askewreviews

A pleasant surprise. CastleStorm didn't strike me as appearing particularly unique, but it proved itself to be a surprisingly compelling game, with tons of content and a charming visual style. It plays like an well-developed evolution of the classic flash games that seem to have inspired it and everything it tries to do is done solidly.

Need for Speed Undercover may well be the most dumbed down Need for Speed game of this generation. Get the superior Most Wanted; both the original and the new one are far better than this trash and you don't have to put up with the awful story. Not even worth renting.

First of all, I want to give Ensemble Studios my thanks for creating one of the most iconic and widely-cherished RTS series of all time. Second of all, I want to say I think this game has been pretty harshly treated in the user reviews. The main reason for this overcritical attitude is the large number of gameplay innovations and evolutions introduced by Ensemble in what was one of their last games. I think the deviations in formula were a risky move but they definitely helped revitalize the series AoE II is still a solid game, but it epitomizes the style of pre-2000 RTS games. Ensemble needed to make some real changes or it was possible the series would become stale and outdated only its third full release. A couple of of these changes were definitely questionable (I'll mention them throughout the rest of this review) and they stop AoE III from being a 9/10 game but most of them are welcome additions in my eyes. Graphically, Age of Empires III is gorgeous. The unit models haven't improved a huge amount from Age of Mythology, but the textures are more vivid and crisp than ever. Damage animations on buildings look great, with realistic-looking explosions and chunks of debris adding to the chaos of battle. Overall the art-style is both rugged and colourful and it looks beautiful across the board I just wish I could zoom out further! Thankfully there is a great mod that lessens the restrictions on zooming but I don't get why Ensemble chose to lock you into such a small field of view. The card system is interesting, and both allows for and encourages experimenting with dynamic strategies. There's more differences between factions than ever and the card system adds even more variety in strategies. There are many viable playstyles in AoE III turtling is always an option because of buildings like the plantation, which are an unlimited supply of coin (replacing gold stone has been removed completely which is a bit of a shame) and really great fortifications. Outposts are effective and the wall placement system is just fantastic even more refined than Age of Mythology's. At first I wasn't a fan of the circular maps as opposed to the square and rectangular maps Age fans are used to, but after a while it really only bothered me when it came to using the map editor. A more sticking criticism is the simplification of the skirmish/random map options. You can have a maximum of two teams that's it. Your only options are playing FFA or a two-team battle, and it's pretty baffling that there aren't more choices. All in all AoE comes close to topping AoM as my personal favourite game developed by Ensemble, but it doesn't quite manage it. RIP Ensemble Studios and RIP AoE IV and V.

Muddy textures made uglier by the game's green colour filter. The story is pretty basic and full of really gaping plotholes culminating in one of the most illogical endings in video game history. The gunplay is basic and due to the lack of iron sights and accuracy penalties when firing from the hip, VATS is incredibly overpowered. In Fallout 1 and 2, you could target specific points on an enemy but it wasn't a gamebreaking mechanic because those titles were turn-based. Here you can just spam the VATS button, aim for the head because nothing else is worth shooting at and repeat.

One of the 360's first hugely hyped exclusives, Prey was something of a disappointment. It was a nice showcase of the console's hardware capabilities but ultimately far from being Microsoft's next Halo. Prey's well-delivered story and ambitious scope are hindered by the somewhat clunky and unpolished gameplay. Worth renting or picking up cheap on PC.

Coming back to Doom 3 in 2013 I was surprised by how little I enjoyed iD's biggest title of last decade. The graphics still looked crisp but the shooting mechanics and physics have aged horribly. The storyline is delivered well but the fast-paced combat tended to nullify the game's attempts at horror segments. Compared to other heavyweight titles of the same year, like Half-Life 2, Doom 3 is not a classic game.

Overly linear and poorly designed, Legendary is a classic example **** premise being terribly executed. A shame really, because the story behind this game has some real potential.

It's an pretty good game in its own right but a disappointment as a Halo game. Take CoD's multiplayer formula, give it a sci-fi skin and make player bullet sponges, and you've got Halo: Reach

Incredibly charming and full of replay value, LittleBigPlanet is a unique puzzle-platformer with gorgeous sound and level design. Tons of unlockables, tons of online content, tons of fun. One of the PS3's best exclusives.

Incredibly charming and full of replay value, LittleBigPlanet is a unique puzzle-platformer with gorgeous sound and level design. Tons of unlockables, tons of online content, tons of fun. One of the PS3's best exclusives.

