292 public written reviews
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The Short Pros - Addicting, somewhat unique puzzle game (if it is a bit like Tetris 2 ) - Graphics/gems look ok - Fun two-player game set up in a style that reminds me of Klax - Can get quite difficult Cons - Music is so, so boring - Game itself is also a bit boring and can get old pretty quick - Speed picks up much too fast to make the game enjoyable - Ancient Greece/Roman theme is meant to compliment Tetris'…
The Short Pros - Simple light gun game where you shoot the bad guys and don't shoot the innocents - Three game modes - Game where you shoot the cans is actually quite challenging and fun Cons - Games A and B (where you shoot pictures of people) are slow and very dull - Almost impossible to lose if you are even remotely good with the light gun - Cycling through the lineup of enemies/city between shooting parts is so…
The Short Pros - Relatively faithful port of the arcade original - Simple yet addicting game of shooting your way to the ending - Really encourages you to be careful and take your time - Unlimited continues - Ten levels - The art style is a bit bland, but I like the thin pixelated characters - That box art is pretty freaking awesome Cons - Excruciatingly difficult, but doable - Only two hits (really just one if they…
The Short Pros - Has the sad, sad honor of be the first Mega Man game I ever played - Stages are actually sort of non-linear, which is totally different from all other Mega Man games - Has a stage where you spend most of the time swimming, which is also kind of unique - Actually isn't the worst thing ever if you've never played another Mega Man game Cons - Is pretty much the worst thing ever - Graphics for robot…
The Short Pros - Often considered the founder of side-scrolling shooters and, by consequence, the shmup genre - Fun, difficult space shooter - Decent graphics and a variety of power-ups and choices - First instance of the Konami code - Spawned a long line of great sequels Cons - Music was good but hardly up to the level of Lifeforce - Doesn't have infinite (or any) continues and only three lives. What the heck,…
The Short Pros - Fun, unique arcade puzzle game involving stacking three-in-a-row blocks of the same color - Lots of scenarios and switching objectives keep each level fresh - Tight controls and two-player support make it very addicting Cons - Colors (especially on the NES version) can be difficult to tell apart - The NES version is also hideous compared to other (Genesis, SNES) ports - Game can get really hard…
The Short Pros - Authentically replicates the fast-paced arcade game - Simple in concept, nefarious in execution - Can be played one or two players - Stages quickly get tricky Cons - Game is a pain in the butt without a turbo controller (NES Advantage: recommended) - While the controls are intentionally slippery, it does make the game difficult to pick up - Lots of cheap deaths - Doesn't save high scores (no…
The Short Pros - Wholly unique sequel to Donkey Kong , starring his son - Similar focus on climbing and jumping, but more on the former than its predecessor - All four levels are intact in the NES port - A bigger challenge than Donkey Kong - Remains the only game ever where Mario is the bad guy Cons - Jumping in this one feels unbelievably clunky - Falling even a short distance kills Jr. Guy would die tripping over…
The Short Pros - Faithful port to the arcade classic - Challenging and fun run for points, even to this day - Everybody's seen this game before - Start of Mario's (and Donkey Kong's) careers Cons - NES version is missing a level from the arcade version - It's also missing the awesome opening movie, as well as the sense of progression (height) between levels - Jumping and climbing controls seem a bit archaic in this…
The Short Pros - Easy "entry-level role-playing adventure." - Graphics are decent, with enemies having multiple stages before dying - Large variety of weapons that differ in use in battle - Music is pretty great - Ability to jump and interact with objects in the world with different weapons is unique to the Final Fantasy world to this day Cons - Extremely easy - Also extremely tedious - Dungeons can drag on and on -…
The Short Pros - Light-gun game for the NES where you SHOOT SPACESHIPS - The spaceships look kind of cool - Also, more lightgun games are always appreciated - Only four levels, but each level is quite long Cons - Game is boooooring - Also it gets atrociously hard quite quickly - There really isn't much to this game to critique, honestly Hur hur "To Uranus" hur hur The Long So I actually own two light guns for some…
