The game world is richly detailed, expansive, and full of life. The graphics are pretty good (for the year it was made anyway), music and sound are well-done, and the voice acting is good too. It's a shame then that the combat is so insanely, brutally punishing as to prevent you from enjoying it. The combat may get better as the game goes on, but the 5 or so hours of this game that I could stomach saw the combat devolving into nothing more than holding down block until the enemy attacks twice, then attacking 2-3 times rapidly before blocking again. It was idiotic. Couple that with how it is entirely impossible to kite one enemy away from a large group, causing you to get swarmed by 5 enemies at once, and you had better get familiar with the load game screen. This is not fun. Everything seemed so interesting that it was really a shame it was kept out of reach. It's like when you were a child, and older kids would hold things in the air out of your reach and taunt you. Eventually you learn to punch them in the stomach, and go do something else.
This game is interesting. It should really be called "Hacking Simulator 2.0: Now With Stealth!" It seems like hacking is the solution to EVERYTHING. Locked door? Hack it. Security camera? Hack it. Hostile robots patrolling? Hack them. Turrets? Hack them. Lasers? Hack them. Computers? Hack them. Hacking gives you xp, too, so there's never any reason NOT to hack stuff. Even in the final boss (UGH the bosses!!!) I was able to hack at my leisure. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That would be fine if the hacking were fun, but it really gets annoying. Especially since the % chance of detection is completely ridiculous. I kid you not, when attempting to hack a 35% detection node, I counted being detected 7 times in a row. That wasn't unusual, too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The stealth can be rather fun at times, but the AI is absolutely ridiculously bad. Enemy 1 will be facing away from me, and I'll take down enemy 2 standing 10 feet behind him and get away with it. Enemy 2 will gasp and grunt as I snap his arm, drop his gun which clatters to the ground, and get slammed on his back on the ground, while enemy 1 is none the wiser. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The game prides itself on letting you play how you want, but combat doesn't feel like a valid choice. It feels like you failed at stealth. Also, most of the guns are worthless. The standard 10mm pistol is way easier to kill enemies with than the shotgun, machine pistol, assault rifle, heavy rifle, and even the sniper rifle. Plus, you won't get the cool guns (grenade launcher, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, laser rifle) until right before the end of the game anyway. At least I didn't, and I explored everything and did every side mission. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The plot is interesting, but way too busy. This person is behind it, but no they have an excuse, so THIS person is behind it, but no they have an excuse too, rinse and repeat. The "bad guy" changes so often in this game that eventually you just zone out. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I like what they were going for here, but I don't think they quite hit it. Couple that with how much everyone raved about this game before I played it, and I ended up disappointed. You may like it, though. It's certainly not a BAD game.
This game is horrible! On paper, the battle system sounds very interesting, with the ability to rush head-on at a unit, flank, counter-attack, etc. The problem is that, with the exception of the quick-time-event countering, combat devolves into a fuster-cluck mish-mash of arbitrary nonsense. Being able to form "unions" (tiny 1-5 man groups of units) and give them tactics sounds appealing, but it isn't. You can't really tell them what to do. You're given a predetermined list of commands (which are supposed to be smartly chosen based on context, but since fully-healed units are given the option to heal themselves, and units at the brink of death are not, it's easy to see the list is random), some of which make no sense, and not all of which are followed by your units. Telling a union to heal will see them charging into battle and attacking more often than not. If you're fighting in a battle of 5 unions or more, prepare to have absolutely no idea who is attacking who, which units are enemies and which are friendly, etc. Even once you've played for a few hours and gotten a hang of the "tactics," the game never becomes fun. Issuing orders to groups of units seems like it would make you feel like a commander (like in an RTS), but the battles are never large enough to feel that way. It simply feels like you're one step removed from combat, almost like you're watching someone else play an RPG. Plus, it seems like combat is either won without any challenge, or your units are wiped out in the first round. There are far too many battles early on where you have one unit in a union facing an enemy union of 3-4 weakling units, which will completely demolish you in one turn. Game over. Repeat ad nauseum. Maybe 14th time is the charm? This game is absolutely not fun in the slightest bit, and if I hadn't gotten this as part of a $10 7-game pack, I would be even more pissed off than I am right now. Avoid at all costs. Play Xenoblade or Last Story if you want a good modern JRPG.
