Rennn

This is a great game. The people rating it down apparently believe games are primarily a graphics and UI showcase with a playable demo attached. They're so stupid they make my brain hurt. Epic game.

Not quite as good as the PC version, but all the important parts are present. And it's still an excellent game that redefines what games *can* be. The people calling it boring are no doubt uncreative hacks who'd rather be spoon fed explosions.

An all around superior version of Dark Souls, on a new engine with shiny new graphics, improved gameplay, improved animations, improved polish, more stuff to do... There's just nothing to complain about, it's all epic.

This is an underrated gem. The controls are fixed (compared to the Xbox version), and that improves the game overall, leaving intact the excellent level design, physics, graphics, and gameplay that already grace the PC version.

Worth playing for the cooperative multiplayer, but that's all. The campaign is a large disappointment from Resistance: Fall of Man. As you probably already know, the weapon wheel and cooperative campaign have both been removed. These were defining features of the original, and a couple of its largest attractions. The style has degraded from Resistance 1. The sepia look has been abandoned in favor of neon grass and oversaturated colors. I understand that people are trying to move away from dull gray shooters. I understand that, I really do. But if there was one series in the world that should keep a dull color palette, it should have been Resistance. Furthermore, the colors in Resistance 2 are not balanced or realistic at all. The flora practically glows it's such a bright shade of neon green. The campaign has become worse as well. There's no longer any mystique to the chimera. They're aliens, that's all. Just aliens. As if we need another generic shooter with invading aliens. The chimera are no longer an aggressive hive mind ruled by the Angels. Instead, they now have military ranks like humans, and the Angels have been replaced by a partially human mutation named Daedalus. The chimera have lost their ferocity. In Resistance 1, it was common to see chimera biting and ripping at human soldiers. It was clear they were enraged and bestial, and the style worked perfectly to reinvigorate the stagnant shooter market. In Resistance 2, the chimera act so human they even listen to orders from overseers. It's simply a terrible way to portray the chimera. Graphics have only arguably improved from Resistance 1. Water is now dynamic, and that's the best thing I have to say about it. It resembles blue jello at this point, and while it's amusing to watch, it can't be taken seriously. The rest of the graphics have seemingly just been painted in brighter colors. There's less of a selection of guns in Resistance 2, and there are fewer enemy types. In general, the single player is just bad. Multiplayer, however is much better. The 8 player cooperative multiplayer is immeasurably fun to play. Each of the 3 classes supports the others, and it creates a real sense of companionship with your team. In a good team, it's possible to overwhelm even full battalions of chimera (of which there are several dozen on screen at once). Ravagers and the hybrids that follow them add back much of the sense of ferocity that the chimera lost in the single player, and the 60 player competitive matches are chaotic and fun. The traditionally insane weapons of Resistance are fully featured in both competitive and cooperative multiplayer, and they create dynamic gameplay you just don't see in other shooters. I paid $60 for Resistance 2, and I've never regretted it simply because the multiplayer is so fully developed and so much fun. If you want to focus on the single player campaign, prepare to be disappointed.

This is not a good game, period. Combat is repetitive, and even though the story has a wonderful concept, the execution completely flops. The message is forced and heavy-handed, and relies on a series of amazing coincidences to even function. You meet exactly the right people at the right time to advance the plot. Aside from that, voice acting ranges from average to painful. I spent the entire game wanting to shoot my meatheaded chest-thumping squadmates in the face, and the absolute best part of the entire game was when I actually got to kill them. Guns are standard shooter fare. Play literally any other generic shooter and you'll find the same list of weapons. There are very few multiplayer maps, and the multiplayer itself is horribly unbalanced. The Mantel win almost every match, and the only time they lose it's because the match is so full of teamkillers that nobody can get anything done. There are some redeeming qualities. For example, I like that you can scavenge similar ammunition between different weapons. The idea of scavenging Mantel self-propelled rockets for flamethrower fuel was creative. In addition, cooperative multiplayer allows a friend (local or online) to join your campaign. This would be great, except the game itself still isn't very good and I don't recommend that you make a friend subject themselves to this kind of monotony.

