JonesR

BioShock Infinite is amazing, just utterly amazing. The first sky hook execution put a smile on my face from ear to ear after which I never stopped smiling through the entire game. With the sky hook comes the sky rail which turns you into a living roller coaster from which you can attack enemies on the move. It provides an amazing combination of fast-paced action along with the rush of riding a roller coaster. The story is incredible although it really has nothing to do with the original Rapture storyline so it doesn't necessarily fit the BioShock series. Although because it is such a great game which sticks to the original BioShock style game play, it is nice to know that the BioShock series was not tarnished. One can honestly say the BioShock trilogy is one of the best of all time. Future games need to take notes on how to implement a sidekick. Any girl that gives me money is ok in my book and Elizabeth is a sweetheart to boot. She never gets in the way. She's never commanding or condescending. And she even helps you out by pointing out items like lock picks and voxophones. I actually developed a sense of trust in her. She was not only useful, but made me feel welcome in the process. Easily the best game I've played this year.

I enjoy a good horror film every now and then and the Saw films have been thoroughly entertaining. The game captivates the movies very accurately and puts you squarely in a mental match against Jigsaw. It plays like an action puzzler. As with all puzzles from Jigsaw, you usually have a choice to live or die, but the choice to live always comes with consequences. The gameplay isn't all that great and some of the unlock puzzles aren't intuitive, but it's decent enough that it doesn't detract from the game, plus the story keeps it engaging as you battle to survive. Note that the game achievement are glitched so some are easier to get and some are nearly impossible to get. All-in-all I liked it. Some parts were frustrating, but there's a good 9-10 hour game here.

400 Days provides a couple short add-on stories that have nothing to do with the original game. I wasn't too impressed with these bite sized pieces since the original game was so deep and thorough. These bits just kind of left an empty feeling of incompleteness. There just wasn't enough content to really sink into and what was there didn't feel very engaging. I would have rather seen focus on a single individual. It's pretty much just about making tough decision and living with the consequences. The price is right and it's worth one play through, but nothing too memorable.

I don't scare easily and while Alan Wake didn't scare me outright, it provided a constant state of creepiness that was continuously chilling. The characters and story along with the storytelling are awesome. The graphics, photography, and camera work are stunning. The one major blemish is the gameplay which isn't all that bad, it just isn't all that good either. However using a flashlight to fight off the darkness is a pretty cool concept and the execution comes off pretty nicely. Although I have to admit the game didn't draw me in to play non-stop from start to finish--ultimately starting the game in September and not actually finishing it until November. So what is it about Alan Wake that makes it so standoffish? Well for starters, the gameplay starts to get repetitiously dull. Some of the forest paths are really long laying ground for more hordes of Taken than one person can deal with before it just becomes mundane. It is kind of broken up with some areas to explore in between, but it wasn't enough. The other aspect which may sound weird is that I never really felt like I took the role as Alan Wake. Instead it felt more like I was just moving the story forward and watching Alan unfold as opposed to being a part of critical decisions. Fortunately the chapters are broken up very nicely into roughly two hour segments with good musical intermissions allowing players whatever amount of time they need before jumping into the next chapter. Overall, a fantastic game and a must play in my book.

Find cards and battle bosses--that about sums up this adventure. There's a good number of different environments to explore, puzzles to solve, and monsters to fight. The gameplay is on par with other games in this genre. The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is probably the weakest part of the game. This is a great game had it been released 30 years ago. Today, it's just one of many attempts to copy The Legend of Zelda and just falls short of being anything but a clone.

Cool puzzle based point-and-click adventure. Charming voice acted animated story plus mildly challenging puzzles keep it entertaining throughout. Great game for kids--even the adult ones.

Alice is a fantastic journey of creativity and innovation with a twist of psychosis. It's a solid puzzle platformer offering occasional action alongside **** story pieces which eventually end up being glued back together. It's one gleaming fault is the puzzles get wearisome due to their excessive repetition, chapter after chapter. This stems from the fact that the game doesn't offer equal amounts of platforming, action, and story elements. It's more like 75% platforming and 25% divided by the other two. Now the platforming aspect is done very well--there's just too much of it. Overall, I highly enjoyed the game, but I wouldn't want to play it all the way through a second time.

