25 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.
Scary is a sweet spot somewhere between seeing too little and seeing too much that very few 'survival horror' games actually find. Silent Hill 2 did during the infamous Pyramid Head voyeur scene. Fatal Frame 2 found it as well, and is probably the most frightening game I have even played. Condemned 2 never does, instead becoming the video game equivalent of Hostel: interactive torture porn, and the bums being…
My evenings run on a frighteningly consistent schedule: everyone else goes to sleep, I check news and email, then play videogames until I go to bed. It's a sad, nerdy bit of clockwork but it serves me well and is rarely interrupted. Last week, after the purchase of a new computer, I was browsing through Steam while re-downloading Trackmania and came across Audiosurf. Having never heard of it I downloaded the demo.…
Describing Rez in literal terms is a great way to keep people from playing it. It is an on rails shooter with interactive music set inside a computer system with the player being a hacker who is trying to shut everything down, and on top of that it is over 5 years old, originally came out on the Dreamcast and can be finished in just over an hour. Meh, on rails shooter will never get better then Panzer Dragoon Orta…
Good dungeon crawls should be relatively easy games to make. They have a very well established formula: phat loot + gaining levels and new abilitites + varied and interesting monsters to kill, with a dash of story and interesting levels = at the very least a playable Diablo clone. When all of the steps are taken and done well the results are games like Champions of Norrath and Titan Quest; excellent titles with a…
Being a refugee from the PC world is a difficult thing, but for mostly financial reasons I have forsaken the wild, wild west of mods, over clocking and buying more ram for the stable and easy world of consoles. While it is nice to not have to buy a new video card every year there is one specific item that I have missed more then anything else: mouse and keyboard controls. There can be little argument about 'if'…
It has almost been a magical month for the PS3. First came Eye of Judgment, a title that betrays it nerdy hobby store roots by being much more then the sum of its parts. Then Ratchet and Clank arrived, all polished and colorful, proving that good developers make good game regardless of the system they work on. Uncharted takes these two good steps forward and raises them one step back; it is three quarters of an…
It is usually not wise to play a sequel without playing the previous games, especially when plot events and characters are carried over. The ending of Halo 3 is just another driving level without Halo. I would not have understood Silent Hill 3 without having first played Silent Hill, not having done so would have rendered me blind and lost. This is what I expected from Ratchet and Clank Future; I have not played any…
Read the full review Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
I am pretty indiscriminate about what I play. Games show up in my mailbox, I play them, usually find something of worth and then send them on their way. It should come as no surprise that a significant portion of what I play amount to below average games, but even then almost every game has at least one or two redeeming features; something to hold on to that will get me through to the end. I enjoy playing videogames…
The Gran Turismo series has always intimidated me. Between the realistic handling, obnoxiously difficult mandatory license tests and extreme depth of content they ended up feeling like work after a relatively short time. Even so, I have played them all because they look incredible and you get to go fast in un-dent-able cars that no normal human being could ever own, much less throw around corners at the very edge of…
It is very difficult to be truly objective about anything, especially if there is any amount of anticipation involved. It doesn't matter if a person is a professional reviewer, writes them on the side or is just some Joe buying Madden for the 10th time, if someone is looking forward to something, odds are they will like it. Not because it is actually any good, just because they want to like it and will overlook…
Political commentary is just fine for FOX News and its ilk. I do not enjoy it nor am I informed enough to care and can avoid it entirely just by skipping a channel. It has its own bloviated space and that's fine, so long as it leaves me and one of my favorite pastimes alone. Things were nice and separated until Haze arrived, the video game equivalent of either a radical right wing recruitment video or a liberal left…
Discussing Metal Gear has a lot in common with talking about religion or politics with extended family over Thanksgiving dinner: things start out amicably enough but quickly devolve into shouting, name calling, and perhaps flying mashed potatoes. If you were to put five people in a locked room and forced them to talk about it, two would love the series, two would hate the series, and the last would profess Hideo…
Read the full review Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