Great graphics, a good story, and a highly mature, realistic appraisal of a fantasy universe. Combine this with mod support, responsive combat, and creative dungeon/landscape design, and you have a superb game. The only downside is, ironically, related to the graphics. The Witcher 2 uses only DX9, rather than DX10 or DX11, and this means that it's virtually impossible to use Anisotropic Filtering on Parallaxed textures. In simpler terms, this means that some textures are blurry when viewed at an angle.

This is not nearly as bad as some reviews indicate. It's a large improvement over the first one in every possible way, and although it doesn't offer a good story, it does deliver a lot of creative loot that's genuinely fun to use, and a lot of action. The art direction is above average, and the game is made to be played more than once, as it unlocks new content. I got this for $7, and I'm glad I didn't miss the chance to enjoy this game.

Pure awesome distilled into game form. If you have hands, you should play this. The entire series, when played in succession, has the ability to change who you are as a person.

Dragon Age 2 is a mixed improvement over Dragon Age: Origins. The game is not as short as many people say. It's easy to put in about 40 hours on one playthrough, as long as you go out of your way to find side quests. If you just try to burn through the story, you'll come out at probably 15 hours. This is a departure from DAO, because in DAO you run into almost every side quest simply by visiting the story locations. In DA2 you have to search. This isn't necessarily good or bad, it's just a change that many people missed. The characters are at least as good as those in Origins, though they're not similar in personality. Stories are consistently multifaceted, with many correct points of view, and which characters you love mostly depends on which one you find the most convincing. Every character's motivations make sense from their point of view. I love Merrill, but I've met people online who think she's the biggest idiot of all time. Likewise, I hate Fenris, but some people love him. Bioware's curse is that they always make characters so deep and multifaceted that a significant portion of the audience hates most of them, because their personalities don't line up with that specific player's view **** person. The story is completely different from Origins. Rather than a single epic climax, it has two climaxes, and the setting is halfway across the world from Origins. A completely different set of problems faces the characters in DA2. It's not a good or bad thing for the series, simply different. Combat has immeasurably improved. You can now actually stab with your daggers and swing your sword, rather than flopping every weapon through the air like a broken tennis racket. More spells are available for mages that allow them to funnel enemies into position for tanks, and every class has more methods of breaking up crowds (which were hopelessly annoying in Origins). The downside to this is that enemy AI has not noticeably improved from Origins, meaning that all your new abilities, it's easy to win after the first 10 hours unless you play on the hardest difficulty. As usual for a Bioware game, the characters are the incredible part, and they're better than ever. Only Mass Effect does characters as well, and that makes sense considering they're from the same developer.

Another masterpiece from Bioware. First, I've never played the game without the free Extended Cut DLC, which alters the endings. Keep that it in mind. From what I'm told, the original endings were horrible, but they're not bad with the EC DLC. Many of the complaints are just NOT true. Characters do not randomly die. I imported a save which I'd used in both ME1 and ME2, and all of my choices mattered. Mordin lived, Tali lived, Garrus lived. Liara lived, and I was ecstatic to notice that she's back as a permanent companion in ME3, because she was my romance interest in ME1 and ME2. Everyone relevant lived. I even got the Geth and Quarians working together... I guess I don't understand the negative reviews for ME3. If you make too many mistakes you'll get everyone killed and be a sad kitty, but if you put some time into the series (all 3 games) your choices really accumulate and you can save virtually everyone. The reapers are a galaxy-destroying terror. Yes, it's hard to get the good ending and requires a lot of effort on the players part. You will need to play all three games and get everyone working together. You'll need to mediate disputes between your companions, and you'll need to earn massive amounts of loyalty if you want to survive the reaper onslaught. It wouldn't make sense any other way. Maybe modern gamers don't typically understand this, but an epic victory means way more if it's difficult to achieve. The reapers are powerful... It takes a very skilled and diplomatic player to defeat them without your friends dying in the process. it's sad to see an amazing game like Mass Effect 3 get bashed simply because players weren't willing to put in the effort to save their favorite companions.

