14 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.
As of late, the first-person shooter market has grown a bit stale. For every Fallout 3 or Borderlands there's ten Call of Duty clones. Publishers and developers can't be blamed for trying to mimic the franchise which contains the two highest grossing video games to ever be released. But as a person who plays as many video games as I do, I don't want one of my favorite genres to produce game after game that looks,…
Torchlight, originally released in 2009, was a surprise PC hit from a small development team consisting of some of the guys that developed the two Diablo games. Due to it's success, the game has now been ported to the Xbox by way of the Xbox Live Arcade. Despite a myriad of technical problems, Torchlight is a wonderful throwback to older action RPGs and well worth the $15 price point for loot-whores like myself.…
This gaming generation there have been a lot of questions about the direction the gaming industry is heading. One such question revolves around dowloadable games. How much content should be in a $15 game compared to a $10 game? How much should that extra $5 account for? I don't have an answer for those questions but I do know a good deal when I see one. Beyond Good and Evil HD (BG&E) is one of those good deals. BG&E…
Excite Truck, a Wii launch title, is an arcade-styled racing game similar to Burnout. Though there is a lot to like about this game, its lack of content and occasionally wonky controls hold the game back. Excite Truck represents an excellent 'proof of concept'. The unique racing experience and the controls, for the most part, create a thrilling, fun game. But future games in the series need to add more of just about…
Muramasa: The Demon Blade was released on 2009 by Ignition Entertainment. It was developed by Vanillaware, makers of the PS2 game Odin Sphere. Like Odin Sphere, Muramasa is a 2D sidescroller with beautiful visuals. But, where Odin Sphere was an RPG at heart, Muramasa is a brawler. The brawler design is a simple one that hasn't been widely utilized as of late. Whenever a new brawler is released, it is usually a…
Double Fine Productions has now become a downloadable-only game development company. Their first attempt in this market was with the game Costume Quest which was a great, simple role-playing game with a unique premise. With its second attempt, Double Fine's proclivity for unique games continues with Stacking, a game about Russian stacking dolls. There is little doubt that the game is original, but it is its gameplay…
The first Fable, released on the original Xbox, was an action-RPG with life-simulator influences. The player took control of a young boy who, through the player's interactions with the world, could be morphed in to whatever the player wished. Well, in concept anyway. The life-simulator elements were shallow and the action-RPG elements didn't fare much better. The game had charm but lacked quality. The most notable…
LostWinds: Winter of Melodias (from here on referred to as LW:WoW) is a sequel to the first LostWinds game released on the Wii, through WiiWare, one year prior. The game takes the gameplay that made the first game so fun and attempts to add to it. Unfortunately, the end result is a game that is not only not as engaging as the first and that actually controls worse. The first game was a take on the Super Metroid…
NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (from here on referred to as NQ) is a 2D platformer that was released on WiiWare and later on the PC. NQ is a platformer that could only be developed for the Wii or PC. No other console could do what this game demands. This game represents what I consider to be a new style of platformer; the multi-tasking platformer. The game is fun, offers a relatively stiff challenge, and is a phenomenal…
LostWinds was one of the first big titles to be released on the Wii's WiiWare shop. The game, released in 2008 for 1000 Wii points (or $10), tells the story of a young boy named Toku who, with the help of the wind spirit Enril, attempts to rid his world of a curse. This simple story, backed by great gameplay, makes LostWinds a must own for all Wii owners. The story of LostWinds is very simple. It serves a singular…
Snatcher is a bit of a rarity in America. I was only aware of it because I loved adventure games as a kid and owned a Sega CD. I really enjoyed this game then but I hadn't played it in years and was interested in whether I still felt the same way. In terms of story and the characters, this game is still great. But the gameplay is archaic and very passive. This is more of an interactive story then a game with a…
I grew up a Sega kid. My dad was a huge Sega fan who bought everything Sega related including the trio of Genesis, Sega-CD, and 32X. Though the Sega-CD has a bit of a bad reputation there were a lot of great games released on that system. One of which was Dune. This is a port of the PC and Amiga version of the game. Though the port isn't perfect, the gameplay and story make up for any technical limitations. The game…
The first Bioshock, released in 2007, was a refreshing surprise. Made by those who developed the System Shock games, it offered players a similar experience; an atmospheric first-person shooter. The world the players found themselves in, Rapture (a supposed underwater utopia created by Andrew Ryan), was fully fleshed out and very fun to explore. The political and philosophical intrigue was interesting to a point.…
Mirror's Edge is a hard game to review. Part of me absolutely loves it and another part really doesn’t. It’s part exhilarating roller coaster and part frustrating, sloppy mess. Set in the near future, this unnamed city is controlled by an overpowering government that speaks of utopia through force. The idea is that there’s less destruction, less crime, less hate at the cost of individuality. There are those who…