This game was fun (other than a few annoyingly arbitrary mission success requirements), UNTIL Aidan's campaign. As a little hint, DO NOT SKIP THE DEMON BATTLE THAT COMES UP IN THE BEGINNING OF HIS CAMPAIGN. I repeat, do NOT (NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT) skip it, or you will flat out not be able to advance any further. There are no random battles, no puzzles, no side missions, NOTHING. Just a story battle with a character who you will absolutely not be able to beat. I tried literally 20 times, and the best I can say is that I held my own for a few rounds. Her champion units are WAY too powerful to be left undefended (they can kill a wall, a unit, and you in one attack), and using your champion units (of which you can only afford 2) will either see them killed, or will reduce them to such low attack that they don't do any damage either. If this is the game developer's idea of a fun challenge (retrying and retrying and retrying and retrying until you can charge 2 champion units with the 2 moves of your first turn), then they need to lose their jobs so that someone in touch with reality can have a job. If I wanted to rely on nothing but dumb luck to have fun, I'd go for the world record in coin flipping.
What is with PC gamers nowadays? I've been primarily a PC gamer since before Wolfenstein 3D, and after all this time, I am completely unable to understand how people can be so ridiculously critical of PC games. This game is being vilified as a console port? Seriously?? The graphics are vastly improved over the original, there are options to change TONS of graphics options (including the oft-asked-for field of view), the controls are rock-solid and customizable, and there are only a few bugs. I'm honestly starting to believe that PC gamers are going to whine until there are no more consoles, period. Dark Souls was the roughest port I've ever seen, but the game was still awesome, and I want to see more console games on PC. Rant aside, this game is awesome. While it is not radically different than the first, the mechanics are all improved, and the game has been expanded greatly. If you liked Borderlands 1, you will love 2. If you didn't like 1, you probably won't like 2 either. The characters are all diverse, and the abilities are a lot more useful and powerful (Phaselock in particular is insanely handy). I went through Borderlands 1 without using the special abilities really at all, but that's not the case with 2. Guns are widely more varied now, and are interesting to collect. The only criticism I can say about guns is that in the early part of the game, I ran out of ammo INSANELY quickly. In multiplayer, you share money, eridium (used to buy upgrades), and even ammo (the other player gets half of what you pick up). Sharing loot can still be a sore spot in multiplayer matches, but if you're playing with friends, it shouldn't be a huge problem. The way character upgrades work is a lot better than Borderlands 1 as well. In 1, you only leveled up weapons that you used, which led to people sticking to one type of gun from the very beginning. In 2, however, you work on "challenges" that give you points you can use towards certain unlocks. It's a much more elegant system. ***************************************************************************************** Bottom line, Borderlands 2 is a very well-done game that surpasses the original in every way. If you were bored by Borderlands 1, pass 2 up, but if you loved 1, you will love 2.
I LOVE twin-stick shooters. Geometry Wars, Super **** HD, Beat Hazard, Scoregasm, give 'em all to me. Anyone that sees the preview of this game can easily tell that it was designed to work with a 360 controller (or PS3 controller with MotionInJoy), so this review will not cover mouse+keyboard controls. I imagine they work well enough, but the true beauty of the PC platform is the wide-range of configurability when it comes to peripherals, so the game should absolutely NOT be punished (like so many are) for making best use of a controller. Mini-rant aside, this game is pretty awesome. It starts off basic, where you shoot little pods that release colored blocks, which you launch towards a chain that moves by you, much like those match-3 games (Luxor, Zuma, etc.). As you get to later levels, however, enemies appear, which can corrode your hull, slow you down, etc. New mechanics are introduced pretty regularly, which gets rather frantic, without ever feeling too overwhelming. At the end of each level, you are awarded credits depending on how you did in certain categories (damage taken, time taken, powerups picked up, chains, etc.) Credits are used to upgrade your ship. Some of the additional abilities are rather useless (in my opinion), but you can use credits to purchase only the upgrades that benefit your play style, if wanted. You can also go back and replay previous levels, to earn more credits. The nice thing is that you only earn credits (besides the random one picked up in the level) for beating your previous high-score. This not only encourages perfection, but it also prevents people from just grinding easy levels to max out their ship, and reduce all challenge. While this could be bad for inexperienced players having a hard time, I didn't find the game to be overly difficult. If you watch the previews, you can clearly see that this is a well-polished game, but one thing that surprised me is how story-driven it is. The story deals with microbiology research on diseases, which while unnecessary (admit it, you just want to shoot things twin-stick-style), was quite well-done and interesting. Overall, this scratches my twin-stick-shooter-itch extremely well, and I encourage all fans of the genre to check it out.
