Good Games that Cheat, Vol. 3 Welcome back. For those of you who missed Vols. one and two , Good Games that Cheat is a little editorial feature that calls out the bullsh*t sections of some truly great games, both old and new. Today, in honor of the recent Lords of Shadow 2 release, we spar with some top-tier brawlers. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Release Date: 2010 Platform: PC, PS3, X360 Where...
Welcome back. For those of you who missed Vol. 1 , Good Games that Cheat is a little editorial feature that calls out the bullsh*t sections of some truly great games, both old and new. This time we’ll start with old. Gradius III Release Date: 1989 (JP) Platform: SNES Where it cheats: The Beans I picked up a Super Famicom a few months back (I currently live in Japan), and I snagged a copy of the...
I've been living in Japan for the last 18 months, teaching English, learning Japanese, and building up my "import" game collection. Final Fantasy X & X-2 HD came out on Dec. 26, but is still sold out in most stores, even out in the sticks, where I live. Today I found a PS3 copy at last, and, as there have not been many English write ups about this game yet, I'd like to share my experiences so f...
Playing through one of my favorite childhood games recently, I was inspired (read: enraged) to write a little tribute to otherwise good games that don’t always play fair. I’ll start with said childhood favorite, and move on to two more recent games. The Death and Return of Superman Release date: 1994 Platform: SNES Where it cheats: Level 7—Steel Reign Perhaps the first good Superman video game...
(Originally posted as part of the Games People Hate series of reviews at readingforwriters.tumblr.com ) With Lightning set to Return for one last adventure in just a few months, I thought this would be an appropriate time to review Final Fantasy XIII, the most divisive and reviled entry in a franchise that, over the years, has managed to alienate as many existing fans as draw in new ones. But t...
Like Batman before her, this year Lara Croft was reimagined in a dark and gritty origin-story franchise-reboot simply titled Tomb Raider. Unlike the new Batman, who believes that a hero must not take human life, Lara’s rebooted character goes from brilliant university student—isolated and weeping over the first deer she must kill so she doesn’t starve to death—to a soulless serial murderer in t...
Although this game came out in 2001, I should give a general spoiler alert if you don’t want the story wrecked for you. Additionally, if my interpretation of the story differs from yours, feel free to share in the comments.* In 1987 Hironobu Sakaguchi, game director for Final Fantasy , decided he was more suited to storytelling than action, and so began one of the longest running roleplaying ga...
A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The Console War looks like it might end in a cautious truce, and as the dwindling flamewars of last gen burn themselves to ash, I can only hope that the divide between the new generation of console fans will be so broad that the different camps won’t even bother fighting anymore. With Microsoft’s unveiling of the Xbox One, all of the “Big Three” con...
“Pacing: The Clone’s Horror” Every article or review you’ve ever read about Okami most likely mentioned Okami’s amazing art style and Celestial Brush, a play mechanic which allows players to draw symbols on the screen to alter the game world in some way. Need a gust of wind? Draw a loop. Need it to be day or night so a character will appear where you want him to appear? Draw a sun or moon in th...
The other night my dad, a Baby Boomer who has been having back problems, was telling me about some exercises his doctor had suggested to him, and a Kinect commercial came on TV. In the commercial, a 40-something lady was sliding around her living room, saying, "Boy I'm loving this Kinect." My dad pointed at the screen and said, "That's what I need: a Wii."And he went on to tell me about a frien...
Some games used to suck. And I don't mean they had some screen-tearing or "slightly floaty" jump mechanics. I mean they were boring, catastrophically glitched, or just plain unplayable for any number of reasons. This problem scarcely exists anymore. Like the film industry in the late 70's, gaming has been changed by the phenomenon of the big-budget blockbuster. Retail games simply can't afford...
The mainstream gaming media’s reaction to Dante’s Inferno highlighted what is, in my opinion, one of the most curious facets of Western entertainment. But before I go into more detail about that, let me take you back to the summer of 2000, when I spent three months living in Germany in college. My host parents both worked about 80 hours a week, and as a result I spent a lot of time alone in the...