Reviews

Review – Civilization IV Beyond the Sword

by

One of my biggest critiques of the Civilization Warlords Expansion was that I felt Firaxis had produced just enough content to make the game worth buying, and not a smidgen more. Being a Civilization fanatic, I had no choice to buy it, but my hope was that the next expansion, when it came out, would be more satisfying. In the months coming up to the release of Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, I began to get giddy as a schoolgirl (I even found myself shopping for plaid skirts) that this expansion would deliver. I was not disappointed. And my new skirt fits really well.

I’ll breeze over the stuff you’ve already read elsewhere (or seen in the game): new leaders, new civilizations. There are more of them, an they are in fact delicious. My one critique is that I feel that many of the new civs have unique water-based units, and I generally feel that those are weaker than their land-based counterparts, unless you’re playing an archipelago map. →  Read like G did.

Review – Madden 08

by

The Madden Curse Comes to the Wii

For years we’ve seen each Madden cover supermodel fall to the “curse” of becoming overpaid, injured and irrelevant. And just as eerily, the infamous curse is plaguing the upper right corner of its cover as well.

I know I’m supposed to unconditionally lower my expectations for the Wii’s substandard graphics and love it because of it’s removable showerhead inspired controller, but this is just lazy. (And by the way, the joy of flailing a little white rod at my TV is neither new nor innovative.) Crowd shots, backgrounds, stadium flybys and even the loading screen still shots rely on heavy, let’s say, “artistic” blurring to compensate for these worse than average Wii graphics. Whereas the animations have finally improved on the other two consoles, the motion capture for the Wii looks like it was recorded in the Madden bus toilet using a breakfast burrito and some pork rinds.

Believe it or not, this other Madden endorsed product is less poop filled than Madden ’08 for the Nintendo Wii.

 →  OutRun 2006: Post to Post

Review – Halo 2 Vista

by

Is Halo 2 for Windows Vista Worth Your Hard Earned Cash?

If you’re reading this (which you clearly are) I assume that you fall into one of two categories:

1. You are thinking of re-buying your favorite XBOX game for the PC and are wondering if $50 for a three year old game that you already have might be worth it.

2. You want to get a well detailed laugh at the people in category #1.

So, sure, I’ll save you some precious expending of your literacy skill and humor you with the summary of this review: Of course not.

But you already knew that. Unless you suffer from chronic short term memory, and frequent Books-A-Million every ten minutes to pick up your copy of Teen People, you don’t need me to tell you not to buy things that you already bought. If you do, welcome to my review, Memento, now get on up to the store before it closes, and don’t forget your Teen People. →  Apply directly to the forehead.

Review – Mr. Robot

by

I entered into the futuristic world of Mr. Robot with some apprehension. The game is based on a lot of stuff I am not overly fond of; puzzle games, platformers, and robots. I was not too keen on the title of the game, either, because other than Mr. T, who was the last good Mr. Anything you can think of? And so help me, if you dis Mr. T, I do indeed pity you, fool.

The one thing this game had going for it is that it is one of my friend’s all time favorite games and he has very good taste. Mr. Robot sits among legends such as Fallout 2, X-Com, and Katamari Damacy if you were to see the list entitled, “Jim’s All-Time Favorite Games”. So when it was suggested that I take a look at the game and review it I jumped at the chance.

This robot is designed solely to lift smaller robots.

Mr. Robot, is created by the guys over at Moonpod, an indie game developer with a lot of promise, if this game is a glimpse of what’s to come. →  I’d buy that for a dollar.

Review – Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s

by

In my time with videolamer, I have been very, very kind to Harmonix. I began to fall in love with them with Frequency and Amplitude, games that changed the way I thought about the rhythm genre. Then came Guitar Hero, which changed my gaming habits significantly. The sequel made me a bona fide fanatic (I own one of each official controller).

Now comes the cliche: I think Harmonix is starting to sell out.

Funny how the company making music games has the history of a rock band. They started off small and simple, making some great products that only a few really tried to appreciate (Frequency and Amplitude). They got a nice little break from a big “label” (Konami and their Karaoke Revolution series), and grew to have a stable fanbase. Then they have their “Breakout” album (Guitar Hero), followed by the world tour worthy followup (GH2), and suddenly they’re one of the biggest names in the scene. Rock Band has got everyone in the industry talking. →  But the future refused to change.