Before playing this game, ask yourself: Am I the type of person who feels a sense of satisfaction for finally beating a platform-esque jumping puzzle after the 11th try? If your answer is yes, and the gameplay video looked cool, you will most likely like this game. As I am NOT one of those people, and being forced to repeat tedious jump-and-make-sure-your-shadow-lines-up-with-the-tiny-spot-of-floor-beneath-you puzzles fills me with controller-twisting rage, this game is absolutely infuriating. I did have a lot of fun with the combat (which is very fast-paced and fluid), and I enjoyed the background music a lot, but unfortunately the ice cave level pissed me off, and the castle level where 95% of the floor breaks away and dumps you 2 floors down was where I dropped my controller, proclaimed "I'm #$%^ing done," and immediately clicked on "delete local content." Video games are an inherent waste of time (be honest), and while some can really draw you in with their story like a good book does, this one does not. It is a rather mindless hack-and-slash, and growling at my computer in frustration is worse than pointless. I have tons of more important things to do, as well as better video games to play.
I will never understand how people can so virulently rail against a developer for releasing a game with bugs. Granted, this game had some huge ones on release day (I hear), the sad fact is that most games nowadays are released earlier than they should be, and have bugs/problems. While I agree this should never have become the norm, giving a game a 0-2 because of bugs that were resolved within days is going to do nothing but lead potential future buyers away from purchasing a fantastic game that they would love. ********************************************************************************************************* That's exactly what this is: A fantastic game. People that were initially expecting the game to be like Dead Island or Left 4 Dead may be disappointed at first, but if they can look past their expectations, they will find a true gem. The closest actual comparison to this game is a zombie-themed Fallout 3 on a tropical island. Personally, I think this is by far the best zombie game on the market. Individual zombies are relatively weak and easy to pick off, but large groups of zombies become serious threats REALLY quickly, and larger "thug" enemies require some strategy to kill, rather than simply more bullets. At the same time, if you are reckless and swinging your weapon all over the place, you will run out of stamina, and even small groups will be challenging. I honestly think the combat is amazing, and is just about perfect, except for the fact that the characters' "kick" command (default button is E, I think) is a little overpowered, and it's easy to keep medium groups of zombies stunned on the ground by spamming it. If they nerfed it, though, the game might become too difficult. ************************************************************************************************************** Starting out in this game, be prepared to have crappy weapons that you need to repair all the time. It evens out later on, though, especially as you unlock other attacks. Case in point, I used to have 3 weapons that I needed to repair in every town visit, but by about level 16ish, I had 1 main weapon that only got down to about 50% durability, with less frequent town visits. This is a beautifully done, rock-solid (no crashes or glitches at all on my system), visceral zombie basher. It's DEFINITELY better with friends, but I even enjoy the single player campaign. If there were no release day issues, I firmly believe this game would have over an 8 user score.
Oh Sam, where did you go so wrong? This game is suffering from a serious identity crisis. Serious Sam has always been (and is supposed to be) about fighting off monstrous waves of enemies, and being slaughtered should you let your guard down for a second. THIS game, however, is more about throwing 2 or 3 enemies at you at a time, as some sort of patience test. Fighting seemingly endless spurts of baddies for 15 minutes is incredibly boring, and unbelievably frustrating. I even turned the difficulty up, but the only things that seemed different at all were the humongous fights, which were borderline-impossible. ************************ The guns are utterly uninspiring, as we have seen every single one of them in every single other Serious Sam game, with the exception of the mostly useless "leash" thing. Sam has a new melee attack that will kill any enemy roughly Sam's size or smaller in one hit, from as far away as 10 feet, which is incredibly lame. What's the danger in letting an enemy get close when you can instantaneously one-hit-kill them? ************************ Sound design in this game is HORRENDOUS. Don't get me wrong, the sound effects are what I expected, and when the metal music gets pumping during hectic fights, it can be addicting. However, when you are facing the little tiny groups of 2 enemies at a time, the music will switch from laid-back to frantic over and over and over and over and over. Also, when enemies make noises, they will sound like they're right next to you, even if they're literally 200 feet away. I guess it makes sense though, since shotgun enemies will be able to tag you from literally the other side of the level. ********************************* Level design is good, and the graphics are pretty awesome. The DX11 tessellation in particular was noticeable. The only complaint I have is that character animation is absolutely horrible. Watching any character speak reminded me of 2003-era games. ************************** It seems like every first person shooter to come out in the past decade has had an incredibly annoying last level. This game takes the cake, though. In fact, this game runs in its nephew's birthday party naked, screaming profanities, slaps the cake right out of everyone's hands, and sets the house on fire. I have never EVER seen a more annoying last level. It is so horrendously, hideously, mind-blowingly repetitive and annoying, that I seriously had to FORCE myself to fire it back up and finish it. I now wish I hadn't, since the boss fight is an even more ridiculous chore. First thing I did after finishing the game is pound the escape key to get back to the menu, exit the game, and click "delete." Didn't even watch the ending cinematic. *********************************** This game is a LOT of fun in multiplayer, and there are a few moments in single player that were actually "fun," but they were few and far between, and I spent most of the gameplay time annoyed. As someone who has played and beaten ALL of the other Serious Sam games (both regular and HD versions, as well as Random Encounter and DD), I cannot recommend this game to anyone, unless it is expressly for multiplayer. This is the video game equivalent of that cheerleader you knew in college: Gorgeous to look at and seems like a blast, but in reality she's frustrating as hell, and all you want is out.
