MiOdd

Don't buy this game for the multiplayer, or for SnapMap. Buy this game for the single player campaign, for it is fantastic. Every time I play I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest, the game is that exhilarating. It doesn't waste any time with boring cut-scenes, lame characters, or long tutorials, within minutes, you have a gun and you're surrounded by demons, literally tearing their limbs out and smashing their skulls to pieces. This is a game built on pure adrenaline fueled action, it is a game where, if you stop moving, you die. You need to always be alert, moving, dodging and slaying everything in your path. This is not a game about creating suspense, atmosphere or jump scares, it is about killing demons in the most brutal fashion possible. I was 10 when the original Doom was released, it scared the crap out of me but I loved every minute. As an adult, I never thought I would play another game that would fill me with the same level of excitement, joy and unbridled fear but the new Doom makes me feel like a scared 10 year old again and it is amazing.

The core game is excellent, I've never played a fighting game quite like this. The game is fast and exciting with a small but varied selection of great characters. With a few friends, the game offers some serious fun. However, I was disappointed with the single player portion, you have to rank up in each league before you can participate in tournaments and move onto the next league. It does fit the theme of Pokemon, having to train and rank up but I don't like the idea of level grinding in a one-on-one fighting game. The matches quickly become boring because you have to play so many fights at the same difficulty level and because of the limited roster, you're fighting the same pokemon over and over again. Once you get to the higher leagues, it may be more exciting but at the moment, it just feels like a chore.

I love this game, it has old-school appeal, reminiscent of my NES days, playing games like the original Final Fantasy. I say that because the game opens with very little introduction, you pick a character, briefly meet with the king and then you're free to explore. There's no fluff, no convoluted tutorials or contrived plot twists. You just explore and fight monsters. If that doesn't excite you, then look elsewhere. As for myself, it's just what I wanted, not every game needs a long winded story anyways. This is also where the similarities to Final Fantasy end, as the game plays quite differently and features it's own unique qualities and charm. The graphical style is very pleasing with scenery popping up everywhere you turn, the music is serene and fits the atmosphere well. The combat is mostly basic but I really like how the elemental contracts work. In order to use magic you need to have a contract with that element and same goes for the enemies. The catch is you and the enemy cannot forge separate contracts, so sometimes there is a tug-of-war going on during battles for who can and can't use certain magic. I also love the simplicity of it all, you choose an area to explore, fill out it's map, choose another area and repeat. This makes the game very accessible in my opinion. If I put this game down and come back later in a few months, I won't feel lost, I can just jump into any area I haven't completed yet and get right back into the action. You can also revisit any area as often as you like too. I don't play too many RPGs because I feel many of them are over bearing but I like the casual appeal this has, I can pick up and play through it leisurely without worrying about losing my place. That doesn't mean the game is easy, it is not easy, but it's a great game to travel with, grind a few minutes on the go with no pressure. Fans of the genre may think very differently of course but I'm 30 hours in and having a great time.

I like this game, it's far from perfect but it is certainly unique and I'm glad to have experienced it. Controlling the game is fairly simple, just point the Wii Remote at a nearby enemy or structure, press the B button and the character flies towards it, press the A button to attack, it's that simple. The problem is, it's not always easy to see where you're going and the camera control is bad, you have to point at the edge of the screen to turn the camera but it's not as responsive as it should be and it tends to slow down the action considerably. I would have much rather used the Nunchuck to control the camera but this was not an option. The game can also be a bit repetitive, each level generally follows the same routine, you traverse several floating islands while attacking a limited variety of enemies but every level still managed to be fun. I also found the boss fights to be very engaging and entertaining.

This game has many flaws and omitted features that a lot of people (myself included) have complained about. Nevertheless, any game that can capture +100 hours of my attention deserves nothing less than a 10. Creating your own levels is great fun. It's very rewarding to see stars and comments from strangers that have enjoyed your levels. It's even more rewarding to watch your friends play the levels in front of you, it's a learning process to see how different people react to different challenges you've set forth and enables players to become better designers. When you're tapped for ideas and don't feel like designing any longer, you still have an endless amount of levels to explore from other users. Finding well made levels isn't always easy to do from within the game itself but if you surf around the web, many popular gaming forums will always have something interesting for you to play.