Review – Brooktown High

by

There are two things that shame me as a man:

First, I have a collection of Hello Kitty cell phone trinkets that would make a twelve year old Japanese schoolgirl beam with pride. There is a good reason I have amassed this wealth of dangly goodness but this is neither the time nor the place to defend my less- than-masculine obsession. Second, is Konami’s new PSP title, Brooktown High and the frequency with which I play it.

You are a new student at Brooktown High School. It is your senior year, you are single, and you must score with as many hotties as is humanly (or in this case, digitally) possible. This is as close to being a player as you are going to get without contracting the cold sores and awkward itching that comes with the title, Medium Pimpmaster Supreme, which is what I was known as in high school. Okay, not totally true but this game allows me to rectify that. →  Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.

Review — WTF aka Work Time Fun

by

I am a masochist, I have to be. There is no other explanation for why I go back to a game that urges me to put as many caps on as many pens as fast as I can. There is no reason to keep chopping wood so fast that when a helpless little bunny gets thrown on the cutting block I can’t stop my swing in time and that little bunny become a bloody mass of flesh and fur. Such is the “game” that is Work Time Fun.

In Work Time Fun, you play a temp in a job agency in Hell. Various demons staff the job search desk, all of them offering the least helpful advice possible. There are tons of boring, grueling jobs to choose from (over forty I think) and they range from being a bouncer at a concert to the examples I described in the introduction.

Fun!

Why would you play a game that consists of dozens of boring minigames, you ask? →  While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not gaming.

Review – Steambot Chronicles

by

Have you ever played a game for hours on end and then realized what you played had unbalanced gameplay, a clunky battle system, and very slow character advancement but you loved it anyway?

This happened to me last week. On a whim, I bought Odin Sphere and Steambot Chronicles. Though I might argue both games are guilty of these faults, in this case I am talking about Steambot Chronicles because it kept my attention better.

My question – Wouldn’t a better name be Trotbots?

I still don’t completely understand why, but I loved this game. It has a cliched anime look with cliched anime-type characters named after spices (the main character is Vanilla Bean), standard music (with a few exceptions) and clunky gameplay. Though the voice acting was really good for English voiceovers (even in songs, though the lyrics are lacking), that usually isn’t a great motivator on its own. So what was so compelling about the game?

The main answer is Choice. →  Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘Game Over.’

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition – Mini-Review

by

ZOMG, I love Resident Evil 4. It’s damn-near my most favirotest game evar. If I could, I would cuddle with it:) And after putting in over 10 hours of delicious zombie(?)-filled action with the Wii Edition last weekend, I decided to write a review for it, to show you guys how much I like you.

But then I realized that the only thing Capcom really changed with the Wii version is the controls, so there would be no point in writing a full review for a two year-old game that’s only marginally different.

If you know nothing about RE4, first, shoot yourself in the foot with a rubber bullet, and then go read the GC or PS2 reviews. You really should be ashamed of yourself.

But anyway, how does the Wii version control, you ask? In one word, brilliantly. It’s safe to say that the Wii-port is the definitive version of Resident Evil 4, all because of the controls.

They break down like this. →  Destroy All Articles! 2

Review – Metal Slug Anthology

by

Old games don’t stop aging, and when they get old enough anniversaries are certain to pop up. These are great opportunities for everyone in gaming. Publishers get a fantastic excuse for re-releasing old games from dead platforms, and despite what message board all-stars will tell you, gamers can also benefit from these “franchise-milking opportunities”. They give some a chance to play a classic they missed out on, or for an old fan to have an entire series on one neat little disc. Good times all around.

Except it is rarely the case where things work out so squeaky clean. Sometimes a company will take it too far, such as Nintendo’s audacity to charge twenty dollars a pop for NES games that had a 50% chance of being tucked away somewhere in Animal Crossing. Other times you will get a complete surprise; Tekken 5 was a 10th anniversary game, so it happens that the standard disc contains 66% of the franchise’s history on it. →  Ask not what this post can do for you - ask what you can do for this post.