Category: Review

Review: Crysis 2

Ah, Crysis, the most mythical of beasts in the PC herd. Running Crysis on maximum setting was kind of like spotting a unicorn. We all knew a guy who said he had done it once, but deep down we knew he was lying.

Don’t get me wrong, I played Crysis (on low) and I loved it. Sneaking around a huge jungle island, fighting Koreans and aliens and taking to the Battlefield inspired multiplayer arenas held a lot of fun. Unfortunately, Crysis had a really high barrier for entry and it wasn’t widely played during its time; even when Crytek tried to optimize the engine for the Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars, the game still chugged processing power like no tomorrow.

Now Crytek is back with a new engine and they have consoles in their sights. Does Crysis 2 succeed in being the best of both worlds, or has Crytek traded their PC cred for the console market?
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Review: Dragon Age 2

dragon age 2 review

Dragon Age: Origins was a strange sort of game when it released back in the Fall of 2009. Not to say it was bad by any means (Eddy gave it a good review), but the game seemed to draw on more of the old RPG conventions than newer ones. It still retained that BioWare dedication to character and story, but for those of us who got most of their RPG experience from games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect, it was a little difficult to get into.

Regardless of what you may have thought about the original’s mechanics, the success it obtained meant that BioWare launched head-first into a sequel, dropping Dragon Age 2 a year and a bit after the original and all of its expansion. A lot of things have been changed, re-vamped or just plain dropped this time around. Does BioWare work their magic again, or should we call the Templars?
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Review: Pokemon Black and White

pokemon black and white review

If you’re in your early twenties now, chances are you were swept away by Pokemania when the first games arrived in North America in 1998. The ubiquity of the games was hard to escape from, especially in the playgrounds of elementary schools where the card trading and GameBoys reigned supreme.

As Pokemon was such a gaming fixture in my youth, I’ve followed the series all my life. I did drop out around the Ruby/Sapphire era, but having dipped my toes into the series with Diamond and Pearl and the HeartGold/SoulSilver remakes, I’m once again back in the world of Pocket Monsters. The fifth generation of the franchise, Black and White, makes a few fundamental changes to both the gameplay and the presentation, but is it enough to bring new life back to this very tried and true series?
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Hydro Thunder Hurricane Review

HTH RaceHYDROOO THUNDERR!! That hyper-loud voice should be familiar with anyone who was a fan of the original Hydro Thunder game, part of Midway’s series of “Thunder” racing games. Well after 10 years from its first release, the sequel is out from a company called Vector Unit who brings back the insane boat racing action in the form of Hydro Thunder Hurricane. The game is available on Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 Microsoft Points and the thrills of the adrenaline packed racing series with crazy transforming boats comes back with a new look. But can it hold up to its predecessor? Hit the jump to read the rest of the review. Continue reading Hydro Thunder Hurricane Review

Review: Bulletstorm

bulletstorm review

While some may say that the age of the “silent protagonist” in video games is over, there are a few times where I wish that we could return to the days of yore, where our controlled hero just got on with the job and didn’t have a smart-ass remark for everything. Bulletstorm is one of those times. Everyone in this game suffers from a severe form of tourettes crossed with verbal diarrhea. The story in your game doesn’t have to be amazing to please me, but at least make it so I don’t want to jam a power drill through my skull every time I have to listen to one of the characters wax philosophic about dicks.

For a little history, Bulletstorm is a First-Person-Shooter collaboration between Epic Games and People Can Fly where the object of the game is to kill enemies in creative ways to rack up Skillshots. Taking advantage of the Unreal 3 engine, and going out of its way to distance itself from every other FPS on the market, Bulletstorm hopes to carve out a niche with its unique take on FPS mechanics. How well does it fare in that regard?
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Review: LittleBigPlanet 2

In retrospect, it seems kind of strange to admit that I didn’t quite understand the attraction of LittleBigPlanet at first. I remember playing the demo shortly after I bought my PS3 Slim and coming away a bit underwhelmed. LBP definitely had a unique, quirky style, but at the time I think I just wrote it off as nothing more than Sony’s attempt at staking their own system-exclusive claim on the platformer landscape.