You know, the more first person shooters I play, the more I realize that game developers are completely unable to increase a game's difficulty without making it annoying. I only play games as long as they're fun (I don't care about forcing myself to complete them), and it seems like lately, I only get as far as the last level on 8/10 shooters. Including this game. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This game is not scary. At all. It is kinda fun anyway, though. The gun sounds/reactions are addicting (the assault rifle's burst fire especially), the "slo-mo" is as fun as ever, and the A.I. is fairly smart. Shotgun dudes will rush up to you, machine gun guys will stay back and run from cover-to-cover, etc. Nothing mind-blowing, but acceptable nonetheless. The graphics are good too, although it froze like CRAZY until I forced it to run in DX9 mode instead of DX11. Funny, since Nexuiz, Crysis 2, and AvP don't mind being in DX11 and fully maxed out. Anyway, it seemed like a pretty decent shooter until the last few levels, when the game decided to start spawning the little demon-dog things over and over and over and over and over and over and over. If I have to fight 20 of the things, then for the love of all that is holy, let me fight them all at once! Making me fight them one-at-a-time or two-at-a-time repeatedly is nothing but tedious and aggravating. Also in the later levels, when you have to fight the force commanders (I think), they have the most insanely, annoyingly, rage-inducingly horrendous voices ever. I get that they're supposedly talking through walkie-talkies or some other communicator, and therefore their voices should be midrange-heavy, but when they talked, I seriously had to take my headphones off of my head because it hurt so freakin' bad. It wasn't overly LOUD, per se, just absolutely the worst fustercluck of mish-mashed midrange noise EVER. Plus they were insanely annoying to fight in groups. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Overall, I'm glad I only spent $5 on this game. I wouldn't recommend anyone else spend any more on it, unless you're a diehard F.E.A.R. fan, but then again, as this is so different from the others in the series, fans might hate it too.
I picked this game up for $5, and this review shall reflect that. If I'd spent $40 or more on this game, it would definitely be rated lower. That being said, I thought this game was alright. Most of the parts came across as just mediocre, though. Some of the parts should have been awesome (remote control in particular), but for some reason they came across as annoying. The shooting mechanics themselves were pretty fun, but some of the skillshots are insanely hard to pull off, and forcing yourself to memorize a formula and try it out on a handful of enemies until you get it right more or less takes you out of the "fast-paced and frantic" atmosphere this game tries to pull off. Add that to enemies that can take INSANE numbers of shots, and a field of view so narrow that you won't be able to see jack money squat to your side, and a great game turns merely good. The graphics are alright and the sound was well done, but holy CRAP is most of the voice acting bad. Ishi is completely and utterly devoid of emotion, even though he has tons of emotional lines, and Sarrano's dialogue sounds like it was written by an 11-year old that just learned about swear words. Even Trishka's acting is bad, for the 2 lines in the whole game that she expresses something other than annoyance. Hunt was well-acted, although I'm not surprised since the voice actor is an absolute pro, and is in EVERYTHING. The second half of this game feels like it drags on forever, which is horrible, since Bulletstorm is NOT a long game by anyone's definition. Games for Windows Live (which is required even through Steam) is an absolute turd, and should never ever ever ever be used in a game again EVER. Overall, it was a fun little distraction, and aside from a few infuriatingly annoying parts, I had fun with it. I'm certainly glad I paid $5 for it though. I'd be upset if I had paid more than $10, honestly.
Simply not fun. I love action RPGs, and I picked this game up for crazy cheap, but when I was on my way to the Heroes Crypt (I'm going to assume it's halfway), I realized that I was simply not having fun. I guess the combination of repetitive enemies, boring click-fest combat, bad voice acting, horrible engine optimization, and HORRENDOUS controls are enough to ruin this game. I'm all for getting my money's worth out of things, but I'm not going to force myself to play something that isn't fun out of some misguided sense of duty. Before you buy this game, play through the demo and ask yourself "is it worth it?" and then play through the demo 5 more times and ask "is it still worth it?"
