Fancypenguin

Fallout 4 is by no means a bad game. As an open world sandbox F/TPS, it's quite fun and solid. If this was a new IP i'd be thrilled. But there's one problem, and it's that it has the Fallout name attached to it. For those who aren't old enough to remember, Fallout 1 and 2 defined the isometric RPG genre in the late 90's. Fallout 4 is barely an RPG, and Bethesda doesn't make enough significant improvements in their sophomore effort with the franchise to warrant the stripped down RPG elements. Fallout 4 is a game that is stuck in last gen, and I'm not just talking about the graphics. Let's get this out of the way right off the bat, because I don't want to keep harping on something that's rather insignificant: yes the graphics are terrible. The textures are muddy and low resolution, the character models look like half melted action figures and the animations are overall just poor. The artstyle is actually pretty nice compared to 3's general puke aesthetic, but it doesn't make up for the lack of good textures or animations. Another thing i'd like to get out of the way: Yes there are bugs and performance issues...A lot of them. If Ubisoft had released this game, gamers would be rioting for their executive's heads on a pitchfork. I've not experienced many FPS issues in my 30+ hours of playtime, but I've had multiple game breaking bugs and crashes. Fallout 4's biggest offense is one that is the cardinal sin in all of gaming. It's boring. Boring quests, boring characters, boring dialogue, boring story and for the most part boring world. In a year where CD Projekt Red gave us Witcher 3 and Obsidian gave us Pillars of Eternity, RPGs with characters, story, quests and a world worth getting invested in, Fallout 4 falls incredibly flat in comparison. Having a metric F**k ton of throwaway, shovelware quests is what RPGs from 2010 do. A studio with the prestige and resources that Bethesda has should be held to a higher standard than this. Fallout 4's second biggest offense is that it strips away almost all of the Role Playing elements in favor of streamlined features. Now I'm not saying that there has to be complexity for complexity's sake, and I'm all for streamlining of certain features, but this game strips away almost all pretenses of it being an RPG. The perks are oversimplified and skills hardly matter as the game takes a Skyrim approach and your character ends up being a Jack of all trades no matter what. I'm sorry, but if your RPG doesn't allow the player to effectively choose how they want to create their character, it's hard to get invested in said character, then your game has utterly failed as an RPG. A big part of this is the voiced protagonist and the stupid Mass Effect lite dialogue system. While the actual voice actors for the protagonist (And most other characters in general) are great, it goes a long way to adding to the feeling that you're playing as a Bethesda created character (O.C. do not steal) instead of the character you want to create. I know people are critical of silent protagonists, but I think the Bethesda game formula works best when you are allowed full control of your character (Including whether you want to be a genuine saint or a sarcastic ****) The lack of perk specific dialogue hurts too (Think Lady killer/Black Widower in New Vegas) It also doesn't help that the dialogue is dreadfully boring and seems like it was written by somebody who watched The Book of Eli on repeat while on an ambien bender. Fallout 4 does offer some improvements though. The gunplay is vastly improved over the other 3d Fallouts. VATS now slows down time instead of pausing the game which I liked, and the settlement building is pretty fun, albeit a little tacked on and clunky. The new crafting system is awesome as well, allowing for you to actually make unique items out of the junk you find in the wasteland. This is one of the few times where it feels like the world of the Fallout 4 is working with the game mechanics, and it makes you feel invested in searching every crevice of the world, although the UI for gathering loot constantly popping up does hurt the immersion factor some. Ultimately though, it's hard to shake the feeling that this is just Fallout 3 in Boston. The improvements are marginal at best, and don't make up for the over simplified features, dated graphics, lack of feeling invested in a character YOU created and quests, characters, story and dialogue that are about as interesting as watching paint dry on growing grass. Bethesda refused to learn from their mistakes with 3 while also seemingly forgetting everything that Obsidian's New Vegas did right. If you're looking for a solid sandbox shooter to mess around with , it's quite fun, but if you're expecting a good RPG out of what was once a genre defining franchise, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Tell me, do you run games at 30 FPS? You will. Seriously though, this game gives AC Unity a run for the crown of "Worst PC port ever" which is really saying something. a 30 FPS cap with stuttering, framerate drops, and crashes. The game itself is easily the weakest of the Arkham Trilogy. While the world is more expansive and detailed than City's, the story is a mess and the combat that was fun in the first two games has lost it's luster due to poor imitators and a lack of evolution. The game also uses every possible reason to shoehorn the Batmobile into the gameplay, instead of working it in organically. Overall, still a solid game, but it's marred by unacceptable performance issues.

