55 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.
Bioshock Infinite is in short a gorgeous looking game. The world of Columbia on the whole is beautiful and the sky scenes are interesting. I would even go as so far to say that the main character and Elizabeth are interesting as well. Mechanically the game is very solid. The first person shooting aspects are good and the use of the Vigors (ahem Salts) is mostly just as fun as it was through the previous games. The…
I have to say that Driver San Francisco was quite a pleasant game. The whole game is a racing game. You never leave the car, so if that is appealing to you then read on. One of the coolest mechanics of the game is the ability to switch to any other car in the city at any time. You essentially have the ability to switch bodies. The premise around this is based upon an earlier incident that happens to your character…
Straight out, Rage is gorgeous. One of the best looking games on the Xbox hands down and to be honest I think this game is largely a tech demo for the Rage engine more than anything else. The sky backdrop has to be one of the best I have ever seen. The actual gameplay itself is rather boring and pedantic. Rage can get a lot of comparisons to Borderlands in its initial structure. That is fair to an extent and the…
For everything that Far Cry 2 seems to do great, there is an opposite coin of where it seems to drag on. Moments of it seem brilliant while other parts seem down right boring and repetitive. On the whole Far Cry is a very competent open world shooter. It is flat out gorgeous looking and the shooting mechanic is fun. The weapons are for the most part OK and the novelty of many of them wears off after a few hours of…
Halo 4 is finally here and overall I think 343 Studios did a wonderful job of taking over the reigns from Bungie. The game has all of the feel of Halo (for the most part) while still having the identity of a new developer working on the game. Campaign Without getting into spoilers let me just say that this campaign was overall pretty satisfying. The game is gorgeous and I was completely impressed with the juice 343…
I have to say that I was a huge fan of the last Red Faction game. While it wasn't perfect in any sense, it was a solid open world romp that let you play with the well known Volition destruction tech. Unfortunately the newest game inthe series goes in a completely different direction. While the destruction is still there the play now finds themselves under mars, traversing caves in a fairly rout third person shooter.…
I have never been a huge fan of Rockstar games. I love open world games, but the Rockstar ones always had funky controls and pretty pedantic story lines going on with them. I decided to give LA Noire a go though since it had some really interesting things happening for it. First off it isn't really an open world game in the same sense as GTA. Second, it has some of the most impressive facial animations I have ever…
I usually hate when people discuss Valve games as they seem to hold Valve on this unattainable pedestal of perfection in game design. I never thought the Half Life games were the pinnacle of game design that some people apparently infer, but i have to give credit where credit is due for Portal 2. Portal 2 takes everything that was wonderful in the first game and adds a nice additional layer to it that adds interest…
Picked this game up to have an nice mindless shooter and that is sort of exactly what I got. This game has some really good looking graphics, even on the Xbox. Once you get past that though everything else feels rather "ho-hum". One of the core pieces of the gameplay is the ability to go stealth or use a sort of armor to approach scenarios. While fairly interesting at first, it grows rather tedious once the game…
Popping this game into my console recently I loaded it up to be instantly washed back to 2003 when I used to play Splash Damage's free Wolfienstein expansion called "Enemy Territory". This game almost right down to it's core is that game exactly. It is a class based FPS that is focused around objective based missions. Certain operatives are required throughout these missions to achieve certain objectives and often…
Popping this game into my console I have to say I was taken aback by what I initially found. This game has so much 1990's game design flair in it you would think that you were lost in a time warp. When you first load up the main screen you are greeted with some techno music, a robot voice saying "Vanquish" and a rolling screen with glowing text. I felt like I was loading up F-Zero or some other futuristic racer. The…
I love western films and it is unfortunate that we do not get more games that are set as westerns. Red Dead Redemption is likely the best western we have seen developed to date. If you are familiar with Rock Star open world games then you are going to be right at home in this game. The saying that this is "GTA with horses" is mostly apt. Mechanically the game has some wonderful points to it that are hampered really…
When sitting down to write a review and my thoughts about Mass Effect 3, there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration. One has to remember that this game is the final chapter in a story that we have been following for almost five years now. Because of that there are certain game and story telling elements that I think have to executed in order to fully close out our journey. These elements of…
Sigh.........This game was very highly anticipated for me. I am a huge Zelda fan and being all of the rumors that I heard about this being a Zelda clone, I came into this hoping that I would get my classic Zelda gameplay, but in a shiny new wrapper. At the outset of this game I was totally in heaven. All of the Zelda hallmarks were there and I was having a blast. The thing that was a let down for me though was not…
Bastion got a lot of hype this past year from many a games journalist. It was the nice indie, but still commercially digestible game that people like to feel good about and also like to tell others they feel good about it. There is no pretention from the developer, no secret agenda or broad push. It seemed that this was just a simple game with a good art style, a great soundtrack and a simple gameplay mechanic. Let…
This is now the third game in the Assassin's Creed series and I have stuck through these games so far mainly for the storyline. The overall arch that Ubisoft has developed here with a broad conspiracy theory spanning hundreds of years is incredibly engaging. Their ability to weave in details to actual history is nothing short of brilliant when you see it in play. This third game in the series keeps trading along…
