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sjschmidt93's Reviews

37 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.

DeathSpank2010

4 out of 5 stars

Perhaps the last two games you would expect to hear in the same sentence are Blizzard' s Diablo franchise and Telltale 's Monkey Island series. Ron Gilbert and Hothead games have combined these two game types into one, and it is called Deathspank . Deathspank, you say? Yes, Deathspank, the game is named after ultra-ridiculous super hero protagonis t trying to rid the world of all evil. The story covers Deathspank…

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Snoopy Flying Ace2010

5 out of 5 stars

Snoopy Flying Ace is one of the most pleasantly surprising games in recent memory. First off, it is of a genre that I'm not a huge fan of, aerial-combat games. Whether they're aerial-only, or an aerial section of a larger game, I never seem to enjoy them. Second, the license is shocking. Never would I have guessed that the game to bring me to this genre would be attached to the Peanuts license, coming from a…

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Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker2010

4 out of 5 stars

Warning: This Review Contains Spoilers from MGS3. The Spoiler is marked with underlining and bold. Ever since the PSP launched big budgets, AAA games that we were used to seeing and playing on our home consoles have been trying to make their way onto Sony 's portable system. Games such as God of War: Chains of Olympus , Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories are what you would expect to play on…

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Heavy Rain2010

5 out of 5 stars

Note: This Review Will Contain Minor Plot Spoilers From Heavy Rain , But Nothing From Later In The Game Quantic Dream released Indigo Prophecy back in 2005, and while the game was very unique and fresh, it still had many flaws . Luckily, Quantic Dream has fixed most of the issues present in Indigo Prophecy with there brand new title, Heavy Rain, which is built on the same general concept and design as their last…

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(DLC) A Nice, Nostalgic Throwback to Resident Evil's Old Days

5 out of 5 stars

Note: This Review Is For Resident Evil 5's Lost In Nightmares DLC . For My Resident Evil 5 Review, Go Here . The original Resident Evil 5 strayed away from Resident Evil 's old formula a lot, even more so than Resident Evil 4 . For fan's of the old formula, meaning locked doors, traps , levers , a lack of weapons, and most of all, a scary, on-the-edge-of- your-seat atmosphere, you'll love Resident Evil 5's new…

Read the full review (DLC) A Nice, Nostalgic Throwback to Resident Evil's Old Days

Indigo Prophecy2005

4 out of 5 stars

Warning: This Review Contains Some Early Plot Point Spoilers From Indigo Prophecy, But Nothing from Later in the Game. The S ection With Spoilers Has Been Marked. Indigo Prophecy is a game for few people. I suppose most "gamers" will like it, but if an average Joe come and picks it up he'll probably be setting it down rather quickly. The game's premise is one of the best ever, period. The opening cutscene will…

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Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time2009

5 out of 5 stars

This Review May Contain Spoilers From The Previous Ratchet and Clank Games and Early Plot Points From A Crack In Time The Ratchet and Clank series has been around for quiet a long time. It was born on the PS2 and has been through 5 or 6 games and a few spin offs. The formula of the franchise hasn't been altered much from game to game and that hasn't changed much in this installment of the long running series. If…

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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune2007

4 out of 5 stars

What do you get when you combine Gears of War , Indiana Jones , and Tomb Raider ? Uncharted: Drake's Fortune . What a great fusion of games, right? While this combination hasn't quite been perfected by Naughty Dog it's definitely something to build on, and it's certainly one of the funnest action-adventure games I've played. You play as Nathan Drake , a treasure-seeking decedent of Sir Francis Drake himself. At the…

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Batman: Arkham Asylum2009

5 out of 5 stars

This Review May Contain Spoilers (such as the names of villians). "More times than not, when a company doesn't have a movie tie-in, or some famous license to follow they can create more inventive and all around better things than if they did have some license to follow." That was the first line in my inFamous review . It has been true since the NES days that licened/movie games just don't hold up to their…

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(DLC) Another Small, Free, but Impressive TF2 Update.

4 out of 5 stars

Valve has continulously updated Team Fortress 2 atleast once every few months since it's launch. Usually every update adds new weapons for one of the 9 classes and new achievements for that class, a few maps, and maybe a new mode. The thing that's different about this update is that it doesn't offer and new weapons or achievement for any class, hence the name "classless update". Instead Valve has added a new game…

Read the full review (DLC) Another Small, Free, but Impressive TF2 Update.