This game is generally terrible. The controls manage to be stiff, even at 60 fps with mouse and keyboard controls. Animations are wooden, and the AI is remarkably bad. I really have no idea how the AI can be just this terrible. Sometimes enemy guards will see you randomly and raise the alarm, even if you're half a mile away buried under bushes and dense grass. Other times, you can dash across a road right in front of them without alerting them. Broken AI is unforgivable in a game about stealth and sniping. Enemies themselves are pathetic in fights, and it should be simple for any gamer to simply kill everyone. It's easier than trying to sneak through, considering how bad the stealth mechanics are. The final nail in the coffin is that Ghost Warrior is heavily scripted. Your character will do things without your control in mini cutscenes, and usually it ends up landing you in trouble or setting you up for an especially broken mission where every enemy is automatically aware of your presence. I can't give this game more than 3.

It's a solid 7, imo. Although still pretty good, the art direction got worse from Fallout 3. I doubt anyone wants to see a poorly textured cartoon cowboy face on a robot, but New Vegas has that and much more. The amount of cringe-worthy moments in the game detract from the experience. Some enemies are poorly done and look more like mediocre mods than core parts of the vanilla game. I'm looking at you, tiny mantis enemies and purple super mutants. *glare* The lighting and general graphics have gotten worse from Fallout 3. HDR lighting is arguably better, but texture resolutions are unchanged, and Obsidian's texture artists are not nearly as skilled as Bethesda's. As usual for games on the Gamebryo Engine, physics and shadows are almost nonexistent. Most other games today use various combinations of hair physics, cloth physics, destruction physics, and sometimes even skin physics. New Vegas has none of those. Many items are laughably low-poly, and the orange tint to the screen turns blues and greens into muddy shades of aqua. I haven't seen a game with worse colors in a long time. It's a very poor port. Graphics options are mostly accessible only from the main menu, and the game is optimized horribly. Even with a GTX 660 TI, which overkills the recommended settings, the framerate drops into the 15-20 range at times. This is unacceptable, considering I run Crysis 3 much better than that, and New Vegas looks awful by comparison. Fallout 3 looks better and runs better. Archive invalidation is still required for texture mods, which is archaic and unreliable. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the PC port of New Vegas is similar in quality to the reviled port of Dark Souls. The difference is, Dark Souls is actually a great game, and New Vegas doesn't even have that to soften the blow of a terrible port. That's not to say the game is all bad. The approach to sexuality is more mature in New Vegas than it was in Fallout 3, and more work went into making ghouls 'real' characters, despite the fact that there are fewer of them. In addition, the companions in the game are much better and characters have more developed personalities. Character skin is more detailed and realistic than in Fallout 3, and settings are typically more original. New Vegas is larger than Fallout 3, and weapon mods and hardcore mode are great additions. Some things improved from Fallout 3, while other things got worse. It's an average game which will no doubt be mildly entertaining for just about everyone, but I doubt many people will love it.

I'm changing my score. I gave it a 8 initially, but after playing through most of the game, it just gets worse and worse. Repetition increases, and eventually what story existed in the beginning disappears. I give it a 6 now.

Awesome game, even better since they added open world. You can tell the developers really care about the happiness of their fans, as they've systematically addressed almost every common complaint from Zeno Clash 1.