I popped in Metro 2033 after listening to various people talk about it for the past year. It seemed to be a fairly contentious game. Some people loved it, other people seem to hate it. The game is based upon a Russian novel in which the world has been vaporized due to nuclear war. The remaining survivors of Moscow have been living in the metro for the past twenty years, scrounging to survive in a hostile world with…
This game was played on the Onlive system and I will review both the performance on Onlive as well as the game. Onlive Simply put the game ran nearly flawlessly on the Onlive system. I played it through the Microconsole and had no issues. The game play was smooth, graphics looked very sharp and the lag was not noticeable. There were a few instances of game crashes, but nothing really to take note of. Game Review…
Skyrim is a truly remarkable game that demonstrates some of the best in terms of the graphical power and the versatility of this generation's game consoles. Straight up it is an incredibly beautiful game that immerses the player in an expansive world. There is an absolute myriad of things that can be done in this game and the degree of side quests is staggering. Hundreds of hours can easily be put into this game.…
Single Player Ok, so here is the problem with Modern Warfare 3, and truth be told this isn't really that much of a problem. It is exactly the game we are expecting it to be. The mechanics are the same, the story is the same, heck even the game sequences feel scripted. The problem with this though is that we have walked this path before and when you have someone screaming in your face for five hours straight you…
Onlive Review Overall the game worked flawlessly on the Onlive system. Controller and keyboard controls worked well. This appears to be the PC version of he game as you can see a mouse cursor at the loading screen if you are using the Onlive console . It quickly disappears during the menu load though. Overall the controls were responsive and all of the menus systems worked fine with the controller. Game Review Lara…
Bulletstorm is a fun romp through a destroyed world with a couple of guys who apparently are still twelve years old in their language development cycle. The game takes place on a beautiful alien world after our heroes crash onto it. The game is nothing short of gorgeous to look at with its super saturated colors. You will find yourself traversing through deserts, forest,s busted buildings, electrical fields, etc.…
I played this game on the Onlive system, which I presume is the PC version of the game. Technically there are no problems with the game's performance in relation to the Onlive service. Game loads incredibly fast, looks great and plays well. It is helped a lot by the PS3 version I think as controller support for the most part is very well done. The core mechanic in this game in my opinion is platforming. While there…
Having been a late comer to this and playing all of the other games in the Halo universe, I have to say that this one took me a bit by surprise. While initially intended to be an expansion for Halo 3 Bungie managed to create a wholly unique game that changes the mood, pacing and atmosphere for all of the other games in the series. It is a good thing too because the tried and true formula of charging through the…
Before going any further with this review, lets first ask ourselves whether we enjoyed the Prince of Persia games from the PS2 era. If you did then you will like this. If you did not (like me) then you will not enjoy this game. This game is essentially a reprisal of those games in terms of format and style. Your adventure takes you through what appears to be the largest castle in history, filled with insane…
The best and worst thing that Bioshock 2 has going for it is that it is more of the same from the first one. On the one hand the mechanics are still solid and even improved upon in this game because you can now "dual wield" your plasmids and your weapon. Atmosphere is pretty good, but it is pretty much the exact same thing as the first game. How many times can I run through a dilapidated city though? The first time…
If I had to sum up Nier in a single thought i would say that this is a Japanese or Japanification of the Zelda mechanic. It is odd to say that when Zelda is in and of itself Japanese, but this game essentially takes the Zelda mechanic and just loads it up with classic Japanese RPG tropes. Nier on its surface is an adventure style brawler that follows the Zelda architecture of an over world connected by a multitude…
If you are longing for the days past of killing mindless hordes of enemies in your bedroom at 2:00 am then Torchlight is here to scratch your itch. This is by no means a ground breaking game, focusing primarily on the tried and true mechanics of the dungeon crawlers of yesteryear. The beauty of Torchlight is in its simplicity and focus. The game does not throw complex enemies at you and it does not try to over…
Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a solid first person shooter that improves upon the first game in the series in almost every way except on the story aspect. Ironically it was the story from the first game that really drew me into it. At the end of the first game our heroes drive off into the sunset, literally with their new found treasure. This second game picks up though the our protagonists back in the army, trudging…
I have Homefront for the Onlive service and have been playing it with my micro-console on my TV. I will approach this review from the Onlive perspective as well as from the overall gameplay perspective. Onlive This game has been heavily promoted over the past several months for all of the consoles and it is my understanding from the press from Onlive, they have been working closely with the developer to get it to…
What happens when you take Modern Warfare controls and speed and throw it into the Half Life puzzle physics/scheme and tell a story with the nuance Bioshock? You get Singularity, a time bending, puzzle solving shooter that has you playing with physics, shooting time mutated enemies and running with fun customizable weaponry. As the main character your find yourself on the island of Katorga-12 investigating a…
To be honest I am a little bit surprised at the apparent glowing reviews this game seems to be getting. I will admit that it certainly did not receive the attention it should have last year, but it certainly does not stand on its own as a AAA title. The quick synopsis of the story is that you play as Monkey, a hulky, top heavy man with a vocal sense of cynicism to everything that is going on around him. He is…