You would think that a review of Guitar Hero Aerosmith would be as simple as asking the player two questions: one, did you like Guitar Hero 3 and two, do you like Aerosmith (and perhaps three, are you offended by Steven Tyler's massive virtual pie hole). Thankfully there is just a little more to it then that. Liking, or at least tolerating, Aerosmith is still a requirement, but there have been a few subtle changes…
Resurrecting a flagging or dead franchise is a risky endeavor. Sometimes it works and the series becomes relevant again, see Resident Evil 4. Other times it is the nail in the coffin, like last year's Tony Hawk's Horse Beating Simulator. Re-envisioning Alone in the Dark should not have been that hard, there were almost no expectations of quality. I know that the first Alone in the Dark predates Resident Evil 1 and…
Desperation will lead a man to do strange and ill advised things. Eating your deceased and frozen friends after surviving a plane crash in the mountains comes to mind, and while no actual cannibalism occurs in Space Siege it is not that bad of a comparison. I had a strong desire to click on things until they died while collecting their leavings to pimp out my character; watching to many Diablo III videos will do…
Most every game, like it or not, falls into one of several well established genres. There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with this either. Sometimes I want a shooter, sometimes I want to race, sometimes I want to grind for meaningless stats while listening to spiky haired protagonists say ‘…’ With few exceptions, games are at their best when they stick to one idea and run with it. No game can be everything to…
I would like to think that I am not a sucker. I have never responded to emails from a Zimbabwe based legal firm asking me to send them money so they can transfer a long lost inheritance to my bank account. I have never purchased anything from a television infomercial, regardless of how much it was being screamed about. I even understand that free internet porn isn’t so free once all the spyware, trojans and chaffing…
Prior to the release of Street Fighter 4 the anticipation and hype levels reached second coming of Christ levels in some circles. Prophesied by Super Street Fighter II HD Remix, Street Fighter IV would gather all loyal fighting fans and take them away to the same heaven that American arcades went to. I watched combo videos, match videos, and read every bit of news I could get a hold of. Then I played it, ready to…
R Type originally came out in 1987. This is not exactly ancient history, but it is quite possible that a good chunk of new gamers have either never heard of it or, worse, never bothered to play one of its many, many sequels. R Type Dimensions is an attempt to re-visit, or perhaps eulogize, this old classic through a graphics overhaul and overly generous continue system for people without super human reflexes. It’s…
The Silent Hill series, up until recently, has been all about singular, frightening moments that stay with me for days. Silent Hill opened with you being killed in a dark alley by knife wielding fleshy midgets; Silent Hill 2 had the now almost cliché scene of Pyramid Head getting his forcible freak on with leggy mannequins while you watched from the closet. Three had an incredibly disturbing scene with a mirror…
Little Big Planet is not the kind of game that a major publisher or console-maker whose name doesn’t begin with an N usually pushes to the holiday forefront. On the Microsoft side of the aisle, there are massive, multi-million copy-selling games like Gear of War 2 and Fable 2 ; both completely exclusive and both at least reasonably good. Sony, on the other hand, used up its biggest named exclusive much earlier this…
I am not a big fan of strategy RPGs, mostly because I am not very good at them. There is an element of patience and willingness to grind for levels that I simply do not have. As soon as the story stops advancing, I get bored. This is true for almost any game, but doubly so for genres that aren’t all that exciting to begin with. Valkryia Chronicles , in spite of its gorgeous storybook style, falls into the same…
Open world is the new light bloom: a lot of games have it, few of them need it, and even fewer use it in a way that makes sense. Done right, with a delicate balance between pointless exploration and scripted elements, it can extend the life of a game with its playground-like appeal. Crackdown is a perfect example of this: plenty of wandering, but well-done story encounters. The biggest challenge for any game of this…
It’s never easy to see an old girlfriend out and about with her new guy. Now imagine that she looks better, acts smarter, and is just in general a happier person then she was before. CORE, if they even still exist, was never good enough for Lara; she was just using them to get attention, and perhaps to pay for a few enhancements. Crystal Dynamics, on the other hand, knows how to treat a lady with big guns: with…
Long, long ago when there were still American arcades that were not dominated by emo Dance Dance gangs and broken down Street Fighter machines, I remember stumbling across Dragon’s Lair . I was a child, and therefore not terribly bright, but I remember being completely transfixed, staring at the demo screens for ages before dropping in the previously unheard of fee of two quarters to play. It didn’t matter that the…