It's very hard for me to review this game. I loved Oblivion, which makes this all the more painful. Skyrim is just as good as Oblivion. There. I said it. Skyrim is EXACTLY as good as Oblivion. I get the feeling that most of Skyrim's raving fans have never played a previous Elder Scrolls game. There's very little progress for the series. Graphics have barely improved, gameplay is identical, and quests are no more creative than they were in 2006. For everything Bethesda added in Skyrim, they removed something else. To add more unique spells, they removed spellcrafting. To add dynamic shadows, they removed most of the HDR lighting quality. To add NPCs with more personality, they removed many of the total NPCs, leaving Skyrim barren. To add horse combat, they removed the first person horse camera. Etc. It just continues like this. Every time Bethesda adds something to a sequel, they take away something else. Essentially, Skyrim is the same game I played in 2006, and although I loved Oblivion then, it's not okay to sell the same game year after year. Morrowind defined the genre in 2002, and 10 years later, Skyrim still hasn't significantly improved. It kills me to do this to a series I still like, but at most, Skyrim deserves an average review. Mods on the PC version are the only reason to buy this game instead of literally any other generic RPG to release in the last 10 years.

If you go into this expecting Red Faction Guerrilla 2, you will be disappointed. This is much more of a sequel to Red Faction 1 and 2 than it is to Guerrilla. Even some of the aliens resemble those from Red Faction 1, and many allusions to events in its story are made. First, the game is not open world, as about 100% of the internet knows already. This is a bad thing, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The saving grace of becoming linear is that it allows the player to use destruction as a dynamic puzzle. In Guerrilla, it didn't matter whether or not you blew up any specific building, because if it broke you could just walk around it. In Armageddon, you're funneled directly through collapsing buildings. This means you have a real reason to create chaos to crush enemy swarms, and you have a method to rebuild when necessary. One feature I loved in Guerrilla were the randomized real-time objectives. Courier intercepts were my favorite. Unfortunately, nothing like this exists in Armageddon. Physics have improved in Armageddon. Though each structure falls in roughly the style as in Guerrilla, each chunk of material is now heavier and falls more quickly, and causes more damage to surrounding structures. This means that collapsing a building can create a chain reaction and topple nearby structures, or kill many enemies at once. There is now less focus on triggering a full building to collapse based on a predetermined amount of structural damage, and more of a focus on pulling down each portion of building individually. Graphics have improved in Armageddon. Some players have trouble with DX10 and DX11, just like in Guerrilla. That makes sense, given that they use an upgraded version of the same engine. However, you do NOT need to activate DX9 to fix the problem. There are a few methods of fixing the issue that do not require you to disable graphical effects, especially on Nvidia cards. On a GTX 660, I run Armageddon at ultra settings at 55-60 fps. DX10 and DX11 work fine for me in Armageddon, probably because I fixed my system for it during Red Faction Guerrilla. Textures are markedly higher resolution in Armageddon, with higher quality specular maps and less compressed diffuse maps. Ambient occlusion and shadow filtering has increased in quality, decreasing the grainy appearance of Guerrilla. There's a lot more clutter in the environments, and the character models and weapons are much more realistic. Running DX11 does not change graphics much. The only notable improvements are a slight increase in ambient occlusion quality and an increase in texture clarity. Global lighting also changes format slightly from DX9 to DX11, but that's more a matter of taste than realism. The story is superior in Armageddon. Characters tend to have more personality, and events have a more personal impact. I liked the rebellion setting in Guerrilla more, but the story is better executed in Armageddon and ultimately is more fun to experience. It's worth noting that I don't like competitive multiplayer, so I don't miss it from Guerilla. The story in Armageddon is short-ish. It's longer than Call of Duty, for example, but shorter than Dark Souls. I didn't time myself all the time on my first playthrough of Armageddon, but I would estimate about 11 hours of gameplay, assuming you don't rush and get it done as fast as possible. What really saves it, however, is the addition of a New Game It makes up for the lack of a free play mode, imo. On to more positive features, you can now repair anything at any time. This is a feature that had to be modded into Guerrilla, and I'm glad it's already in Armageddon. The magnet gun in Armageddon struck me as a gimmick. I didn't want to use it while watching Youtube videos, and I was certain I'd just ignore it. After playing the game myself, I can say that the magnet gun is much more fun to use than it is to watch. It's a very intuitive method of pulling down buildings and wiping out swarms of bugs, and it's now a fixture in my inventory. Another positive change in Armageddon is the style. It's NOT the same style as Guerrilla. Guerrilla had a pure industrial style, befitting a society focused on mining and construction. Armageddon has a few more scifi influences, but it's tempered by a very cool dystopian/industrial style more similar to Killzone 2 than Guerrilla. The aliens themselves are characterized by fleshy growths on caves and buildings, and red crystals. Over all, Armageddon is not a pure sequel to Guerrilla. It's like a sequel to the original Red Faction. Graphics are good, the gameplay is great, and the story is okay. As usual for Volition games, dynamic physics are the main draw, and they're better than ever, not just on destructible buildings, but also on dynamic cloth, NPCs, and particles. I like Armageddon more than Guerrilla, even though the return to linear levels is a mixed blessing.