Every once in a while you come across a piece of media that scratches that certain itch down memory lane where despite numerous flaws it still puts a smile on your face. Ghostbusters is certainly that game. The game takes place sometime after the second movie in 1991 and all of the tropes that you loved from the movies are right there in the game itself. The characters, the humor, the geekry and in this case even…
This game is fairly old at the time of this review (about two years if I am correct) so it is showing a little but of its age, but it still stands as one of the better military shooters on the Xbox 360. This game is the antithesis in many ways of the Modern Warfare approach to the FPS. While the down the rails shooting mechanic is still in place, there are many differences that set it apart. First off the game is…
Assassin's Creed 2 has such a polarizing a effect on me for several different reasons. The first game in the series was impressive for several reasons. It established a wonderful universe with some really interesting characters and a wonderful conspiracy theory look on some classic history. On the same token though it suffered from some significant game play problems such as repetition, wonky controls and aggressive…
The crux of this game is an arcade racer mashed with tower defense. When you give the idea some thought it actually makes perfect sense. Most tower defense games track targets on a confined path. Racing games are targets moving on a confined path. The concept is simple, brilliant and for the most part executed well in this game. The game is setup simply as a sort of wild west racing game where all of the tracks take…
The qualities of the Fable III series and how it has to be reviewed largely depends upon the type of player wanting to play this game. The Fable series on the whole has always been known as a game series focused on the story elements and not so much the game elements. While Fable I and II were mostly the same game, Fable II did take the mechanics and really perfect them to a nice balance. It was at that point the…
To warn everyone right away, this review will spoil the ending if only for the fact that I hated it as much as I did. I have incredibly mixed feeling about this game. In almost every aspect I found things that I really liked and other things that made me want to smash my face against a wall. Starting from the bigger picture and working our way down to the mechanics lets first touch base on the world. Pandora, as…
Dewy's Adventure is a fun, colorful game that has some great potential and I really wish it could get expanded upon in a follow up. The game takes place in a bright, colorful world where you play what is essentially a water drop. Throughout the game you have control of the state of dewy, changing him from gas to liquid to a solid to solve puzzles and battle enemies throughout the game. On the whole the puzzles and…
Red Faction Guerilla is a very nice take on the open world sandbox game that actually takes place in a sandbox. While it does nothing in the way of groundbreaking the genre it offers some mindless fun when destroying almost everything around. The Mars world itself is set in a surprisingly large arena. While impressive at first you quickly find that there is almost nothing at all in the wasteland of mars. That is…
What is there to be said about this game. Its design is a combination of 3rd-person team based shooting (a la TF2), tower defense, a loot hoarding. What makes the game play so enjoyable about this game is that one does not have to be good at shooters to be a good player in this game. As is the case with TF2 one can play as a support player and focus their energy on defending the base, escorting your team's bots, or…
The best and worst thing this game has going for it is that it is exactly the game you think it is. It is a Japanese RPG fully rooted in the traditions and styles of the Jrpg's from the 1990's. You have effeminate male characters, angst driven teens, the "old" man who must be in his 30's and a winding incomprehensible story; mixed with frustrating difficulty curves. The game played for me was a slight nostalgia…
The Saboteur in short is a game that is just confused about its identity. As mentioned in other reviews it takes bits and pieces from other open world games and mashes them together, but never achieves a complete identity. Contradictions are simply all over the place in the game. For example, the game at the beginning tells you to take to the roof tops a la Assassin's Creed. While the rooftops are good for nailing…
A fairly average game by 2010 standards, but I imagine it was well done in 2005. The gameplay overall is fairly fun and straight forward. While it is a quasi-sandbox game is suffers from the problem of an empty overworld. A few scattered towns here and there in the world are moderately interesting (and small by today's standards), but the world in between these towns is desolate, even for a desert. While the…
Repetition killed this game for me and I am surprised that more people have not chimed in on it. Backtracking through the entire island multiple times, roughly the same fighting mechanic, the same puzzle mechanics drove me insane. I am surprised I made it 5 hours into this game. The game has a great first impact when you play it. The controls are well done, the fighting is impressive (the first time) and the voice…
The gameplay in a nutshell is a stiff, sometimes awkward 3rd person shooter, that in the post Gears of War world just doesn't stand up all that well. Oddly enoough though I found myself going back to it. You could call the game junk food if you were going to apply a food analogy: cheap, poor ingredients, not that good, but ultimately satisfying. Lets be honest here, the game is not a "AAA" title and unfortunately…
A beautiful game with a soundtrack that is good but not very deep. Personally I have never been a huge fan of POP gameplay in general and I quickly found most of the platform puzzles boring. And ohh those damn yellow plates pissed the hell out of me. The overall mechanics of the game are very good, if not a bit overcomplicated at times. The story, which appears fairly thin at first glance takes a nice twist at the…
This is a fun looking brawler on the surface that quickly becomes repetitive . Wolverine will certainly scratch your itch if you are looking for a game to bloody up some bad guys. The biggest problem with it though is that it simply gets boring. The combos system is fairly limited, the enemies exhibit the same behaviors and you will quickly find that you execute the same basic attach moves (mostly your lunge and…
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