174 public written 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.
OK, Bulletproof was shit. 50 Cent is a shit rapper. Nobody really gives a shit about G-Unit. There, all of the reality is out of the way, because we're going to discuss the new 50 Cent game, one of the most absurd storylines attached to one of the most fun action games in a while. You are, of course, 50 Cent and you completed a concert in a random Middle Eastern country and you were paid...with a crystal skull. Yes,…
OK, I don't like fighting games to any appreciable degree. Guilty Gear was OK and I loved Marvel v Capcom, but the rest tends to be blah. Virtua Fighter is way outside of my wheel house and I've always thought I'd enjoy Mortal Kombat and I am always disappointed. Dead or Alive is just a bit embarrassing to play. And I did NOT like SF 2, played a little bit of 3, but did like Alpha a lot. SF IV is the newest entry…
The original F.E.A.R was one of the most brilliant shooters ever produced. The AI was amazing. True, the environments were a bit tedious --- corridor-mania was running WILD! --- but the game was one of the single most fun titles out there. Then, Monolith and their publisher had a bit of a falling out. F.E.A.R stopped being controlled by Monolith, so they created Project Origin. Then, F.E.A.R reverted back to…
I do not deny that I actually do enjoy the show. A surprisingly fun reality show. The game, however, is a mess. I know Sega made a fishing game for the Dreamcast that was a blast to play. This game does show how difficult it is to do it as the game is really pretty dull. However, it being dull is not the biggest problem. The game is buggy as can be and it's baffling considering the really bad physics and atrocious…
This game is a near-direct port of the PSP collection last year, except with a LOT more games and a surprising level of extras. This is, quite possibly, the single best collection of old games I've ever had the joy of playing. It's always easy to forget just how amazing some of the Genesis titles were. Visually, it won't blow minds, but some of the games are just much better than they have any right to appear on the…
OK, Valve is up there with Blizzard for the best developers on the planet and able to determine whatever their release schedule is going to end up being. L4D is one of the most enjoyable concepts for a game. You are one of the 4 survivors of the zombie apocalypse. It is a B zombie movie that you can play. The 4 characters you can play are thoroughly interchangeable. So, there are allegedly no benefits of playing one…
The original game in this series wowed me initially, but after some time, I got tired of even looking at it. So, with a bit of trepidation, I decided to finally play GoW 2. This is MS's second big franchise and an epic money-maker. But, is it all that much fun to play? Shockingly, yes. It really is a lot of fun to play. The story is...well, to be honest. Cliffy B and the guys don't seem to have any ability to tell a…
The Prince series returns after an epic rebirth in the previous generation. Dumping the emo nonsense that was the only real issue with the last gen series, Ubi takes the Prince back to his roots. Though, in this case, the prince is more of a vagabond, who is looking for his missing donkey that is laden with gold. He runs into Elika, a princess and wizard who is out to remove the corruption from her land that has…
Guilty Gear 2 has been released pretty much under the radar. Well, true, the fighting series hasn't been a top-tier series to date, but they always seemed to be enjoyable 2-D fighting games. Not on the level of Street Fighter, but better than most of the other fighting games out there. I can also appreciate a developer's desire to try and branch out their franchise to different genres, but these moves tend to be…
Even though Bond games have appeared on almost every platform in gaming history, it was the N64's Goldeneye that really cemented it as a potentially powerful game brand. Now, while that game has aged about as poorly as a game can age (but isn't it odd that the first good console FPS...was on a Nintendo console?), it's still the benchmark every developer is aiming for. They've tried to not go FPS (Tomorrow Never Dies…
2008 was actually a pretty good year for IP. 360's best IP, by most accounts, was this title. Dead Space is published by EA, who is, simultaneously, the most innovative AND repetitive of developers. In Dead Space, you're engineer Isaac Clarke who is trying to locate his missing love on a basically-dead spaceship. When you and your party land, you learn that the ship is laden with aliens who are mean and, in a bit of…
After the massive success that was Modern Warfare, Treyarch takes the reigns of the Call of Duty franchise --- I believe for the final time --- and they bring us back to the glory days of World War II. And since there isn't really a heck of a lot left to do games about, this is, basically, the end of the war. You play as Russian and American troops who are seeking to both take down Berlin AND Okinawa. Now, for many,…
It is a bit of a tragedy that boxing has had such a hard time. There have been a lot of games made about it, but few have been excellent. The 360 was the home for one of them, Fight Night Round 3. Now, Don King has licensed his name --- I know, King selling his name? Shocker! --- for a new boxing title for the 360. Does it work? Briefly, no. In a lengthier review, sweet lord no. This is up there with Ring King in…
It's no secret that the Wii's game line-up has been lacking. Not mind-blowing by any means whatsoever. However, they do some get of the most random awesome titles out there. Boom Blox was one game. de Blob is another one. This game is, in every sense of the word, a Wii game. Nintendo consoles tend to attract these family-friendly games with unlikely mascots that have tons of depth if one chooses to really pursue it.…
In an attempt to make up for the truly horrible Turning Point, The Spark, along with their publisher Gamecock (hoping to make up for the much-maligned Hail to the Chimp) released Legendary, a FPS where you play the role of an art thief who unleashes mythological creatures by accidentally opening Pandora's Box. Not a bad premise. Sadly, the game is crap. Pure crap. Unadultered crap. I've seen less crap in a Mexican…
