dobserver

Never played XCOM before but played a lot of turn based strategy games before like Fire Emblem and Tactics Ogre. Obviously the graphics of this game are a lot better than those ones however the strategic element of it needs a bit of work. I played it on Veteran and found myself quite defeated as I got into the mid game with the enemies being much overpowered compared to my squad. I restarted on Rookie, and amazingly it is still quite difficult if you do not research and prioritzie certain things over others. There are clearly 'better' research and resources compared to others in the game but the game does not really explain this. So a lot of the time is wasted doing things in a sub optimal way, which leads to the dark event bar filling up faster and the enemy progressing faster than you can. I am fine with restarting and retrying new ways, but I think the game is much too difficult in a 'rookie' setting then it should be. Good: - strategic elements like fog of war, cover, half cover, elevation, status effects, - squad customization, classes are interesting, - attack effects and destructible environment is fun and intersting - research options and engineering build options allow for a more varied squad Bad: - enemies some time ignore terrain effects and building cover - constant 'doomsday' clock and limited turns in both in game combat and the overall game - camera is frustrating when trying to zoom into multilevel buildings - research paths appear to be 'open' but in fact punish you for prioritizing and trying out new things - difficulty for 'rookie' is much too hard for a casual newbie in my opinion Verdict: - pick it up if you enjoy a good turn based strategy game, but understand the faults it has before and see if you can live with it

From this game, you can tell GW2 is trying to evolve the standard MMO genre to be somewhat more engaging. So I'll try to cover the things it tries to add, that are a bit different from other games. Before I start, let me say that on a base level, GW2 does it well: balance, graphics, sounds, story, character creation, replay-ability. Pros: - Somewhat customizable story line based on answers to different questions during character creation (leads to replayability among same classes/races) - Random large events that happen which everyone is free to join in (if you're passing by that area) - EXP for exploring, logging, mining, gathering and pretty much everything you do asides from walking - No subscription based billing, Buy to play (B2P) system no penalizing players that don't pay like F2P model often does - Continuously added content - Grouping for team quests is quite good and significantly improved - Dying and getting downed, doesn't necessarily mean you're down and out if you can kill an enemy and get back up - items do not give you so much of an advantage in playing, more rewarded for good play style and personal skill - ability to dodge attacks (sort of doesn't really always work) Cons: - It would have been nice if you got to choose the first 5 skills related to each weapon/secondary weapon instead of being only able to choose the latter 5 skills (this was actually what made gameplay a bit too repetitive for me) yes you can swap weapons sets and this gets you more variety, but thinking high level, if I'm using a bow shouldn't I have more than 5 ways of shooting **** be able to choose how to shoot it? - crafting was a bit tedious and difficult to figure out without an actual tutorial (I might have missed the tutorial somewhere in the game) downplayed by the fact that items didn't make or break your character really - the game tries to vary the quest a bit so that it's not just Kill X number of Y monster, but in the end was still quite repetitive (i.e. Kill X number of Y monster OR pick up X item and bring to Y location). If the individual quests were more like events, it would be much more fun as you'd have a sense of urgency to kill Y monster instead of counting each one and hoping you reach the amount required to end the quest - I'd probably would have like advanced classes to be included in the game as well (for variety), but I guess that's personal preference Still a great game, with room for improvement. World is engaging, story keeps you entertained and is still a great MMO to explore.

I did have fun playing this game as I do like Star Wars Lore and do prefer solo-ing MMOs unless I have to group up. Thus this may not be a game for everyone if you like the more MMO aspects of it. I have a feeling EA and Bioware were trying to be greedy in targeting both sets of audiences and charging a premium for it. Story: Was decent with the voice acting and the quests seem to try and tie into the main story a lot better than some other MMOs I played. It's a bit weak at times, but not bad for an MMO. Gameplay: I like the variety of skills that you can choose to use on your toolbar or expanded toolbar, BUT the animations do not link very well with the key press and the cooldowns are all over the place. Combat seemed to be just punching buttons and hoping for the best. IF the key presses matched the animations, it would have been okay. Sounds and video were decent. Sometimes a bit glitchy. I would say the gameplay is a bit slow, it takes forever to get past the initial hold your hand levels and I found travelling to be slow, even when I had a speeder. Was surprised to find so much voice acting in an MMO, a nice bioware touch. Found classes and character limitation to be a bit limiting. Though it was kind of cool that each character had a distinct story (sadly not very customizeable) but quite deep good effort. Recommend this game if you have patience, are a Star Wars fan and prefer solo PVE. Else, pass. Not worth buying at all since the core of the game has some problems.