This is easily my favorite Guitar Hero/Rock Band game. The new controller is fantastic, offering more buttons for more complexity but the redesign also simplifies things at the same time. By reducing the number of lanes to three (verses five) players are able to read the upcoming notes easier. It will take players a little time to get adjusted to the new controller but I think these changes are for the better. The campaign mode is called GH Live. It features 40 something songs, each with it's own live-action recording of several fictional bands of different genres. Each band has a set comprised of about 3 songs and the production value is extremely high. It has a very feel-good attitude, similar to watching a Disney teen musical, everyone is smiling and acting like they are having the best time of their lives, it's a little cheesy, yes, but it works and it will make you smile. I adore this mode, I think the graphical style is unique and fun, I think the soundtrack is great and as already mentioned, I think the new controller is great. Then there is GH TV, a 24-hour music streaming channel, you can tune in at any time and play along. I think this is a great idea and offers a great deal of fun. What I don't like is all the freemium tropes shoved into this mode. I feel being able to purchase coins and upgrades for your guitar breaks the leaderboard. For example, when you start out, the highest multiplier you can achieve is 4x, but there are upgrades that allow you to gain all the way up to 8x, so if I purchase these upgrades, even if I play identically to another player, I could potentially double their score. This is the problem with all freemium games, there is no way to know who earned their high scores verses who bought their high scores. Another issue is you can't choose what to play without spending some type of currency. However, through casual play, I was able to earn enough plays that allowed me to try every song I really wanted to. Despite these complaints, I still love this mode because I don't really care about leader boards in the first place and I'm enjoying playing random songs, I think it's a great way to experience new music, I'm hearing a lot of songs from bands I've never heard of before. I think GH Live mode alone warrants my $100 purchase. A tremendous about of care and attention was put into this mode and I greatly appreciate the effort. And when you're finished with Live mode, there is a seemingly endless stream of songs over on GH TV. I think this is a great package for all gamers and music lovers.

Upon starting the game you are immediately presented with a boring story, poor dialog and terrible voice acting. The first hour of the game was a drag, forcing you to talk to uninteresting NPCs and complete overinflated tutorials. My first impression was bad but I remained hopeful that once I got into the action, the game would improve. It did improve slightly but it wasn't enough. I had hoped there would be less dialog as the game progressed but I found myself always in company of a new NPC I didn't care about and it did really sour the experience for me. All I wanted was some fun, simple, action/platforming. I initially thought the fighting mechanics were unique and fun but the unmanageable camera would place too many enemies off screen and I found myself too flustered to fight effectively, even during the easiest of battles. The game also pretends to be an adventure game in similar fashion to Zelda, you are free to explore and find heart containers and things of that nature, however, the game is actually level based and the chapters begin and end without warning. If you accidentally walk into the next chapter and didn't discover all the items in the last chapter, there is no way to back track. That item or side quest will be lost to you unless you restart the entire game. This was a major turn off for me.

Hyrule Warriors was a surprise hit for me. I mainly bought it out of curiosity, just because I am a Zelda fan. I expected some fun hack and slash action that I would play in short spurts. I did not expect to become immediately addicted to the game. My wife, who doesn't play action games at all, also became enamored with the game. We played through the entire campaign on co-op and never lost interest. I thought the game was unique, I've never played anything like it but that's probably because I've never played a Dynasty Warriors game before. We only started to lose interest after exploring the Adventure Map Mode because we felt it required too much level grinding to complete. The Story Mode can be beaten without the need for grinding and we were both satisfied with just that portion of the game. I'm still slowly making my way through the Adventure Map alone, it's nice to have the extra content but playing through the Story Mode with my wife (a causal gamer) was an absolute blast.

If you have the patience to learn exactly how everything works you will find that Sonic Lost World isn't as bad as it seems. The largest complaint I have is that many of the features and controls are not intuitive and are not properly explained. There are way too many sudden deaths that could have been avoided with a better control scheme. Nonetheless, once you figure out on your own how to overcome these obstacles, things start to make sense and the game becomes more enjoyable but players shouldn't have to put this much effort into learning how to control, what should be, a simple platformer. Once I became acclimated with the controls I did enjoy my time with the game. The level design was much more fantastical than recent Sonic games, which I appreciated.

