R7critical

If you're a fan of the genesis era Wonder Boy, well, here you go. This is a decent platformer/metroidvania that took about 22 hours from start to platinum trophy. There are annoyances, some are common problems for games that use hand-drawn art styles, and that's determining exactly where the attack/object/platform actually begins and ends. Additionally this game has some rather annoying puzzles, especially in the haunted zone, which expect you to read the developer's minds. The map is also unreliable, doors can link you to map squares a half mile away which appear to be attached to other map squares but are entirely closed off from them. Overall I don't regret playing this after getting it at the discounted price of 8 bucks, but wouldn't pay more than that.

Quite possibly the best Yakuza game in my opinion, after having played the other entries, this one still feels amazing. Perhaps the biggest improvement over earlier releases is it's quality of life changes, the graphics are also improved, and it's honestly the best entry point for anyone interested in the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series. The wild combat, hilarious side stories, and memorable characters make this a must-play for everyone.

You're forced to play as survivor in this, hope you didn't download it thinking you'd get to play Raider all the time like some other asymmetric survival horror games, because you never will. Matchmaking is busted, if you queue as Raider, you are going to load into a game as a survivor. Guaranteed. That is, if you don't get banned from matchmaking for the day due to that game failing to connect correctly and blaming you. Gameplay itself is also busted, ping matters a LOT - lag makes players warp around your screen, very dragonball in a way, but not fun when you're trying to escape or fight them. Survivor play (most of the game you'll experience) revolves around scampering about, hoping the raider doesn't spot you, because it only takes a couple hits before you're down and back to waiting another 10 minutes for a match. I got this game "for free" via PS+ in November of 2023, and I really feel bad for anybody who bought it before then. I assume it was given away on PS+ as a freebie to bolster it's flagging playerbase, which is understandable (that people are bailing out on this), the one role people want to play is locked and consigned to random chance, and the game revolves around the dreaded GATCHA pay-to-win system - yes, that's right, not only does this game cost money out the gate, but they expect you to shell out money for gatcha tickets so you can get powers/abilities that actually help you in-game. Yes, you will be underpowered compared to other players if you do not pay REAL MONEY to spin the roulette and hope you win on that so you can win in a match. CONCLUSION: Do not buy. Do not bother. Do not hold out hope. Game is dying due to dev mismanagement (Inability to manage matchmaking, lack of single player modes, complete reliance on the audience to provide content as survivor/raider with no bot support), Poor business practices (Pay to win/Gatcha), and competition that is at least halfway playable, whereas this is an absolute mess.

I tried this out in May of 2021, well after it came out by several years, in my book that's PLENTY of time for them to iron out any bugs and polish up all the annoyances... Sadly they seem to have done absolutely nothing in that amount of time except release more cashgrab DLC. Graphically the game suffers from screen tearing if you turn too fast, repetitive textures on plants, and overall just looks like someone bought all the assets from the cheap premade section of the game dev resources store. Controls are limited and clunky, your movespeed is a snail's crawl unless you sprint, casting your line isn't explained in the tutorial and you have to figure out how to do more than dangle the line into the water yourself, and the ingame menus are absolutely atrocious: using both the L and R sticks as well as the D pad for completely different sections of menus that are absurdly un-optimized for console. Sound wise the game's design is virtually non-existent, I had to check if my TV was muted more than once out of concern that I couldn't hear any splashing or really anything. Even after turning the game's internal volume settings to maximum the game still sounded too quiet, and there wasn't much to listen to anyway. There are plenty of pesky bugs in this game, as well. I experienced frequent hang-ups that made me think the game had frozen, both in menus and during fishing, which is pretty absurd when almost nothing is happening on screen, there's no real excuse for this either since they've apparently known about these problems for years. Catching fish in "Fishing Planet" is a boring repetitive chore, and many games where fishing is NOT EVEN THE MAIN FOCUS do it leaps and bounds better. you'd be FAR better off playing that Final Fantasy fishing mini-game or the VR game than this.

