Markshark

I was extremely excited for Skyrim and it is one of the very few games I have ever bought on day 1. However, while Skyrim many be an incredible game on other platforms, the simple fact that Bethesda released Skyrim on PS3 is a joke, but not funny. Skyrim is a hopeless mess. It is extremely buggy (glitches that prevent players from completing or even starting quests are absurdly common), but for such an amazing base game, I would overlook those bugs. However, it also freezes constantly. The larger my save file got, the more it frequently it froze. Just when I was completely into playing Skyrim, when it was fast becoming one of my favorite video games of all time, the freezing got so bad that I had to stop playing. Some days, it would be freezing up once every five minutes, and that is not an exaggeration. I had to save constantly to keep from losing progress, and I wound up spending 40% of my time with Skyrim actually playing the game, and 60% of my time with Skyrim rebooting my PS3 after it froze, saving to avoid losing too much progress, or watching loading screens. Which brings me to another problem. Loading screens in Skyrim pop up very frequently and are unacceptably long, far longer than loading screens in previous Bethesda PS3 games like Fallout 3, leading me to believe long loading screens are not the result of Bethesda being unable to fix the problem, but rather the result of them being too lazy to do so. Skyrim should have been delayed. Sure, everyone who was going to buy the PS3 version, myself included, would have complained about it, but at the end of the day, we would have realized that if Bethesda delayed Skyrim, they did it because they had more work to do and the delay would make the final product better. Instead of delaying Skyrim, Bethesda shipped an incomplete, shoddy mess ****. And then, did they do what they did with Fallout: New Vegas- patch it into a playable state? No. They released a few patches that fixed a few of the countless glitches and dealt with the lag, but they did nothing about the constant freezing, the absurd loading times, or the vast majority of the glitches. Now, the number of patches Bethesda releases has tapered off dramatically. Why? Maybe because Bethesda cares less about working on fixing their broken product and more about milking more profits from DLC, which PS3 owners didn't get. We missed Dawnguard and Hearthfire completely. We're getting Dragonborn, but, frankly, I am not that excited. All Dragonborn is is Bethesda trying to get PS3 owners to pay more money to get more shoddy product. Also, every Bethesda employee working on Skyrim DLC is an employee who should be working on game patches instead. Glitches, freezes, no DLC- Skyrim on the PS3 is a gamer nightmare.

Uprising is my favorite 3DS game. Graphics are not console-level but they are above average for the 3DS- at least with 3D off. I found the 3D effect to be atrocious- if I turned it on, even briefly at a low level, the screen got all blurry and my eyes hurt for a good 5 seconds after turning the 3D off. Granted, I am not the biggest fan of 3D but I have enjoyed it in games like Super Mario 3D Land and OoT3D. Fortunately, game looks good without 3D. The story was amusing and didn't take itself seriously for the most part(there were some serious moments later in the game). The whole game was filled with unique characters and funny dialogue which made it a joy to play. Controls for ground segments were clunky and circle pad pro support allowing for the second circle pad to be used to aim would have helped a lot. However, I got used to the controls after the first few chapters and they were actually perfectly adequate after those first chapters. Gameplay is good. The game is quite difficult if you put it anywhere near 9.0 by betting hearts with the innovative difficulty system in which you bet hearts(currency) to increase difficulty and earn more hearts and better loot in the chapter, while losing many of these hearts if you die. This system is unique and is a great touch. Between multiplayer, replayable chapters, streetpass, collectible idols bought using play coins, weapon crafting, and an achievement system, Uprising is a polished title with a lot of replayability. Bad 3D and the difficult-to-learn controls keep Uprising from getting a perfect score, but it is a generally fantastic game.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a fun game but nothing truly great. Graphics are okay, and the whole Lego thing makes the game a lot of fun visually. Combat and the occasional puzzles are fun but simple and clearly designed for little children. Hunting for collectibles and unlocking all the characters and other bonus content provides a fair bit of fun. Replayability is pretty good because each stage has a total of 11 different collectibles (10 Lego canisters and one red power brick) to hunt down. Lego Star Wars includes numerous minigames that are unlocked by collecting red power bricks, and a few of these minigames are really fun. All in all, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a fun but fairly mediocre game that would have gotten a seven. However, I am giving it a ten in an effort to rebalance the user score. Some total a$$hole decided to give six totally useless and childishly written reviews, all accompanied by scores of 0(see reviews by JackB, MadisonC, TessL, JamesH, anonymous, and CameronZ, all posted on September 24, 2008). All these reviews were posted on the same date by users with the same username styles, leaving me with no doubt that they were all posted by the same person, who probably never even played the game and just decided it looked dumb. Also, there is no telling how many bad rating this a$$hole gave the game without writing reviews. As I am writing this review, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has a user score of 4.8, but know that in reality, consumer reception has been significantly more positive- just how positive it really has been is impossible to say. A$$holes really messed this one up.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]