51 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.
Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth picks up (more or less) right where Mask of Deception ’s Story ended. The game mechanics are pretty much the same as those from the previous game, with the addition of a very well done tutorial mode that not only provides a solid refresher on the base mechanics, it also does a very solid job of getting across some higher skill level techniques, to help if you get in a tight spot. The…
The Sakura Wars franchise is one that has, for most of the series run, been generally inaccessible for English speaking players. Yeah, we’ve had the anime adaptations of some of the games as TV shows, OVAs, and occasionally movies, but that’s pretty much been it. Finally, in 2001, the US received its first Sakura Wars game, Sakura Wars: So Long My Love , which was the first new game in the series on the PS2, and…
The first two Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, and their predecessors in the X-Men Legends series, felt like love letters to Marvel Comics. They had a wide variety of characters who you could team up in different ways – with special modifiers based on characters shared history, and a variety of costumes and side missions that played off with that history. With Team Ninja developing MUA3, I had a hope that they would…
Read the full review Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order
I haven’t played a lot of visual novels – aside from Super Robot Wars V . Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception , like SRW V, is a hybrid of a visual novel and a tactical RPG, though one with a more linear narrative to it. The End is the Beginning It is important to mention first that Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception is a sequel. The first game, Utawarerumono , was a fantasy story that over the course of the work had the…
The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings is part of a series I bounced off of at first. Some of them were due to bugs – like one where The Witcher would crash whenever I walked into a particular quest-giver’s hut. Some of them were because of the combat, and how the game handled the combat with rhythmic mouse clicks (more on this later). Some of this was due to the re-use of character models and portraits to enough of an…
(This review originally appeared on my blog). One of my guilty pleasures is the Dynasty Warriors games. They’re fun, engaging, somewhat mindless hack-and-slash games. However, they are not without their faults. There comes a point where you’ve put the Yellow Turban Rebellion down enough times that you just can’t play through it anymore. Thus the appeal of the other takes on the concept from within Koei and without.…
When I beat Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man’s Switch , I enjoyed the game but found it lacking in a lot of respects. While Dead Man’s Switch was an RPG that captured a bunch of the feel of the world of Shadowrun and invoked one of the classic adventures from the game, it was missing some of the dynamism of the RPG that other PC RPGs brought to the table. Shadowrun Dragonfall addresses these concerns and creates an RPG…
I had previously reviewed Castlevania: Lords of Shadow on Bureau42, and I had meant to get around to the sequel for quite some time. I did do a partial play-through of the portable title, Mirror of Fate, but I ran into something of a wall over how the game handled porting 3D melee animations in a 2.5D environment. However, at long last, I have played and beaten Lords of Shadow 2, along with its DLC, and have some…
Note: This Review originally appeared on my blog at Countzeroor.com. The original Puzzle Quest was an interesting title, which took the concept of the match-three puzzle game and translated it to something of a larger epic fantasy context – one which led to numerous clones in other genres, some of which I've previously done a rundown of on my blog. However, the original Puzzle Quest also had a more epic scope to it,…
This review originally appeared on my blog. I’m a fan of the RPGs from companies like Bioware and Obsidian. I haven’t beaten a lot of them, but I do enjoy playing them a great deal. Between getting on sites like Completionator, and recently (as of this writing) finding myself in between jobs, I’ve found myself with a bunch more time to play video games (when I’m not going through the process of looking for work).…
The original Gears of War trilogy was a a game series that changed how players and designers approached the cover-based shooter. It popularized stop-and-pop shooter gameplay, something that ended up moving beyond the third person shooter, and over to some first person shooters as well. The game’s narrative also had a fairly strong improvement over time – from the first game’s story being generally straightforward,…
Point and Click adventure games are interesting from a review standpoint. They are a lot more narrative focused than, say, shooters, because they rely so heavily on their story, and the puzzles, if executed well, feed into the narrative. So, Beneath A Steel Sky is a point-and-click adventure game made using the SCUMM engine (at least the version that’s available on GOG), put out by Revolution Software in the UK (the…
This review was originally posted on my blog . Shoot-em-ups are one of those genres that I’m okay at. I’m never going to feel confident enough in my skills to play a bullet hell shooter, but I appreciate the design of those games and the skill that goes into them. Thus, a game like Gradius Collection for the PSP is a game that caught my attention. The title collects 5 Gradius arcade titles, generally going with the…
Among the fighting games released last year, one that crept under the radar, but drew the attention of some of those in the fighting game scene (and, of course, people here at Giant Bomb) was Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel . This was the latest of a number of various fighting games based on dating sims and visual novels, starting from Melty Blood in 2002 (based on Tsukihime ), and moving on through…
I’ve previously played two Hatsune Miku rhythm games, one on the PS3 , and one on the Nintendo 3DS . I generally enjoyed them, though I found the gameplay controls a little rough. In particular, in the 3DS version, bouncing between the two screens was difficult at higher difficulties, and on the PS3 version, the size of the screen ended up working against the game. For my next outing against a Miku game on a Sony…
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team was, before the release of Paper Jam, the most recent game in the Mario & Luigi series of handheld Mario JRPGs. Unlike the Paper Mario series and the original Super Mario RPG for the SNES, the game focuses entirely on Mario & Luigi as, in this case, they travel to Pi’illo Island along with Princess Peach, on vacation. However, as per usual, Bowser has his own malign plans for Peach, which…
I'm finally returning to do video game reviews, with a look at Pandemic Studios last game, The Saboteur. So, I bring up William Grover-Williams in the review - an article on wikipedia about him can be found here . His life story is really impressive, and pretty clearly is the model for Sean Devlin, though Devlin's story ends happier - Grover-Williams was eventually captured and died in a concentration camp.