At first it might appear to be a fun game, then you realize: you're barely participating. 99.99% of this game is LUCK based. If you roll poorly on your relics, cards, potions, or draws in battle it can cost you the entire play session. That aside, let's go over the basics: the art is pretty amateurish, the sound design is almost nonexistent, and the controls are serviceable - all you really have to do is pick things and confirm, so that's simple enough. Some more downsides to the game are: the lack of any saved progression - there's no feeling like anything is improving as you play, so if you're into "Leveling up" this isn't the game for you. The only way to "get better" at this game is to get lucky early into a run, or restart your runs until you get the perfect relics early on. Since you're so limited in your in-battle actions you really need to lean on good relic and card drops to get anywhere. Your run can completely fold up if a boss decides to drop the wrong three rare cards and you don't get what you needed, but you won't realize it until it's too late and you come up against a brick wall that requires a specific strategy you weren't able to build for. If you're looking for a gambling game, this isn't a bad choice: IF it's on sale. Don't pay full price for this, it's an absurd ask for what you get.

Splatoon was a disappointment, sadly. I had high hopes for this game due to all the hype surrounding it, but I was really let down. Lesson learned: (again?) Don't trust the hype for online shooters. ONLINE GAMEPLAY: Everything is level gated, Players of max level have an enormous advantage in equipment and weapon choice. You have no freedom of choice to choose the map you would like to play, you are limited to two maps every few hours of which one is selected for you at random. If you don't like those maps, too bad? Come back later? Not an acceptable answer in my opinion. Weaponry comes in sets, this means you are often stuck with a sub-weapon or special you don't enjoy using just because you like the main weapon, there is no option to customize the sets. Supers are attached to weapon sets and can be amazing (the kraken - invincible and instakills) or completely useless (killer wail- gives too much warning) Matchmaking is completely random and you will frequently end up fighting against players who have maxed out their rank and are wearing finely tuned gear even though you just started playing. Customization of your look is almost non-existent, as you must choose your clothes based on the primary bonuses they provide. Almost everyone seems to be wearing gas masks, camo hats, and blue moto boots. You are not rewarded based on your individual progress so much as on if your team of random people were able to collaborate better than the enemy team, you receive a large point and money bonus based on victory or losses, so if you had the highest score but your team was asleep, you are punished. This is especially the case during the mandatory event "splatfest" where you are awarded half the splatfest rank points for losing than winning, and if your overall team loses the event you receive half the upgrade items that the winning team did. There are a few obvious contenders for "Best Weapon" in the game, so you see these weapons in almost every match. Aerospray, Gal, and Carbon roller come to mind. Most weapons are one or two shot kills, so often confrontations are all about "who was behind who" or "who has longer range than who" Splatfest events ARE MANDATORY. YOU MUST HAVE MANDATORY FUN CITIZEN. NO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY OTHER MODES DURING THIS TIME OF MANDATORY FUN. SOUND: I hope you like unintelligible "squid-pop" consisting of an annoying high pitched nonsense language, and the same few songs OVER AND OVER AGAIN! No voice chat for friends or premade groups. Hope you have skype or teamspeak! VISUALS: Not bad, the graphics look pretty good on this Wii-U title. You don't get much time to admire them in the actual game mode though since every second not smearing everything in your color coded ink is essentially defeat. ONLINE CONNECTION ISSUES: Unless you have a very fast internet connection you WILL have problems with Splatoon. Connection lost, "why isn't my ink showing up" and "why is everything the enemy's color now it was mine a nanosecond ago" were frequent problems, especially when playing with people who were obviously overseas. Requires an always on internet connection to access most options such as stores. SINGLE PLAYER GAMEPLAY: Probably the best part of Splatoon, but sadly very short and you can 100% finish it in an afternoon. Normal enemies are ridiculously easy as they are COMPLETELY unaware of your presence if all you do is hold the squid form button and throw grenades. Bosses are the only challenge, and those are still rather easy to defeat. The final boss however does become almost tedious by the time you reach his final form. The weapons in this mode actually feel really good and you can customize your loadout, as well as upgrade it. Content is locked behind the purchase of three specific amiibos, your collection of amiibos besides these will do nothing, so much for first party games supporting your amiibos. FINAL WORDS: I am glad nintendo is trying new things, but I would like it if they took the time to review other games of the genre they are getting into and perhaps cut out the really bad bits such as leveling up in an online multiplayer versus game. If they just have to keep levels in, then perhaps they should gate off maximum level players from playing against people who just started, and some kind of score based matchmaking system that does not pair you with W33DG0KU420 who is too busy doing bong rips to touch his controller VS a team consisting of maximum level players from japan who've had a long time to practice at this game and are almost guaranteed to cause weird lag shenanigans. VERDICT: Rent/Borrow. Enjoy the single player mode for an afternoon, ignore the online component. Do not buy.