If you haven't been diagnosed with ADD prior to playing Fallout New Vegas, you definitely will be after playing it. There are so many places to explore, people to talk to, and things to do that it's difficult not to get distracted. But the game remains fun even when you happen to run off on some wild goose chase because the story flows so seamlessly. It never feels like you are on some irrelevant side mission. I love the stress-free freedom to do what you want, when you want to do it. The game left me in awe as to how intricate virtual worlds like this can be experienced in such stunning detail--definitely worth spending my time and energy. Its biggest disappointment is the inability to continue character development and exploration once the main quest is finished. You are forced to load an old save...

I was hoping that this would play similar to the early Ultima games. While the looks are there, the gameplay isn't. There's not a whole lot of depth. It does have some positives like game controller support and a very simplified user interface. Also the combat is nicely done. But if you are expecting an adventure along the lines of Ultima III, you won't find it here.

Darkness II is bad ass! I never played the first one so I didn't really know what to expect. It's complete evil--torture, mutilation, humiliation, and death. The campaign is depressingly short, even though the action is tight and the story is a complete trip. That's the trend nowadays--charge more...provide less. The graphics are slightly cartoonish which I'm pretty sure was the effect they were going for since the game is based on a comic book. Voice acting is well done. There is a separate 4-player coop campaign element which is pretty fun, but I haven't fully experienced it yet due to a lack of players. All-in-all it's a pretty amazing game, but the short campaign didn't allow me to unlock all the special abilities in a single play through. Not that I won't enjoy playing it again!

he story and narration are done exceptionally well, but at its heart, Bastion is simply a top view hack & slash shooter. What it does, it does well making it a great addition to the genre. The narration delivers something unique plus it includes some decent music, although I couldn't find anything exceptional in the gameplay. It was on par with my expectations, but never exceeded them. At roughly 6 hours in length, it proved a pleasant distraction from my core games.

Isaac possesses charm wrapped in a very twisted story. Originally I thought it was a very primitive top view shooter, but after spending more time with it and understanding some simple tricks, I found it's actually quite complex offering a mild strategy that can be frustratingly addictive. Permadeath really adds an element of player alertness making you try harder not to take damage. Although the game is extremely short, there is a surprising amount of replay value due to its randomly generated maps, monster combinations, and item drops. You really never know how you are going to fair on any given playthrough which keeps it from feeling repetitive. With practice and persistence, you will unlock new items that make the game somewhat easier, but also more fun. Experimenting with item combinations is a treat, plus it's hard not to break a smile from some of the crazy power ups as well. For a $1 game, Isaac holds priceless value.

Brink is an objective based multiplayer shooter that took me some getting used to. Most of my early hours, I was pretty much just killing bad guys while being completely lost on what the objectives were. Now that I have a few more hours under my belt and have gotten used to the gameplay, I must confess it's pretty fun. It's highly action packed, but the objectives are just not obvious to new players. The game puts significant emphasis on customization in both character looks and loadouts--for example being able to select two primary weapons is nice. The graphics are solid, the gameplay is smooth, and the character leveling is implemented well. It also throws in a decent storyline which is uncommon in these type of multiplayer games. But don't buy Brink because of its single player or coop claims. It disappoints unless you consider playing multiplayer with bots fun.

Demolition derby style racing game. I've played countless hours of this on the XBOX and had a blast. The car handling on the PC version works well. Make sure you wear your seatbelt!

The PC version of this game is unplayable for me. It crashes after loading any mission. Steam forums confirm there is a known issue with very few people actually having success in playing this game. It's better on the XBOX anyway--the PC version lacks controller support.

Caster is a bad shooter in just about every way possible. Extremely primitive--I would have expected something of this caliber to be released 10+ years ago.

I am genuinely impressed with Shank--a great old school action brawler with a story straight out of the Kill Bill movies. The action is very clean and fluid. It offers some basic combo moves, fitting weapons, and a few other pleasant surprises. On the downside, it only takes about 2-3 hours to complete the game on normal difficulty. Although it is an enjoyable 2-3 hours of non-stop action.

Simple, brainless game. Fly around, burn stuff, steal gold, and ransom off a princess or two. It works nice with a game controller, but gets boring after about 30 minutes.

It has a Xotic kind of feel to it, but doesn't offer anything remotely that good. There's supposed to be a multiplayer element, but without any people playing it, this game doesn't have anything to deliver, except disappointment.