I don't understand the low rating for this game. Yeah, the game is garbage but how can a game where Kevin Spacey declares war on the entire world have a 4.5 rating? 10/10

Why is Halo Master Chief collection not on Wii-U? That's what you guys sound like. I already know this game is going to have a 2.5 user rating because all the reviews will be like "Not on X1/PS4/PC lol why is not on a real gaming platform. I bet it will be multiplat in a month- 0/10" Its a disgrace to the gaming community that people will look up this game's metacritic and see a low user score because all the reviews will be troll reviews like that. Please grow up. What I've played of the game itself (about 4 hours) is absolutely incredible. Its the best spectacle fighter/action game I've ever played. The game looks beautiful, runs well, has a great soundtrack and the story is over the top and wonderful. If you have a Wii-U, please buy this game. Not only to show support for an amazing developer in Platinum who continually gets shafted when it comes to sales, but also to show Nintendo that third party games as well as mature games will sell on their system. I love Mario, DK, Kirby, Zelda and the others, but it would be nice to have some more diversity among exclusives. The first game even comes included free with the second in most countries, for those who have never played it (it is also amazing).

This is what happens when you WAY overhype a game. Now, the game is not bad, just very mediocre. Destiny does a lot of things well, but its so safe, uninspired and lacking in anything fresh that it ends up being a jack of all trades, master of none. The game so clearly wants to be a Halo/Borderlands hybrid, but it misses the marks that make both series popular and falls into a strange gray area. It has the exact same identity crisis that Elder Scrolls Online has, in that it can't decide if it wants to be a singleplayer/Co-op focused shooter, or an MMO. It has MMO elements, but since there's no big PVP battles and the world is way smaller than it was hyped up to be, it hardly feels like an MMO, especially with no real voice chat. But, because it still has the gameplay of an MMO IE: Repetitive grinding and a severe lack of mission variety, it simply isn't as fun as a single player/Co-op experience (especially with no local Co-op). If your game is an shooter with MMO elements, but the MMO elements aren't used effectively, its just a shooter with annoying DRM. Don't get me wrong, the core of the gameplay is still excellent. The game controls well, the leveling is satisfyingly addictive, the gunplay and physics are tight, the environments are gorgeous and the weapon customization, while not as deep as say, Borderlands, is still very fun. But that's the problem. Like I mentioned before, the game just lacks any discernible wow factor and leaves the player feeling like its all been done before and better. You'll fight the same enemies, in the same mission types, with the same objectives over and over and over again. The objective always seems to be: Fight off waves of enemies while the Dinklebot hacks into something, or Guard the Dinklebot while it opens this door. For a game that hyped itself up to be a game that will be the next big thing in Next Gen gaming, it plays it insultingly safe. Maybe the most heinous sin that this game commits is that it lied about its size. The game was billed as having this massive world with an emphasis on organic exploration. Nope, its a mostly linear shooter that takes place in various indistinguishable rooms and outdoor areas. The story, which may be the most disappointing aspect of the game, is insultingly short. It took me about 7 hours to finish the story campaign, which included about an hour of grinding for gear. 7 hours? In a game that is supposed to have a 10 year life span? Are you kidding me? This game is hardly an MMO, more like a Fairly Sized But Far Smaller Than They Promised It Would Be Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter. It needs its own genre, FSBFSTTPIWBMOFPS. Wonder if it'll catch on... The worst part is, is that what little story you do get, is not memorable at all. Seriously, can anybody tell me the story or lore of this world? No you can't. There's no engaging narrative or characters worth getting emotionally invested in. I'm not saying that every game needs to have this, as I much prefer games that try to excel in gameplay, music and visual style, but its like Bungie suddenly forgot that they made Halo, which had both an epic sci-fi narrative and characters worth caring about. Most of the story is told by the Dinklebot, in a flat tone, as if Peter Dinklage was given Ambien and then forced to narrate the world's most boring documentary on space. Most of the sound design in the game, including the music is lackluster, which is a shame since Marty O' Donnell composed it, and he usually knocks it out of the park. The PVP is mostly worthless too, as it is horribly balanced, and uncharacteristically of Bungie, has very poorly designed maps. Overall, I played about 9 hours of it on a rental and I got to level 12. I'm sure as with most MMO's, it gets better once you hit the level cap, but the game did nothing to convince me to keep playing it, and unless you're Zelda Twilight Princess, I'm not under the impression that