This has been a rather good year for open world games. Mercenaries 2 was, for me, a lot of fun. GTA 4 finally hit and sold pretty darned well. Now, we get Saints Row making a return. SR1 was viewed as a fun, but rather blatant, rip-off of GTA. Well, it's still a carbon copy. This game is, basically, GTA in all but name. It's not as pretty and the characters aren't A defined and, overall, it's not as GOOD a game as…
Umm, finally, the worlds of parkour and gaming have collided? Actually, parkour seems like a completely natural thing for gaming and it is a little surprising that this is the first real attempt to bring it to the market. And rather than make it a really sub-par sports game, EA (which has become BOTH the biggest copier of its own games AND the most innovative company out there. A weird dichotomy to be certain, but…
Edit post This is a difficult game to review as, well, when compared to the other wrestling game out, it can't possibly be worse. But I don't want to over-rate it, either. I have not messed much with the career mode for a created wrestler, but I have dealt with the original Road to WrestleMania mode, where you take seven different people/teams all the way to WM. You get Roads for Jericho, HHH, Cena, Batista &…
There have been way too many Namco museums over the years. There just aren't enough games in the Namco brand that haven't released numerous times before on tons of different platforms. I am hoping to never see a Namco Museum again. This one, though, does have some nice features. First off, it contains all of the Namco XBLA titles. Some of them have been truly outstanding (Pac-Man C.E and Galaga Legions) and since…
As somebody who, admittedly, read the complaints of the Fallout community for months about Bethesda's involvement in Fallout 3 instead of original developer Interplay, I had some concerns. True, I like the Morrowind series and thought Oblivion was inspired, but the fans were OUTRAGED~! about the travesty that this game, surely, would devolve into. The game, honestly, is amazing. One of the best RPG's in the last 2…
It's odd that Vikings have been such an ignored centerpiece of a game. They seem to be MADE for gaming. Brutally violent warriors tends to equal FUN game. Well, outside of Blizzard's Lost Vikings , I can't think of a major Viking related title outside of this surprisingly enjoyable --- but not surprisingly violent --- game. Viking follows the path of Skarin, a Viking warlord who is seeking to help his fellow Vikings…
This actually is a different tact for the Lego series. This ISN'T a takeoff of the Batman movies (admittedly, they do have episodes where the main criminal does match the main villain in the first 3 movies) but, instead, unique stories based in the Batman universe. One thing you quickly realize is that DC really does make terrible characters. I'm sorry, but the villains are lame beyond words. Mad Hatter? Seriously…
Take the Lego Star Wars treatment to the pre-raped Indiana Jones movie trilogy and what do you have? Gold. Duh. I am well-known to love me some Star Wars games, having adored BOTH Star Wars games on the 360 to date. Lego Indiana continues the series with a game that is easy enough for young kids to complete, but with the usual insane amount of depth for the more hardcore of players. You have the usual categories of…
Read the full review LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
Mercenaries was one of my favorite games last generation. Open as GTA 4 with better weaponry to play with. It really didn't get much better. But, technical limitations killed it as the game was fairly ugly and had almost no view with fog being used so much one would think one was playing N64 Turok. Mercenaries 2 has had, to be gentle, a troubled development cycle. Delayed for a year because the framerate was,…
The Bourne Conspiracy I'll start off with some praise --- I don't think a game on the series could really pull it off better than this game did. It's, possibly, the best realization of the Bourne world. But, the game is still not great. Not remotely great. It's pretty decent and the controls are exceptionally easy to get down --- but depth is a bit lacking. You have 3 hit combos you can use for fighting, but if you…
For me, few producers are as criminally overrated as Suda 51. That Killer7 became a cult hit is just a demonstration that if something looks "different", quality is immaterial in the eyes of many. NMH came out to amazing reviews. Ended up in the 80's. And while the game does not deserve great scores, it is actually a surprisingly fun game. As usual, a Suda 51 game relies far more on style than on actual substance…
After what can generously be described as a "troubled development", Silicon Knights epic Too Human finally got launched. This game has apparently cost Dennis Dyack his, you know, sanity and all --- so was his sacrifice worth it? Well, in terms of just gameplay, yeah. It's an easy-to-pick up and challenging as heck Diablo-style dungeon loot hack-and-slash affair. There is a wealth of customization options. The right…
After an exceptionally long dose of hype, Bayonetta is finally unleashed on the gaming world and one of the more intense character action games is let loose. A game that is proudly an opus to style and flash, Bayonetta takes the gameplay model of Devil May Cry and makes it significantly more fun and enjoyable and provides a much more enjoyable main character to manipulate. To describe the story is to give it more…
TNA has long been trying to compete with TNA, basically signing anybody who leaves the WWE, either willingly (Christian) or due to the WWE basically releasing them/burying them (Booker T) or the WWE basically telling them to leave or accept drug counseling (Angle). The matches can be high-octane affairs, but with a tendency to have a very "Seen it before" vibe if you watch more than a few weeks. The writing is…
Even the early stealth games weren't as tedious as this affair is. While the main character looks nice and I do like the environments, the AI of the enemies is baffling and the game is just another in a long line of the usual "trial and error" gameplay, which is a sign of very broken design. No game should be IMPOSSIBLE to beat on your first playthrough. It should be difficult to do so, but not impossible and this…