As an overhead shooter Dead Horde is about as bad as they come. It's missing a very key element--FUN. Linear levels, a basic weapon cache, and bad graphics are some of other poor qualities that make up this game. Even the coop element doesn't make this game attractive. Skip this one. There's are countless other overhead shooters where your money would be better spent.

The combat system is worth experiencing, but there isn't anything else that really stands out. There are certainly better games out there, but there are also much worse. Give it a shot when it's on sale for a couple bucks.

A good mix of turn-based and real-time strategy, although the turn-based elements often feel oversimplified. It does have a solid real time combat foundation, but the AI is either really good or really bad depending on the difficulty setting--there is no middle ground. If you are new to real time strategy games, this one has a pretty steep learning curve. Even seasoned players may feel overwhelmed. 17 different factions on top of long and short campaigns give a lot of room for different story paths and immense replayability. One campaign can take days, even months of play time.

Tower defense meets Team Fortress 2. Some clever new features plus a coop survival mode differentiate itself. Overall, I found it to be a ho hum experience.

Sit back, relax, and gobble bubbles. I thought it was supposed to be relaxing, but it's a stretch to classify some of the levels as casual. A great game to play when you are in an alcohol induced stuper.

Booster Trooper can be fun in small doses, but there are many game flaws that could be easily improved upon to make it worth playing longer. Jet pack fuel is probably my biggest gripe because it's difficult to make perfect platform jumps in the heat of battle and most of the time you end up missing and falling to the ground making fighting unspectacular. If they eliminated the fuel so you could free roam, it would put focus where it is needed the most--combat. As it stands, it's not worth more than an hour or two of actual game time even with the massive number of available achievements.

RoboBlitz started off being a pretty cute puzzle based game with occasional shooter elements, then it flipped 180 into a crazed action frenzy challenged by 6 different enemy NOEDs. They didn't bother to make them easy to kill, nor did they make it obvious how to go about killing them. Beyond that subtle difficulty, the game holds interest with its basic story, handful of weapons, lasers, a spin move, barrel throws, tractor beam, levitation gun, and a few additional power ups. The game play is very consistent making it a tolerable game, but nothing stood out that would make me recommend buying it.

It's solitaire all right--and a lot of it. There's plenty of game to be played and it actually has a story and an XP system with some other subtle twists to an otherwise boring card game. It certainly works at passing the time by.

An excellent production single player campaign. Infinity Ward did a superb job at bringing detail and depth to every element that deserves a standing ovation. It is extremely detailed with tons of action. My biggest issue was that I found the story difficult to follow. It jumped around from country to country and person to person making it impossible to figure out who were the good guys and who were the bad guys and where you, the player, fit in. Regardless, the presentation and the execution are both top notch and very enjoyable. Throw in stellar graphics, quality game play, and a pleasing variety of equipment and missions. I cannot praise the single player campaign enough--a game that's actually worth its price tag.

Although the music is quite soothing, this is your typical run of the mill block matching game. The goal is to get a specific number of tasked blocks to clear a level. Each task requires you to make color blocks which pushes up your multiplier. If you don't follow the task, the multiplier drops back to zero. Lucid blocks can clear the field, but they are worth crazy points at the end of a level if you don't use them. It's kind of counter intuitive in that the point system is really about pushing up the multiplier rather than going for the largest color blocks. Keep your blocks small and you push up the multiplier to the point where the lucid blocks end up counting for tens of millions of points each.

I know there are a lot of people that like this game and I seriously tried to give it a legitimate shot, but wow, I am completely disappointed. Mundane, non-strategic mouse clicking combat, expressionless mannequin-like characters, horrid voice acting, jagged graphics, and a non intuitive inventory system start off my rant list. I mean I can understand kids liking the game because of the sex cards, but the dialogue and the unnecessary questing leading up to those second-rate soft porn scenes just makes me want to puke. I found a pretty funny review that sums up my frustrations in more detail than I have room for here: ****/2011/01/witcher-review.html Thanks to Witcher, I now know the definition of fetch questing...