games get to be boring for 6 hours before getting good. I've heard the game is also better with friends, but most things are better with friends, and I believe that games should be able to hold up as a single player experience. Destiny will go down as the poster child of overhyped, underwhelming games and should be a harsh lesson to gamers about pre-ordering games and buying into advertising hype. Because of the record breaking amount of pre-orders, the game feels stripped of content, clearly made to squeeze more money out of consumers with DLC and expansions that should have been in the game at launch. The best thing I can say about Destiny is that it's just another soulless AAA game that promised us heaven and drags us through hell, like Watchdogs, ESO, Thief, and Titanfall before it. For some people the core of Destiny is good enough to find enjoyable, but for people who haven't allowed themselves to be force fed the flavorless gray paste that is the modern AAA gaming industry, we expect better.

What can be said about The Last Of Us that can't be said about the The Last Of Us in 60FPS/1080p? Marvel as a few tiny details that you wouldn't notice at all unless somebody told you it was upgraded. Relive the Masterpiece that won more Game Of The Year Awards than Super Mario Galaxy and Ocarina Of Time combined by having none of that silly gameplay or imagination and more story about dirty depressed people getting their lives F***ed up. Speaking of Ocarina of Time, if you thought the Water temple from Ocarina Of Time was a mindf**k, prepare for the mind bending puzzles in The Last Of Us, such as moving that same ladder to the same spot in the same way over and over again. Good game design? Who needs it when you can get perfect 10s by having a story that is the video game equivalent of Oscarbait? Gaze in absolute awe as you watch the same stealth takedown a million times, because with the oil tanker full of money that Sony gave Naughty Dog to make this game, they couldn't spring for more than one stealth kill animation. They say that games are getting dumbed down for the casual gamers nowadays, but I strongly disagree. At one point in this game, I only had like 30 bullets. If that's not what you call hardcore survival gaming, then I don't know what is. People also say that its just "Another zombie game" which is ridiculous because they're not zombies. Its clearly explained that they are a fungal spore, and the fact that they all act exactly like zombies is not important. Why have interesting level design when you can shepherd the player along linear corridors because you wouldn't want them to get lost on their way to the next cut scene, and have all the fights take place in arenas made of conveniently placed boxes and shipping containers like the new Metal Gear Solid game if Hideo Kojima was on Ambien for the entire development process. Clunky shooting gameplay? In a zombie game? Who cares, it adds tension, I mean Resident Evil does it, right? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying The Last Of Us is comparable to Resident Evil, The Last Of US has nowhere near achieved the legacy of Resident Evil, mostly because it hasn't spawned sequel after quality degrading sequel... Yet anyway... Your companion AI often breaks immersion by running around mindlessly without alerting the enemies, but again who cares because story. To once more bring up Resident Evil, I wish they had made Ellie able to be seen, but you have the option to shove the little brat in a trash bin until the adult stuff is taken care of. Again, people like to complain that Cinematic games like The Last Of Us are for casuals and are a cancer to the gaming industry, but I like to say they are made for people who want different experiences from games, like somebody who watches movies for the set design. Cinematic experiences are amazing in games, why use the power in that Next Gen console to make games with huge open worlds or give the game more dynamic AI when you can use it to replicate movies? Furthermore, why let a game's gameplay influence your experience with and feelings toward it,? I definitely won't miss moments like in Twilight Princess when I first stood on the cliff overlooking Lake Hylia, the guitar track playing a solemn melody, as I stared at a dark but beautiful world, ravaged by an ongoing struggle for the Triforce, I, the lone hero sent to save it. Screw that, I'd much rather the game yell "THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD BE FEELING AND WHAT YOU SHOULD BE EXPERIENCING" at me with the subtlety of Nic Cage in a French art film. Its not like video games are the one artistic medium that allow you to interact and effect the outcome of the actions being portrayed on screen (Well besides maybe a choose your own adventure novel). One probably wonders why every game doesn't take as much control as possible out of the players hand so they can watch all the interesting stuff happen in a cutscene they can't interact with in anyway. Overall, The Last Of Us is a great story, with a so-so game buried deep within it. That equates to a Great game overall that is better than the sum of its parts and not a masterpiece like everybody says it is. But my opinion is moot anyway, seeing as everybody else is just going to give it a 10 so why did I even bother?