Meh... This was nearly identical to MW2. Literally, I think they copied some of each level layout. Not only that, but the game is an awful port. We're locked at a console FOV, with poor optimization on high-end hardware. There are no dedicated servers, cheaters and lag abounds, and if my sticky reticule pops to one more enemy automatically I think I'm going to ceremoniously burn this game. There is no reason on the PC to make the game aim for the player. Multiplayer has literally not advanced at all. Graphics are poor, the engine is out of date. There's nothing but lag, cheaters, and kids whining and screaming over their microphones every time they die. There are no new modes, and no unique guns. You get to choose between slightly different re-skins of the same gun, pretty much, because they're all equally bland and stiff to use. There are no advanced physics to enhance dynamic gameplay, still no vehicles, and the killstreaks are more cheap than fun at this point. Who likes to join a match where half your team is just getting insta-killed by a helicopter above the map? Roll the dice. You might not randomly die, between the latency, the aim assist, and the 20 foot knives. That's pretty much all this game is. Random death. Grenade spam, camping, quickscope abuse, and lag all contribute to one pathetic package of random death. It gets 2 instead of 0 because it's a functional game, and not a pile of slag that nukes your HDD.

Meh... This was nearly identical to MW2. Literally, I think they copied some of each level layout. Not only that, but the game is an awful port. We're locked at a console FOV, with poor optimization on high-end hardware. There are no dedicated servers, cheaters and lag abounds, and if my sticky reticule pops to one more enemy automatically I think I'm going to ceremoniously burn this game. There is no reason on the PC to make the game aim for the player. Multiplayer has literally not advanced at all. Graphics are poor, the engine is out of date. There's nothing but lag, cheaters, and kids whining and screaming over their microphones every time they die. There are no new modes, and no unique guns. You get to choose between slightly different re-skins of the same gun, pretty much, because they're all equally bland and stiff to use. There are no advanced physics to enhance dynamic gameplay, still no vehicles, and the killstreaks are more cheap than fun at this point. Who likes to join a match where half your team is just getting insta-killed by a helicopter above the map? Roll the dice. You might not randomly die, between the latency, the aim assist, and the 20 foot knives. That's pretty much all this game is. Random death. Grenade spam, camping, quickscope abuse, and lag all contribute to one pathetic package of random death. It gets 2 instead of 0 because it's a functional game, and not a pile of slag that nukes your HDD.

I was not scared by Dead Space or Silent Hill: Homecoming. I was not even remotely scared by Resident Evil 5 or 6. Condemned: CO and Condemned 2: Bloodshot had maybe 4 or 5 creepy spots. There are not really any horror games anymore. Well, Amnesia is a real survival horror game. It's the first game to actually make me nervous and keep me nervous since I was 9 years old. You'll fear the dark, you'll fear the little grubs that hide in shadows, and you'll fear the scratching noise behind your eyes. Most of all, you'll be scared the moment you realize that you literally don't know if something is right behind you. As if Amnesia isn't good enough, it's moddable and allows players to create their own stories. There's a ton of fan-made content online. This is everything a survival horror fan could want in a game...