The Short Pros - Lets you play as all four turtles, with their unique weapons - Can switch between turtles at any time. - Music is pretty awesome, and super catchy - Lots of stages with lots of variety, and you can drive around in the turtle-van - Has some classic bosses from the cartoon show Cons - Difficult, and in unfair ways - Only Donatello and Leonardo have good weapons; Raph and Leo are garbage - "Dam" level…
The Short Pros - Excellent action platformer with BATMAN - Music is kickass - Use a wide array of bat-gadgets as well as your fists to punch your way to the Joker - Excellent graphics, especially in cutscenes - Wall jumping is fun and makes you feel really versatile - Unlimited continues (with Konami code) Cons - Excruciatingly difficult - Some very cheap deaths and hits - Will test your patience and stamina - My…
The Short Pros - Awesome top-down shooter where you play as a DRAGON! - Powerups are cool and do neat things (give you more dragon heads, etc.) - Both an easy and a difficult mode based on how you play the first level - Infinite continues - Two levels of fire like Xevious - Nine stages (on hard) and all are a reasonable length - Game plays extra-good on the NES Advantage with turbo on Cons - Easy, even on the harder…
The Short Pros - Fun, extremely simple puzzle game - Simply make complete pathways to earn points - Piece complexity quickly ramps up - Difficulty settings help keep it fun Con - Absolutely atrocious color scheme - Equally atrocious music; ugh. - "Easy" will never end; it's way too easy - Never adds anything particularly unique to the formula Are you ready to LOOPZ?! The Long Apparently Loopz is "the most addicting…
The Short Pros - Fast paced, old school space shooter - Has both horizontal and vertical levels! Insanity! - Konami Code works, and the game has unlimited continues. Finally. - Is a blast two player, and plays awesome on an NES Advantage - Crazy weird "story" with lots of bananas enemies and locations - Fantastic music - Is called Salamander in Japan. That's kind of cool. Cons - Is pretty short - Losing all your…
The Short Pros - Mickey Mouse adventure with lots of stage variety - Minnie follows you around and can be useful - Reasonably solid platforming - Started Capcom's relationship with Disney, which brought us awesome games like Duck Tales, Talesspin, The Little Mermaid, and others Cons - Extremely short - Nothing particularly compelling about the platforming or combat - Having Minnie follow you around (and be required…
The Short Pros - Fast paced arcade shooting action across eight stages - Colorful, comical graphics that carry over nicely into the SNES version - Four players in arcade, two on the SNES make this a blast co-op - SNES has a difficulty scale and up to 25 lives that makes it much more tolerable when you die - Fun mix between on foot vs horseback stages Cons - Genesis version is garbage - Having 25 lives is nice, but…
The Short Pros - Crazy isometric marble rolling madness - Play one or two player and race to the end of tricky stages - Controls are smooth and work well to drive your marble over tricky platforms - Music is...pretty good Cons - Difficulty jumps up pretty quick - Only six stages - Some jumps/falls don't seem far but still result in instant deaths - Wonky physics at time Pictured: MADNESS! The Long Marble Madness was…
The Short Pros - Takes the original Mega Man formula and polishes it to perfection - The best level design in the series - Incredible music and graphics - Getting power-ups and figuring out boss weaknesses is still fun - Still can be reasonably difficult while still being fair - Password system isn't awful like 90% of other NES games - That box art is awesome Cons - If you've played the game a few times before it's…
The Short Pros - Beautiful NES graphics with a strong art design - Killer soundtrack - Near-perfect level design that accommodates (intentional) control limitation - Holds up extremely well, even to this day Cons - Can be incredibly difficult - Stairs. Screw stairs. - Losing your cross sub-weapon for a knife PISSES ME OFF We're revisiting a classic. The Long Castlevania is easily one of my favorite NES games. Since…
The Short Pros - Adds a hefty amount of content, including... - Dozens of new items - Alternative floors for all five distinct levels - New songs for all new floors - Handful of new enemies - One new character - New passive carry items that self-activate - Large increase in "risk vs reward" scenarios, which is exactly what The Binding of Isaac is all about - New items are powerful and actually make the game a bit…
Read the full review An excellent upgrade for fans and newcomers alike.
