Welcome to the list of GamerSushi’s Reviews! Kick back, relax and check out what we have to say about these video games. If you have any questions about our review system, be sure to check out the grade chart!
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: 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
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
HYDROOO 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
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.
Review: Dead Space 2
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 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
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?