I'll keep this short, since it's a simple breakdown. The game is amazing. It's possibly the most immersive and fluid gem of our generation. Combat is excellent, the art style is sublime, and the story that exists is told through clever hints that allow the player to discover the world on their own, without being spoon-fed. Dark Souls is one of the best games of all time. Having said that, the PC port is just horrible. Optimization is okay, but unreliable at times. Beyond that, mouse and keyboard controls are totally inane, and the resolution is capped at 720p. HOWEVER, there's a simple mod called DSfix that uncaps the framerate and fixes most of the other issues as well. It's a completely essential mod that turns Dark Souls from a bad port into a pretty decent port. Here's the summary: If you plan on using DSfix, get this game for the PC now. It's an epic experience and it comes bundled with amazing DLC. If you absolutely will not use DSfix for some reason, you're better off saving yourself the trouble and getting a console version.

There are a few reasons this got mixed reviews. The largest is that it's not similar to any other Might and Magic game. The lore is the same, and the story fits, but the gameplay is a complete departure from the usual series. I'm guessing that alienated some of the fans, but I far prefer ARPGs, so the change in style is a positive imo. The game is terribly buggy until you get the latest patch, but with the latest patch (1.02), all of the serious issues are fixed. I'm not counting that against the score anymore because it's simply stupid to rate a game down for issues that have already been fixed. Imo, Dark Messiah is excellent. Voice acting is poor at times, but fortunately it's quite good for Leanna and Xana (the two companions and romance options who have 90% of the total dialogue). The combat is deeper than the typical ARPG, and there's a heavy emphasis on using the environment to kill opponents. In fact, if you don't take advantage of alternate tactics the fights will last a long time and sap your health. It's much quicker to throw an urn of oil at someone and kick them into a fire than it is to simply slash at them repeatedly. I suspect this is where some complaints came from. Some people end up slowly grinding through every fight, because they won't accept that they need to think fast and use varied tactics to beat enemies efficiently. I can't stress this enough; it simply is not effective to spam attacks on someone's shield. Instead, throw a shovel at them and beat them down while they're distracted. Etc. The combat reminds me of Zeno Clash+Skyrim. I can't fault Dark Messiah for requiring some intelligence on the player's end. On to other aspects, there are a lot of hidden areas in zones that add replay value. Add variable endings and several relevant difficulty modes, and there's a lot of potential for at least a few playthroughs. Replayability and game length is huge for me. Since I'm in college and I don't have infinite cash, it doesn't make sense to spend $20-50 on a game for just a few hours of entertainment. At times, Dark Messiah incorporates parkour and climbing aspects to offset its combat, and in general it works very well. My only complaint in that regard is that I wish the climbing was a bit more fluid. I play at 60 fps on a full gaming rig with a high-precision mouse, and even then it was sometimes difficult to maintain control of the character while vaulting between windows. The story is decidedly average. The first time I played it, I wasn't really sure what was going on. I just knew Necromancers were killing people and there were a lot of spider-worshippers. My second playthrough, I took more time to read books and notes (hidden in the game), and I paid a lot more attention to in-game banter and cutscenes. After paying more attention, the story becomes a lot more interesting, but it's still not great. The graphics, from what I understand, were stunningly beautiful back when the game released. In 2013, they still hold up well enough. The character models especially look good, which is welcome, because unless you're female or otherwise inclined, you'll probably spend a lot of the game staring at your companion's mostly exposed thighs. One thing I also like is that the girl attached to the aforementioned thighs is reasonably clothed. There's no lingerie armor here. There's only one character wearing skimpy (or no) clothing throughout, and she's a succubus, so that makes sense. Hair and skin is also well done, and water supports full scene reflections. The HDR lighting is still beautiful and the physics hold up well. I ran the game on ultra at 60 fps back when I had a GTX 460, and I still run it on ultra at 60 fps now that I have a new GTX 660 TI. If it sounds like I don't like the game, I apologize. Really I had a great time with Dark Messiah, but I try to list at least as many complaints as good features in my reviews. Too much of either is just unhelpful, unless it explains in detail why the game irrefutably deserves such a score.

