17 public reviews
The views here are this user’s only and are not representative of Giant Bomb's thoughts and opinions on the discussed video game. GB's official reviews reside at giantbomb.com/reviews.
It's been a long time since I experienced an arc like this. It's been an intricate rollercoaster. From the moment the game was announced, with its Marathon Infinity callback title, I was genuinely glad for Bungie regaining their freedom. Bungie are a studio I've followed closely ever since playing the Marathon demo on a Mac IIsi (at 25% resolution, interlaced, without floor or ceiling textures no less). The Marathon…
When it was announced The Chinese Room were handling the sequel to Amnesia, a horror game so hilariously hostile in its treatment of its players that it became more common to have seen people screaming at the top of their voices while playing it in a YouTube video than to have actually played it yourself, it struck me as a bit of a stunt casting in more than one way. I'm one of those that really enjoyed Dear Esther,…
When it was announced The Chinese Room were handling the sequel to Amnesia, a horror game so hilariously hostile in its treatment of its players that it became more common to have seen people screaming at the top of their voices while playing it in a YouTube video than to have actually played it yourself, it struck me as a bit of a stunt casting in more than one way. I'm one of those that really enjoyed Dear Esther,…
There isn't a doubt in my mind that Jake Solomon and the other folks at Firaxis responsible for this gorgeous, engaging game have a deep respect for the original X-COM (or UFO, as it was known where I grew up). Considering their pedigree, I wasn't surprised to find the new XCOM a well polished, well thought out game that makes the right concessions to bring in new players and pays proper tribute to the core ideals…
Mass Effect 3 is a special case, because games are a special case. You could start at the final book of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, but I would recommend against it; As it is, that book, taken out of the context of the epic story it concludes, is practically pointless literature, particularly as knowing the conclusion to that particular tale will vividly color your experience throughout the preceding…
Note: This review is based on the single player campaign. I've played a couple of sessions of the co-op and it seems superb, but I can't comment on it in any detail. I had an absolute blast with Syndicate's single player campaign, and I didn't expect to. I was a big fan of the original game, and I was as much a skeptic as anyone could be, but Syndicate won me over very quickly, and became its own game. That game…
Alan Wake disappointed me so much I could get shouty about it. It’s the third game to do that in any genuine fashion, after Ubi’s Prince of Persia reboot and Bioware’s Jade Empire. Alan Wake gets nearly everything wrong. The writing is atrocious; This dude is supposed to be some sort of Stephen King dude, yet every single page you collect of his writing is some of the most awful shit imaginable. Alan Wake the author…
I'm not a big fan of the new, austere, Mr Serious Batman. I'm a huge big stupid fan of 60s Adam West Batman. Gotham City Impostors is a delightful Batman game to me, because it plays with the 60s Batman henchmen idea (catwomen's henchmen all wearing mouse ears for instance) and applies it to the team based first person shooter. As a Batman game, it's funny, charming and honestly a bit of a breath of fresh air in all…
Assault Horizon is an accident. A collection of impossibly bad ideas in an attempt to modernize the Ace Combat franchise and make it more palatable to what appears to be the Japanese perception of a western gamer. As a result, you have a game that will please practically nobody. Veteran Ace Combat players will encounter a game both severely dumbed down but also fundamentally compromised, and new players will be…
Alpha Protocol is such a frustrating game. For every moment where its misguided action gameplay rears its ugly head, there's a moment where you're confronted with a subtle consequence of a subtle action in the distant past that makes you wonder just how the hell Obsidian did it. It's like watching an incredible magic trick being carried out by a piece of crap. When I first booted the game up, I literally laughed out…
Preface Shooting games. Next to the RPG, this genre most clearly proves the split in design mentality between the east and the west. Both in the east and the west, shoot’em ups (or shmups) began proper with Space Invaders. To contrast, in the west, we fell in love with the art and pacing of games like R-type, and created the sub-genre of shooting games known as “ euroshmups “; A focus on visuals, a predilection for…
Ninja Blade is a game in which you watch shit flip out constantly through a haze of explosions, ridiculous character design, nonsensical narrative and motorcycles. I picked it up for less than 10 bucks (which it should cost everywhere by now) and for that price I can't think of a more pleasantly retarded experience. The game simply doesn't let up. Mechanically it is fundamentally sound but not particularly…
Just grit my teeth throughout, and i haven't swore as much at a game in a long long time, at least not for these reasons. To me, Flower is an awkwardly motion controlled conflict-free Pacman with generic (though technically impressive) visuals, INFURIATING soulless self-help-tape soundtrack and attempts at creative narrative that challenge on the level of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon episode. It asks…
Calling Borderlands a "slow burner" is probably not entirely accurate, but it does spend a little while meandering before really opening up its charms to you. Like an MMO, Borderlands starts you off in moderately dull areas doing menial tasks fighting respawning enemies, and it's tough to shake the feeling that Gearbox staff have serious WoW addictions to deal with. The story is paper thin, often told through dull…
First, a disclaimer. I inadvertently started my first playthrough on the hardest difficulty and wound up sticking with it. All my experiences are from playing through the game being utterly destroyed over and over again for hours on end. I think it's fair to say i've seen the worst the game has to offer alongside the best, but your experience is pretty much sure to vary from mine on the lower difficulties, where…
We'd been waiting impatiently for the DS-10, an official Korg condoned MS-20 emulator for the Nintendo DS, for quite a while, so finally getting the box in the mail and unpacking it was somewhat of a religious experience. Now that the gadget honeymoon has been going on for a while, i feel i've got enough of a grip on the software to speak confidently about it. So here i goes. To begin with, there's a dilemma at play…
Got this game for the co-op. Played it with a friend for a whole night just upgrading guns and laughing at the hilariously inept writing and just how big a douche either character is. I learned among many other things that air guitar is a totally okay response to shooting some dude repeatedly in the face, and that guns with gold on them make people angry. Ostensibly because they are poor and dislike wealth…