GoW: Ascension does little to separate itself from the original GoW trilogy, it is an unnecessary addition to the franchise that doesn't develop the story or game play in any interesting ways. Nevertheless, it looks great and is very fun to play. The multiplayer is the biggest innovation this time around and while I found the different modes on offer interesting, I simply could not get into the competition. I'm also very disappointed that there was NO local multiplayer of any kind, not even the simple co-op survival mode.

Cute and creative but lacks challenge and variety. The game is fun in small doses and even more so with friends that have never played this series. It's great fun to see what different people can imagine and how the game reacts to each others creation but as far as actually playing through the game level to level, it can be very repetitive.

Watch any trailer for this game and if you like what you see, know that it is every bit as fantastic as it looks. Excellently designed levels, tightly polished controls, colorful and delightful graphics. Any fan of platformers is sure to enjoy this game.

The plot and characters were dull but the action was fast, varied and exciting. Being the tenth game in the series, you can't expect the title to continue to innovate on the same levels it has over the years, but what you can expect is a thoroughly polished and well executed game and that is exactly what we received. Everything controls beautifully and you have a bevy of options to choose from, you can control the game with the GamePad, Classic controller or Wiimote and Nunchuck, all work great, all customizable. I'm not into online gaming but I enjoyed the campaign very much and the multiplayer modes, which there are many, are all playable off-line with a local friend or with AI bots. I greatly appreciated this feature.

I loved "New Super Mario U" despite its lack of originality, however, I feel "New Super Luigi U" is even less original and is mostly unnecessary. I wasn't expecting to be wow'ed by innovation but I was promised a more challenging game. The increased difficulty is what excited me about this expansion. Problem is, I didn't find the game difficult at all, it's just more of the same with considerably shorter levels. If you want difficult, I would recommend aiming for Gold Medals in the Challenge Mode on "New Super Mario U"

The game is a fun diversion to bring out when friends are over but doesn't have a whole lot of lasting appeal. Each game tries to utilize the GamePad in an interesting way but only a few succeed, these include Shutter, Gamer and Taxi. These three games are great and utilize the unique features of the GamePad in a way that feels genuinely new, innovative and fun. I don't feel this is true for the other nine single player games, while some of them are fun, there is nothing here you haven't already experienced. As for the multi-player games, I felt Disco was a very uninspired rhythm game. Fruit was a neat concept but too difficult to keep people interested. Islands is good simple fun, launch little men at different score markers. Lastly there is Sketch, this was my favorite multi-player title but this too offers no innovation, it is just a video game representation of "Pictionary" and nothing more.

There is very little in this game that I would consider to be "new", nonetheless, it is an expertly crafted experience with truly excellent platforming and level design that only Nintendo can create. Existing fans of the series already know what they are getting into and should be quite content with its offering.

This game has so many explosions you would think you were watching a Michael Bay film. I'll let you decide if that is a good thing or not. This particular Tomb Raider puts exploration on that back burner and focuses on cinematic set pieces full of daring jumps and big explosions. While everything is executed very well, I miss those exploration elements that cause you to stop and think. They do present themselves a few times but these moments are rare. The combat is enjoyable and better than any previous Tomb Raider but still starts to wear thin about half way through the game. Even with the generic combat and lack of exploration, the interesting story and strong visuals should be enough to keep you playing through to the end.

Like its predecessor, Darksiders 2 is a very derivative game, drawing obvious influences from other great action/adventure titles such as God of War, Zelda and Prince of Persia. The game borrows theses different elements and executes them wonderfully creating a very enjoyable game in the process. What Darksiders 2 does different from the original is place a greater emphasis on loot and item management to feel more like a traditional RPG. I do not like RPGs and I do not like heavy amounts of item management so these additions worried me greatly, I feared they would be far too cumbersome and end up souring my enjoyment of the game. I am happy to report that they haven't hampered my experience at all. With the option to auto-loot dropped items, I find that the loot system can be largely ignored. For people who like collecting mass amounts of items, you may like these features and that's great. For others like me, fear not, you can get by easily enough without having to worry if you have the best items equipped. I usually only check my inventory once per dungeon.