I'm going to preface this review by saying that I absolutely HATED Doom 3, and thought Quake 4 was insanely boring. I am no id fanboy. I laughed at how virulently people railed against this game when it came out and thought "Yeah you tell 'em, fans! Developers can't get away with this trash any more!" Then I actually played it. I picked it up on sale for $5 or something ridiculous, and once I fired it up, I was fairly well blown away. This game will invariably be compared to Borderlands, but they're not even close to the same type of game. Borderlands is an open-world, sanbox-shooter. Rage is a much more linear, story-driven shooter. Granted the story is sort of lame, but that's the genre Rage fits in. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous. Sure, zoomed in all the way on certain textures makes it look ugly, but the scenery and level design are absolutely top-notch, and there were quite a few times in the game where I paused to simply admire the view. I like it when that much love goes into designing the environments. The character models are EXTREMELY well-done as well, and their animations are amazing. The characters have pores, individual chest-hairs, skin blemishes, and you can see their irises (they even make minute little movements when they're looking at you, just like a real person does). The game is very well optimized, too. My laptop has a 2.2GHz C2D processor with a 1GB mobile 9800GTS, and it ran absolutely fine for the entire game. I had most of the graphics options (of which there are not very many) turned down, but it still looked awesome (and ran way better than games like Dungeon Siege 3). If the game weren't almost 25GB, I'd be inclined to download it again on my new gaming desktop and try it out with the options maxed. Anyway, a lot of the praise I've heard of this game is aimed at the racing portion of the game, but I thought the driving aspect was rather annoying. Thankfully there are only a few required races in the story, and they are INSANELY easy. Seriously, when I was racing the "best racer in town," I was ahead of him by an entire half-lap at the end of our 3 lap race. Speaking of which, this whole game is rather easy. I played it on Normal, but am now wishing I played it on hard. I had to use the defibrillator thing exactly 1 time outside of the little training thing. I have a feeling the higher difficulties would be annoying though, since the game will throw wave after wave after wave of the little weak grunt guys at you. I'm not sure if the designers thought that would make it challenging, or were merely trying to make you waste ammo. There were a few parts in the game where I shouted at my screen "Alright! ENOUGH with the stupid little guys!" One last thing, the guns look/behave amazingly. The shotgun model is one of the coolest-looking guns I have ever seen in a video game, and thankfully (unlike other id games) when you pull the trigger, the guns go BOOM! No more of that stupid toy sound like Doom 3 had. This is a game you will want to crank up the video and sound. The ending is abrupt and rather anti-climactic, but you know it's coming. It's not like Halo 2, where there was just suddenly not a next level. Speaking of endings, this review's ending will be right after this period.
I was surprised by this game. First, the previews made it sound awesome, then initial reviews were terrible, then once people got over the price-shock, reviews started to improve. I picked this game up for $5, and didn't expect much, but I genuinely enjoyed it. The graphics are not the best (definitely not horrible though), and there were a few missions that absolutely pissed me off (one of the stealth missions), but once I decided to screw it and just kill everyone, it stopped being annoying. The campaign was fairly short (decent length for a shooter), but it was well done. This is definitely a story-driven FPS, and it pulls it off well. The ending was actually quite touching, and I absolutely loved how they dedicated the game to all the unsung heroes laying their lives on the line every day. Now that it's no longer $60, I recommend picking up a copy if you like shooters. I enjoyed it. Never tried multiplayer, but I hate the latest blend of kill-streak competitive multiplayer shooters anyway, so meh.
DO NOT TRY THIS GAME BY YOURSELF. If you are like me, and you enjoy single player games, then you will find this game insanely, utterly infuriating. Perhaps I just never got used to the game difficulty, or I just simply don't care for this style of game anymore (I loved Streets of Rage and the Double Dragon games as a kid). Either way, this game annoyed the ever-loving piss out of me. Scott can run side-to-side, but his vertical movement is REDONKULOUSLY slow (the jump thing is hard to control), and the game likes spawning multiple enemies at once who stun you for 3 seconds at a time. Let's not forget the random scripted moments (such as a bus passing through the screen) that are nearly impossible to dodge unless you already know where they are (ie your first play through, you're boned). Everything added up to a game with great music and cool moves (and based off an awesome series) that pissed me off so bad I couldn't play it for more than 15 minutes at a time. After roughly the 10th attempt, I finally gave up for good. None of my friends are even remotely interested in playing this game, so single player is the only way I can ever play. Since single player absolutely blows, this game is worthless to me. I completely 110% regret this purchase, and wouldn't have paid $0.99 for it, had I known what it was. I vehemently suggest you try the demo first!!