I have always been a fan of the Fire Emblem series and I firmly believed that it is one of the best, if not the best turn based strategy series to date. I was not disappointed with this game at all. It includes a lot of the original strategy elements in the series: weapon triangle, classes with distinct characteristics, weapons. What was new was the support system, marriage+child system and addition of skills through class changes. All of these elements were implemented in a way that made the game have increased replayability and more depth/story development with the characters. The addition of both classic and casual modes made the game appeal to not only hardcore fire emblem fanatics like myself, but also to someone who just enjoys playing through the story leisurely. There is also a lot of downloadable content to further extend the games replayability and uniqueness. The lunatic modes also offer a great challenge to Fire Emblem vets. The only complaint I'd have with this game would be the fact that the story is a bit short and the difficulty doesn't scale properly, if you were to follow the story and not do any prologues. There were times where I had to level grind random enemies in order to move on with the story. The characters given to you through recruitment are also a bit underlevelled and become a bit underutilized unless you grind them before you play through the story. It'd make sense if they gave you recruits who are at least somewhat onpar to the enemy in terms of level there's a few characters I got at the end of the game where I hardly got a chance to experiment with before the game ended...stat leveling was also a bit luck based Vaike comes to mind where when I leveled I hardly got any stat points and sometimes I would get a lot this is less of a problem in Hard mode, but in Lunatic, it's just unfair. Overall a great game, worthy to be called a Fire Emblem game and a great addition to the franchise!

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This game has a lot going for it in the first place - a fun setting, access to adult themes, interesting story (which a lot of it is based on real facts and real gangs in HK [10K is based on 14K, Sun Woo is based on Sun Yee On Triad] The game is good at everything it tries to do: racing, shooting, martial arts fighting, story telling - but it doesn't exactly shine in any of the aspects. There are games that are better at it in certain aspects, which make them stand out. This game doesn't stand out in anyway except for the fact that it is unique and takes place in HK and obviously caters towards gamers who understand the swearing, culture and setting - to make sense of the entire thing. But, it's still fun for people who do not know a lot about the 'gang culture' in HK. The voice acting is pretty good as well. I would say the game gets a bit repetitive when you try to do all the side quests. Once you get used to fighting (for example), the game ceased to have any difficulty at all. It's an interesting venture into a setting that not everyone expected - that's too be sure. It should get bonus points for that. I'm sad because the game could have been a lot better...Sequel anyone?

This game is very similar to Diablo 2, but more fast paced - different style of graphics and takes place in a different world. Multiplayer is expanded but there are a lot of connectivity issues in games, especially for parties 4 and more. Skill and stat point mapping is the exact similar to D2 but it's a lot easier to get unique items and thus makes it more fun to play. Shared stash between your characters ensures that every item you find is useful and encourages you to play all 4 classes. The game's 'veteran' difficulty should really be the 'normal', and the 'elite' would be very hard. Anything under veteran is much too easy. Scaling of difficulty is a bit extreme. There are some issues with the balance of skills and classes as well. Not every build is feasible to use in elite. The story is non existent, as should be expected (it's really not that type of game.) It's a game where you mindlessly kill things and get loot and to try out different builds using stat/skill allocations. For 20 bucks the game is fair and not too expensive to play. You'll probably get bored of it after finishing the game story for 4 classes, regardless of difficulty - unless you are looking to beat the game on elite for all 4 classes. Just an FYI, outlander and embermage are extremely overpowered when compared to engineer and berserker based on the current patch. Buy it if you want to kill some time with a relatively fun (but short lived game).