Shovel Knight is what you would get if you put beloved NES classics like Super Mario Bros 3, Megaman 2, Castlevania, Zelda 2 and Ducktales in a blender. The biggest strength of Shovel Knight is that it plays like a love letter to these NES games, but is a completely unique game unto itself. The basic concept is nothing new, its a retro styled 8 bit platformer with some interesting new elements thrown in to the classic formula. As you may have guessed, Shovel Knight carries around a shovel. This shovel takes center stage here. You use the shovel to dig up treasure, to attack and to perform jumps in the style of Ducktales. Unlike Mario or other platformers, you can't attack enemies by just jumping on them, you have to press down, which takes some time to get used to but once you get the hang of it, a whole new world of platforming ideas opens up. The game revolves around a Super Mario Bros 3 style overworld, complete with mini boss battles happening in between levels on the map. Each level has a unique theme and boss, akin to Megaman 2 and you get to explore a village, much like in Zelda 2. In this village, you can buy items that equate to spells or magical powers, health and Magic upgrades, and talk to the locals. The actual platforming is an awesome mixture of Megaman, Castlevania, and Ducktales. The game revolves around finding treasure, whether it be by digging it up, by finding it in hidden chests, or by killing enemies. The game has a unique checkpoint system. You can either just walk by the checkpoint so you will return to it when you die like normal, or you can destroy the checkpoint. Destroying the checkpoint will net you some extra treasure, but at the cost of possibly having to start further back when you die. Its a great risk-reward system that also essentially allows you to alter how "Hardcore" the game is. The boss battles are reminiscent of megaman 2. Each boss is unique and challenging, each bringing a new pattern and element to the battle. The graphics, or rather the visuals are very aesthetically pleasing with a great 8 bit art style that really pops with the 3d on. The game's soundtrack is phenomenal, evoking the music of the 8 bit platformers it borrows many other elements from. The game also boasts new game +, which changes up some elements of the levels upon your second play through. There are aren't really any things I can say that the game doesn't do right, but there's only a handful of games I'd give a 10/10 to. The game is fairly short, (around 5 to 8 hours) but it has tons of replay value and it's a 15$ indie title, so that's to be expected. The game is well designed, it looks great, there's plenty of secrets to find and the sound design is solid. Overall, Shovel Knight brings you back to a simpler time when games couldn't use fancy HD graphics, huge open worlds or movie imitating cut scenes to cover up lackluster gameplay. Even if you don't have nostalgia for the 8 bit games of the past, if you are a fan of platformers in general, you 'd be doing yourself a disservice to skip this game on whatever your preferred platform is.

I love when developers can't even be bothered to do basic things right in their games, like mixing the audio. Seriously, the voices on the NPCs range from Ear **** loud to "What the F*** did he just say? Why is the NPC whispering!" Oh by the way, said "Voice actors" sound like they just recorded clips off of free **** onto their Iphones. You know what else I love? When you clip through every goddamn thing in the game. Other great features in this game include; sound overlapping when you attack and solid black lines outlining everything, including NPCs faces making them look like Madworld and borderlands 2 had a child in which they drank 5 bottles of Jagermeister and visited Chernobyl many times during pregnancy. This game is like an old school point and click adventure just like day of the tentacle or Monkey Island... if both those games were released in early alpha, with a level designing talent equivalent to 100x less than that of the people who designed sonic 06. One of my favorite features of the game is the Map that doesn't show you where you are. I also enjoyed the subtitles that don't match what the NPC is actually saying. This game does boast quite a bit of innovation though. This is the first game to ever actually have an NPC stutter every 5 seconds because the idle animation has to restart. Also this might be the only game ever created where the enter key changes the resolution and makes the game enter windowed mode cropped to the right, not to mention insta-kill death switches planted in the middle of doorways in pitch black dungeons. The only reason I played this abomination **** is because my friend pirated it so that I could make fun of it with him. And honestly, we still wanted our money back. How this game got on steam for 15 dollars is beyond comprehension. This game is a disgrace to all indie games and small developers. For shame. Don't buy this game.

