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5 (13) 4 (7) 3 (4) 2 (1) 1 (0) 4.3 starsAverage score of 25 user reviews
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Astro Creep 0
Note- This text refers to the Campaign only.As the Queen of Blades defiantly stands over a besieged Terran city watching her Zerg swarm breach its defenses and tear humanity to shreds, you remember again that the woman once known as Sarah Kerrigan’s thirst for revenge has killed the last bit of it in herself. But for all the great and terrible power she once wielded, Sarah has been confined to a sterile white-walled lab, a woman once more. Fitting of the ravenous brood at its core, StarCraft II:...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Controlled Demolition 0
For anyone who used to make believe with a box full of Tonka Trucks and action figures, Rare’s Blast Corps is a special kind of game, one that takes you back to the timeless parts of your childhood that don’t fade just because you’re now an adult. It allows you to relive the freedom that comes from the act of playing and the simple joys that come from pretending that you’re taking control of a roughneck crew out to save the world through demolition.A volatile nuclear transport truck is out of co...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Cut Off at the Knees 0
The history of the game once known as Metal Gear Solid: Rising is fascinating. When Kojima Productions Raiden-focused MGS spinoff ran into development troubles, it was passed along to Platinum Games to apply their over the top character action specialties. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance fuses both development house’s sensibilities into a whole that only offers hints at their respective strengths while highlighting the deficiencies of each and the inherent problems that result when you bring them...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
The Cinematic ‘Not Quite Action’, ‘Not Entirely RPG’ Action RPG 0
The back of Parasite Eve’s CD case calls itself the ‘The Cinematic RPG’. The claim wasn’t empty- Aya Brea’s adventure was told through beautiful CG cutscenes, rich sound and stylish, well-directed scenes that blended game and film. But Parasite Eve’s production values owed everything to the revolutions made the year before by a little game called Final Fantasy 7, so it’s fitting that as a pivotal entry in the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7’s timeline, Crisis Core is the snake’s jaws wrapped arou...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Screw Attack to the Cerebral Cortex 0
Go immediately left from at the start of Metroid: Zero Mission and you’ll find the Morph Ball upgrade exactly where it was in the original Metroid. The remake modernizes the first adventure of galactic bounty hunter Samus Aran, bringing it to the standards set by one of the greatest games of all time: Super Metroid.The game from there applies the legendary SNES classics structure as Samus navigates the depths of the planet Zebes, finding new weapons that allow her to go further, tearing through ...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Year of the Dog 0
The first time we see Wei Shen is through the monitors of a Hong Kong PD drug sting as he tries to conduct a transaction. When the sale goes bad, we take control as he charges through a densely packed fish market chased by a squad of uniforms. Unable to elude arrest, he gets thrown into lock-up and reunites with his childhood friend Jackie, now a low-ranking member of the Sun On Yee, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the city. Jackie promises to make an introduction. When Wei’s ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
OPERATION BURNING SUNSET 0
[JOURNAL ENTRY. APRIL 5.]I decided to write down my stories, in case they become the last ones told.My squad was taking a breather after a tough firefight when a giant green behemoth charged through the burnt out husk of a Japanese office building and battered the front door into splinters. I’d never seen this alien before. Several of my soldiers were completely unprepared for another engagement- their magazines down to their last bullets and vitals were starting to wane. They had been scattered...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
'Omega' Review 0
Post-launch dlc has to be handled very carefully to succeed. Not only does every piece need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of its core game, but needs to be created in relation to the pieces that have already been released. In the two story additions to Mass Effect 3, we were given missions that were designed for very specific purposes- they expanded the universe fiction. Problem is, even though they do so in different ways, they’re both filling in gaps to a story that is already close...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Perfects Halo's design but fails at executing its own ideas 0
Videogames were changed forever when Bungie released Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001. In that seminal release, the world met Spartan II cyborg Master Chief as he is awakened from cryo sleep to fight against the alien Covenant. We also met Cortana, the artificial intelligence that would accompany Chief and become the voice in his ear as he fights. Among many of its revolutionary ideas was its holy trinity of combat that mapped guns, grenades and melee onto an intuitive control scheme that provided a...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A Grotesquely Beautiful Critique on Violence Entertainment 0
Hotline Miami wants you to hurt people.With its oversaturated neon colors aesthetic and ambient synth rock, Dennaton Games title wants you to think of violent action flicks such as Scarface and Drive, films rebelling against their own perceived places in the world with blood, guns and brutality. It’s 1989, a time of VHS cassettes and answering machines. When you check yours, you’re given a cryptic message with a location and a time. You’re going there to kill everyone.You put on your animal mask...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Leviathan Review 0
Mass Effect 2′s post-launch content was among the best examples of the practice this generation. Not only did each flesh out the Mass Effect universe, they allowed custom built levels and their own cohesive story that could accentuate Shepard’s story while still existing outside of its confines. Leviathan is the first such piece of content for Mass Effect 3 but that games controversial ending hangs heavily over this even before you embark on its mission.The story starts off intriguingly enough: ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Mark of the Ninja Review 0
The stealth action genre has long been an echo chamber unto itself. While many games have integrated its core ideas, its pure form hasn’t evolved much since Metal Gear 2 on the MSX. It’s a genre that many critics have argued relies too heavily on trial-and-error, exists as puzzle games in action-game skin. Mark of the Ninja shrugs these distinctions off while living inside them. It’s a smart title that promotes a different a different kind of stealth: action not patience; the hunter, not the pre...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Jet Set Radio Review 0