The Short Pros - Fast paced, psychedelic shmup with dual-stick controls - "Planet drill" mechanic is fun and unique - Persistent upgrades, unlocks, and abilities keep you playing - Dynamic and fast paced action ensures no two games are the same - Loads of game modes - Sweet electric/techno music - Supports the Xbox 360 controller Cons - Can get a bit overwhelming with stuff on the screen - At it's core it doesn't do…
The Short Pros - Has zombies in it - You can shoot them for points and money Cons - Framerate and animations are horrible - Graphics look bland and uninspired - Lighting is poor - Game isn't fun whatsoever - Upgrade system is lame - $10? Are you kidding me? Don't play this game. The Long Bloody hell indie developers, it's time to get away from two things: Dual-stick shooters and zombies. Ok, three things: add tower…
The Short Pros - Keeps the arcade style while implementing more weapons - Aliens look a lot better than the first game - Has a sort of a story, I guess - Improved graphics and animation Cons - The new gun system (taken from Zombie Shooter 2 ) is fine but boring - Graphical assets are taken from Zombie Shooter 2 in the most obvious ways - Involves a lot of standing around, waiting for people to do stuff for you -…
The Short Pros - Improved animations and graphics over the original...sort of - Actually tries to have a story with voice acting and plot developments - Car sections are fun - Wider arsenal of purchasable guns and upgrades - More RPG elements Cons - Fails in execution of nearly every new thing they implement - While animations are better, the color pallet is very bland, even with "grayscale" mode turned off - Gun…
The Short Pros - There ARE zombies, and you get to shoot them - Improves on Alien Shooter 's mechanics by adding gun upgrades, which is appreciated - Enemies disintegrate in messy bits as you blast at them, which is a nice, nasty touch - Graphics still look like Fallout - Has an actual difficulty slider (Easy/Medium/Hard) which Alien Shooter really needed - Weirdly addicting, though I can't exactly figure out why…
The Short Pros - True to its name, you do shoot a lot of aliens - Retro-esque graphics remind me of the original Fallout games - Plenty of blood n' guts and absolutely mind-boggling numbers of enemies - Handful of weapons to purchase - Long, so it's a good...value? At $5? Cons - Gets really boring, really quick - Persistent leveling system is nice, but needed to be fleshed out - Animations look poor and stiff, and…
The Short Pros - Fast paced throwback to vintage FPS mechanics - Only two guns with dozens of upgrades streamline the system - Massive numbers of robots to gun down - Difficult but not unfair; even the "Easy" difficulty may prove a challenge - Plenty of stuff to blow up constantly - Excellent sound design and beautiful graphics Cons - Short; only two or three hours - Actually quite linear - Only a few enemy types…
The Short Pros -Violent, visceral combat that is very satisfying - Three weapon styles that have their own trees to level up - Reasonably long quest with tons of combat and a few puzzles - Ron Perlman does the voice of Conan Cons - Ugly - Gets dull and repetitive very quickly - While voice acting is...decent, the script is so awful it doesn't matter - Conan uses magic? Did these people even READ a Conan novel? -…
The Short Pros - Silly little adventure about eating stuff to get bigger and than eating more stuff - In that way, it's kind of like Katamary Damacy , only with a giant purple blob - Charm and humor completely sell the game, and hit all the right notes - Has a bizarre wit about it that will appeal to both kids and adults - KING YUM. Cons - Short - Gameplay is repetitive and a bit insubstantial - DLC feels like it…
The Short Pros - Fast paced, gritty single player set in modern day Iraq and Afghanistan - Solid shooting as would be expected from Dice - Game looks really quite good at times - Voice acting is solid throughout - Has a pretty great soundtrack as well - Multiplayer's "Points" system to earn perks and upgrades is a neat change from Call of Duty 's formula Cons - Multiplayer attempts to merge Call of Duty and…
The Short Pros - Silly, addicting little game simulating running a game-making company - Has a massive amount of variety, factors, and depth when it comes to making games - While more a game than a simulation itself, the core things work wonderfully - Seriously, you think you are going to play for five minutes, and next thing you know it's been four hours - Allows you to start a new game with the (majority) of your…
The Short Pros - Follow-up to the excellent and addicting Zuma game - Adds many more levels, a handful of new powerups, and new game modes - Adventure mode, challenge mode, gauntlet modes, and more make this a robust collection - Stages have weird boss fights the fit the gameplay style (oddly enough...) - Graphically superior to its predecessor - Better learning curve overall, though it does get very difficult by…
The Short Pros - Fun ball-shootin' puzzle action game that's simple in concept but gets difficult - Aztec/Mayan theme is appealing and looks bright and colorful - Tons of levels and a variety of stages - Power-ups are unique, helpful, and require still to obtain - Can get stupid addicting Cons - Ends up recycling stages near the last 1/2 of the game - Later levels have a difficulty level bordering on insane - Very…