Evolve is MAYBE $20 bucks worth of game, asking full triple A game price of $60, and another $60 for DLC coming to a total of $120 is just insane. Don't buy this right now, just wait for them to release some bundled "Ultimate edition" on the cheap and pick it up then if you're really curious. It's a neat concept but they shot themselves in the foot by not just packaging the whole deal and selling it for $40 bucks out of the gate. If they hadn't been greedy about it they could have been the next big "must have" weird niche game. Sadly the game gets very formulaic, lay down some fake tracks, double back with sneak, go eat critters and avoid the dorksquad until you hit maximum level, then go smash the hunters or the generator. OR get stuck on the hunter team and quit because not being the monster is extra boring.

What a heap of garbage. This is what passes for an "Expansion" these days? I remember back when an expansion was an entire new campaign or better (Starcraft brood war, remember that?) and worse yet, most of this stupid DLC is already ON THE DISC. So what do you get? Oh a couple new strikes, a new raid, and all your gear you worked so hard to get? Yeah its now useless. Oh you can "upgrade" it if the gear was exotic, BUT you'll have to completely re-level it and spend a bunch of strange coins for the privilege. And that new raid? Oh it's about as buggy and boring as the old one. Did they add any real story? Nope! Here's the whole story for the expansion: the lone survivor of a failed raid group from the new raid has come back to earth to tell everybody that big hive bossman CROTA is coming for us, so now we have to do her laundry list of chores to get ready for the fight. Then go beat up croatato with his one weakness... a sword he keeps five feet away from him held by a wimpy guy a strong wind can push over. Oh, but she doesn't actually give you enough gear to go fight him if you do all her chores. Nah she'll give you a secondary weapon and a pair of gloves then tell you to bug off and go GRIND GRIND GRIND for vanguard tokens and the new big crappy token you only get for leveling up vanguard ranks. Oh! but you need the new big token for EVERY GUN they sell now, as well as helms and chestplates, that is, in addition to the same amount of marks you had to give them before. OH! did we mention the new vendor purples are actually WORSE than the old ones? They only have 31 more damage, but noticeably worse statistics than the old guns, especially the new vanguard handcannon vs the old one. BUT I DIGRESS the fact of the matter is, you shouldn't bother with this. There are so many more enjoyable things you could spend your money on, like a burger or some toilet paper. Not to mention this whole stupid thing is an artificial gameplay extender by resetting your grinding for new gear, which is exactly what the next expansion will do, introduce new armor and weapons they expect you to grind up into... really this is a massively stupid plan since it does them no good to keep you playing, they aren't selling you any microtransactions to speed up the grind, so more players just means more server strain/bandwidth used after they have put out the product, so WHY try so hard to artificially extend it's play life? Ah, well.

Inquisition is pretty fun, not perfect, but pretty fun. Gigantic amount of stuff to do, completionists will be wandering the hinterlands alone for a good 20 hours. Interesting party members and world, tons of lore and chitchat for people who enjoy such things. MULTIPLAYER! DA:I has multiplayer, similar to bioware's Mass Effect 3 multiplayer right down to the buying chests and the lobby system. But where ME3's multi was straight up horde mode, DA:I's multi is a dungeon crawl through semi-randomized dungeon segments that ends with a horde fight and boss. So what is wrong with the game that it gets an 8 instead of a 10? - Well, there are no DRAGONS in multiplayer, yeah, a game called DRAGON AGE and you can't fight any dragon bosses in multiplayer. - Demon boss in multiplayer is ridiculously overpowered and can wipe a party in one hit that is almost un-dodgeable. - Multiplayer characters can only have FOUR spells equipped, compared to the EIGHT spells single player characters can access at once. - Screen tearing. It happens kind of frequently. - Horses are dumb and garbage, not nearly fast enough. - Some areas are stupidly huge and devoid of anything interesting in ~85% of the map (hissing wastes especially) - Partymember AI is dirt stupid and acts like it willfully disobeys your commands. - Iron bull, while a funny guy, dies so easily in combat it is ridiculous. - Crafting is limited by schematics you randomly find, and horned dudes cannot wear any hats, only ugly makeup which, as far as I know, cannot be crafted. - Weird bugs, like being launched into space after running up a rock and activating command mode, only to blast off when you deactivate it. Really though, at release this is one of the best games out for the PS4, in a hailstorm of re-release cash grabs. If you are looking for a western RPG to play, you don't have much reason to skip this.