Far Cry 2 is a flawed gem: a blood diamond in the rough, if you will. It's repetitive, frustrating and outright illogical in its design at times, and yet it manages to still be a good game: a solid game even. It's different to the first Far Cry in a lot of ways, and more punishing than FC3 so it falls into its own niche in the series. Graphically, it's one of the best of 2008. The jungle environments are lush and the lighting effects are gorgeous. It's gritty and realistic but done better than the majority of brown and bloom shooters. Gunplay is tight and brutal and rewards sneaking up on enemies. Having a friend/companion with you makes it all the more fun, and it can get really There is an emphasis on exploration and while it is rewarding and fun to find new locations your primary means of transport is a jeep. This would be fine if the driving mechanics weren't so awful. The survival elements are well designed and for the most part well implemented. There are also elements that make no sense, an example being guard outposts simply respawning their guards ridiculously quickly. A better way to do handle this could have involved new guards driving out the outpost from bases and replacing the old one: even if this happened in real-time it would take longer than vanilla FC2's magically respawning guards. All in all Far Cry 2 is nowhere near perfect but gets criticized a lot harder than I believe it should and I definitely recommend trying it out, especially if you played 3 and wanted something harder.

So close to being a great game and yet so deeply flawed. E.Y.E. contains features both unique and numerous, but there's so much the developers tried to implement that a lot of it feels underdeveloped. The aesthetics, both in the environments and character models, are brilliant. The combat feels like a game from 2004 and at times reminded me of the Jedi Outcast games (the AI is pretty bad). There's some cool skills but most prove useless and are as broken as the hacking minigame. Essentially, this minigame consists of spamming the same combination of buttons repeatedly and hoping you win. It's just so messy. E.Y.E. has the potential to become a solid series and I'm keen to see what the developers do next. In the meantime though, I won't be replaying this.

To this day, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance remains my favourite RTS of all times. This expansion pack includes a new faction to play as and a ton of general improvements on what made vanilla SupCom such a unique experience. Forged Alliance really pulls off what it attempts to do. It is face-paced by nature but games can last well over an hour. Economy plays a massive role and players have the option of bunkering down in their starting location or can simply pour all their resources into spamming cheap units. There's also the option of sniping; selecting a group of units, quite often bombers or gunships, and assassinating an opponent's ACU. There really are more strategic options than any other RTS I have ever played. The FAF multiplayer community makes this a 10/10 experience and has really kept the game alive. SupCom 2 simplified the formula and was generally panned by the fan base so it's great to see FA doing so well today. A classic game.

Uncharted is one of the PS3's proudest exclusives, and Drake's Fortune, the first title in the series is the roughest of the three but still a very solid game. The story is very Indiana Jones-esque (in a good way!) and is told in a cinematic manner which doesn't break up the gameplay more than it really needs to. The platforming controls look nice in action but feel kind of stiff and jerky at times. Jumping can be a pain sometimes due to not having much control over the distance of a jump, resulting in frequent overshoots. The game was released just days after Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, and it's fair and accurate to say that had a much more flowing platforming system. Shooting and combat in general feels pretty nice the controls are responsive and the animations fluid. One thing I feel could be improved were the hitboxes. Uncharted has some really mixed graphics. There are moments of true beauty when the game's impressive lighting is showcased and the colours are vibrant and rich, but you'll often notice texture and model problems. The vegetation looks great (which is a relief, because there's a ton of it in this game) unless you look at it from above. It's a good-looking game for it's time, and served to show off what the PS3 was capable of, but unlike PC exclusives from 2007 such as Crysis the graphics don't really hold up today. All in all, Uncharted is a surprisingly good release from Crash Bandicoot creators Naughty Dog, paying tribute to their platforming roots while making a mature and calculated transition to modern hardware.

Intrusion 2 feels like a modern remake of an SNES game, and is a really solid update on old-school platform shooters. It combines a bit of Contra with some Metal Slug and polishes it with slick animations, effective physics and responsive, modern controls. Intrusion 2 is a great game that you can often get for dirt cheap, but is worth picking up for the full price.

So disappointing. Hack, Slash, Loot is frustrating, repetitive and a below-average game. In other words, it takes a lot of generic roguelike elements and doesn't do anything right with them. I can't work out if it's a tribute to or a parody of roguelikes, but either way it doesn't disguise the fact that this is a very poor game.

The Call of Duty of racing games simplistic, flashy and stupid. There's just so little to like about this Juiced 2; I stopped playing about four hours in.

Croc is simplistic and not all that challenging, but still a lot of fun to play. It is perhaps inferior to other platformers of its age such as the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games but what it lacks in innovative gameplay it makes up for in pure charm.

To this day, Halo 3 remains the franchise's best multiplayer experience. The single-player campaign is lengthy, hugely diverse and packed with memorable moments. I feel Halo 3 was as close to perfect as the series will ever get.

It's a fun game with friends that can draw you in for hours on end, but in the end I felt a little disappointed with Left 4 Dead 2. It felt like something that had been rushed out and lacked the polish of Valve's other titles.