This is not what Final Fantasy is supposed to be. If anything, this is Final Fantasy for Dummies. There is no exploration, no leveling up, and no incentive to keep playing. The story is boring, the gameplay is UTTERLY linear, and the characters are annoying. Not only that, but it is way WAY too easy at first, then takes a drastic jump in difficulty. As for the individual characters, Hope is so annoyingly whiny he should be named Shinji, Vanille sounds like she's making sex noises all the time, Snow says stupid idiotic one-liners like "Heroes don't quit!" ALL THE TIME, Lightning goes through mood swings you wouldn't believe, and Sazh... well, I liked Sazh. He was funny, and the only character that didn't actively annoy me. I could forgive this game its shortcomings if the battle system actually required much input, OR if you could actually explore the beautiful environments, OR if it were more focused on gameplay and less cutscenes, OR if it were actually fun. Honestly this game came across as nothing more than Squenix trying to make a movie but failing, and then deciding to turn it into a game. If this is the big fantastic HD Final Fantasy game people have been clamoring for for years, then give me PS1 graphics back. Maybe then, a little more effort could be put into the gameplay. A mark **** game is one that I can't wait to play again. THIS game, however, I can't wait for Gamefly to receive so they can send me my next game. Now excuse me while I go play a real RPG, like Xenoblade.
I love me some single player FPSes, and couldn't really care less about multiplayer. This game is a decent example of single player campaigns done right. The story is decent, well-acted, and there are some pretty frantic moments. The graphics are good, all your favorite guns return (along with the leveling up aspect, which is cool), and for the most part the missions are engaging. What killed this game (for me) though are a few things: ***BUGS! I have never seen a console game with this many bugs. If you do not run the game (skip updating) and install the data to the drive BEFORE downloading the patch, then your data will corrupt, wasting hours of download/install time, as well as 30 minutes waiting while the corrupt data gets deleted. On top of that, it freezes A LOT. Literally after an hour or two of playing it would freeze. That's how I decided when I was done playing for the day. Unacceptably buggy. I regularly play other PS3 games, and NONE of them have ever frozen. ***Lame shooter cliches. It seems like every FPS ever includes an "escort" (aka 'I'm gonna run out into direct fire. SAVE ME!') mission, which are never ever ever EVER fun. I have never played one that didn't annoy me. Also, the later missions are like the last few minutes in a basketball game: progress is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Move 10 feet, shoot seemingly endlessly-respawning baddies for 5 minutes, move 20 feet, shoot for another 5 minutes, repeat ad naseum. I actually never finished the game because the last mission became such a tedious chore. I don't play games to beat them, I play games to have fun. Bottom line: I'm glad I rented this through Gamefly, since I doubt I'd ever put it in my PS3 again. There are so many great games out there, why would I waste an extra second on a mediocre one? They added co-op back in though. That's cool.
I absolutely loved this game. It reminded me a lot of classic Dragon Warrior, which has always been one of my favorite series of all time. This game borrows heavily from that old-school combat style, but does make some pretty awesome advances over the classic structure, too. For one, if you are in one area for a long time, eventually you will not be randomly attacked by monsters anymore (there's a battle "limit"). You can still choose to fight from the menu though, which I thought was awesome. If you're going to be grinding, why waste the time running around waiting for a random battle? Just pick a fight yourself! Speaking of running, you can run. Much coolness. The monsters were a decent challenge for most of the game, but I'm certainly glad I grinded (ground?) a little bit before the jail level. Some of the monsters in there would be reDANKulous to a weaker character. I loved the humor of the game, and some of the music pieces were extremely well done. Some were hokey. The bosses were an interesting challenge as well. Especially Dragonduck, which I managed to defeat at level 31, thank you very much! The game is fairly short, but not really any shorter than the original Dragon Warrior was. All in all, this is an amazing deal at $3, which includes Cthulhu Saves the World (which I haven't tried yet). If you are a fan of old-school RPGs at all, support indie devs and buy this game! I actually ended up buying it for a few friends, who said they too loved it.
This game is FANTASTIC! I really wish Metacritic had a 0-100 rating scale, since I don't give out perfect scores, but this game deserves a 97. I have been a fan ever since I beat the original Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior) on NES when I was a kid. I then beat 2 and 3, and forgot about the series until now. I'd heard good things about this game, but I had no idea what I was in for when I picked it up. The graphics (for the PS2) and music are utterly astounding. The characters fit in the game, and can be quite hilarious at times. Everything in this game is highly polished, and as good as it possibly can be. I beat this game over the course of a few weeks, and it wasn't until I was finished that I realized I put in over 80 hours on this game. Some games take a long time, and you really notice it. THIS game, however, takes a long time, and you're none the wiser. Isn't that exactly what we want in video games? Brand new worlds so immersive that we forget about ours?