Shmups are a niche genre that is better suited for digital releases. Nonetheless, I feel there is something special about owning physical copies of games and to see any shmup getting a retail package in this day and age is rare. I felt this reason alone was worthy of my purchase to show publishers that there is a market for this kind of thing. As for the game itself, I think it's excellent. Most shmup fans are content to just have arcade perfect ports but this developer went the extra mile to give us the straight up port and a fully rearranged 16:9 version of the game, this is no easy task considering the original arcade game was on a vertical screen. The game is a manic shmup and comes equipped with a unique control scheme where your character will tilt and lock direction when firing, this allows you to shoot across the screen at wide angles which lends itself to the new 16:9 ratio very well. The game is also very difficult (as good shmups should be) but never frustrating. Like most manic shmups, when you die, you know why you died and feel responsible, as opposed to other shmups like the R-Type series where certain deaths are unavoidable on your first play through. I much rather prefer the manic style of shmup that Under Defeat displays and I think fans of the genre will also be pleased with this release.

Regarding Doom 3, they made a lot of stupid decisions that have a lot fans upset, including poor audio conversations, limited control options, long save/load times, no dynamic lighting. These are issues not present in past editions of Doom 3 so fans have every right to be upset about them, if you are going to remake a game, it ought to be better than the original otherwise whats the point? So yeah, it's not perfect, you can tell the game was a dirty PC port, however, I do not have a PC capable of playing Doom 3 anymore, so I can overlook all these technical problems pretty easily. At the end of the day, if these problems weren't brought to my attention, I'd probably never would have noticed. As for the game itself, is it still worth playing after 8 years? Yes, I believe so. While the game does feel very dated, it's still a blast and it's still scary, but if you're expecting a modern FPS, you will be disappointed as this game lacks many modern FPS mechanics. There is no cover system, there is no sight zoom, there are no big open areas, there is little story/cutscenes, it is a very simple shoot and run gameplay, which is all I've ever wanted from my shooters anyways. Doom 1 & 2 however, are perfect PC ports (or rather XBLA ports) they look and play great and feature four player online and offline multi-player which I wasn't expecting. While I play Doom primarily for the single player campaigns I was still disappointed by the online offering, only allowing up to four players maximum on all three games, they really should have allowed for more players. Overall though, despite its nuances, I love this package, it's the only way for me to play these three games on the big screen and for that I'm grateful. Could it have been better? Yes, but it's still a competent package featuring three great games and a few expansions (which I've never played) so I am very happy with my purchase.

This game isn't very challenging, or innovative, but it is darn fun. While I myself thoroughly enjoyed the game, I can see adult gamers growing tired of its formula rather quickly, where younger gamers might be more forgiving of its faults and be content just swinging around Manhattan. Web-slinging is a pure joy to watch, the acrobatics are animated beautifully and the close camera provides an excellent sense of speed, unfortunately, most of the of game's main missions are indoors where web-slinging is kept to a minimum but the few battles that take place outdoors are exhilarating. The action indoors mostly consist of hiding and stealth kills, which is neat at first but the fact that Spider-man can stick to any surface, wall or ceiling, it becomes quickly apparent just how easy these missions can be, luckily, its almost never required, so if you get bored crawling around, you always have the option to leap from the shadows and just start an all out brawl. The fighting mechanics are simple, spamming X usually gets the job done, while there is a dodge button that will extend your combo if timed correctly, it's never really essential but it is more satisfying to watch the combos unfold uninterrupted. The games main fault is the lack of challenge, as mentioned the stealth areas and general combat are too easy and while there are plenty of things to do outside of the main missions, photo-journalism, car chases, petty crimes, races, none of them are challenging, nonetheless, they are a welcome diversion while traversing to the next story mission but after you beat the game, they kind of end up feeling like busy work, rather than engaging side-missions you would want to play through.