Assassin's Creed II is a step up from its predecessor in every way. It improves everything more combat mechanics, a deeper story, and better sense of progression. The dialogue can be cringeworthy at times, especially in any level set outside the Animus but it's nowhere near as bad as more recent AC games. At the time of AC II's release I had only rarely been amazed by the graphics of the 360's many games and it really impressed me. The attention to detail in the environments, the fluid animations, the slick UI it all added up to a beautiful looking game. AC II has a few small problems and annoyances but it felt fresh, polished and satisfying to play. One of Ubisoft's last great achievements.

Poor draw distance, muddy textures, jerky controls, lofi sound there is very little to like about this game. The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night feels like a poor man's Year of the Dragon and is best avoided.

In its own right, Skyrim is a shallow but passable RPG, but compared to previous Elder Scrolls titles it's a huge disappointment. The level of casualization is simply depressing less equipment slots, more linear dungeons, no stats besides health/mana/stamina, less skills etc. The combat is actually a step up from Oblivion, and yet is still very basic and mindless. The first two or three dragon fights blew my mind, but it didn't take long to notice the looping patterns every single dragon would follow and how easy it was to exploit that. They soon became a chore. The main questline had a ton of potential but it's just so lacking and by the end I couldn't care less about it. I didn't care for many of the sidequests either, and the much-hyped infinite quests where nothing more than fetch quests. All in all, Skyrim is a nice-looking but barren and shallow sandbox that makes modding a near necessity.

Rapture isn't quite as mysterious or intimidating the second time around, but the combat is hugely improved in Bioshock 2. If you enjoyed the first game for more than its story, you'll have fun with 2.

More mature, deeply developed and cinematic than anything else Rockstar had done before, Red Dead Redemption really outdid my expectations. The story is gripping and well-paced, leading you across a huge and varied map. The combat is tight and stylish, though unfortunately the movement controls aren't as precise. Firing while on horseback takes a lot of getting used to, as does navigation in general. These slight imperfections do nothing to tarnish the masterpiece that is RDR, and it holds its place as one of the best console exclusives of this generation.

An average RPG, and a bad Fable game, Fable III aims to do much but achieves little. It's buggy, dumbed down and boring. The graphics are one redeeming quality, with some really gorgeous character and enemy design, pretty environments and smooth animations. Overall though, this game is lacking in a lot of ways.

One of my most cherished PS2 games. The free-skating, varied missions, huge levels that encouraged exploration it all adds up to a very solid title that pushed the series into a fresh direction while retaining and refining what made the earlier releases so great. A lot of people prefer 3 but I personally think this is the best of the first 4 Tony Hawk games.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Spectraball has been criticized pretty harshly on here, and I think it's a little misguiding. It's a solid marble platformer, and if that's something you like you'll almost definitely enjoy it.

Terraria continues to receive hefty updates, even as Starbound's release date edges closer. There's a ton of stuff to do in this game, and while comparisons to Minecraft are understandable, Terraria offers a lot more content. The exploration elements are great, though environments do get repetitive due to the small number of biomes (being rectified in Starbound thankfully). Combat is fast-paced and unforgiving, and hordes of zombies knocking on your doorstep every night keeps you tense and focused. Terraria is a great game to sink a lot of hours into just experimenting.

I've been playing Beat Hazard since release (actually my second or third purchase on Steam) and it's always been about an 8/10 for me. Ultra knocks it up to 10/10 it's that good.

I didn't have very high expectations for They Bleed Pixels, but I was pleasantly surprised. The game features a gorgeous art style with a lot of beautiful backdrops. The combat system takes a little getting used to but is really satisfying once you learn how to implement all the different moves properly. There aren't a huge amount of enemy types but each require very different strategies to defeat. The platforming controls are slightly clunky I definitely recommend playing with a controller. All in all a short but sweet little action platformer that is worth picking up.

A simplistic but stylish and deeply calming puzzle platformer. The gorgeous soundtrack and crisp visuals generate a relaxing atmosphere that makes playing through this short but sweet game a real pleasure.

There was a huge amount of hype surrounding the release of Torchlight II despite the impending release of Diablo 3, and it shows how Runic Games have already built a dedicated fan base on the success of the first Torchlight. The sequel is a brilliant follow-up and the developers deserve full credit for building upon their excellent debut. To a minor extent, Torchlight II has less charm than its predecessor, but it expands and improves on every other element. The many areas are diverse and complex in their layouts, with multiple hub areas allowing you to sell loot and use the many other services available. You would be frequently returning to these hubs if it were not for the pet feature, which allows you to stock up your pet with items to sell in town while you continue exploring. It's one of the first game's best feature and makes a welcome return for the sequel. Each class has an extremely unique skill-tree, and there's a nice deviation from the generic tank/mage/ranged cliche. There is a nice diversity in the pet choices, too. Overall, Torchlight II is a commendable sequel, showing Runic Games' growing experience. I for one will be closely following their future projects.