Graffiti is art. However, graffiti as an act of vandalism is a crime.Jet Set Radio is very nearly a complete metaphor for freedom. Smilebit accomplished the task by making its game small in scope and using every element of its design to construct a theme: it has a large, overbearing enemy in its fascist Tokyo-to and a graffiti mechanic that is an action-oriented, easily understood core concept that is itself a means to fight against the oppression. It gives characters the tools to move deftly th...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Bastion Review 0
A child’s eyes see a simple world. For centuries, fairy tales have been tools to give those eyes a view on the world they might not see on their own. They are a means of teaching lessons and giving metaphors, to see villainy and sorrow overcome by heroism and bravery. In Bastion, Supergiant Games has crafted a new fairy tale in videogame form, one that allows you to revisit your youth while celebrating the games you loved when you were small and the world was big.The Kid wakes in his bed. He get...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Journey Review 0
Journey opens with a red-robed figure sitting in the sand, the only immediate task climbing up a nearby dune. Making way is slow, the footing gives way and the walking arduous. The view from the top reveals the mountain peak far in the distance and reaching it is the singular goal of the title thatgamecompany has crafted, one that utilizes every narrative convention afforded by videogames to create your own journey.Stepping off the dune, you slide down the sand, skiing to the bottom and out as f...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Mass Effect 3 Review 0
Since Mass Effect was first announced, skepticism about Bioware’s claims that choices made in its space opera would carry over its trilogy have given way to mounting pressure to make them a reality. Mass Effect proper introduced a dense universe of characters and races with real history and threw them into peril against an ancient race of synthetic life forms called Reapers who threatened to eradicate all life. But it also introduced us to Commander Shepard, the hero that took up arms to protect...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
Syndicate Review 0
Syndicate’s future world is about divisions; the divisions in the economic and political landscapes, between consumer and outcast where people are interfaced with the Datascape through neural chips that feed them a constant stream of data. That world is run by the mega corporations who plot, steal, manipulate and sabotage for the sake of patents, personnel and profit and each employs its own military and special agents to safeguard its bottom line. The original Syndicate from the mid-nineties of...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Rhythm Heaven Fever Review 0
Videogames attempts to marry gameplay to music have long suffered from a case of ‘this’ or ‘that’. Narrative or pure mechanics, simon says memorization or notes on cue. Music rhythm games have been largely forced to pigeonhole themselves into working with a single mechanic with little flexibility. None of those games are Rhythm Heaven.Since Rhythm Tengokou came out at the end of the Game Boy Advance’s lifetime, the series created by the lunatics behind Warioware have given players musi...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Pokémon Snap Review 0
More than any other medium, videogames possess the ability to immerse people in worlds, of giving them a sense of place, one that can be populated, filled out and come alive before our eyes. But great worlds contain memorable characters with their own personalities- Pokémon has long had one of those worlds. Pokémon Snap is built around this singular idea- it puts would-be photographers on a Safari in a Pokémon nature preserve and equips us with a camera to witness, interact and record.That world...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
The Darkness 2 Review 0
After he viciously slaughtered his way through the mafia family run by his Uncle Paulie, Jackie Estacado had vowed to never again use The Darkness. The demon had given him great strength, but had manipulated and twisted the young man. When we meet him again as he walks into a family run restaurant at the beginning of the Darkness 2, we see that he has prospered, the family is strong, its members loyal- and then they are attacked by an unknown group who want The Darkness for themselves. The scene...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Metroid Fusion 3D 0
Considering how Other M picks up directly after the events of Super Metroid, it’s easy to assume that it was a true 3D interpretation of that seminal classic. However, the minutes-long opening cinematic’s copious VO that characterizes a Samus Aran deeply affected by the baby metroid’s sacrifice, quickly reveals that Yoshio Sakamoto and Nintendo SPD Group No. 1 are willfully neglecting that influential games intuitive storytelling. Other M is the logical conclusion to the misgui...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Halo: CE Anniversary Review 0
Halo: Combat Evolved changed the course of videogame history and its name is etched on a list of titles that defined the medium. Before Bungie’s milestone was released in 2001, the gulf separating console and PC development philosophy was considered too large to bridge; there were games on consoles and there were games on the PC. This first-person shooter not only redefined the genre with its vast pool of combat options but successfully mapped its mechanics to a controller, opening the door for ...
2 out of 4 found this review helpful. -
Batman: Arkham City Review 0
Batman: Arkham City is an incredible sequel to a game with some of the most robust mechanics you'll find in anywhere in the medium.Picking up six months after the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the inmates of that institution and the violent prisoners of Blackgate Penitentiary have been rounded up after events that transpired in a comic series leading up to this game into a prison known as Arkham City at the behest of Dr. Hugo Strange. Strange, who came into possession of Batman's true identit...
5 out of 5 found this review helpful. -
Hard Reset Review 0
Hard Reset has leap-frogged over the decades worth of design that has evolved the modern FPS. Its about relentless, single-minded gunplay not about varied mixture of combat styles. Flying Wild Hog's first game is a passion project from a developer made up of former employees of People Can Fly and CDProjekt Red.The story is a Cyberpunk adventure where the human streets of New Bezoar are built with cold steel where product advertisements assault consumers from the walls and shine down from the sky...
0 out of 0 found this review helpful. -
The Path of a Kingslayer 0
NOTE- This review is for the release day version through patch 1.65. CD Projekt Red has announced version 2.0 with new content and refinements to several of the issues addressed below.RPG designers should study what CD Projekt Red has accomplished with The Witcher 2. In the almost four years since they released the original Witcher, they have built a detective story wrapped in a mature fantasy where choices beget choices from the second you start a new game to the credits roll.The Prologue start...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful.
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