First off I have to start this review by saying that I am in no way a fanboy. I owned all 3 consoles last gen and I plan on doing it again in the next generation as well. Second off, I have to say that this is going to be more of a rant than a real review. The Last of Us shines in its narrative, characters, and atmosphere. The story and characters are some of the best in any game I've ever played, and the way it is presented is second to none. The characters all have distinct personalities and are well developed. The dialogue is great and so are the voice actors that deliver it. The atmosphere really does feel like a post apocalyptic future. The graphics are some of the best ever (on consoles) even though the color pallet looks like the game ate Fallout 3 then spit it out and added vines everywhere. With all this having been said, I have zero idea how anybody can think this game is a masterpiece or anywhere close. The gameplay (you know the point of playing a video game) is so lackluster, and the game is not well designed. The game tries to be a stealth-action survival horror game except it meets none of those genre's criteria well. It would have been great had the areas flowed together coherently but anywhere that there are enemies is basically an arena of conveniently placed boxes (much like another stealth-action game it tries so hard but fails to be, Metal Gear Solid) And really Naughty Dog? With the oil tankers full of money that Sony gave you to make this game, you couldn't spring for more than one stealth choking animation or 5 skins of enemy characters? It fails on the survival horror front because you are always being presented with bullets and medpacks and whatever you need because the game was made for casuals. The crafting makes no sense as Rag+Alcohol apparently = bandage. The "puzzles" consist of moving a latter from one place to another. Thrilling. By far the worst part of the game is the AI. All the AI in the game is broken. Enemy AI is completely inept on even the highest difficulty and your partner AI? God help me. Having bad enemy AI is enough to break any stealth game, but bad partner AI too? Might as well kill yourself. If you want to play a third person survival horror zombie game with bad partner AI and stiff controls then play Resident evil 4, a far superior game. The game is very shallow and repetitive, the infected lack variety with only 4 types to fight against. The gameplay itself is slightly above average, yet the game has garnered 9's and 10's on almost every major site, presumably based on story alone. Well I'm sorry but the fact is that I will never give a video game a 9 or a 10 based on story alone. What even qualifies as a game anymore? If I rendered Terminator 2 in video game cutscenes and let you press a button every 10 minutes to choose what one liner Arnold says would that be a 10/10 flawless masterpiece ****? I'm not saying that this is what the last of us is like, but its not far off. Everything is so linear and all the exciting things happen in cutscenes that happen every 5 minutes. If I wanted to play a mediocre stealth game in between watching a decent zombie movie, I would watch Shaun of the Dead and pause every ten minutes to play Alpha Protocol. Since when has it been ok for a VIDEO GAME to be called a masterpiece when the gameplay is average at best? You'd would think that with the way video game technology has progressed that developers would give us bigger worlds to explore with better AI and more depth, but nope, they're using it to make games like movies. This brings me to my next point which is, in a video game this story is amazing, but as a movie, this story is average and cliche at best. There are other games that have good stories that aren't a boring chore to play through and that actually add something to the respective genre that they're in. The last of us is by no means a bad game, but it is only a slightly above average game that brings nothing new or interesting to the Stealth action or Survival horror genres, and is made very good by its story and characters (even if they all swear like they just got off the USS Saratoga)

Hey kids! Do you like The Elder Scrolls? Have you always wanted to play it online and explore the vast expanses of Tamriel with friends? Well too bad, you're going to be incredibly disappointed. Where do I even begin with the disappointment in this game? There are so many incredibly stupid design choices its baffling. First things first, I just have to come out and say that this game is a HUGE cash grab. They lock the imperial race behind a pay wall right off the bat. You have to buy the collector's edition to unlock it. WHAT THE F*** This is downright criminal when you're already paying 60$ for the game plus a 15$ subscription fee. Next, there aren't instanced dungeons, meaning that if somebody else is in a dungeon and they kill the boss or take loot out of a chest you then have to wait for it to respawn. I'M SORRY, IS THIS THE ORIGINAL ULTIMA ONLINE? IS IT 1997? This is unacceptable in MMO's now a days. Get used to standing around in dungeons