settles it.
Dead Space initially wows with its presentation and stifling atmosphere, but a couple hours in, it turns into something more rote and by the end, it's hard to leave satisfied. Repetition is what undoes this shooter and if EA hasn't realized this by the time they start up work on the sequel, which they already have, then there's little hope for this already ailing franchise.
Resistance 2
spilledmilkfactory makes a return appearance with this glowing appraisal of the cooperative action in Insomniac's second Resistance installment.
R2 also features a full co-op campaign for up to eight players, and available on or offline. This campaign is at least as strong as the single player game. There are three distinct classes in co-op, each with their own function. Because of the difference in player strength, weapon loadouts, and the massive armies of enemies that assault the team, teamwork is a must. The medic class can heal allies, the spec-ops class can provide allies with additional reserves of ammo, and the soldier class is the main damage dealer of the group. If the massive size and quantity of levels, ranking system complete with class upgrades, and huge emphasis on teamwork weren't enough to make the co-op an instant classic, each level rearranges itself subtly every time it is played, ensuring that no experience is ever the same. People will be playing co-op in R2 at this time next year, and with good reason.
Shooter fans would have to be insane to pass up R2. It is easily able to stand alongside the genre heavyweights, and its three different game modes each bring something unique and fun to the table. Resistance 2 is the latest in a series of absolutely, positively, must-buy games released this holiday.
Valkyria Chronicles
unangbangkay finds a lot to like in Sega's unique tactical combat RPG, despite a few blemishes.
The game's greatest strength is in its fantastic visual design. In a striking twist on traditional cel-shading, all the textures and effect and colored and detailed with sketching lines, giving the image of an artistic canvas in motion. Characters and machines are hyper-detailed, giving stark contrast to the "rough" coloration. Comic book-style onomatopeic sound effect text and anime-style emotion bubbles complete the spectacle. The story is mostly told through in-game animated cutscenes and the odd "talking head" conversation.
The game's battle mechanics are nothing to sneeze at, either. Called "BLiTZ" for "Battle of Live Tactical Zones", combat works out as an amalgam of real-time and turn-based systems. Players and enemies each act in turn, every character on each side moving and attacking during a given phase. While units are acting, enemies within range can continually fire on them, in the manner of "interrupts" present in other turn-based strategy games. This factor gives a strong sense of urgency to every movement, as vacillating too long in the middle of combat can lead to heavy damage or incapacitation. Units can crouch behind cover, fire mortars or grenades to destroy enemy cover, and use flanking tactics to set up opponents to run through deadly crossfires.
There are a few issues with the system however. It's a little strict regarding what exactly constitutes cover. Why are sandbags cover, but not a thick tree or a nearby rock? The game also sticks a bit too closely to some of its rock-paper-scissors relationships. A rocket that destroys a tank in two shots might do very little damage to an infantryman in spite of a direct hit. The real-time crossfire can also lead to problems, especially beginning a unit's turn when out of cover.
The small flaws in Valkyria Chronicles don't detract from that fact that it is excellently constructed, and is a must-get for any fan of strategy RPGs, anime, or worthwhile PS3 exclusives.
Fable II
Jecrell liked the positive aspects of Peter Molyneux's latest medieval romp, but thinks it could have used a little more time in the hopper.
But Fable II also has its flaws. First of all the game is buggy, half the time you'll find people and social icons disappearing unless you wait for them to load, and the menu system suffers from frequent slowdowns. The game's combat is very easy and becomes dull by the end of the game. The job system used to earn gold honestly (if you don't want to steal it) are timing minigames seemingly designed to be tediously boring, they are for the most part watching a meter and pressing the A button when a blip gets to the green portion of the meter again and again until your trigger finger wears off. A lot of the monsters are reused later in the game with minor changes typical of MMORPGs to indicate that they're different. The game's main storyline isn't very long for a western RPG title, lacks a sort of "final boss" like Fable: The Lost Chapters had, and it's very easy to bee-line to the ending, missing out on all the humor, and toyish aspects that make Fable II enjoyable.
If you're the sort of person that likes to play with a game, to customize your characters, to pick and choose the right spouse/household, to work/steal money to buy the right house that fits you or buy entire cities, to make choices that matter and change the world you play in, and don't mind dark humor and a lot of voiced dialog, then Fable II is right for you. But if you're looking to avoid a game with bugs, boring minigames, and a short cryptic story, you might want to consider renting this one instead of buying it during this gaming season.
World of Goo
CanuckEh thinks this indie puzzle darling is onto something with its quirky physics-based gameplay.
The developers at 2D Boy (all two of them) manage to squeeze out a lot of mileage with this whole goo idea. Each level has its own gimmicks, and the variety of goo types mix up the gameplay just enough to keep things fresh. Only on a few questionable areas did I find a puzzle with a solution that didn’t make sense. One area required that I put enough weight on a block to push it down. I assumed I could just put all the goo blobs on it and the deed would be done, but it was not to be; only after a large tower was built did the weight acknowledge the existence of these feverish blobs. But that said, I only made myself resort to looking up solutions to certain puzzles online about two or three times, and otherwise found myself accomplishing each challenge on my own, with the same sense of accomplishment and pride that came with solving a puzzle in Braid…
World of Goo is a fun, unconventional puzzle game, one with an aura of flair and freshness around it. Since most puzzle games these days are a retread of matching or aligning tiles, it felt fresh to see a new concept brought to the table. And after the time I spent putting down Star Wars : The Force Unleashed for its abuse of physics, World of Goo gave me a bit of faith that maybe something more special than bodies acting like ragdolls can come out of this high-tech mumbo jumble.
Never skipped a level!
Prince of Persia
liquidsol just can't get past the ease of gameplay in Ubisoft's latest Prince of Persia, despite its nice presentation.
Quite simply, this game is boring. It's very hard to enjoy a game that holds your hand the entire way through. You basically can't die. This would actually not be a problem, had the platforming not been so repetitive. I don't know how many times one can run across a wall, or jump on a pole, without it getting tired. The PS2/Xbox POP games at least mixed it up a little. This game does not. At least it looks cool when you're doing it.
The combat, unfortunately, is just as boring and repetitive. There are about five enemies in the game that you fight over and over. Sound fun?
The gameplay is also repetitive (I really like that word). You enter a graphically ugly looking area. Fight a boring enemy, and make the area look less ugly. Now you have to replay the entire area, except there is more green in it this time! You do this about 24 times. You do this by hitting one of four buttons, while you let the game play out for you. Oh, but it's all okay, because the game looks pretty.
You don't really need to buy this game, or play it... it pretty much plays itself.
OK, enough for now. I think that's the longest post we've ever posted.
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