When I first started playing this game, I was absolutely blown away. I couldn't believe what they could fit into a Wiiware title. Sure it doesn't have the track or car variety that Wipeout has, nor does it have weapons, but it runs extremely well with great graphics, and the whole light/dark switching mechanic works a lot better than I expected. HOWEVER, this game is brutally hard. Insanely, ridiculously hard. I could win the beginning few races almost every single time, but then I got to a point where I couldn't even come close. I can't remember exactly what race it was, but I tried many many times, and never even cracked top 3. I played maybe 8 or 9 hours of this game and had a blast, but the difficulty being as insane as it is, I got bored and frustrated. Shin'en did an utterly amazing job, and I'm glad they have my money so they can make more like this. However, the ultimate test of how great a game is is this: Do I want to play it right now? That answer, sadly, is no way.
Valve is amazing, and Steam has forever changed how I look at PC gaming. Unfortunately though, not everything Valve touches is gold. For example, this game. L4D1 was a lot of fun, and I would have rated it maybe an 8, since it was a great casual pick-up-and-play game, but not good for long periods. This game, however, is fun for maybe 15 minutes at a time. I enjoy challenges, but I loathe when games can only make it more difficult by being annoying (every Nintendo game ever, I'm looking at you). This game is an absolute joke in single player; don't even try it. I know it wasn't designed for single player, but even multiplayer is bad. The original (L4D1) special zombies were bloat, witch, smoker, hunter, tank, 3/5 of which will incapacitate you in 1 hit, and 1/5 of which will incapacitate you just about as quick. So you need a good team. In L4D2, there are MORE special infected such as charger, jockey, and spitter, 2 of which will incapacitate you in 1 hit as well. Now given that witches and tanks aren't ever spawned in the random waves the "producer" throws at you, that gives you 4/6 of the special zombies coming at you will incapacitate you in one hit (meaning while you may be alive, you can't shoot or otherwise help your teammates), so playing this game, there will be MULTIPLE times each level where you will be the only one still moving around while your 3 teammates are unable to help. While this may sound like chaotic fun (and possibly is if you're drunk), it gets really annoying REALLY fast. Add that on top of the fact that the "producer" in this game throws waves at you like a twitching 5-year-old who can't keep his hands off the keyboard, and friends you're playing with will decide "I'm done" after 2 or 3 attempts. Not fun. This game is seriously a mild update from L4D1, but it's one that I wish could be undone. Oh wait, it can, I'll just go play L4D instead. Or Killing Floor. I seriously regret buying this game.
Not impressed. The graphics are great for PSP, and I love me some turn-based RPGs. However, what's with the super-archaic turn structure? Super slow heavily-armored knights get to move just as many times as my super fast thief guy (with the exception of Jeanne's special ability, which will have her skipping all over the entire level, killing 4-5 guys in a single turn)? Spells and skills don't have to charge at all? Every single one of my units gets to move before every single one of their units does? Forgive me for making the comparison, but this is nowhere near the strategy level of Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics. It feels like a beginner's introduction into turn-based games (which never needed an introduction). The whole point of mixing which team moves when (one of mine goes, one of theirs goes, 2 of mine go, etc etc) is to give it a vaguely real-time feel. This game feels like the enemy stands there waiting for all my people to move and attack, until finally asking "is it my turn now?" Production values are very high (liberties with the story aside), and you can tell it was well-thought out and executed, but given the cons I listed above and the stupidly arbitrary mission-success requirements (ie you have to "escape" your enemies by making it to one edge of the map, but you can still fail even if you kill them all), I will probably never end up playing it again.
This game is overkill in every single way, and I loved it. It's gory, profane, misogynistic, and most importantly, hilarious. I was playing it with a friend, and when a certain female character came flying in on a motorcycle, engine vibrations causing her goodies to "jiggle", we busted out laughing so hard it woke his son up, upstairs. The game pokes fun at itself, and the culture of gaming in general. Unfortunately, it's an extremely short game, but the ability to purchase and level up guns adds a little bit of replay value. I absolutely don't want all my games to play like this, but House of the Dead: Overkill is an gloriously refreshing change of pace, and I enjoyed every second of it. If you have a sense of humor (a mature one, I guess), you should find this fun as well. Just don't let your kids hear it or they might have a few new vocabulary words to show off.