Not enough new content to merit full new-game price. Rockstar could have offered a discount for people who already bought this the first time it was launched for the full $60 dollar price tag, but decided not to. Other companies have offered deals with new-gen launches where you could get the new platform edition for $10, Rockstar did not offer this. Still no heist mode in multiplayer, it was supposed to be added a month after the first release and they never did it. Again you really shouldn't buy this if you already played through GTA V on another system, it isn't worth paying full price all over again for what is essentially the same product you bought before. They didn't even TRY to make this an expanded edition, it is just a re-skin with maybe 5 bucks worth of DLC tacked on.

Skip this and fire up "Space Invaders" instead. Puppy games is a studio notorious for having extremely unforgiving money systems in their games. Both of the Titan games are good examples. If you don't purchase upgrades ~just right~ you're screwed. Combine that with no saving between levels so you're forced to completely restart, and no idea what you're buying / fighting against until you trial & error it, and you've got a game that maybe you'll play a couple times but quickly get put off by the BS. If you like keeping progress in games, stay FAR away.

I was super hyped for destiny, but it made me very sad. First off, core gameplay feels fine, and there aren't any gamebreaking bugs or anything like that. The real problems come from the lack of content and repetition. Bungie likes to say this is their biggest game ever but they have been making linear shooters since forever so how is that a good measuring stick for a quasi-mmo like destiny? The explorable area in Destiny feels tiny, a small selection of open world zones. If you played the beta, multiply the old russia zone by four. That's it. Earth only has one explorable zone, same for the moon, mars, and venus. Each one smells like cut content, too - King's Watch and the Jovian Complex on earth are still sealed after release. The story is almost non-existent, or only available via the trading card like "grimoire" on bungie's WEBSITE, not in the game at all. If it was bungie's intention to leave the player in the dark, well they went in and smashed every nightlight in a fourty mile radius and it sure didn't make anybody happy. The focus on PVP over PVE - illustrated by the majority of "events" revolving around the unbalanced pvp system which is rife with insta-kills and quickly demonstrates which class has the ridiculously superior supermoves. PVE is left to rot, which is a shame because that was all I wanted from this game, with only repetitive strikes, daily bounties/publics to do like a checklist from WoW, and an annoying reputation system which for some reason isn't account-wide, forcing you to build up reputation all over again for any other class characters you make. PVE's strike playlist seems weighted or perhaps pruned to only provide the same 2-3 strikes in each rank, and is your only option if you want to be rewarded for doing strikes or any kind of mission once you hit level 20. Which leads me to how players are rewarded in destiny, which is to say- they aren't. for all their talk of having a "cool story" about every piece of legendary gear you have, my only story is "oh the blue deckard cain cryptarch man ate 20 other purple engrams and this is the only one that survived" or "oh i went to vanguard-mart and bought these", hardly ~epic tales~ for the ages. Additionally you will receive NO REWARDS for doing any story missions after level 20, unless it is a "daily" story mission. and choosing a strike to do with your friends which ISN'T via the playlist menu will get you roughly jack crap if anything. Oh and get this: BOSSES DON'T DROP LOOT! This is an extreme wtf moment, they should be a loot pinata after how long they take to fight! Bungie, take a lesson from borderlands 2. On top of this, a Playlist Strike takes about an hour to complete and you are maybe only going to get 2 blues (not legendaries) from completing it, and blues are completely useless once you hit 20, you NEED purples and exotics to advance. Honestly shooting into that loot cave was more rewarding than any of the activities in destiny and it should have been a huge wake up call for Bungie, but all they did was close it, water down drop tables, and ensure your purples stay purple (the only good decision of the pack.) For now I'm just waiting to see if my pre-bought DLC consists of cut content, a friend of mine is convinced that new dinklebot lines or other hollywoodians talking will confirm that the DLC was just slashed from the game and sold to us later. We'll see. Maybe Destiny 2 will waste less money on bored hollywood voice actors and put more into generating content and fun things to do. I also am personally challenging Bungie to patch in a better and more rewarding loot system so everybody can feel the warm fuzzy embrace of purple and gold drops no matter what they decide to do with their time in game. If they ever do, maybe my review will change.