This is an interesting game with a wholly original and rather fantastic style. I heard all the complaints about the combat being too repetitive and the platforming being too frustrating but I disagree. The combat is as repetitive as you would expect any beat-em-up to be, but where El Shaddai differs is that it disguises its complexity in a single attack button, there are many distinct attacks per weapon that vary based on the timing of your button presses, this concept was difficult for me to grasp at first (and the game does a poor job explaining things) but once I figured it out I found the combat to be very enjoyable and unique. The platforming rarely frustrated me as the game provides abundant checkpoints so if you ever miss a jump you usually restart in the same exact area to try again, so even the most difficult platforming sections didn't take me long to navigate. While the game never quite reaches the same level of excellence as other AAA titles in either genre (beat-em-ups or platformers) the games unique style and general strangeness continued to impress me through to the end, every time I thought I saw all the game had to offer, they showed me something new in the very next chapter.

TEKKEN: BLOOD VENGEANCE was quite entertaining with some exhilarating fighting scenes, unfortunately, there wasn't enough fighting and the story bits felt a little contrived. TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT HD is a classic fighting game, reborn with HD graphics, the game looks and plays great, the problem is, it is a bare bones port, in this age it is almost unthinkable to release a fighting game without online support, but here it is. Lack of online support aside, the game is still a blast to play solo or with local multi-player, I especially love the ability to play through any mode on co-op. TEKKEN TAG 2 PROLOGUE is little more than a demo for next years game but its a nice added bonus nonetheless. The game features four key characters from Blood Vengeance and there's several different ending screens to unlock if you don't get too bored fighting the same four characters over and over. Despite is obvious lack of content (for obvious reasons) the game handles very well and I look forward to things to come.

Never has a game captured my attention like Skyrim has. After a brief introduction the game unleashes you into a massive world where you are free to roam about and explore till your hearts content. There are plenty of towns, landscapes and dungeons to visit. All full of NPCs who always have something interesting to say, which usually results in sending you off on a new quest to fulfill. None of the quests I've encountered had any time constraints so you are free to tackle your long to-do list as leisurely as you desire. The leveling system is very dynamic and the game adapts to each players own style, in addition to this, enemies scale to your level so there is no need to level-grind, making the game always challenging but never overbearing. With so many things to do and see you will never be bored in the beautiful world of Skyrim.

This game has it's flaws, the controls are very finicky resulting in numerous pitfall deaths which can lead to frustration, however, if you stick with it and take the time to learn each level you will find a thrilling, rewarding and unique experience. The story mode is very short and the plot itself is pretty bland but the main appeal is its parkour style platforming and the game really shines when you are skilled enough to zoom through each section gracefully. After the story mode is completed there are several time trials to unlock. The time trials have you racing through the same sections as the story mode but force you to find new paths which shakes things up just enough to make them interesting and challenging. Overall, I think this is a great game with plenty of content but I think its high learning curve and level of frustration makes it difficult to recommend to others. So if you tend to give up easy, think twice about picking this one up.

Uncharted 2 was, in my opinion, as close to perfect as you can possibly be, which thereby makes it almost impossible to make a follow up with the same level of excellence. This game sports all the same action, platforming and story telling that made previous entries so enticing and it is all presented with the same high production values we have come to expect. Despite falling victim to the "more-of-the-same" syndrome, the game still manages to be thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end. Where the game differs is in its extra focus on hand-to-hand combat which I felt was often misplaced and underdeveloped. My favorite addition to the game however is the Free-For-All multiplayer mode, most modern shooters rely only on team-based multiplayer these days so it was very refreshing to see this alternative.

While Arkham City is bigger and arguably better then Arkham Asylum, at the end of the day, it is still more or less the same game. Much like the original the graphics, atmosphere, free flow combat and stealth missions are all superb. I feel Arkham Asylum had better story telling because of the games linear progression, this element is lost in the open-world that Arkham City has created, however, it is an acceptable trade-off in my opinion because the open-world setting allows for much more content to be thrown in the mix with plenty of engaging side-missions to accompany the games main story. In addition to the side missions the city allows for a lot more hiding places for Riddler trophies if you're into collect-a-thons. If you have never played either game, I would recommend Arkham City over Arkham Asylum just because of the greater amount of content on offer. If you've played Arkham Asylum before, you may feel a little underwhelmed by this title, because as stated previously, its more or less the same.

