UriahJob

How can I put it? It is a game that works, runs, and tells a story well but that isn’t exactly an achievement since it’s something developers must do regardless. The problem is that the story, the dialogue, and the world are once again a kind of derivative rehash of what we’ve seen in many games over decades. You pretty much do many errands for everyone. The voice acting is not bad, but once again it is kind of simplified for their target audience. This isn’t a bad game for younger players who may not have seen these stories and rpgs before, but for anyone over 30 this, in my opinion, isn’t really something you’d want to put many hours into. The narrative doesn’t offer much novelty.

Surprisingly a very good, even excellent port. I am praising Serious Sam 3: BFE for Xbox 360 because I played it since its release on the PC as well as 360. Let me tell you, the game is relatively demanding on the PC if you want it to look good, to be able to see the entire post apocalyptic landscape, and not have horrible slow down in frame rate. But on PC it is possible of course given good video card. I never expected this game to be fine tuned in such good way that preserves most of the eye candy you'd see in a PC version and have it run at average 40 frames per second on Xbox 360. Unlike the PC counterpart, the game comes with much better support for the Xbox 360 gamepad. Why it stands out is the options given to the user when adjusting the controller. They are mostly standard 5 schemes to choose from, but also sensitivity and acceleration as separate switches. In fact you are able to turn off camera view acceleration entirely which may be a good option for some gameplay styles. You can also turn on the framerate counter. Whether you are surrounded by enemies or running through desolated streets it constantly displays from 38 to 44 frames in the screens corner. The plot is pretty much non existent but the eye candy is very similar to the middle eastern cities you'd see in Battlefield 3 single player campaign. The difference is this runs much smoother. Interestingly enough this game also runs faster than Serious Sam First Encounter HD or Second Encounter HD (xbox version) Those are locked at about 30 frames per second and do not always deliver that. Another good aspect of Serious Sam 3 BFE design is that as you progress you get to play in quite diverse environments. You go through crumbling streets, through an abandoned well lit building, through catacombs, outside areas with lots of vegetation and more.

You have to be careful with this game. Find and download the demo first on the PSN or watch videos of gameplay with the sound on. You may actually hate the music. I do not think it is for everyone. Retro/Grade is pure eye candy if you like colorful things flying in space with lots of special effects exploding and doing crazy particle stuff. So in the visual department the game is excellent and should probably get an 8 or 9. Not 10 because you do not get many options to edit the visuals like in other games. Another thing that the game does well is providing fun rhythm based gameplay. The lights keep coming from both sides. you catch some and avoid the others. Very unique. The problem is the soundtrack, which is the main basis of Retro/Grade, is not perfect. By "not perfect" I mean in a a reflex based game with space theme I'd expect something with faster beats, more panic sounding, It does not have to be a masterpiece. But here many of the tracks sounds slow. Not sure how to describe this in layman terms, but it may sound like a tree sloth trying to run and being slow, a turtle slowly moving each of its legs to get to the finish line, maybe a funeral march. They have loud beats but as slow as some European waltz. In guitar hero or rock band games when a level needed to be easier you did not have to pick a slow song, you just got fewer notes. Thankfully you can try this in the demo. You may just like this kind of stuff.

Dillon's Rolling Western is a unique and very well made game. It is very strange that Destructoid's official score for this is 40%. As you can see from most of the reviews it is much better. The best feature of Dillon's Rolling Western is the combination of multiple gameplay styles into one game. It is a tower defense game, a beat em up game, and a resource management game. It does well in all three. Controls might need some time to get them right every time because to reach peak efficiency you need to learn how to roll fast every time with the stylus as the enemies who look like some stone based pokemon creatures assault a American style western town populated by cute animal characters. Potential drawback that could lower enjoyment of this game is after 3 or 4 attacks on the town it becomes much more difficult to defend because you, Dillon the Armadillo, have to roll between two directions to defend them little innocent critters and the sheep from the slaughter! Another fun thing they added is putting collectibles all over when you roll around, finding mines/dungeons to get some treasures. Yea it is good. ps: Main character Dillon resembles Yul Brenner the actor who played the bald cowboy in old Westerns.

Johnny Kung Fu is an unusual game, but in my opinion it is actually one of the best 3D downloadable games in the Nintendo Online Shop. Like other reviews mention the game eventually becomes difficult. But it keeps the fun factor together because the difficulty is fair. The game does not cheat, but only requires faster reflexes and more experience. Perhaps some might be annoyed by the first portion of every level which is literally made like a traditional Game & Watch game. You can see the outline of each possible position of the projectile and the main character Johnny. Your job is to figure out the timing and quickly press the buttons. Johnny Kung Fu has excellent sound and clever use of 3D. I am giving it lower than perfect score because the developers did not attempt to create a story or plot, but just made it like Donkey Kong, where the girl is abducted and the player attempts to save her. Also there are no modes besides the main game mode. It would be fun to add a few game modes to alternate gameplay for someone who might need a break from the main campaign.