This week, I'm reviewing the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise, with Modern Warfare 3. Multiplayer footage by Matroix (http://www.youtube.com/Matroix) Classical Music during the "Incoherent Rage" card is "Virtutes Instrumenti" by Kevin McCloud Notes: One thing I forgot to get into in the review itself is that the single player levels are incredibly directed. You can kind of feel the pressure in the…
After the review, I get into my thoughts on the Hugo Award nominees for Best Professional Artist. Other notes: I really wish the game had found a way to include some kind of car customization in the game, whether in terms of performance or appearance. Also, I end up stepping into redundancies with the not being able to easily change cars thing - but that's a really big deal in a racing game. It's kind of a brave…
In my little video review, I give my thoughts on Rayman: Origins (There's also some additional stuff after I'm done talking about Rayman, but the game stuff comes first) Now - one little thing I didn't get into in the review - is that if you're going to beat the game - and save all the Glade Kings, you may end up having to do a lot of back-tracking - more than your Mario Galaxy - probably closer to your Mario 64…
Because my video ended turning out kind of short - I also included my thoughts on the 2012 Hugo Award nominees for best Novel... and because of some hiccups with, I suspect, my webcam drivers, I ended up with weird glitches like the one you see in the video thumbnail - for which I apologize.
After a long absence, I have a new video review of El Shaddai: Ascention of the Metatron. Notes: I did mean to put the art from the Untitled El Shaddai Project in the video, but I forgot.
Too Long; Didn't Watch version: Gears of War 3 fixes everything that was wrong with the first two games. The Second-Act-Secret-Project-Ass-Pull-That-Invalidates-Everything-That-Came-Before? Gone. Survival sequences that exist to pad out the game, and in the process kill any sense of urgency? Toned down. Two-dimensional characitures for squad members (Hi, Cole)? Fleshed out and given depth. The only real minuses I…
After several weeks with no reviews - I'm taking a look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Gameplay Footage by: J2JonJeremy As far as when I'll do my discussion of "Transhumanist Cyberpunk" - well, that will be on my blog, and I'd like to see if I can set up a guest appearance from another internet reviewer first - just so I can get some additional examples of similar works from some knowledgeable people.
TL;DW version - Blood Stone has a decent single player campaign, with some exciting gameplay moments, with an interesting story (though one that has its dumb points). Gameplay footage by: Shockwave981 - http://youtube.com/shockwave981 TheMediaCows - http://youtube.com/TheMediaCows Featuring a guest appearance by Diamanda Hagan: http://diamandahagan.wordpress.com
I've finally done a video review of a current game for once. Huzzah! Too Long, Didn't Watch version: All of the narrative shifts required when you make this film a Daniel Craig Bond film instead of a Pierce Brosnan Bond Film cause some real problems for the plot. The gameplay is solid, but that's basically because this plays like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare , which also has rock solid gameplay. The problem is there…
After much delay due to technical difficulties on my end, I present my video review, of Gears of War 2. Gameplay footage by Skorch82 .
This week I have another video game review for you, of Bizarre Creation's last racing game - Blur. You'll have to bare with me on this review - for various technical reasons, I'm not able to do my usual video editing.
Too Long, Didn't Watch version: Lego Batman features a lot of the solid gameplay that has made the Lego series so long lasting. However, the tone of the game and the tone of the Batman franchise simply doesn't mesh. Thus, this is a game that only really works for fans of the Lego series - who don't need anyone to recommend this game to them, as they'll buy it anyway.
The too long, didn't watch version - The Bourne Conspiracy succeeds at replicating the feel of the Bourne films. However, the flashback levels that take up the majority of the game's run-time drag down the game experience, feel like they have little to do tonally with the film the game is based on, and ultimately are woefully bland.
Another video review from me, of a game which really innovated in the third person shooter genre, but unfortunately presented a story that simply turned out vapid, dull, and with more holes then a Locust Drone's bullet riddled corpse.
I'm trying something slightly different here, and submitting this review as a video. I'm using a new video editing program, for this video, so bear with me as I work on adjusting the sound quality.