I've been die-hard Sonic fan since his 1991 debut and while I've enjoyed most of his recent outings, I still thought many of them were tragically flawed. They all leave me wanting something more and have me questioning Sonic Teams decisions to include this or exclude that. Sonic Generations is no exception to this trend. While the game handles better than any recent Sonic in terms performance, because of its high influence in modern Sonic game play, I can't imagine anyone that isn't already an existing Sonic fan being interested in this game. So while I enjoy the game, I'm still waiting for that perfect revival where I can honestly recommend the game to non-Sonic fans, this is not that game. Anyway, for the rest of you still interested, here are my thoughts on Sonic Generations. The first three zones, all inspired from the Genesis era, were phenomenal, I lit up with glee as I raced through each of these acts with both classic and modern Sonic, the nostalgia made me feel like a kid again and the exquisite level design and graphical detail allowed the adult in me to also greatly appreciate these early stages. Unfortunately for me, the next two thirds of the game were all inspired by modern Sonic and I feel the magic was lost. The Genesis era stages all had a wonderful fantasy element to them, they take you outside of the real world and place you in these exotic locations that ooze creativity and it took Sonic Generations to make me realize that most of the modern stuff they have you running through very modern looking cities, four of the nine chapters are in a city (although one is post-apocalypse) and I just can't get into this setting, because of its real world attributes the level structure never looked natural to me, I was constantly questioning why a city would have these crazy contraptions set up for a hedgehog to run through, silly I know, but I never once thought to question why Green Hill Zone had floating platforms or looping terrain, I just accepted it as the fantasy world it is and moved along but modern Sonic's insistence on living in our real world ruins the illusion and removes the player from the fantasy they should be enjoying. That's not to say all the modern stages were disappointing, Planet Wisp brings back that fantasy element and I loved it to pieces. I know this complaint is mostly aesthetic but it makes a big difference for me, most of the actual level design on these modern stages was pretty decent but still pales in comparison to the first three zones. It's a shame they didn't draw more influence from the Genesis era or even create something entirely new using the current engine because for the first time in awhile the game play actually works well but I have to question their level choices because I feel they've missed a huge opportunity to create something unique.

The original Uncharted was already a fantastic game, albeit a bit derivative. It combined the best components of several action/adventure titles and executed them perfectly. The same applies to Uncharted 2 and while it seems impossible to improve on this formula any more, that's exactly what they've done, with bigger environments, better graphics, more complex story and all around improved performance and polish. In addition to the already impressive single player campaign the developers decided to add a fully fleshed out multiplayer mode that rivals any of the top competitive multiplayer games on the market. This is gaming at its finest.

The game starts with a story that shows great promise and game play that feels genuinely unique, the enemy AI was very fast and exciting, the driving aspects handle well and felt fresh. Then after about an hour or so, you start to realize that these aspects never evolve into anything more. The gun play never changes and after the first few levels its excitement wears off. The driving mechanics are solid but there's no where interesting to drive to. The story had a decent premise but all the NPCs are shallow and their missions do little to develop the plot. These are the underlying issues that plague the game, however, I could go on to list a number of smaller things that really irked me as well. While I did enjoy my time with RAGE, I feel it ultimately failed to do what it set out to accomplish and at a time when there are so many better games on the market, I find it difficult to recommend.

Due to the critical acclaim this game has received, I was initially disappointed upon my first couple of plays because the game fails to do anything particularly innovative. It combines elements from various action adventure titles such as Gears of War, Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider. However, the more I played the more I appreciated the game, despite its lack of innovation. It not only borrows elements from past games, it perfects them. From the gun play to the platforming to the story telling, everything is executed flawlessly. It's ability to take these core designs and blend them so effortlessly is why I think this game deserves the critical acclaim it has received. Not to mention, that the game is just pure fun to play from start to finish.

ICO in my opinion is boring. You explore a mostly empty castle the entire game, while there are occasionally some breathtaking views outdoors the game never truly managed to capture me in its atmosphere, which is all the game has going for it. The combat and platforming are very weak and the puzzles are either too simple or too obtuse, there is no medium. I used the word obtuse because the game fails to teach the player what is and is not possible, for example, swinging, the game never tells you how to swing and the controls are not intuitive enough to learn on your own, so I never knew that was an option until I read it in a FAQ, these instances sound silly, but they infuriate me because I attribute them to poor design. SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS is a masterfully crafted adventure with, unfortunately, little to no replay value. I loved the game when I first played it on PS2 and I highly recommend anyone that has yet to experience this game to give it a try. The reason I cite the games lack of replay value is because the games allure was due to the wonder of seeing each colossus for the first time and discovering (on your own) how to defeat each one, when you replay the game a second time that allure is lost. Naturally the game will never live up to that first experience but the gameplay elements itself, while adequate, aren't enough to make me want to play through the game again. It's a game best played once and remembered for its greatness and uniqueness.