I read a lot of the ratings posted by others and realized that a lot of the low ratings are because of the DLC. I generally don't pay for additional DLC content, but other reviewers suggested that it the content has a somewhat large impact on the story, which suggests that Bioware should have included it in the original game. That being said, the rating of the game shouldn't be deducted just because of this. This game feels very similar to Mass Effect 2. The ship, the interactions with people and even the way you travel around the world. In some ways, I think its more like an expansion than a full game. This being said, I am not yet finished the game so this is based on what I've played so far. The combat system has been suuped up. There are specific classes to specialize in which gives special abilities, which allows you to fight how you want to. This customization is definitely an improvement to the old game. The voice acting is pretty good, very similar to mass effect 2 (which was also very good) The cinematics are not bad, and the game does focus on these more than actual gameplay. Gameplay seems to have lost some depth. I can't comment on the story yet, but it seems to build on the story lore that mass effect 2 first explored. (I didn't play mass effect 1). The music and sound are pretty good. They match the cinematics and game play very well. Overall, the game isn't revolutionary. But there are improvements from Mass Effect 2. However, I feel the depth in story telling of Mass Effect 2 was better, but will see how it goes on as I continue the game...

This is a very in-depth game, that is very deep and very long. The world looks amazing and the conversations are very interesting. Gameplay is rather simple, in that you can choose to do whatever you want in the world of Skyrim. The game gets a little repetitive at times, but only after playing a good 20-30 hrs of it. There are occasional glitches that may annoy you, but overall it is a very good game. I've never played Oblivion or any of the other games in the series though. I tried playing morrowind but got sick of it after 10 minutes of playing. This game was much easier to get into.

This game is a must have for people who are in love with turn-based strategy games like myself. The gameplay is very unique and has a lot of strategy elements in it: terrain, elements, different classes, weather, etc. The story is also very interesting which is consistent with the Tactics Ogre franchise. Difficulty wise, i think the game is fair - until you spend a lot of time grinding in the training mode which can be repeated infinitely - then the game becomes a cakewalk. The game also allows the player to pick different routes which lead to alternate endings which increases the game's replayability. I have recently purchased the Tactics Ogre game for PSP, which is a remake of the original because of my love for this game. I am sad that these type of games don't have a much of a place on consoles anymore because of a niche market - but I am happy that Atlus continues to develop these games. (Overall 9+ - battle is a bit slow paced, animations are a bit slow)

First of all this game is Free to Play, which already adds that much value to the game itself. It is basically a spin-off of Dota that uses cell shaded/anime style graphics for the characters. The gameplay is very similar to Dota and emphasizes teamwork and communication. It's a game really easy to pick up but difficult to master, as you will need a thorough understanding of all the characters to be considered an expert at the game. This is all the more difficult, since the developers are constantly pumping out new characters and implementing character balances approximately every 2 weeks. The game is in a desperate need of new maps. There are currently 3 maps: Summoner's Rift, Twisted Treeline and the Crystal Scar. I never really understood why the developers kept building new characters to use instead of making new maps, simply because all the Dota related games follow the format of adding new heroes/champions/characters. Different game modes would also be good. The newest Crystal Scar map is a step in the right direction. I think this game will continue to develop into a better and better game, over time. (Overall: 7+ lots of potential to be a 10)

Final Fantasy has always been about the great story and gameplay. That is what has made it a very successful franchise, even today. Lately, though it seems that the developers are focusing more on the graphics then the core competencies. Final Fantasy XIII has great graphics, the cinematics are amazing and everything is pretty smooth. The gameplay and difficulty level is not bad, but it is not especially amazing either. The story is a bit recycled and linear but I didn't find it really 'bad' either. This game is simply 'okay.' There isn't anything particularly bad about it, but there isn't anything particularly amazing about it either. I'd get it if it was on sale. The difficulty level of the game is really easy until near the end, in which you have to grind a bit to catch up. But after grinding, the game is pretty easy in general. This might make it a turn-off for many players. It's not that this game was bad, but Squaresoft has been known for making groundbreaking games and it was just surprising to find that this isn't one of them. (Score: 7.0)

