26 public written reviews
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With a moving story and exceptional presentation, Brothers is a fine addition to the recently expanding list of short, simplistic indie games with a focus on narrative and tone. While maybe not quite as brilliant and Journey or Gone Home, Brothers is still an incredible game that is absolutely worth playing. At its core, Brothers is a puzzle game, although the puzzles are not the focus of the experience. Instead,…
Some games hold up well over time. Their timeless gameplay, outstanding art direction, or powerful story ring just as true ten years after release as they did the day the game was put onto store shelves. Then there are those games that focus solely on pushing technological boundaries. Some look prettier, some try to be bigger, and some just try to be more ridiculous than any game before. Eventually, though,…
Limbo is a dark game. Many developers claim that their games will illicit a strong response from the player, but very few do. It is all the more amazing, then, that what may be the most powerful experience released this year has but one line of setup, no dialogue, and not a single cutscene. Instead, Limbo creates reactions from the players through its oppressive, crushing, and suffocating atmosphere. Limbo is a game…
The fog around you bristles with a palpable dread. You stumble forward, axes whistling by your head. You dodge the cold of a rusty knife and sprint towards a generator in the distance. Your breath haggard, you fumble with a flare lighting it only seconds before a chainsaw mauls your gut. The Taken shrink back from the red spark. You grab the string on the generator, pulling it quickly to start it. The generator…
Five years ago gamers were introduced to the anti-hero Kratos. A warrior on a quest for redemption, he served the Goddess Athena and longed to destroy Ares, the god of war. Two main entries and two spinoffs later Kratos is finally ready to take out his final vengeance on the gods. God of War 3 is the most polished and mechanically deep entry in the series, but its slavish dedication to series mainstays weakens what…
As I pass through the archway, flags billowing in the ash and ember that congests the air, I wonder what great scene of amazement will next assault my senses. No manner of visual splendor previously attained could have prepared me for what I see now. In the distance a towering giant, a lone God of War, battles against thousands of hopeless Athenian soldiers. I stare in awe, my mind reeling from the vista laid before…
In 2007 Naughty Dog released Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The Tomb Raider-esque game featured an unparalleled presentation that was backed by repetitive gameplay elements that brought down what could have been an amazing experience. The situations that hero Nathan Drake found himself in were dull, and while the game was polished and fun for a time, it eventually got old. The action movie feel the game was going for…
For years Naughty Dog has been one of Sony's premier studios, pushing the limits of each successive Playstation system further and further. Never before, though, has Naughty Dog pushed a Sony platform as far as they have with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Released in 2007, Uncharted simply looked better than any other console game on the market. Two years later its sequel has easily dethroned it, but Uncharted still…
Insomniac, long the premier Sony second party studio, has been making addictive and polished action platformers since Spyro on the PS1. Their releases have consistently pushed the boundaries of Sony's various machines, but have also always stood in the shadow of more revolutionary entries in the genre. With the release of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Insomniac has again pushed a Sony console to…
Read the full review Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Generally movie tie-in games are among the worst in the industry. Usually quick cash ins with limited development time and tiny budgets, it's the rare movie game that rises above the lowest dredges of the gaming barrel. So going into X-Men Origins: Wolverine there was a general expectation that this experience would be a disappointing effort by the usually strong Raven Software. It was a great surprise then that…
While the action adventure genre has long been a tantamount piece of the gaming landscape, for years it was overshadowed by platformers or, more recently, the first person shooter. In 2005 Sony released a game created by its Santa Monica studio called God of War. This gritty, gruesome piece of hyper violence invigorated the genre, bringing it to the forefront of the industry. Four years later the term "God of War…
The modern gaming landscape is littered with countless sequels and me-too copycats lacking any form of originality. Even those few games that attempt to do something fresh usually fall into the traps set by previous games, with archaic features like limiting save-points, incompetent AI, or even more generally, a classic zero sum architecture, in which there is a clear winner and a clear loser. As our medium evolves…
Genji: Dawn of the Samurai is an action game similar to almost every other samurai action game out there. From its uninspired story, to it's horrendous save system, to it's mundane and repetitive combat, Genji is a disappointing first effort from upstart Japanese developer Game Republic. You may have heard this story before. It's about a reclusive and wholly innocent warrior with a mysterious past who is thrust into…