The Short Pros - More Peggle , but at night! - Still the perfect drug - Attempt to mix things up by making the animals superheroes is cute - One new animal, and her powerup might actually be my favorite over the dragon's (gasp!) Cons - Originally released at $20! What? - Essentially just an expansion pack that does nothing new aside add a ton more levels - Might ruin your life. Like Peggle . This review isn't going…
The Short Pros - Fun, addicting game that is both like pinball and plinko while being neither - Has probably the best visual/audio feedback for winning in a game, ever - Tons of different animals with a variety of powerups - Large number of bonus stages after beating the main game - Fantastic for a mobile iOS or Android device Cons - Heavily based on randomness - Some stages can feel unfair due to random powerup…
The Short Pros - Raise fish to get money, get money to get more fish, all for pointless consumerism - Unlock a collection of "guest" fish that will help you in levels - Fight aliens (?!) by...clicking on them? - After a while, this game really does become an insane aquarium. Or, dare I say, INSANIQUARIUM?! Cons - Why on earth is the Deluxe version of this game still $20?! - The basic Java version/demo/whatever is…
The Short Pros - Eat fish to get bigger - Dodge sharks, or bite their tails for bonus points - Eventually you will rule the ocean Cons - Score based (like most old games), so that's basically it - When you die you lose your size - Feeding Frenzy totally ripped this game off. Not even kidding. - You don't actually play as the shark. How can you have it twice in the title and not give that option? I only have three…
The Short Pros - "Edutainment" game involving eating smaller fish while avoiding bigger fish...hey this sounds familiar - Has like thirty fish to play as an many different locations and scenarios - Every fish plays completely differently, based on its actual natural predators and prey - Looks pretty good for an old PC game - I love that fish go "ARRRGGGHHH" when they die Cons - Kind of boring - Some fish are…
The Short Pros - Takes the addicting formula of Feeding Frenzy and amps up the modes - Co-op for the main campaign is excellent - Main campaign also mixes it up much more frequently and to a greater detail than Feeding Frenzy - Has a wide variety of silly minigames - Graphics are much improved over the original Cons - Still essentially the same thing over and over, albeit mixed up a little this time - While graphics…
The Short Pros - Simple, "eat fish to get bigger to eat bigger fish" game - Despite having literally no depth (hur hur ocean joke), the game is oddly addicting - Bonus stages and special activities help mix things up - Time Trial and other modes included - Was my wife's first favorite Xbox 360 game Cons - Really simple - Really repetitive - Doesn't mix things up enough - Short - Graphics are also simple, and while…
The Short Pros - Fun enough match-three puzzle game in the vein of PopCap's awesome Zuma - Lots of powerups, which are obtained by matching three in a row, keep things interesting - Absolutely insane number of levels and three difficulty levels - Has an ancient Egypt theme. ANCIENT EGYPT IS AWESOME. - Decent enough time to burn a few hours Cons - Speaking of Zuma , this game rips it off. Completely. - While ripping…
The Short Pros - Two of the best horror games ever made repackaged for a current generation - Despite being quite old, both games still animate fluidly and have fantastic art direction - For a new player, both these collections look great, play great, and still are downright horrifying - Installed, there is virtually no load times in both games, keeping the game flow consistant - Has a pretty awesome box Silent Hill…
The Short Pros - Fun, colorful, energetic Kirby game that solidified his power-stealing abilities - Beautiful 8-Bit graphics are some of the best on the system - Airtight controls - Levels vary from being completely linear to being open-ended - Autosave feature was unique for the NES, and does it better than many modern games - Music is straight up fantastic - Strikes a good balance of difficulty, even if it is a…
The Short Pros - Ten new decks with new styles and variety of play - Multiple single-player and a three player co-op campaigns - Improved deck customization that is at least a little more robust than its predecessor - "Archenemy" mode is fun and very, very hard. Get two friends, not bots! - Unlocking cards can still be just as addicting and fun as before - Small UI changes make for a faster and smoother experience…
Read the full review Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
The Short Pros - Solid video game representation of Magic: The Gathering - Online and offline multiplayer and co-op are a lot of fun - Does well teaching the rules and providing tutorials so you are never confused - Graphics look decent and fit well enough for what it is - The core Magic: The Gathering is still here, and it is very solid and fun - Unlocking cards can be addicting, and you don't have to buy boosters!…
Read the full review Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers
The Short Pros - Third-person shooter-action game with a grindhouse aesthetic to it - Feels a lot like Max Payne with its slowmo, crazy jumps, and duel-wielding - The duel-wielding, which auto aims with one gun while you manually aim with the other, actually works pretty good - The grindhouse look fits the game well and is presented with quality, for the most part - One of the few games where I welcomed enemy based…