Shadow of Mordor is a better assassin's creed game than any assassin's creed game. I spent a good 4 hours as soon as the game started roaming around stabbing orcs in the back, having a grand ol' time murdering anything that moved and hunting down captains before I even bothered getting into the main missions. The game really opens up and shows you it's true colors in the second half with the addition of the "Brand" ability which allows you to convert enemies into your followers. Suddenly a 30 on 1 brawl looks less like an impossible disaster and more like an opportunity. The nemesis system is a lot of fun and I had many a "Hey, I remember that guy!" moment when a captain I killed came back with a metal eye-patch or a sack over his head screaming "they call me bag head now!" and with the brand power you can take control of those captains and ensure their rise in the ranks of Sauron's army, becoming a shadowy figure pulling their strings from behind a curtain as you lure your true foes out into the open and crush them with your army of carefully selected and trained up warchiefs. The only real complaints I have are the fiddly controls near walls, getting stuck on them when you try to walk around them can be a little annoying, and climbing around on archer towers trying to drop into the middle space can also be irritating. The lack of a smarter lock-on in combat means you'll end up combat-branding the same guy twice in a row and not him and his pal right next to him. There is no -hard- lock on either, so you have to contend with the soft lock on system and fiddly wiggle yourself around a bunch until the guy in the pack below you want to pounce on is lit up, this is especially a nuisance when the enemy has a group of bodyguards. The story is about average length for games these days, and it ends on a modern movie style "sequel coming!" note. It took about 3 solid days of playing to get ~most~ of the stuff in the game done, sidequests and all, I figure 4-5 days total if one were to try and platinum it AND just play the game. In all I would give this game a solid 8.6 out of 10, but since I can't, it's getting a 9.

I have over 600 hours in this game. Yeah. That is abnormal for me, most games I simply play through once and put down. If you have a Wii-U there is no excuse to skip over the best co-op online experience on the system.

This game is amazing, I know everybody is talking about the hyper-fantasy art style with giant musclemen and mega-endowed ladies, but aside from the boosted up secondary sex characteristics (which are masterfully and lovingly painted by the way) every section of every level, every enemy type, and every boss monster looks BEAUTIFUL. The gameplay is outstanding, very responsive controls in a slick beat-em-up package with a variety of playstyles represented by different characters. There are RPG elements such as level ups, putting points into skills, and collecting loot to equip. The loot is always tailored to your level & class, and you often get nice gear just one level away to keep you tantalized. The Dwarf is a hilarious class to play, picking up monsters and throwing them into each other, snatching them out of the air and doing a spinning throw to crater them into the earth and creating a blast wave that decimates their friends. I feel like a big time wrassler man playing him. The Fighter is way faster than his looks would tell you, he's also a blocky fella with a skill that allows him a chance to auto-block attacks, and another skill that makes him go all super saiyan when he does block an attack. His whole deal is hyperfast sword swings and an ability to air combo things for days. The Amazon is a musclebound lady who crushes things with a giant polearm, or spins through the air like a flying buzzsaw. If she plants that polearm in the ground then she'll start doing super fast kicks and boot the enemy around like a sportball. The Sorceress is my favorite magic user, she can zip through the air on her staff as if she was riding a speedy broom, and blast things with elements based on the staff she is using. She also has skills that give her books of spells to read and cast massive screen wide spells that decimate basic enemies and bosses alike, protect your party from damage, or make healing food for them. She also can summon skeletal minions (It is a trend in vanillaware games to have necromancers be well endowed "lifegiving mothers" rather than grizzled old men who -command- the dead to rise up) The Wizard is the other spell caster, he (as of the latest patch) can overcharge himself to do more damage with his spells, he also gets a insanely powerful spell that takes a VERY long time to cast. He has a lot of fire spellbooks and his most important spell is probably "Slow" which can stop bosses in their tracks and allow your party to decimate them. The Elf feels like a jack of all trades, master of none. She can do kicky melee, she can cast "spirit magic" based on the elements around her (fire near a torch or fire magic, water in a pool of water, air is default, and more) she cal also fire arrows coated in fire or poison and make burning fires or pools of poison with them. I suggest to everyone who is a fan of sidescrolling beat-em-ups like Final fight, Streets of Rage, or any of the delightful arcade games such as the AvP beat-em-up (which used to be my favorite in the genre before this came out!) to get this game. Don't listen to any controversy, enjoy the game and feel no shame.