However, I am always on the lookout for a good deal, and a few months ago I was able to get my hands on a copy of the LittleBigPlanet Game of The Year edition for a whopping $2.50 thanks to a handy promo credit. With the full game in my hands, I was finally able to overcome my initial skepticism and give it a fair shake.

The story levels were certainly entertaining enough, but I was most impressed by the robust, sophisticated community levels on offer. Fully experiencing the community aspect of the game is what really made it click for me, and my anticipation for the sequel began growing exponentially soon thereafter. In a very short amount of time, LittleBigPlanet 2 turned into a day one purchase for me. I’ve played it almost non-stop since getting my hands on it, and I feel I can safely say that LittleBigPlanet 2 has secured its position in my mind as one of the best games of 2011.

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Review: Dead Space 2

dead space 2 review

A couple of years back, EA started making a big push to get more original IPs out on the market instead of relying on pumping out sequels to successful franchises every year. Leading the charge on this initiative was DICE with Mirror’s Edge and EA Redwood Shores with Dead Space. Of the two, Dead Space did better critically and commercially so Redwood Shores was formed into Visceral Games and a green light was given on the sequel.

Set three years after the events of the first game, Dead Space 2 brings Isaac Clarke, the hapless engineer/universal savior, to The Sprawl, a giant space station in orbit around Saturn. Isaac can’t remember what’s been happening in the intervening time period, and the small glimpses given during the opening cut-scene look like he’s stuck in a psyche ward. After everything goes to hell (with one of the best cold opens in any medium ever), Mr. Clarke is on a fast-paced bloody thrill ride to discover what’s been happening while he’s been comatose.
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Review: Epic Mickey

Mickey Paint

Mickey Mouse has become a mascot, so much so that many young people have no real idea that he was once a pretty great cartoon character. Enter Warren Spector and Epic Mickey, a Wii-exclusive designed to relaunch the lovable mouse, while also introducing the world to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s prior creation that he lost the rights to oh so many years ago. Sadly, Mickey and Oswald both deserve better than this.

Epic Mickey starts out as Mickey is pulled into the Wasteland through a series of events brought about by pure mischief. See, in the olden days before Donald Duck, Mickey was the one who was always getting into trouble and it appears that Disney is looking to bring that aspect of his personality back to the forefront. Messing about with Yen Sid’s magic paintbrush leads the Mouse on a great adventure, trying to undo the damage done by the Shadow Blot, which Mickey inadvertently created. Continue reading Review: Epic Mickey

Review: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

assassins creed brotherhood review

There’s a special spot in gamer hell reserved for sequels with a quick turnaround. Left 4 Dead 2, Halo 3: ODST and in some cases, Call of Duty, have all received stick for coming out “too soon”, according to the Internet. So it is with Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which was announced before the dust on Assassin’s Creed 2 had even settled.

Coming out such a short time after its predecessor, and tacking on a seemingly unnecessary multiplayer mode, Brotherhood fit the bill for the quick “cash-in” built to capitalize on the good will of AC2. Slowly, though, perception of the title began turning around as media came out revealing that the multiplayer wasn’t a shoddy tack-on and the single player campaign was going to add interesting new mechanics. Critical reception is very, very positive, but what’s the GamerSushi stance?
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Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty is something of a phenomenon, a strange black hole that gamers throw their money into year after year. No matter how tired we get of the previous entry, there’s something that keeps us coming back to the franchise even when we swear that we’re done. It used to be the tight, focused single player mode, but that’s given way to the addictive multiplayer component. Now that Modern Warfare 2 has bruised our fragile psyche in that respect, it’s fallen to the underdog, Treyarch Studios, to breath life back into the franchise.

Even though Treyarch is pegged as the B-team for Call of Duty, churning out sequels in the off years, they’ve never really had a chance to strike out on their own. Seemingly forced to make games based on World War 2 after their audience had moved on, every Call of Duty that didn’t have the Modern Warfare moniker was almost destined to fail. Something different happened this time, though, and this new Call of Duty is set on the sidelines, focusing on the deadly Black Ops special forces soldiers who went behind enemy lines and did the dirty deeds no one would know about. With a new era and a new focus, does Call of Duty: Black Ops deliver the goods?