Wii Sports Resort2009

4 out of 5 stars

The Wii has a giant list of different of controllers and periphals that have been released for it, and Wii MotionPlus is no exception. I could be wrong, but I'm betting that if Nintendo wanted the Wiimote to be like this when it the Wii was first shipped, they could have. But they didn't want to because they could make $20 off of one of these dumb things by making the Wiimote a piece of crap from the start. The…

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Peggle2007

3 out of 5 stars

Peggle is a game that can really be played by anyone who is given a mouse, gamepad, or iphone. The reason is because there are not a whole lot of people in this world who hasn't seen one of the Price is Right's most famous games, Plinko. No, the Price is Right did not invent this game concept, but it's certainly the one thing that has made the idea so mainstream and popular. Peggle follows that same concept,…

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Plants vs. Zombies2009

5 out of 5 stars

Plants vs. Zombies is yet another game from PopCap (mostly known for Peggle). PopCap is pro at coming up with a extremely simple idea, and somehow making it so complex and seemlessly addictive at the same time. A game that can be played by an 8 year old, but easily has enough strategy for a teenager to dive into deep possibilities that the game has to offer when it begins to show that it can be a pain in the ass…

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New Super Mario Bros.2006

5 out of 5 stars

We all (when I say all, I mean everyone ) played Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Needless to say, it was probably the most successful game of all time. So that means, if anyone picked up New Super Mario Bros. on the DS they would instantly know what they were doing. After a really long run of games that followed the same formula Super Mario World was eventually the death of the 2D Mario…

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Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles2007

3 out of 5 stars

So, here's how I would like to start out my review for Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii . I am a huge Resident Evil fan. I've played probably every single (good) game in the series. Unfortunately, Umbrella Chronicles doesn't really fall into the category of good. I suppose it entirely possible that my extreme knowledge about Resident Evil as a franchise could've hurt my opinion of this game, but in…

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Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty2008

4 out of 5 stars

This Review Contains Spoilers for R&C: Tools of Destruction If you decide to buy Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, realize that it's only $15, thus the game doesn't need to be extremely long, extremely exciting, or extremely complex. The game is much simpler than 2007's Tools of Destruction , taking away much of the mechanics introduced in Ratchet's last adventure, taking away many of the weapons, and probably…

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inFamous2009

5 out of 5 stars

More times than not, when a company doesn't have a movie tie-in, or some famous license to follow they can create more inventive and all around better things than if they did have some license to follow. Thus how Sucker Punch has been able to make easily one of the best superhero games of all time. Though I realize I'm in the minority here, I thought Infamous' story was very entertaining, cool, and pretty easy to…

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Team Fortress 22007

5 out of 5 stars

Valve isn't a stranger to multiplayer based first person shooters. Years ago they released Counter-Strike , possibly one of the most successful PC games ever, and you could argue that Team Fortress 2 is a reskinned CS, but TF2 has so many improvements over Counter-Strike that if you were a fan of CS and you pick up TF2, you will more than likely not wanna ever go back to clunky old Counter-Strike. There are huge…

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Shadow of the Colossus2005

5 out of 5 stars

After releasing one of the greatest early Playstation 2 games, ICO , Team ICO , has released yet another masterpiece for Sony's console, Shadow of the Colossus. Shadow of the Colossus takes a really new and fresh way of storytelling. You won't hear one English word spoken in the whole game. Instead, the creators created a fictional language for use in the game, and you'll have to read the subtitles. This fictional…

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Dead Space2008

2 out of 5 stars

At the end of the day, a review is an opinion of the person writing the review, the reviewer. And the gameplay, features, graphics, and everything slammed onto the video game disc is what sways the reviewer's opinion one way or another. For Dead Space, everything the game had I didn't like. The production values and pretty graphics were nice, but the gameplay and survival horror aspect of the game, I found,…

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MadWorld2009

4 out of 5 stars

Red, white, and black. Those are the three colors you will see when playing MadWorld. Red being all the blood and guts you're going to spill while playing this game. No, there aren't actually guts, because this is a Wii game, and the blood doesn't look like blood at all, which, if the game was on an HD console you would probably be shouting and hooting even more and the hilariously violent, but extremely unlikely,…

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Portal2007

5 out of 5 stars

Valve really do not do much to innovate any genre of games they make, at least in the gameplay aspect. Sure, they may have created the most innovative gaming service when they released Steam, and created a great way of story-telling in first person, but how the games they create play haven't really been something they've been too inventive with. Well, now, that Portal has been released, you can no longer say that.…

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Bit.Trip Beat2009

4 out of 5 stars

Games that have a retro theme nowadays are becoming more and more common, and often, they are actually successful, like the case with Mega Man 9. Unlike Mega Man 9, this isn't an old and established franchise redone in pixelated graphics, but instead it's a "reimagination", as I like to call it, of Pong, the game that started it all. Like Mega Man 9, Bit.Trip Beat! is hard . Very hard. Basically, instead of going…

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Mercenaries 2: World in Flames2008

3 out of 5 stars

Explosions aren't, at all, anything we haven't seen in a video game before. But I think Mercenaries 2 has probably some of the most memorable and greatest looking explosions we've ever seen. Huge structures just being leveled is definitely the games strongest suite. You'll blow the shit out of just normal houses, yes, but you'll also take down a whole oil refinery at one point, and you can also sink a huge ship into…

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Wii Play2007

2 out of 5 stars

Wii Play is probably the first game you get for your Wii when you pick it up. This is because it is packed in wit the Wii mote. Now, I wouldn't call this game good by any stretch of the imagination, but it probably isn't bad enough to pass up for just a plain Wii remote. On the flip side, though, there are many other $10 video games out there that are much better than this one, such as various WiiWare, Playstation…