After the first hour of this game, I was very disappointed. I thought it was tedious, linear, and a complete waste of money. The trailers and and media made it seem as if the game was nonlinear and offered freedom of choice; indeed, one trailer even made it look like there'd be parkour involved. I was quite excited, and after playing through the beginning, I found the reality to be utterly disgraceful. Boring, easy enemies and a completely linear path made the gameplay a grind. Intrusive objective markers and a huge HUD floated on my screen, and poor controls made me wonder if this was really a terrible console port. However, since I try to withhold judgment on games until I've played for at least two or three hours, I kept playing. Shortly after the first hour, the game really opened up quickly. I started discovering how useful the jump/grab system was, and I started getting into the meat of Dishonored. I messed around in the options menu, and realized I could turn off the bits of the HUD that I didn't like. I mapped the misplaced block key to one of my gaming mouse thumb buttons, which really helped the gameplay. I got out of the beginner phase, and realized the game is far from linear. Deus Ex is similar, but Dishonored is actually more open, with more realistic ways to climb over stuff in the environment. There's no parkour, sadly, but Dishonored comes very close. You have a long reach when jumping, and you can pull yourself fluidly up on almost any plausible surface. The combat is a little sluggish, but it's nowhere near as bad as Deus Ex or Killzone 2 in that regard. Both of those are great games in their own right, but I don't think anyone could play them without thinking that the combat is kind of unresponsive. About an hour into the game, you get into areas with a lot of alternate paths. Really, I don't even want to call them paths. You're set loose in a city district, and you can jump, slide, and climb your way to most areas within the district. You generally hold a sword in one hand and a special weapon like a pistol, crossbow, tool, or spell in the other hand. The graphics are decidedly meh. The art direction is good, and they make use of lighting effects such as ambient occlusion and sun shafts, but overall the polygon counts and texture resolutions are a little on the low side. Having said that, most of the time the game is really quite pretty, though I don't think it ever really looks realistic. It's easy to run smoothly as well, and that's not just because of the mediocre graphics. It's well optimized, like most Unreal 3 Engine games are, and my GTX 460 and Phenom II x4 run it well above 60 fps on ultra at 1080p. So, in short, if you only play the first hour or two of this game, you'll probably be disgusted. The tutorial and beginner mission is really not interesting at all, and it makes the game seem like a generic, linear stealth shooter. If you play past the first hour or two, however, Dishonored becomes awesome, and completely lives up to the trailers and hype. There are relatively wide and unique open areas, the lore becomes interesting, and the stealth is world-class. I'm very glad I didn't ditch the game after the first hour, because it has a real shot at becoming my favorite game ever. I deduct one point because the intro is lackluster, and it probably turns off a lot of people since it's not an accurate representation of the game. Arkane should probably work on their first impressions. Everything of theirs that I've played since Arx Fatalis has had a very weak first hour.