This game takes one step forward and two giant leaps back. I'll get the positive things out of the way first, the grappling hook behaves much better than previous games, the graphics are quite good (when still) and there are some genuinely clever puzzles to be solved. Now for the bad stuff... the camera almost never wants to cooperate with you, the frame rate stutters frequently, the controls for the platforming segments are clumsy and broken, the combat is still terrible (as it was in previous games) put all those things together and you have one bad game. Despite pretty graphics and clever puzzles, the poor execution of the other gameplay elements prevented me from enjoying this game.

The level design in this game is excellent. While the game is still level based, each level is large enough to fully immerse the player in its environment. The feeling of isolation also adds to the atmosphere as Lara is exploring almost all these ruins alone. There were plenty of times when I felt completely lost, which is a good thing, this allowed me to appreciate the complexity of each level and also provided a great sense of satisfaction when successfully solving a puzzle or traversing a difficult platforming segment into the next area. The story and combat was a little lacking for me and there were some very specific jumps that were all too frustrating but these issues don't take away too much from the overall package. The game places its emphasis on exploration and it handles this aspect very well.

This is a fun action game that ultimately feels dated even considering the time of its original release. The game attempts to copy modern Prince of Persia games but ends up falling a bit short, the platforming is simple and while the controls are competent its all been done before and its been done better. Nonetheless, the platforming and puzzles were still enjoyable enough to keep me playing. The combat however, was terrible, it wasn't difficult or challenging, it was just plain boring, mashing the fire button as fast as you can will get you through any gun fight with ease. The bosses on the other hand all required more precision then the games controls would allow leading to a high level of frustration.

This is a very fun arcade style wrestling game. However, like most arcade games, its set of features are very shallow, the game has several different modes and match types but in the end they offer very little variety. It also sports your typical create-a-wrestler mode that I'm happy to admit I spent a few hours in already, unfortunately customization is limited as you can only select predetermined move sets, nonetheless the editor is still a nice addition. Thankfully, what the game lacks in content, it makes up in game play, as this is one of the funnest wrestling games I've played in years. It is much more fast paced then your typical wrestling game and is more accessible to non-wrestling fans, my wife (who's never watched wrestling) even joined me in a few matches and had a lot of fun. With special moves that are out of this world and a fantastic roster of old and new, I would definitely recommend this to fans looking for a more casual affair.

Like its predecessors, this game is a lighting fast arcade racer that really pushes the boundaries of the genre. With tracks set on the sides of crumbling buildings to a boardwalk being torn apart by a tornado, there really is no other racer like this. Every track is unique and varied and loads of fun. However, I think the developers in an attempt to streamline the game made some poor decisions. The single player mode is now story driven and forces the player to stick to a single track and vehicle before progressing. This only leads to frustration because it limits your options, if you cannot pass this one course, you're stuck. In previous installments of this series, you were never required to beat every single event, so if one track was giving you problems, you always had the option to jump to another track and earn points to unlock more events. This is not the case in Apocalypse and I greatly miss that freedom. This small restriction aside, the game is still one great thrill ride!

Despite moments of pure adrenaline fueled excitement, the game is marred by repetitiveness and game breaking glitches that require you to restart entire levels. These glitches aren't even the worst offender, what aggravates me even more are these constant sound glitches that produce brief high pitch screeches throughout the duration of each level, it gets to the point where I feel the game is better played on mute. I'm all for mindless shooters and I really, really wanted to like this game but due to some poor design choices and an obviously lack of beta testers, this is one title I think everyone should keep far away from.

Short, simple and easy but definitely fun. While this game brings no real innovation to the series (or platformers in general) the game still manages to be a pure joy to play from start to finish. The platforming segments and level design is of top quality, the combat, while simplistic, is also very fun and satisfying. With a new story completely separate from past games this is a great entry in the series for newcomers and existing fans alike.