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Review: Fable 3

fable 3 review

If any game series in the history of our pastime has a penchant for over-promising and under-delivering, it’s definitely Peter Molyneux’s prized creation Fable. From its first inception, Fable promised to bring us a fully realized world that would change according to our actions, where trees would grow from tiny acorns to mighty oaks in real time. Of course, since the original game debuted on the Xbox, the console’s processing power couldn’t harness the time-warping ambition of Molyneux’s design so the final product was somewhat neutered. It was still a fun, addictive game, but nevertheless far from what we were promised.

Thus the stage was set for the series where a new game would be accompanied by Peter Molyneux leading the hype train making all sorts of wild boasts that we knew would never, ever come true no matter how badly we wanted to believe. Fable 2 has come and gone and now we’re on the third title. As the old saying goes, is the third time really the charm?

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Review: The Force Unleashed 2

Aside from a few misgivings, I actually enjoyed 2008’s The Force Unleashed. Despite the sometimes buggy way that all of its different engines would work together, it still managed to be a good game with a great Star Wars story that filled in an important part of the canon. Taking on the role of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, you guided Galen Marek, nee Starkiller, through various worlds until you reached the final confrontation on the first Death Star.

The game was filled with great moments and definitely seemed to have some promise of better things to come lurking around. We’ve seen a few games this generation that used the first game in their series as sort of a tech demo, a jumping off point for bigger and better things. The Force Unleashed seemed poised to make this leap when it was announced last year at Spike’s Video Game Awards, so how does it do now that it’s on the second iteration? Is this game any good, or has Star Wars disappointed us for the last time?
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Review: Fallout: New Vegas

fallout new vegas review

Fallout 3 was probably the best game of 2008, its massive, interactive world allowing players to explore the ruins of an alternate reality Washington DC destroyed by nuclear war. I personally must have spent at least 100 hours roaming the Capital Wasteland, and I’m pretty sure that I still haven’t done everything in the game. The DLC added a lot more to do, but eventually the font of encounters was going to run dry. As good as Fallout 3 was, gamers wanted more.

Bethesda tapped the infamous sequel team Obsidian (known for Knight of the Old Republic 2 and Alpha Protocol) to deliver on a follow up. Their answer is Fallout: New Vegas, which hearkens back to the original games by way of having several members of Fallout 2’s team on staff at Obsidian. Making the trip back to the American West, New Vegas puts players in the boots of the Courier, shot and left for dead in the Mojave by Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry, for those of us who never watched Friends). Was putting Obsidian in charge of the sequel a good gamble considering their previous offerings?
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Review: Enslaved: Odyssey To The West

In this age of constant over-exposure and gameplay trailers years in advance (even if it they look fantastic) it’s refreshing to be pleasantly surprised by a game that comes out of nowhere without much fanfare.

Until I started hearing rumblings about how great the screenshots and trailers looked, Enslaved: Odyssey To The West wasn’t even on my radar. However, I made sure to download the demo as soon as it dropped, and I was quickly hooked by the gorgeous visuals and engaging combat.

I liked it enough that I used some trade-in credit at GameStop to pick up the full game when it came out, and here I am a few weeks later with a verdict. The short version is that I’d love to see more underdog titles like Enslaved come up from behind to provide a bit of entertainment between the garden-variety triple-A sequel/franchise/FPS releases. Read on to find out more.
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Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Castlevania: GabrielIn 2009, I remember feeling a little left out of the geek fervor when I went to go attend a showing of the new Star Trek movie. For some reason or another, I just had never been a fan of the beloved series, and had only ever seen one movie (which I thought was boring). Still, the new movie seemed like it would be worth a watch, so I thought I would check it out with the rest of the red-shirt masses. Long story short: I left the movie feeling high on adventure, and itching to check out all the Star Trek that I had missed up until that point.