AI War takes real time strategy to the extreme. I managed to make it through the tutorial and am now able to grasp the basic elements of structures and squads. It's a tremendous amount of detail, highly complex, and overwhelming for just about anyone, especially novices to this genre. Looking underneath all the complexity, one can clearly see the fundamental RTS elements: gather resources, build structures, create a military, and kill your opponent. It just takes place on a much grander scale than most. The game is quite intimidating because of the sheer number of options, the busy HUD, and the non intuitive user interface, but the game allows total control over every intricate detail and that is truly where the game's strength lies. You have the freedom to control ANYTHING. I can clearly see the long term enjoyment at this early stage, but it will take a lot of patience, persistence, and dedication to get there. Fair warning--this is not a game that offers instant gratification.

I was never really a big fan of the tower defense genre until I played Defense Grid. The developers have really done everything right to make it addictively enjoyable. It provides a wealth of different game modes on top of its great story mode. But what really sets it apart from the competition is the extremely intuitive user interface--it is literally just one click control for everything and has a great tutorial approach. I definitely recommend picking this one up.

It's a pretty complex card game where you get to play global policy maker. There are actually a lot of different things you need to keep track of including region stability, employment, population growth, energy demands, technology research, medical care, education, and many others. There is an immense amount of data available to aid you in your cause, but you can choose to ignore it altogether and just "roll the dice" and see what happens. The game is not very intuitive. It isn't obvious what each card does until you've played them a couple of times, and it took me several campaigns before I got a better understanding of how they were used to actually accomplish goals. You'll definitely need a little patience to struggle through it. It's a different strategy game than the norm, but nothing I would recommend. It's one of those games that you either love or hate--not much room for being on the fence.

Think of Frozen Synapse like playing chess with military soldiers, but the board changes each time you play. I love to play chess so that is probably the reason I like this game. There's an intricate amount of detail underneath its simplicity. This is turn-based strategy done right.

I never really liked Day of Defeat because there were a whole lot of WWII games that were released around the same time that did things so much better. The Source version doesn't feel like a vast improvement over the original game, but surprisingly you can still find an occasional populated server. I suppose if you need some basic old school WWII combat, this can fit the bill.

I honestly can't believe this is a Source engine based game--it's so polished! I'm really enjoying the concept on this one. Each team elects a single commander who controls all the RTS game elements like placing turrets and other typical support structures. The rest of the team fights FPS style and carries out objectives laid out by the commander with class based characters. It really plays well if you have two teams with expert commanders. A good mix of character skills make this quite a fun experience. This is quite possibly the best integration of Real Time Strategy with First Person Shooting that I have played. Highly recommend.

The graphics for Wings of Prey are absolutely spectacular--very impressive. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience with combat flight simulator type games so I'm not sure if they just inherently play slow--very few moments of intensity surrounded by hours of boredom. Well that's how this one came off to me. If you can fight through the boredom to get to those moments, it's a good game. But, I prefer instant gratification.

Half tower defense...half reverse tower defense. I love games where you get to destroy stuff and this one fills my destructive appetite. The cut scenes are great--extremely funny. Perfect game for an XBOX controller. Has multiplayer too. A rock solid production!

Now here's a game that quietly passed underneath my radar. I thought it was going to be too strategy based for my liking, but there isn't a whole lot of strategy to it. It's more like a casual space exploration game that integrates action based combat. As you progress, the battles can get pretty intense, but there's no pressure because you don't lose the game if you lose a battle allowing you to experiment and move at your own pace. Usually you just have to reassess your ship configurations if you get into a situation you can't handle. There is a slight learning curve, but nothing overwhelming. The galaxy is very large providing hundreds of hours of potential play and the game always seems to throw you a new challenge as you advance, so it doesn't get repetitively boring. There's plenty to do between the main story mission, side missions, and the variety of faction objectives in each system. Hands down, SPAZ is a game that should be in your collection.

