THE-Wind

A two because: This is still Starcraft (original) with turd-polish. You already paid $60 for this game. (now they want $60 more... and what of chapter 3? $60 more I think) I hate time limits...I play to relax. Time limits mean lazy game-making. The meta-game blows chunks. Leads to mono-tactics. The graphics still lag modern computers. Enough of all this negativity...I thinks I'll go try Duke Nukem Forever now. After all these years, surely they have had the time to make a spectacular sequel...right?

Hard not to compare to GTA. I have played grand theft auto and was not impressed. The plot was not engaging and worst of all the driving was lame. I did enjoy Sleeping dogs much more though. The focus in SD is on martial arts and the fighting is better than most games that have a lot of hand-to-hand combat. It is nice change to play an Asian character in Hong Kong as opposed to another chisel-jaw marine/merc who gets sent on endless fetch missions with someone nattering in his ear the whole time. The city looks lived-in, the store-fronts have clever illusions to simulate being a 3-d space with actual inventory the civilians respond correctly to being **** witnessing violence etc. Good voice acting and well paced. SD makes for an immersive world. The driving is one of the weak spots for the PC version. At low speeds the mouse-tracking is all over the place but once you get your view-angle correct for the vehicle and speed you are driving it is pretty fun to boot around. Unlike GTA I did actually care about the plot and the characters. GTA felt cartoonish and one-dimensional with a series of stupid unrelated missions to do. Sleeping feels like a movie-role that I landed and now get to play-out. I agree that the plot seems truncated but every game must make make cuts to it's grand-plans in order to make it's release date. This is unavoidable. Overall SD is a solid game.

Very trippy. I like this game. Sure, it is not a AAA dog fighting set-piece battle with boss fights, plot and other such business. This is a game for getting in the zone and more like surfing than flying. The big idea is that you fly a ship that is pretty slow and you try to maintain proximity to the 'wave' in order to go faster. You can also fly over power-ups (or friendly units) that heal and speed-boost you. There is one type of baddie for those people who must shoot things to have a fun game experience but this is not the point of the game. Riding the wave is the point. The 'wave' is a generated fractal-procedural doohickey thing that forms a sort of track. The sensation of speed is well done and it is a challenge to maintain you path and speed while in the wave. It is elegant and simple and visually arresting. This makes for fun and possibly relaxing game-play for a more casual experience. As such, it is a nice place to visit every now and then. (Also features some cool soundtrack music) If you prefer bolting a new plasma cannon to your space-frigate you may enjoy Gratuitous Space Battles or Darkstar.

Loads of fun. Just Cause 2 truly understands the sand-box. It feels like like a polished mash-up of boiling point and Red-Faction Guerrilla maybe the Saboteur). First of all it gives you freedom. You can do whatever you feel like and It is all engaging. There is a plot to follow and factions to do side-missions for and endless opportunities to create chaos. The chaos will have the authorities after you which then leads to the evasion-game. I love the fact that you can shoot your way out of trouble, run, drive or para-sail away or even the hijack the chopper they bad guys sent after you. Travel: best I have ever seen. There is instant-travel (extraction from anywhere), stealing boats, cars, motor-bikes, planes, helicopters and then there is the hook. The grappling-hooks is so useful you will forget to walk places. There is a cool mechanic where you can use the grapple to ascend then engage your parachute to fly...then use you grapple to 'web-sling' your way around. No game has such a cool variety of transportation. If you don't become obsessed with collecting every little trinket in the game you will find hours of over-the top game-play here. Just flying a plane around to scout new locations can be entrancing. The island has a variety of terrain and the day-night cycle makes for amazing sunsets and vistas. Don't complain about the repetition in the game as this is the nature of the sand-box. Having 70% of the side missions available (after getting 20 hours worth of plot-mission value) is nothing more than gravy. This genre is not about deep plots anyway. If you want a game that is fun-to-play then look no further.