If you want to bring this over to gaming terms, I guess you could say that Castlevania has always been my Star Trek, so to speak. It’s one of those titles that I’ve just missed out on over the years. And now, after having spent a whole weekend plumbing the depths of Konami’s newest entry in the long-running classic action franchise, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the results are the same: I think Castlevania’s got a new fanboy. Continue reading Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Review: Dead Rising 2

dead rising 2 review

Very few “sandbox” games in this generation give you the option to wear dresses and dye your hair while mixing pie and whiskey into a drink. In fact, only one game in memory allows this, and that is Dead Rising. While Capcom’s zombie-slaughtering game’s claim to fame is both the number of walking dead on the screen and the impossible save system, I liked the game because of the freedom it afforded you. Sure, you could screw yourself pretty bad in the main campaign with the save system, but if you wanted to spend your time in the mall rescuing survivors or killing zombies or even just trying on clothes, then you could do that.

Dead Rising offered a lot of re-playability, but it was still fairly broken. Besides the save system, gamers also had to contend with the sluggish controls, terribly friendly AI and the damn guy from the safe room whose phone calls would somehow paralyze you on the spot in a mall full of zombies. As much as I loved the game, there were some problems with it. Now that we have a sequel, have these issues been addressed? With a new developer, Canada’s Blue Castle Games, jumping on board, is it even going to feel like a Dead Rising game?
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Review: Halo: Reach

Reach Winter ContingencyWhether we like it or not, Halo is a game that changed the FPS landscape forever. It can be argued that this is for both good and ill, but the fact remains that the epic FPS sci-fi series from Bungie typically constitutes a natural disaster in whatever year it arrives. Halo: Reach has made landfall, gentlemen, and it’s time to sort out the damage.

After a couple weeks of reading other Halo: Reach reviews, there seems to be a general consensus. One, that writers like to use the phrase “swan song”. Two, that Bungie’s final installment into the Halo series culminates in what might be its greatest and most critically acclaimed title yet. Reviewing a Halo game carries with it a tricky balance of managing hype, expectations and fanboy glee, but in Reach, it’s hard to ignore all of the wonderful things that Bungie accomplished, and how they’ve changed the game yet again moving forward.

So, just how good is the game? Read on to find out. Continue reading Review: Halo: Reach

Review: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

spider-man shattered dimensions review

I think Spider-Man may rank in first place for having the most alternate dimension spin-offs. You have Spider-Man 2099, Ultimate, Manga, India, 1602, Reign; the list goes on and on. Despite the fact that there’s dozens of Spider-Men to draw inspiration from for a game, we’ve generally stuck to the same old Peter Parker with a few exceptions (such as last gen’s Ultimate Spider-Man). Franchise new-comer Beenox decided to tap into the rich tapestry of Spidey’s history and bring together four different version of the web-slinger-Amazing, Noir, 2099 and Ultimate-for a cross-dimensions web-fest. With four different play styles and multiple possibilities, how well does Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions do in delivering the definitive Spider-Man game?
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Review: Limbo

Limbo Xbox Live ArcadeLimbo is an XBox Live arcade game, part of the Summer of Arcade that saw a slew of quality releases for the platform over the last couple of months. I remember leading up to the game’s release, I actually knew nothing about it, but kept hearing some buzz as people grew more and more excited. And even then, once I decided to look at a few screenshots, it was hard to get a sense of what people were so juiced up about. I remember people saying the same thing about Braid when it was released, and while I thought it was a good game, it seemed a bit overhyped and not as incredible as others made it out to be. In fact, I didn’t even finish that one.

However, after several of my friends raved about the short experience of Limbo, comparing it almost to Portal in its profundity and fun factor, I decided to give it a try. I downloaded the trial game, ready to play it and then toss it aside, never intending to click on that “purchase full game” option on the dashboard menu. But then I played the demo, and something happened. I was entranced by an atmosphere, thick and heavy and foreboding. I was lured by the puzzles and the platforming. And as soon as the trial ended, I didn’t hesitate to upgrade.

So what’s the big deal? Continue reading Review: Limbo

Review: StarCraft 2

StarCraft 2I’m not going to mince words on this one, because if you’ve been even remotely interested in PC gaming since the late 1990s then you’ve probably played StarCraft. Blizzard may have fed their other RTS series to the MMO meat-grinder, but, at least for now, StarCraft remains as the gold standard of old-school strategy games. On the other hand, it is 2010, and the strategy genre has seen some impressive leaps in the area of both gameplay and story-telling mostly thanks to Relic and their excellent Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series. Can the StarCraft formula still hold up, even all these years later?
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