Truth be told, this wasn't a terrible game. Key word being "wasn't". I had a decently good time (I may have rated it 8/10) playing through it right up until the swamp level. The game was inherently easy up to that point, when it became literally impossible. There was this one vine enemy that was absolutely impossible to beat, and hordes of regular enemies that would not give me even a moment's reprieve. I would've had to fight a few of them, rest and recover, move 10 feet, fight more, rest and recover, etc etc. I can understand games getting difficult, but to get SO difficult SO suddenly is ludicrous. The game became so tedious that I quit, and after trying (and failing) a few more times at later dates, never ended up playing it again. When I looked up tips on how to beat the swamp level, they all said I had to be X level (I was higher), use X potions (I had been), and fire (also had been). Games should be fun, not tedious.
I try my very hardest not to give out 10s. Isn't the whole point of perfection that it can't ever be achieved? Anyway, I feel this game truly deserves it. I'm a huge fan of side-scrolling games like Castlevania, so this game spoke to me on that sort of primal level. Not only that though, but it has mining, crafting, and creation sort of like Minecraft. IT IS NOT MINECRAFT THOUGH. I don't get why people are so gung-ho about comparing the two. Anyway, I could go on and on about how I love the graphic-style, the music, the boss fights, the dungeons and biomes, and how this game teases my inner collector, but the best praise I could ever give this game is the following: When I sit down to play, I forget to eat and drink. Pizza goes cold, and soda goes flat. True story. Also, it's only $10 and the developers are CONSTANTLY adding more content through free updates. I can't wait for 1.1 to come out.
More of the same. A few more hours of gameplay, with a few added features (the gravity gun thing was cool, if a little **** you enjoyed Doom 3, you'll enjoy this. If, like me, you weren't a fan of Doom 3, don't bother with this. I did play it all the way through to give it a fair chance, but literally the first thing I did after winning was click "uninstall".
This must be a niche game. I read nothing but rave reviews for it, so I was super ultra excited... right up until I played it. I haven't tried multiplayer (don't really have anyone interested in playing it), so maybe that's where all the hype is coming from. Single player is insanely frustrating. The first few levels are easy-ish, but it gets ridiculously, brutally hard really fast. It gets to the point where you have to memorize exactly how to do each and every level or you fail. I kid you not, one particular level (with the poisoned guy chasing me) had to be restarted over 40 times. There was one, and ONLY one way to beat the level. I like fun games, not rote-memorization games. Multiplayer might be good. Single player is not.
I LOVE scary things. Scary movies, scary books, scary encounters in real-life, and especially scary games. There's just something about being immersed in it and yet knowing it's not real that makes scary games the best of all scary media. That being said, this is the best scary game I've ever played. The sound is extremely well done (including the voice acting), the atmosphere is amazing, the monsters are truly terrifying (When you hear that high-pitched string sound get louder and louder as they're catching up to you, good luck not making whimpering sounds), and the puzzles are pretty panic-inducing. My only complaint is that there are a few puzzles that are quirky. One where you may have all you need, but you're pointing at the wrong place on this one wall to use the items. Kinda annoying. Also another one where based off what you've seen in the area so far, you might think you need to complete this certain section, so you're scrambling around trying to find the missing piece, only to find out 20 minutes later "Oh nope, you're done already. Just re-arrange this thing." I don't want to give spoilers away, but it honestly annoyed me. Being annoyed takes you out of the terror setting, so boo-urns to that. To sum up: I love scary things in all forms, and this is the scariest, tensest game I've ever played. On multiple occasions being chased by monsters, my whole body started tingling, and I was pushing the run-button so hard I'm surprised I didn't break it. FANTASTIC game. I've never been so scared for such a prolonged period in my life.
This game was just plain not fun. The first hour of gameplay can get pretty tense, and was flat-out awesome. After the demo levels are over though, you start to realize "Wait a second, have I just seen everything this game has to offer?" It's only once that sinking feeling sets in your stomach that you realize you wasted your money. This game has gorgeous graphics (especially for the time), horrendously underwhelming guns (they sound like toys, seriously), insanely frustrating enemies (whoever designed the screen to shake like a paint-mixer every time you're hit needs to be fired. Like communism, it's an interesting idea that just plain doesn't pan out), and let's not forget the ol' Monster-In-The-Closet trick. If there's ammo or armor on the floor, there's seriously a 95% chance a monster will jump out of the wall to attack. It's so ridiculously predictable that you start to plan out which wall you think they will come out of when you pick up the stuff. This game had a lot of potential to be scary, but playing it annoyed me so much that I was beyond scaring. I did complete it though, against my better judgement.