This is still--by far--my favorite Call of Duty game. The single player campaign left me completely stunned in amazement because no game had ever captured the intensity to the point where I really felt like a soldier on the battlefield. The release of COD4 was perfectly timed in sync with the end of the over-played WWII themed FPS games. COD4 pulled everyone in because it was something new, fresh, and exciting--it was the right game at the right time. Multiplayer is phenomenalâ

I'm surprised I never played Max Payne until now--what a treat. A third person shooter with an intriguing story, engaging narrative, and excellent music. The game play is on the linear side, but there are a decent variety of weapons and the slow motion evasion really makes killing bad guys fun. Although not completely horrible, the game does suffer from dated graphics, but it was nice to see it at least had support for widescreen resolutions. I do have to say the game was overly difficult, even on easy, which kind of killed some of the enjoyment. The AI had precise aim combined with unbelievable reaction times even against a seasoned gamer. With the help of the QuickSave feature, I painfully made my way through it. I think the only piece that was missing from the game was calling the pills "Paynekillers." Despite its faults, Max Payne is a true classic--definitely worth your time. NOTE: Check the Steam forums for a sound fix on Vista and Windows 7 operating systems.

Jedi Outcast is an all-around great game. While the single player campaign is certainly enjoyable, the light saber battles in multi-player are what really sets this game apart from the rest. Include a generous assortment of force powers to the mix and this is one incredibly entertaining classic. You can't call yourself a Star Wars fan if you don't own this.

A pleasant color matching game. It lacks a proper tutorial, but only takes about 5 minutes to get the hang of it. The puzzle mode is kind of a pseudo-tutorial and I would suggest starting there if you want to slowly get the hang of things. The music melody is nice, but the drum samples are poor quality. Like the majority of these type of games, it is great at passing the time, but I haven't seen anything that made me say "WOW."

Telltale Games delivers yet another masterpiece with Puzzle Agent--a charming puzzle adventure with a mildly amusing story about an eraser shortage. As always with Telltale, voice acting is top notch, but this time they use crayon style graphics to set up a casual atmosphere that really gives this game a leisurely feel. Each puzzle is self-contained so there are no multi-level puzzles. It differs from traditional point-and-click puzzle adventures where you usually have to find several items or perform a specific sequence of actions before you can advance. Most of the puzzles are on the easy side, but they do throw in a few brainteasers that aren't obvious at first. There is a hint system which, if used, lowers your ranking for that specific puzzle, same as if you submit a wrong answer--although it is completely casual so there is really no reason to care about rank anyway. Puzzle gamers will certainly enjoy this.

I really enjoyed Hard Reset--a first person shooter that employs similar tactics to old school DOOM-style run and gun games, complete with secret areas for finding extra loot. The destructible environment is better than Hydrophobia, but doesn't quite match the caliber **** like Red Faction: Armageddon. Hard Reset offers a half-decent story, sharp graphics, plus a great mix of different weapons and upgrades. On the downside there isn't a large variety of enemies so you end up killing the same machines repeatedly, and the length can be considered short, although I thought it was reasonable. Overall, the game feels very polished--one I would certainly play again on a higher difficulty.

This is actually a pretty decent game--a nice slow paced casual adventure. It's mostly a platformer game, but includes some basic RPG elements. A unique story with complementary music, very intuitive controls, and a good amount of leveling skills keep it interesting. On the downside, there isn't a whole lot of action, fighting is one dimensional, and casting spells is a little awkward. The sale price is a good bargain--there's definitely 10+ hours of gameplay here.

Perk-based top view shooter showcasing non-stop, adrenaline-pumped fun. Being in a confined box killing countless waves of zombies does get repetitiously dull after a while, but the 4 player online coop and steam achievements give it the right amount of entertainment value. They finally added drop-in / drop-out support for online coop which was its biggest shortcoming. If you have a insatiable appetite to kill zombies, this game is what you need.

This is a very simple music based puzzle game with an eye spy front end. The mechanics are done well, but the game lacks any significant puzzle complexity. The musical pieces include familiar classical **** MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Auld Lang Syne, etc...pretty boring stuff. Keep your expectations low and you won't be disappointed spending five quarters on it, but you can play this on the web as a free java game all the same.

I wasn't too impressed with this one. There's not a whole lot of user interaction and there are several spots where it feels more like listening to a book than playing a game. The inventory system is useless and the notebook mechanics need improvement. As a stand alone game, it offers an ok story that ends too abruptly leaving too many unanswered questions. I can only hope there's more to unravel from the sequels, yet this first episode left nothing that compels me to play them.

This is a very good Myst clone combining sci-fi & fantasy environments. If fact, I was very surprised to see this was not made by the developers of Myst because the similarities are so striking. The story is weak and the storytelling is worse, but the puzzle adventure aspects are superbly done and make up for those shortcomings.