To be absolutely blunt, Rock & Roll Racing is like RC Pro-Am with some Heavy Metal & Hard Rock music, plus a psychotic announcer. To be fair, this isn't totally a bad thing – RC Pro-Am is one of the best racing games of its period, with pretty solid controls, a game-play style that keeps you hooked, and decent racing, though the game had some problems with its learning curve. Rock & Roll Racing basically fixes those…
Capcom's 16-bit Disney licensed games are widely regarded as being among the best platformers in the 16-bit console generation. However, of the successful titles, like Mickey Mousecapade, that they released, lurking in their shadow was a little game called Goof Troop, which has remained fairly obscure to this day. The reasons for the title's obscurity are two-fold. It was based on a show that was only broadcast on…
This is related to this blog post . On multiple occasions, I've heard the expression mentioned that restrictions breed creativity. Sometimes that doesn't hold true. My last Quality Control pick, Raging Fighter, was a great example of this. The game was a fighting game that just didn't hold up well on what was essentially a 4-bit hand-held system. Such is the opposite with this Quality Control pick, Mighty Final…
For this review of Raging Fighter for the Game Boy , I have to admit that I didn’t get into the game as much as I’d like. By “get into the game” I don’t mean get interested in the game, as much as I mean make progress in the game. For those unfamiliar with the title, and there probably are a lot of you, this game is a fighting game for the Game Boy, published by Konami. In the game you play one of several martial…
The Concept: It seems surprising that no-one has tried to emulate Guitar Hero with the prior games in this genre. Well, someone has finally done that with Rhythm Zone, a game which where you have to hit falling gems in rhythm to your music. The game also features downloadable music tracks for free. The Good: The backgrounds are much more dynamic than the backgrounds in Audiosurf, while still maintaining some…
The Concept: Once again, this game also tries to do something new with the genre. In this case, the concept is to make a match-three-or-more puzzle game with levels based around your music. Multipliers and combos can be built up by triggering the groups of blocks in time with the game's tempo. The Good: Supports most open media formats (.mp3, .ogg, .wav), as well as Audio CDs. It also has individual leader-boards…
The Concept: Beat Hazard takes a different take on this genre by going combining the Custom Music Game with the revived Twin Stick Shooter genre. The Good: The game has a level up mechanic that works very well in my opinion. No matter how badly you think you're doing on a particular level, you're always progressing and powering yourself up, which helps encourage continued play. The Bad: The power of your weapons is…
The Concept: This game can legitimately be considered the father of the modern generation of Custom Music Games. Distributed through Steam, the game uses your music to generate a “road” with various colored blocks on it, with the color based on the intensity of the music and different colored blocks having different point values. You need to fill up a “meter” by hitting colored blocks and getting them to match in…
This review is a tie-in to my last recap of Nintendo Power on my blog here. Kendo Rage is a bit of an odd duck, or perhaps rather an ugly duckling. The game takes the action-platforming style of the Valis series, gives the game the sense of humor (both in terms of tone and in terms of level and monster designs) of the Parodius series, and the persistent timer of Prince of Persia , and it kind of works. You play as…
Just to get it out of the way. I love Van Halen in general. Both the David Lee Roth era and the Sammy Hagar eras of the band both had some amazing songs which I absolutely love… and let’s just pretend that the Gary Charone era didn’t happen. So, when I heard about this game, I was looking forward to the game with great anticipation. Then I learned that there wouldn’t be any representation of the Sammy Hagar era on…
A while back (on my Blog), I went out on a limb and said that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was superior to Guitar Hero III. I’ve now had an opportunity to play the second band focused Guitar Hero game, and while I enjoyed it, it encountered some of the same problems that Guitar Hero III had. For starters, the game isn’t balanced well. On Normal, I found myself running into serious problems with the first two tracks of the…
With my last Nintendo Power Recap, I picked Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose for my next Quality Control pick. This was in part because I was a fan of the Tiny Toon Adventures TV series, and partially because I kind of liked the last Looney Tunes game I played, Death Valley Rally . So, we’ll see how well this game holds up. The Premise: Playing as Buster Bunny, you travel through various stages based on…
Read the full review Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!
This review was originally written on my blog . Awhile back I played and reviewed (somewhere else – I can’t find the precise review) 50 Cent: Bulletproof . The game was the first game featuring rapper 50 Cent. It wasn’t a good game, but it wasn’t absolute crap either. It was just incredibly mediocre. However, it sold incredibly well. So, I wasn’t surprised when the game got a sequel, but I wasn’t particularly…
This review was originally written for my blog . So, a while back I played, and reviewed, the first major rhythm game to be based around a particular rock band – Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. I reviewed it almost a year ago, and I didn’t think it was all bad. Well, this year I’ve picked up Harmonix’s take on the concept. With the game I reviewed a year ago, Neversoft took the Guitar Hero series, took some of Aerosmith’s…
This review was originally written for my blog. The Premise The forces of the Galactic Federation are not faring well in their century long war with the ORN empire. The Empire has installed cloaking devices on 5 their planets that harbor major bases to shield them from Federation forces, and they’ve designed a special defensive system called Cerebus to keep major fleets from searching for them. The Federation’s only…
This review was originally written for my blog as a companion to my recap of an issue of Nintendo Power. The Premise: Casino Kid, the protagonist of the last game, has beaten all the best gamblers in the United States. However, the world remains. Now he must travel the globe, beating some of the best gamblers on Earth at the Roulette wheel, at Blackjack, and at Poker, before facing the King of Gambling at all three…