NOTE: This review is only for the single player portion of Call of Duty World at War, and is scored accordingly. Please take that into account when reading this piece. Thank you. The Call of Duty franchise has been a staple of the first person shooter genre this decade, starting out life as a PC exclusive before entering the console wars for the second iteration. With four numbered games and a half dozen spin-offs…
Some games change our conceptions about interactivity. Some entice us with bloody violence and frantic action. Still others offer vast worlds filled with countless hours of gameplay. Braid is none of these things, and yet it is vastly superior to countless big budget titles. It succeeds not only because of the depth of its signature time mechanic, but also because of its excellent merger of production, design, and…
BlackSite: Area 51 is a game that can best be described using the analogy of a summer blockbuster. That is, this game is at times loads of fun, but to enjoy it you'll have to accept the weak graphics, AI, and and level design. Like a summer movie, you will get your day's worth of entertainment, but don't expect to be playing this game time and time again, especially when one just like it, albeit much better made,…
Irrational Games (now 2K Boston/Australia) has been around for a long while. While the company has a nice track record as far as critical acclaim goes, it wasn't until they released Bioshock that the company met with commercial success and was bought by Take Two subsidiary 2K Games. Of course this isn't a review of Irrational but of their glorious underwater epic, Bioshock. Bioshock tells the story of a nameless…
Bioware is one of the best RPG makers in the world of gaming. Few will argue this point, as the company has a catalog that includes such hits as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR. For Jade Empire, Bioware decided to build a universe based on mythic China and create a combat system revolving around classic martial arts. The result is a game that lacks depth but remains enjoyable enough for it's 20 hours of…
Of the many games released on the last generation of consoles, few were as influential as The Chronicles of Riddick. The hard work of actor Vin Diesel and developer Starbreeze payed off with a game that remains one of the elite examples of a genre-bending first-person game. It's with little doubt, then, that Starbreeze's first current gen offering has been awaited with gaping, salivating jaws. For those interested,…
The survival horror genre started off in the early 90's with a PC title called Alone in the Dark. Now, 15 years later, the survival horror genre receives one of its most unique and disturbing entries. The Suffering is a game about Torque, a deathrow inmate with a mysterious past. Torque was accused of murdering his wife and kids, and, after being convicted, was sent to Carnate Island's maximum security prison to…
New Super Mario Brothers is both an ode to the classic days of gaming and a reminder of the changes that have refined the industry over the twenty years since the original. Gamers know Mario. He’s one of the most iconic figures in the annals of gaming history. A stalwart and standard for over twenty years, the red hatted plumber returns to his 2D roots on the DS, while at the same time offering some fresh moves that…
FEAR has to be one of the hardest games to review for several reasons. For one, it's almost impossible to describe the pure adrenaline rush of some of the game's most intense firefights, but also because this is a game which is much greater than the sum of its parts. FEAR combines frenzied first-person-shooting sequences with terrifying horror segments to create what must be one of the most nerve-racking and…
Read the full review F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon
You appear, shaken, to a nightmarish town. A blue toned hue pervades throughout the landscape and in the background you can hear children laughing. Your eyes dart around, but the town is empty, haunted by a ghostly silence. The Phantom Dust swirls around you, formulating itself into three distinct capsules. You stride over to one, aware that in moments you could be engaged in the fight of a lifetime. After inhaling…
Last generation was somewhat of a rebirth for developer Capcom. While the PS1 generation saw the company introduce its popular Resident Evil series, the PS2 generation saw them perfect the formula. Maybe as important was the creation of a new franchise by Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami. Devil May Cry defined a generation of action games and paved the way for such beloved games as Ninja Gaiden and God of War.…
In November of 2001, Bungie released a game called Halo. It became the selling point of the then fledgling Xbox and brought with it legions of followers who aptly awaited a sequel. In 2004, Bungie answered their prayers with the release of Halo 2. Continuing the epic tale of humanity's struggle against the alien alliance known as the Covenant, Halo 2 fine tunes Halo 1's already oiled gunplay to shining new heights.…
Beyond Good and Evil is a truly remarkable experience. Its completely unique concept and gameplay are both fun and intuitive. It's rare that a developer takes the risk to develop something entirely new. But Ubisoft, known for bending the bar in games like Prince of Persia and Rayman, allowed their internal studio to create a fabulous experience that is marred only by a somewhat trial and error format and it's short…
