Hydrophobia Prophecy: Into The Deep End
Spoiler warning: Spoilers for Hydrophobia—both the Pure and Prophecy versions. Yes, they have slightly different stories!
Read MoreAuthor: Wesley Fok
L.A. Noire: A different kind of war
Spoiler warning: Everything about L.A. Noire. EVERYTHING. Also a significant spoiler for Heavy Rain, though ultimately incidental to the main story.
Read MorePortal 2: 60 dollars well earned
I don’t have much to say about Portal 2 for two reasons. First, posting spoilers for the game just feels like a bad idea. Letting you in on some of the gags or the overall trajectory of the plot would be criminal, so much so that even the requisite spoiler warning doesn’t feel like enough protection.
Read MoreHomefront: Thanks for playing our demo
Spoiler warning: Plot spoilers for Homefront. All four hours of it. Though I would love to expect a higher level of emotional engagement with my video games, when it comes to military-style first-person shooters, I don’t ask for much—probably because they almost always fail to deliver. You run through a bunch of corridors, shoot a bunch of dudes, pick up some new guns with one of seventeen different scopes, hit a slow-motion sequence, feel like a bad-ass. I’ve just distilled the essence of every modern Call of Duty game into…
Read MoreDragon Age 2: Dragon Harder
I’ve poured almost thirty hours into Dragon Age 2 since its release less than a week ago, and in that time I’ve been slowly getting a handle on what exactly I like and don’t like about the game. Narrative concerns I will probably leave for another day, but there were a few things I noticed:
Read MoreKillzone 3: The Glorious Fruits of Our Land
The standard review approach for Killzone 2, Guerilla Games’ showcase PS3-exclusive first-person shooter, focused on judging its merits in comparison to landmark Xbox 360 shooters like Call of Duty and Halo. The latter comparison was especially enticing—clash of the console-exclusive titans! Take that approach to its logical conclusion and you end up with the majority opinion about the game: graphically impressive and plenty of fun, but occasionally marred by poor design decisions…
Read MoreSingularity: Equilibrium
Spoiler warning:This post reveals substantial portions of the plot, including the ending. In the wake of nearly every popular cultural phenomenon arrives a flood of imitators. Their reasons for existing aren’t always obvious, however; some imitators are obvious cash-ins, yes, and others are little more than tributes to the original. But some retreads have higher aspirations—inspired by, but not direct copies of. Maybe it’s an attempt to tell the same basic story in a different way, or tweak parts of the formula to make it more appealing to a certain…
Read MoreHydrophobia: Annals of bad encounter design
Hydrophobia was maybe a bad choice of game to play right after Dead Space 2, because despite their many differences I can’t help but compare aspects between the two. There’s no way a budget XBLA game made by a relatively small developer is going to compete with a big-budget sequel with the might of EA’s vast resources behind it, but luckily for Hydrophobia most of its problems are ones of polish…
Read MoreMirrors Edge: Still Alive
Spoiler warning: Minor scenario/level spoilers for Mirror’s Edge. Very little in the way of story spoilers, partially because there’s very little in the way of story. Three days or two years: depending on how you look at it, that’s how long it took me to finish Mirror’s Edge. Though I’d managed to play up to Chapter 7 on the PS3, I didn’t really feel qualified to say whether the game had fulfilled its vision or not; some would argue that I’m still not qualified, given that I haven’t even tried…
Read MoreMedal of Honor: EA’s Lucky Rabbit’s Foot
Spoiler warning: Campaign spoilers for Medal of Honor, including end-game material. You’ve been warned. What a difference a year makes, you might think. Ever since Konami unceremoniously dumped Six Days in Fallujah, a shooter set in a very real, war-torn Iraq, gaming writers and pundits have raised the question of whether video games will ever be ready to tackle difficult subjects, even when those subjects seem to fit neatly into standard gaming contexts, like the chronicle of a military conflict. Of course, a lot of the controversy over Six Days…
Read MoreGran Turismo 5: Driving Force
Spoiler warning: Some cars in Gran Turismo 5 may come fitted with spoilers. You can also fit spoilers to pretty much any car in the Maintenance section. I’ve played every major version of Gran Turismo to date, including Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Gran Turismo for PSP (but not for very long). Every time, it’s roughly the same story: I enter GT Mode, start completing license tests, buy my first car, and slowly work my way up to the pro leagues until finally, somewhere before I’ve completed every race series,…
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