waiting for loot to respawn, or for bosses to respawn so you can run through a mosh pit of people, hoping to get 1 hit on it so as to complete the quest or continue the quest line. Gold is WAY too hard to get, every enemy drops like 1 or 2 gold and horses are incredibly overpriced. Why? Well you didn't think Zenimax and Bethesda would miss the chance to sell you the collector's edition that comes with a horse would ya? The story is generic and uninteresting and while the game is fully voice-acted which is great, it is very hit and miss quality wise. The graphics look dated, but are quite good for MMO standards. Questing is a huge disappointment. Every quest is the stereotypical MMO "kill x amount of x" Or "Fetch x" uninspired and dull. One of my favorite gaming moments is that quest for the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion where you have to go to a dinner party and assassinate each person in the house 1 by 1 without the others finding out its you. That was awesome. Why aren't there more quests like that in this game? Oh that's right, because its an MMO, its legally obligated to have watered down gameplay and quest variety. The game has a huge amount of content, which can only be added on to as time goes on. This would be great if everything wasn't so far away with so little to do while traveling between quest objectives. Maybe the most heinous, inexcusable offense of ESO is the fact that it takes the signature open world of The Elder Scrolls franchise and condenses it to linear paths to get to the next quest objective. Sure the game is open world, but you won't want to explore anything because you can only really gain experience from completing quests, and not from fighting enemies, you know like a real elder scrolls game! Another serious design flaw is the fact that every enemy levels with you, meaning that instead of having some enemies be a low level and some being a higher level, they just make mud crabs level 30 when you're level 30. This takes all the immersion and exploration factor out of the game because you're rarely if ever going to find an enemy that you can't handle. Overall, when quests aren't being bugged out, (honestly about 2/3 of them) they're dull and uninteresting anyway. Another stupid design choice is the fact that, because dungeons and quests aren't instanced, when you play with friends, every person has to do everything separately, whether it be getting quest objectives or doing puzzles in group dungeons, defeating the purpose of playing with friends which, you know IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS GAME! Crafting makes no sense and pvp can be summed up by two words: Running Simulator. Combat is stiff and repetitive and impossible in the weightless and floaty 1st person view. The customization is a step up from past ES games, even if the armor all looks the same and the soundtrack is amazing. When the only thing the game gets truly right is the soundtrack, you know its having a rough go. I went into this game as both a fan of The Elder Scrolls and to some extent a fan of MMOs, knowing that it wasn't going to be a Skyrim like experience, but was so disappointed in both aspects. Ultimately, ESO is nothing more than a lazy cash-in that preys on starstruck ES fans and both Bethesda and Zenimax know it. It doesn't help that the modern Gaming hype machine has brainwashed them into thinking this is a good game. There are far better MMOs out there, like Guildwars 2, FFXIV ARR and hell even WOW is still going strong. This game is un-fulfilling to both fans of MMOs and the Elder Scrolls series. If this did not have the ES name on it, it would be just another mediocre MMO that wouldn't get any time in the limelight. Not worth 60$ plus 15 bucks a month. Wait till it goes F2P or P2W which honestly probably won't be too long. Hopefully Bethesda takes the riches from this game and makes a good Fallout game or new single player ES game.

I usually write longer, more detailed reviews than this, but nothing i can say hasn't already been said by anybody who has played this game and has half a mind. This game is Flawless. The only game i would ever give an 11/10 to. Everything from the level design to the music to the story and characters to the game play to the massive amount of content packed into the cartridge is perfect. The only thing i can complain about is now the graphics and the inventory system are a bit dated. But when these are the only things to complain about in a 15+ year old game, then you know its a masterpiece. While this isn't my personal favorite Zelda, it may be technically the best one. The only people giving this game a 7 and below are A) Fanboys of other zelda games or B) Fanboys of other consoles that wouldn't know a true masterpiece if it hit them in the head like a bullet from the gun **** FPS. If you're debating getting this game whether it be on the VC, the 3ds version or an actual N64 cartridge any fan of the action/adventure genre should play this game. And if you're a Zelda fan and haven't played this game, then the first part of this sentence is a lie.

Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass is another great entry into the Zelda franchise, if disappointing given its pedigree. Phantom Hourglass continues the Wind Waker storyline, and that along with the characters that this storyline introduces like Tetra and Linebeck make it one of my favorite storylines in the the franchise. Phantom Hourglass draws heavily on Wind Waker as an influence, almost to a fault (Much like Twilight Princess did with OOT) The sailing mechanic is back, as well as the art style from wind waker, which looks really good on the DS graphic wise. The sailing is fun and adventurous just like in Wind Waker, but unfortunately the game itself is linear (meaning that you have to do dungeons in a set order, as opposed to WW where you could explore and complete each dungeon in whatever order you wanted.) This is unfortunate because it lessens the sense of exploration brought on by the sailing. The touch controls are also very innovative. While the novelty for touch only controls wears off very quickly and they don't always work 100% correctly for movement, drawing on the map is very fun and helpful. Being able to draw your route on the map while sailing is very cool and helpful because you can just set it and focus on fighting enemies, maybe having to make subtle adjustments once in a while. A lot of the puzzles revolve around marking things on the map and then finding them, which is a cool feature. Using the stylus to draw a path to throw the boomerang is also a cool, and feels more natural than just tapping a button and having it go in one direction. The game also cleverly uses the DS mic to do things like blow dust off of map charts. Upgrading your ship is addictive and a very cool game mechanic, as is dredging for chests on the ocean floor in places marked on your map by finding treasure charts. The combat and dungeons as always in Zelda games are great. The touch controls lend themselves well to combat and the dungeons are well designed, though a bit easy per series standards. This game however has one glaring flaw that may turn a lot of people off. That is the Temple of the Ocean King. For some reason, they found the need to make you return to the same uninteresting, not particularly well designed dungeon after every real dungeon. This is not only incredibly lazy, but also really interrupts the flow of the game. I always tell people that if they can survive this dungeon, you can enjoy the rest of the game. Furthermore, the soundtrack is relatively weak by Zelda standards, though Linebeck's theme is one of my favorites of the series. Unfortunately, while this game is very kid/Zelda starter friendly, the more seasoned Zelda fans may find the dungeons and bosses too easy. Overall, Phantom hourglass is a great addition to the Zelda franchise and, despite its flaws, is a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and i recommend it to any fan of the franchise (unless you're one of those poser/whiny Zelda fans that always compares every new Zelda to their personal favorite, not being able to enjoy every game on their own merit, or just trashes them because its different.) if you're this type of fan, just ignore it, it doesn't deserve your attention anyway. While this game is far from the best the series has seen, it is still a great game in its own right and worthy of a play through.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is one of the best games on the wii, and a thoroughly underrated title. First off, and obviously as everybody has stated before, the game's visual presentation is stunning. Its almost like a moving water color painting and fans of Japanese style artwork (myself included) will be greatly pleased by this game's aesthetics. This is the best looking 2d game I've ever seen (maybe bar Rayman origins.) But, as I've always said, , I choose the games I like much like the women I like, for their gameplay, not their graphics. Sure at its core, Muramasa is a 2d, side scrolling hack and slash adventure game with platforming and rpg elements, the RPG elements making this game much deeper than just a run of the mill hack and slasher. There's a fun cooking mechanic that requires learning recipes from books and collecting the ingredients to make food that increases your stats and health, as well as a crafting system to make your own blades. These elements, while adding to the depth of the game overall, may not be deep enough for hardcore rpg gamers. Of course, as with any hack and slash game, it runs the risk of becoming repetitive and stale. And while the combat isn't varied in and of itself, it never became a chore to play because the combos are fluid, and satisfying to pull off, as well as each blade having its own unique powers and strengths. There is also enough variation in enemies, each having different strategies you will need to figure out to dispatch them easily. Boss battles are long, epic, challenging and satisfying. The story and characters are strong, based on classic Japanese culture, and the soundtrack is beautiful and matches the games tone well. As far as criticism goes, I do have a few things. One being that while the backgrounds are gorgeous, they do tend to repeat themselves A LOT. There are different backdrops for different parts of the world in each area obviously, but what I mean is for example there is one area where you are in a town setting. The first background you see in that setting will be the one you will see until the area changes (In this case fields of beautiful cherry trees.) This is really a shame seeing as how stunning the art design is, I really wish they would have had 5 or 6 backdrops per area instead of just two or three. This repetition in scenery is only compounded by the enormous amount of backtracking that is required of you in this game. Every time you beat a boss, you have to backtrack all the way to the energy field that was blocking your way to get to the next area, that you can now access with the blade you've just acquired. This game needed some sort of fast travel or hub world system where you could quickly go from one place to another, because this is not a hardcore enough RPG that you will enjoy grinding in battles for exp. My last complaint is that, as I touched on before, I feel like the rpg elements in this game could have been fleshed out more, which leaves them feeling like sort of an afterthought. Overall, this game is an amazing 2d sidescroller that has all of its elements come together beautifully to make it greater than the sum of its parts. This is one of my all time favorite games and just a purely enjoyable game to play. While it does have some flaws, it is still a shining gem in the WII library and a strong contender for most underrated game of all time.