I picked this up via the September 26, 2013 Humble bundle, Played the android version all the way through. Let me start by saying this: the graphics are nice, the music is nice, but the gameplay and lack of challenge are where this "game" falls flat on it's face. Throughout the game there was ZERO sense of danger in battle, my shields were EASILY refilling way before the enemy ever attacked again, I never had to use dodge or shield boost, and I could leave the game sitting for hours in a battle and never die! Combat goes like this: Enemy always hits you first, you take a little shield damage, your shields are full before the next salvo. You wait, and wait some more as your weapons charge up. You push the weapon button, this starts a little minigame where you tap at the right time to fire your weapons, the better you do, the less time you will waste "in battle". Continue this until the enemy is out of health 10 minutes later. Hooray, repeat this fifteen times and you win the game! Good job you did two timing minigames a few hundred times. Only ONCE did I have my ship boarded and I assume that was because it was a tutorial mission with zombie cosmonauts. The only danger in the game is maybe two or three spots where your dialogue choice ends up having your ship get set on fire or boarded constantly during the fight. Additionally there is no diplomacy, and you don't actually customize your ship so much as choose two out of three weapons and two out of three special rooms. You also do not get to upgrade to a bigger ship unless you beat the game and do what is essentially newgame+, however the ship you have is invincible from the start so who cares about new playthroughs? Do not pay full price for this, it is NOT like FTL, and you will be disappointed and bored.

Been playing this series since the first one on the NES, and this is a fairly solid entry to the Zelda series, but there are some problems. For one thing, I'm pretty sick of the motion controls for the sword, I'd like an option for classic zelda style controls. In heated combat the motion controls feel unresponsive, and many enemies require precision strikes to defeat. The shields feel utterly useless, they take up a space in your 'adventure pouch' a separate inventory from your normal gear and have a durability meter. The shield is made even more useless by the fact that extreme aggression is usually the method required to defeat enemies, rarely you will encounter an enemy who requires you use the shield. An MMO style grinding mechanic has been introduced: acquire treasures to upgrade your items, most of these come from monster drops, which are randomized, so be ready to grind out some keese in a zelda game to make your shield slightly better. The first boss is very un-zelda-y and feels out of place, you don't even get a chance to use your first dungeon item against it. Instead, it will serve to emphasize how off the controls feel, as you try to move your sword to strike from another angle, only to have it counted as a swing, and get damaged for it. Additionally the "Navi"-like entity accompanying you somehow feels less helpful than Navi ever did. Most enemies you encounter will only have very barebones descriptions which can leave you guessing what you're doing wrong while you get pummeled and struggle against them and the controls. Some of the enemies such as the "Armos" can stunlock you for a good 3-4 hearts in a row, making you very frustrated. This is possibly the first zelda game where I've ever been stunlocked by an enemy that just camps my knocked down body and gets free hits in taking half my hearts. The boomerang appears to be missing, and replaced by a slow flying beetle robot, which has a much different functionality. The beetle is less of a in-combat weapon and more of an out of combat seeker missile/bomber/puzzle tool. All in all, it isn't a bad zelda game, but it really needs more options to allow you to fine tune the controls or completely disable the combat motion controls in favor of standard controller play. With the option to disable motion controls I would have no pressing complaints about this title, but sadly this is not the case.

This is an abomination and offends in every sense of the word. It is like purchasing a box of self-torture and injecting it directly into your ears and eyes. I don't even want to think about this game anymore, just please avoid it. Go play superman 64 or ET for the atari instead.

Pretty fantastic game. Very smooth and polished. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign mode, and eagerly await the next installment. Sadly the community that surrounds it is not conducive to enjoying the game experience. Great fun to play with friends, but as usual you should avoid the pubbies. Most of them haven't learned to act like decent human beings yet, or play very robotic "strats" that if fail, they immediately leave. The computer opponent is more challenging and inventive than most of the players you'll find online. Also the major league gaming component is entirely ignorable. You can have a much better time with this game without paying any attention to the elitist buffoonery that surrounds it.