*Best strategy and tactics game ever! I just bought this in Dec 2012 and have logged more than 200 hours on it. Strategy games are my main interest with computer games and I have played some great ones. Warrior Kings Battles had some epic combined-arms tactics with interesting terrain and base building. Starcraft was OK for its time but was very limited and led to mono-tactics. CoH, and its fine expansion-packs, have set the bar so high that no game has been able to surpass it. The single player game is a fine tutorial and it has high production values and a logical progression. However, the game was designed around the PvP match, and it is very well thought out. There is an amazing variety of tactical options available with three distinct disciplines to choose from within each faction. (4 factions if you have both the expansions) Even still you will find that every player has a unique style that can be seen in their play. The game is about figuring out what your opponent is up to then foiling their plans. This does not boil down to 'this unit beats that unit' like so many other games. With CoH the player can react on the fly, fake out & misdirect, apply their 'brilliant plan' or devise a counter strategy when needed. Anything you can imagine can be attempted. *Many of the so-called 'bugs' are actually signs of extensive testing and debate by the studio. If your AT gun won't face to counter attack it is because you told him to guard the road. This is the army...units are supposed to follow orders, not decide what they feel like doing. Reacting to their pleas for refacing is your ****'s called micro. *The PvP has very little trash-talking compared to shooter games and there is an active community. Automatches will find you an opponent that is at the same level as you and game-play avoids abusive base-rushes and snowballing. Battles will often go back and forth leaving victory up for grabs until the very end. Solid design. Huge detail. The voice acting is great with accents and period-specific & regionally accurate colloquialisms. (Canadian soldiers with authentic Quebecois and Newfie accents.) Oh, and almost every significant unit type from WW2 is beautifully modeled with the actual abilities associated with them. The statistics for the weapon systems are modeled with amazing accuracy only being altered to maintain balance in the game. ( War is never fair but games should be). Matches can also be recorded and there are many shoutcasts for CoH playbacks with commentary available on the net. Company of Heroes is a must have for all strategy and tactics players.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Very solid game. I have played this on old systems and new systems and it always looks good. Stunning map-design as well as ship/character models. The mini-games may annoy some but they make you appreciate the top-shelf arcade racing and combat. The most thrilling hover-sled combat ever done in games. Turbo- boosts, boost-pads and tractor-beams make for chaotic 'bouy-races' and if that doesn't **** your cannons. Good story mixed with wild free-play...just make your own fun. Awesome visuals with excellent race-elements.

Best game **** all time. Well o.k. it is showing it's age some but what an epic story! The graphics are of the era when just moving your jaw when you talked was cutting edge. Still, it has more content than any three modern games put together. The music was terrific and always matched the locales. The environments were varied and they offered multiple solutions to it's sand-box style missions. My only complaint after twelve full play-troughs is that the inventory and crate-breaking got a bit tedious. The weapons were fun to use and the world seemed richly populated with characters that had their own stories. May we see more games like this again once the brown-shooter-dark-age is over.

Made me ill. This game was designed using the latest research on the subject of fear and how to induce it. Very heavy handed stuff; subharmonics, iconic imagery dredged from the collective subconscious, strobe frequencies etc. It's too bad because i liked the game play. Playing this game never failed to give me unpleasant physiological side-effects. No other game i have played has ever done this me and I have played a lot of computer games. Why would I want to pay for this experience? It's my time off...I'm tryin' to relax...have some yuks. Booooooooo-urns

Wow! This is **** its square. Minecraft is the most truly ground-breaking game of it's time. It offers emergent game-play, a consistent challenge, huge variety and it rewards creativity. It is the only game in existence in which each of the players is able to modify the very terrain and fabric of the world. Minecraft is the first game that functions as an in-game world-editor that lets the players co-create both architecture and adventures. Constantly expanding and versatile enough to create 3-D sculptures that are also working digital-logic circuits. If you don't like Minecraft you must be boring or unimaginative. ; ] **** to get over the whole 'cube' thing as there would be no other way to achieve such an ambitious game-style. Truly revolutionary.