There's an old adage that comes to mind when talking about games such as Call of Duty:Ghosts, and that is "It reinvented the wheel". This game not only reinvents the wheel, it takes the wheel from the car you already own and slaps a fresh 50 to 60 dollar price tag on it, then tries to resell it to you as if anything has changed. And to add insult to injury, you've been meaning to change that wheel for years because its old and outdated. Call of Duty: Ghosts isn't just a crap excuse for a Call of Duty game, its a crap excuse for a video game in general. And I'm not just hating on it out of blind, unjustified hatred, I'm hating on it as a fan of video games that is sick of seeing this series destroy the gaming industry. This game is using the same engine from Modern Warfare 2/3. The graphics still look like early Xbox 360/ps3 game from 2008. There aren't even dynamic lighting effects! This would be fine in an early ps2 game from 2001, but this is 2013. This is inexcusable for a "New Gen" game (using that term, VERY loosely.") The gameplay can be whittled down to a checklist of features we have grown to expect from Call of duty games post MW2. Short, linear, and haphazardly thrown together single player campaign with a poorly written, rehashed and generic story and no character development? Check . Multiplayer filled with hackers, lag and the same respawning problems that have plagued the series since Black ops? Check. Multiplayer maps and lobbies that aren't conducive to the style that online FPS games should be played in (I.E. Campers, jerks and little kids that shouldn't be playing M rated games?) check and check. A severe lack of innovation outside of one or two new game modes, and different weapons. uh check. A game poorly optimized for pc with no fov slider and fps cap, clearly ported as an afterthought by a company that doesn't care about pc gamers. Mother flippin' check! When the biggest innovation in your game is being able to play as a woman (something that could have and should have been added 4 games ago) its time to rethink your development techniques. And to think that i had so much hope for this franchise after modern warfare, to think that I thought that this would be the go to franchise for innovation in the often stale genre of shooters for years to come. Call of Duty is like a metal band that gets a cult following in the L.A underground scene, then as soon as they get a recording contract start putting out mainstream pop songs for $. And will call of duty ever change? Hell no, because they can keep milking this cash cow with minimum effort as long as people have horrible taste in video games. What happened to the old call of duty? Where is the robust single player campaign with bold set pieces and likable, developed characters? Now what do we get? A doge? Wow. Such great, many campaign much camping. I would say don't play this game, instead play Battlefield or halo or (enter name of x shooter here) but the fact is that they're all just copy and paste, cash ins on a franchise name with lackluster single player campaigns expecting the multiplayer to carry them . If you want to play a fun shooter with some innovation, start a new character on Fallout 3, or try splinter cell blacklist, Hell even gears of war would be better than this crap. The gaming industry needs less greedy, lazy franchises like this and more games with creativity and imagination like Rayman origins/legends, Muramasa: The demon blade and ni no kuni. This game only gets a 1 in my book because its functional (most of the time) otherwise it would be a zero. Bottom line, don't waste your money on the same mediocre game as the last 4 installments.