One of the absolute best games for the Wii. On a system plagued with shovelware, ports, and half-arsed garbage, this is a diamond in the rough. But don't get me wrong, this game probably isn't for everybody. It has a penchant for being oldschool difficult at times, and has a learning curve that can put a lot of people off. Key gameplay point: Don't get hit. But with practice and a keen eye for tells, you can pull this off. Very satisfying to lord over monsters that once made you run in fear once you learn their tactics. Extra fun if you have friends to play with, and if they own a wii, they should own this. As far as control schemes go, I would have liked if they allowed you to use the gamecube controller, but I found the wiimote + nunchuck to be preferable for Sword + Shield & Hammer styles, and the wii controller addon for Lances, Longswords & Greatswords. Music wise; this game is amazing. Vast sweeping orchestral scores and fantastic beats with a tribal flavor are in abundance. I highly recommend the OST just to listen to whenever. Graphics: not the shiniest most ultra detailed thing ever made but still looks really good, the landscapes, monsters, weapons, and armor are all pleasing to look at. Story: the story is fairly straightforward, and the npcs are not overbearing. The completion of the story and it's challenges is satisfying, and there is a great deal more that can only be done online with friends. The game does not force you to play offline first either, you are free to wander online and offline at will. If you have three friends with Wii consoles, and need something fun to do together, I highly recommend you pick this game up immediately. Even if you're a lone wolf **** with nobody to play with, I still say go get this game. It really should be on every action and adventure game fan's wii pile.

Brink is an interesting concept, and has solid fundamental gameplay, but it does have a few flaws. Let me first state that this is a review of Single player only. As of writing this review, the PSN is still down. So, lets touch on the first blemish; whoever said these bots were going to be like players, must have modeled them after the mentally impaired. The bots are clearly bugged. They have one strategy: bumrush everything. Even if their whole team going into that corridor has gotten them killed three times, they will try it again and again. Human players MUST win games for bot teams. Like many bots you may have previously encountered, these frequently stumble around as if in a daze, sometimes completely ignorant to your presence. This is especially annoying if they are a medic and you require healing, or laughable if they are an enemy. I assume these will be patched. Secondly, the story is a bit short, I assume there will be DLC extending it as is apparently the norm with modern video games. Third; there are some minor graphical issues, textures typically need a few seconds to load their normal rez models. Usually this is sorted at the start of a match, so it isn't too bad. Overall the graphics are rather nice, and the cartoonish-hybrid style works. Issue four; Defense maps are heavily slanted in the defender's favor. Engineers are able to almost instantly undo the work of soldiers and operatives that may have taken a minute or more. Defenders can instantly ship "flag" type packages back to their start location, rather than be required to carry them back. Its something more acceptable in a CTF setting, but not in a timed objective game like this. To have five minutes of fighting and running erased by five seconds of activating a flag-item, sending it to it's base is ridiculous. Issue Five: The weaponry does not really explain what it does very well. For example; you may pick out an assault rifle assuming it to be a fully automatic weapon, only to find in actual combat that it is a single shot or burst fire gun. SMGs tend to be extremely powerful in close range combat, which is the order of the day in brink. Assault rifles seem to fire much slower despite having a similar or identical "refire rate" stat bar. Honestly the gear just generally needs more in-game data for the player. The stat bars may as well not even exist when they just don't give you real information about the weapon. Additionally there is no easy way to compare two firearms. In all honesty I am probably being a bit harsh on this game, perhaps because of all the hype. It introduces some interesting features which future FPS games really should incorporate, and if only a few of my concerns were patched into acceptability I would give this a ten, and I am very stingy with my ten scores.

This is a fairly decent multiplayer FPS-RPG hybrid with a random loot gimmick for weapons. If you've ever played the diablo series you should understand how the loot mechanic works. The level up system is a simple multi-tree skill layout like many RPGs today have. The sound was mediocre and in many places it felt barren or lacking. The art style is similar to something you might find in a comic book, but expect to see a lot of brown rocks. Most of the terrain in this game is just bland brown rocks. The gameplay is solid enough for a console shooter, each character has their own special ability in combat and a couple "favored" weapon types. The random loot system is alright, but encourages the dreaded grind, or saving & reloading to re-loot a town's treasure chests in an attempt to get a better weapon. On a personal note, I would have found this title more compelling if the various parts of the weapons (every weapon modifier has a different graphical part on a weapon) could have been removed, replaced and swapped freely between guns. Sadly this is not the case, and as such it is a fairly enjoyable, but not very inventive game. (This review is based on the core game itself and none of it's expansion packs)