People say this world is small? Then I suppose they think 120+ hour Monster Hunter is tiny. Like in Monster Hunter, the map is fairly compact. However, also like Monster Hunter, there's much more area than there seems to be at first. This is because that like Monster Hunter, you can climb up on rocks, ledges, etc. There's a large amount of realistic environmental interaction that many negative reviewers fail to notice. Look at a game with a huge map: Sacred 2. While the square mileage is bigger in Sacred 2, anyone who's played the game knows that you can't go up steep hills and you can't enter forests, and almost everything is simply a static mesh that you can't interact with. Dragon's Dogma is the opposite kind of open world. In Dragon's Dogma there's less square mileage, but you can go up and over amost anything, interacting with most things. Look at Skyrim. DD has slightly less square mileage than Skyrim, but it's much closer. However, in Skyrim you can't interact with the landscape at all, and mountains block you all the time. Once in a while you find a mushroom to harvest, but generally you just run around cloned trees and hunt for copy-pasted quests in a copy-pasted world. In Dragon's Dogma, care went into making every scene unique in some way, ala Dark Souls or Demon's Souls. In DD, you can climb many things, you can slide down steep slopes in a special stance to avoid fall damage, you can pick apples from trees, you can harvest plants and search for a diverse array of resources, like in Monster Hunter. You can actually interact with the world, and like in the Souls games, there's hidden stuff everywhere. The bosses are reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus, where you can grab and climb many of them as they attempt to shake you off. Other features were inspired by Monster Hunter or Dark Souls, such as your ability to sever some appendages from the bosses. People say the pawns are annoying? I guess people are too used to companions that never say anything and simply act as silent sexy armor holders. The pawns are intelligent. They'll follow you as you climb the steepest rooftops and cliffs, and they can take care of themselves in combat. Normally when you fight outside your level (ie, level 2 fighting a level 8 enemy), game companions eat hits and die immediately. Not in Dragon's Dogma. I'm continually surprised at just how fast and intelligent the pawns are. They'll protect each other, carry each other if one falls in combat, and give you someone to lean on if you sprint for too long and run out of breath. They'll even harvest loot and resources on their own (though you can get them to give it to you, if you want it) They dodge enemy attacks and deal solid damage on their own. You virtually never have to babysit them like you do in similar games. People claim that pawns are marred by the fact that they're temporary, and that's something I was concerned about as well. After playing, however, it's clear that many of the haters never even played the game for the 45 minutes required to get a permanent companion. Two of your three pawns will be temporary, and one is a permanent companion, but in Skyrim you only get one companion at all! Why are people complaining about this in DD? Plus, in Skyrim your companion is dumb as a bag of rocks and just eats hit after hit until they go down. You need to babysit in Skyrim constantly, to the point that I just had to avoid the companions altogether in that game. Plus, your companion in Skyrim won't protect you or really help you; once combat starts in Skyrim it's "every man for himself", and your companion won't heal you or stay nearby. Dragon's Dogma companions are much, much better. They keep up, they're smart, and not only do they not require babysitting, but they actually protect you as much as you protect them. They shout out advice, as others said, but I don't think it's annoying for some reason. They offer new ideas for how to handle quests and enemies, and occasionally they offer personal support in emotional quests. Really, after playing rpgs where every npc just exists and speaks at your convenience, Dragon's Dogma's companions are amazing. I own a gaming pc, and this game actually looks pretty good by comparison. It's rare that I can play a console game and not only tolerate the graphics, but actually enjoy them. Killzone 2 was the last game that managed that, besides Dragon's Dogma. All in all, an absolutely engrossing rpg with great realism and companions. I also like that Capcom wasn't afraid to stretch the M rating to the limit at times (like with the harpies), unlike some rpgs that are clearly meant for 12 year olds despite the M rating. If you like Dark Souls or Monster Hunter, you'll probably love this. If you think Skyrim is the best rpg ever made, you may not like this, or you might change your mind about Skyrim.

This game has two main factors to consider when reviewing it. One of these you may love, and the other you may hate. Whether you love or hate this game depends largely on what you think of these two things. First, the game can "break" saves. They don't get corrupted or deleted or anything like that, but it's possible to use up all your Color (magic), save, and then get stuck when you have no plausible way to get more Color on that save. Second, the game is a work of art. The lighting is gorgeous, the environments are at once forboding and alluring, and a lot of inspiration and care went into everything. Just about everything walks the line between creepy and beautiful, and I don't know what engine they used, but the gameplay is silky smooth on any decent card. An HD 6850 or a GTX 460 will max the game at 1080p at 60fps, and it still looks perfect due in part to the minimalist style. The gameplay is unique, and the developers clearly weren't shy about showing off the human body (of both sexes), which is a welcome change of pace from the usual prudish T-rated filler with no artistic direction and no depth. In general, (and I'm sure there will be some exceptions), whether you love the game or hate it will depend on how seriously you take both of the above points. If you can usually back up your saves and don't mind being careful, you probably won't have any problems in that regard. If you like mysterious, art and lore driven games, you'll probably love this.