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Resident Evil 52009

4 out of 5 stars

This Review Contains Spoilers When the Resident Evil franchise begun on the Playstation, it basically redefined what the survival horror genre meant. Hell, it created the survival horror genre. It was extremely innovative and everyone loved it. Then, that formula grew old, so Capcom reexamined the series and practically changed the what genre Resident Evil was known for. The series, then, totally redefined the…

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Super Mario Galaxy2007

5 out of 5 stars

After a pretty good, but not great GameCube Mario 3D platformer, Mario Sunshine, the newest Mario plaformer,Super Mario Galaxy, is the best Mario game since the legendary industry changing Super Mario 64. So, in Super Mario Galaxy your mission is to... what other than save Princess Peach. Galaxy's story isn't anything new by any stretch of the imagination. The story of the game follows the same formula and concept…

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Great for The SF Fans That Love The Series

5 out of 5 stars

Back when Street Fighter II was released for the arcade, it was an instant hit. Kids everywhere were getting on there knees, begging there parents for some pocket change to beat there friend who was cheating just because he always picked Ryu. The game was a slower-paced and not as violent as other popular fighting games at the time, like Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. It was also much more strategic and…

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Wii Sports2006

3 out of 5 stars

At the launch of the Wii, Mario was absent. Zelda was there. There was also Wii Sports. Now, Wii Sports isn't your average Nintendo title. It's not a game for the hardcore audience. It's for those casual gamers who just want to have fun. If you're looking for a game that you can delv many hours into, go pick up Zelda or Mario. Even though this game wasn't really made for people like us, we still have the right to…

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Super Stardust HD2007

4 out of 5 stars

Super Stardust HD is a futuristic 3D Asteroids, basically. There's more than that though, but on paper, that's exactly what it is. You may notice, in the title, "...for the harcore". Why for the hardcore? Because this game is really, really hard. It doesn't go easy on you. When you first start the game and try out the first planet your gonna get your ass kicked, but then, once you get the hang of it you'll start to…

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Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection2009

4 out of 5 stars

Unlike Nintendo, who has went the route of overpricing there older retro games and selling them individually on the Virtual Console, Sega has decided to release yet another collection of old Sega-published games, and at a cheap price. The title, "Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection", is misleading, though. This isn't just Sonic games. There is a handful of Sonic games, though. Here is the list of the games in this…

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Rock Band2007

5 out of 5 stars

Harmonix, Creators of Guitar Hero 1, 2, & Rock the 80s', have abandoned the GH series and have teamed up with MTV games and EA to expanding the music genre by adding drums and vocals to the mix. Now, the game is far superior in almost every single possible to any other console rhythm game to date. The game has on hell of a soundtrack. Of course, based on your taste in music, you're reaction to the game will differ,…

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NBA Live 092008

3 out of 5 stars

When NBA Live 09 was announced EA states that it would feature "Dynamic DNA". Now, if you don't know, what this is is basically an auto-update every day for the game, updating the players based on how there playing in the real world. For example, if someone gets traded, injured, or has started draining more threes than usual, then that's going to happen in the game, too. Atleast EA claims it's suppose to happen.…

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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots2008

5 out of 5 stars

This Review contains spoilers. Solid Snake made his gaming debut in 1987 on the original NES You can fight and kill your fellow Metal Gear fans in MGS4's online mode, Metal Gear Online.Metal Gear, and after many spin-offs, sequels, and prequels, 21 years later, he's back for more for his final mission. War has changed. The PMC's that are fighting in the battlefields are being controlled via nano-technology. Their…

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LittleBigPlanet2008

4 out of 5 stars

Play. Create. Share. That is Sony's and Media Molecule's moto with this game. And, for the most part, all 3 of these parts of the game succeed in what they try to do. Play. So, while the game is based mostly on customization of the LBP community there is still about 50+ levels made by the Media Molecule crew. There are 5-6 "sections" that have 3 or 4 levels a piece. You'll go into a city, a desert, a frozen…

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Bionic Commando Rearmed2008

5 out of 5 stars

Bionic Commando Rearmed is a remake of the NES classic Bionic Commando. It is for XBLA and PSN, and let me just say it is probably worth $60, but it is only a mere $10. It is easily one of the best downloadable games out there, and it is worth every penny, and much much more. Yes, this game is a platformer, but fans of jump shoot and slide platformers may feel a little lost here. There is no jump button. Why?…

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Left 4 Dead2008

5 out of 5 stars

Left 4 Dead is from Valve, the huge PC developer that create the Half-Life Series, Counterstrike, Portal, and Team Fortress. Valve doesn't put out a whole lot of games, but the ones they do put out are always quality games, and Left 4 Dead is another. It is available for the PC, through Steam or retail, and the Xbox 360. Now, of course, since it's Valve, the PC version is far superior, that is if you have a gaming…

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