Reviews

Review – The Force Unleashed

by

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is now the fastest selling Star Wars game of all time. Being the biggest closet Star Wars fan on this site, this was reason enough for me to check it out. The current general sentiment about the game is that it is a rental at best, and perhaps not even worth that due to a variety of issues.

Some of these gripes are valid, but others appear to be the usual negatives that spread thanks to speedy reviewers (and the comment section trolls that parrot what they hear from them). Force Unleashed is buggy and filled with many of modern gaming’s worst tropes, but it also has decent action bolstered by the sheer fun of using The Force, and it tells a story that tries hard to be worthy. →  Can you read me now?

Review – Lock’s Quest

by

My quest for time killing DS games that aren’t infantile and minimize the use of the stylus came to an abrupt end when I purchased Lock’s Quest. Lock’s Quest does use the stylus, but in a manner which doesn’t offend my manly lifestyle of sex with supermodels and drinking rye whiskey (when drawing rainbows in Kirby, I pick up a hankering for an appletini) but feels familiar, in a very mouse-like style.

This is helpful, because Lock’s Quest is a tower defense game – you construct defenses in an RTS-style world against unintelligent, persistent, and most importantly plentiful, clockwork monsters – a genre that would be unplayable without a touch screen (or a mouse).

I was unaware that tower defense was a game genre that extended beyond Warcraft 3 custom maps, but seeing as I enjoy those, I decided to see if THQ could turn them into a meaningful DS experience. →  Imagine all the gamers playing for today

Review – Civilization 4: Colonization?

by

I can’t even figure out exactly what the name of the Colonization remake is, so we’ll just call it Colonization 2. In an attempt to drive sales, it has Civ 4 mixed in the title, since the game leverages the Civ 4 engine (and more importantly the Civilization brand name), but you don’t actually need Civ 4 to play. Despite the confusing title, the game itself is not confusing.

Like every Firaxis effort for the past two years or so, it’s a game with a great deal of promise and terrible QA testing that is largely carried by a talented and extremely forgiving community that does Firaxis’ work for them. Interestingly, this might be why Civ Revs is currently covered in “This game sucks” threads; the community cannot mod an Xbox 360 game. →  Xenoblade Articles X

Review – The Spirit Engine 2

by

Five years ago, as a younger lad with a small budget and an unending hankering for good games, I would scour the internet searching for quality freeware. Generally my searches ended in failure; though such games existed, they often had no story and little depth. One of the few games that caught my attention, though, was The Spirit Engine. It looked polished (for the time) and had the feel of a late SNES RPG – the perfect combination. Although my interest waned over the course of several hours, and I did not complete it (though I now intend to), it was a refreshing experience for the same reasons for which I will now laud its successor.

On finding out The Spirit Engine 2 even existed several days ago, nostalgia for the original drove me to look into it. →  Post of Tsushima

Review – Etrian Odyssey 2

by

Etrian Odyssey (the first one) was an interesting RPG by independent developer Atlus. Rather than focus on traditional RPG elements such as story save X kingdom from Y evil wizard, Etrian was explicitly a dungeon crawler. A giant dungeon has appeared near a city, adventurers flock by the dozen to be plumb the depths looking for treasure while mostly being savagely killed.

And that’s about all the plot you get. Instead of a standard plot driven party, you had an entire guild you could fill with various classed adventurers, and off they went into the meat grinder. It wasn’t a perfect game, but it was an interesting concept, particularly on a portable device where entertaining time killing is the primary motivator for many people. →  Densha de Read! Shinkansen

Review – Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

by

There are quite a few game series with planned trilogies in the works, but the modern Prince of Persia games are one of the first successful trilogies to wrap itself up in a few years time. Its successes and failures highlight several important points that these future sagas must address if they wish to avoid some of the pitfalls that keep the PoP trilogy from sheer greatness.

First off, a good trilogy needs to stay consistent. We all know about the hiccups that occurred in Warrior Within, though I found them far less offensive than most. Their true damage can be seen in the final chapter of the series, Two Thrones. Ubisoft felt that the angsty, goth direction of Warrior went too far. →  Fire Post Wrestling Returns

Review – Haze

by

If you still view Free Radical Design as “the guys who once did Perfect Dark and Goldeneye”, then their game catalogue might seem fairly weak. Second Sight was a successful experiment, and with the Timesplitters games they carved themselves a nice niche in the shooter market with their blend of Goldeneye inspired design and offbeat humor. To be frank, this is a very good situation to be in.

For those that would assume that Free Radical’s output is a failure should it fail to match Rare’s classic shooters, I would remind them that having David Doak and some friends start up their own studio does not automatically mean that the entire Goldeneye team was ready to rock. Goldeneye and PD were lightning in a bottle, something that can’t be easily replicated. →  This post are sick.

Review – Rock Band 2

by

Rock Band 2 came out this past weekend, with an odd Sunday launch to be precise. You’d have been hard pressed to learn this from Harmonix’s site, which was oddly devoid of fanfare about the release. Fortunately, the local Gamestop was plastered with signs indicating that Rock Band 2 was in fact available, and they didn’t even give me much shit when I told them I hadn’t reserved a copy. A moderate line of 7 people made me feel like less of a loser, particularly when most of the people in the line were young, hip, and attractive. Truly times are changing when the person behind me was a cute girl in her twenties (with her boyfriend) demanding Rock Band 2. →  Postsona 3 FES

Review – Spore

by

I am not sure how to introduce this review so I am going to start gently. If I were the kind of guy that was into fellating people to get what I want, there would be a short list of people that I would be willing to drop to my knees for. Right off the top of my head, I can only actually think of two men, the first being Trent Reznor if he promised to give me another album equal to or greater than The Downward Spiral; the second guy is Will Wright.

I can’t think of what I would ask Will Wright for in exchange for orally pleasing him but if he were into bartering, I am sure I could come up with something. →  Destroy All Articles! 2

Review – Silent Hill Origins

by

Over the years Silent Hill has gone from being a cult classic that all the cool kids preferred, to a media darling that the cool kids still preferred, to a struggling franchise that no one seems happy with. This is because no one can agree on what Silent Hill is all about. The basic idea has been that it offers a deeper, “psychological” style of horror that the proles playing Resident Evil may not understand.

As the series has gotten older, the people making it seem to believe the games are defined by increasing amounts of gooey penis and vagina monsters. Diehard fans often pin the spirit of the series to the original Team Silent. If you ask me, the meaning of Silent Hill is apparent. →  Tokyo Xtreme Reader: Drift 2