This "game" isn't even a real game. More like one of those pretentious art school movies made by a teen with a hand me down video camera, it lacks anything remotely game-like. I'd call it a barely interactive short (20 minute) movie, where your interactions consist of twiddling fingers, drinking soup (which does not stop the banal ranting of the voice actor despite making a godawful slurping noise) and flicking cig ashes out a window if you manage to actually last through this boring crapfest to the final scenes. Graphics are abysmal, they look like PS1 era baby's first school project in 3d art. Save your money, this garbage isn't even one of those 'so bad its good' things. Just watch a video of it on youtube instead if you're curious.

Bulletstorm is a rather average quality title with a couple gimmicks. No co-op campaign kills the replay value, and skillshots aren

Did you enjoy AVP2? If so, you probably won't enjoy this. Thanks to a ridiculous rock paper scissors melee combat system, severe balance issues, short campaigns, dead multiplayer, abysmally slow gameplay and disorienting controls especially for the alien, you'd be lucky if you didn't come down with a severe case of buyer's remorse. The Xenomorph is horribly weak compared to it's last outing in AVP2; removed is it's amazing pounce ability, easy to use wall climb, and any semblance of melee ability. Let me sum up the balance for you right here: a Marine can stunlock a Xenomorph in melee. Yes, the ranged specialist can destroy the melee-only (super strong in lore) Xenomorph in hand to hand combat. Sadly the xenomorph is now the weakest class in the campaign and multiplay. Newly added are ridiculous fatalities that take so long to execute, you'll be lucky not to die in the middle of ripping something's head off. Hope you enjoy maiming your enemies in the same four ways over and over, because these moves are the only way to quickly dispatch foes without getting embroiled in a drawn out alien vs marine boxing match. Both the Predator and Xenomorph campaigns are heavy on the stealth element. Xenomorphs must stick to the shadows, and predators must commandeer high ground and stay cloaked. The predator does have a new skill that makes the campaign a joke though; "Distraction". This new ability lets you target a marine you would like to distract, then select the location you would like him to walk to. Most marines will immediately head to the location you specified, where you can then leap down and use your instant-kill stealth attack. They never really get suspicious about the gargantuan pile of marine corpses they just walked into, so you can use the same exact blind corner to clear out most levels of marine enemies. In addition to this, and related to balance, the predator has two infinite use weapons; the disc and spear, which allow him to remain cloaked and completely decimate his targets at range. Cloaking also uses no energy now, and predators have lost their energy generator and heal-via-energy kit, in favor of a three maximum pickup pred-med-kit system that uses "health shards" much like a marine uses medkits. The predator is by far the most overpowered class in this game. The marine is your typical FPS experience, they have a motion detecting radar, and a variety (less than AVP2) of ranged weapons. The flamethrower has been weakened considerably since AVP2, and the marines have been taking martial arts lessons from solid snake apparently, as they can beat down both of the insanely strong (in lore) alien races in hand to hand combat. The marine campaign is no longer the chilling experience that it was, and part of this is the music and sound's various problems. Lets get into the music then, shall we? You may remember those violin shrieks when something scary happened in AVP2, well, these are now incorporated into the ambient music, and no longer mean anything. So I hope you enjoy hearing the exact same refrain of violin shriek, spooky noise, etc. over and over until you finish the game. You may as well put on your favorite Halloween haunted house cd, because that's what they've turned the soundtrack into. The only thing missing is Dracula making bluuhh noises. Replay value for the campaigns is poor, Hope you enjoy pointless pickups for a couple worthless achievements! Even the alien has to find royal jelly cans hidden around the levels in areas that make no sense considering what the items are. It also hurts the replay value that you keep revisiting the same areas through each campaign. I was saddened by the fact that as of November 2010, the multiplayer scene for this game seems to be on it's last gasps. I managed to get one match during the course of searching for three hours. There does exist some DLC for this game, but I'm not sure how much lacking it affects your ability to find a match. My final verdict for this game: Don't waste your money. Reinstall the old AVP games and have some actual fun, which this game lacks.