Starcraft was one of the first games I've ever played next to Final Fantasy which brought me into the world of gaming. So I had high expectations for Starcraft II - especially since it took so long to release. Starcraft II is not a bad game, but definitely has room for improvement. In terms of the Single Player, they have made it a lot more interesting - taking multiple routes, upgrades and achievements - which all help enhance the playability of the Single Player. The original story was interesting and the Starcraft II story doesn't disappoint. (Not surprising since there is an entire series of novels...) The voice acting was pretty good and I didn't expect much character development for an RTS so it was a bit lacking in that area. They also assume that you're familiar with Starcraft lore and have played the first game. Single player was nicely done, especially for an RTS with a predecessor. The efforts to make it original paid off. Lots of new units, new buildings, new functions and a completely new balance. Which allows for new strategies to be created. This brings us into the multiplayer. I actually liked the single player more because of the customization, and it would have been cool to move this aspect over to the multiplayer but I guess that would complicate the balance of team games rather drastically. The difference in units from the original Starcraft made the multiplayer experience brand new. They seem to have upped the pace of the game so that it wouldn't take as long but the fundamentals of building a sound economy are still there. I played a lot of the multiplayer during Beta and found the existence of some balancing issues still there, but I know they'll be fixing these with patches. The matching and ranking system are a nice addition as well as the improved co-op vs. AI. Achievements made playing SC2 more fun and less of a chore. I found the game to be a bit newbie centered, as in some newbies were able to beat some veteran RTS players because of unit composition, even though the veteran had superior micro and macro management. I noticed this trend to decrease over time through the patches Blizzard has been periodically implementing. Overall a very solid game, but perhaps lacks some of the innovative features of new RTS games that make it exceptional. Splitting the game into 3 games (one for each race) is also very annoying. I don't like that way of marketing even though it increases sales. But I will wait till the other two parts are released and reserve my judgement. Depending on the price tag and the changes it might be justified.

I'm new to this franchise and decided to buy it after reading its reviews. I loved the game! The story was quite fascinating and the graphics are top notch. The gameplay takes some time to get used to, but once you pick it up it's not bad. The characters and voice acting are very good and are also very interesting. There are a few things that could make this game a bit better - one would be some sort of class system and more customization (but I'm not sure how this would fit in). The game also has some glitches that could be fixed (which I think they did with the new patch.) The game kind of slacks off near the end though (notably the third act) which the story seems kind of rushed and the environment in the 3rd act seems completely wasted. While the 1st and 2nd acts of the game took a very long time, the third act was so short to be even called an act in itself. It was clear the developers were rushed to finish it, which is kind of disappointing - since the game had so much going for it. Decisions made also impact the game's progression (which I love) and makes you want to play it at least twice to get the 'full' experience. Mini games like arm wrestling, gambling and fist fighting were also a plus (gambling game kind of confused me though). (Overall score: 9.0 )

I played the first game, which was amazing and unique. I loved the story and the gameplay, the sound and the graphics and the characters! And I had high expectations for Dragon Age 2 (DA2). However, I was surprised that they tried to make the game more action packed for the more causal gamer. The graphics have been improved and they have added a story that is more like a movie. The story telling is very typical Bioware which I always enjoyed, but I found that the impact of my decisions had less effect then in the previous game. The characters were also not as well built (no backstory, don't really get in touch with the personalities like in the first game). The gameplay is okay if you enjoy fast action/adventure type games, as opposed to the traditional 'pause' and lets plan our next move...which has been the tradition. Gamers who enjoyed the old system may be quite disappointed (hence the negative reviews). Overall a pretty okay game, but overshadowed by its predecessor. (Score 7.0)

This game should have two ratings: one for it's multiplayer and one for it's single player. Seeing that I'm not allowed to do that, I'm forced to give an average of the two. The single player portion of this game is pathetic. The story is linear, the character models were very non-unique, and it was clear that they tried to implement some of the cinematography story-telling that was in MW2, but they don't do it nearly as well. There were some levels that were good in BF3 - featuring the use of vehicles and introducing some of the vehicles that you'd be using in multiplayer, but the story itself just wasn't very good. (Score: 6) The multiplayer game itself is very fun. The graphics are amazing and the levels were adequate. It uses the same formula as BC2...which is that it requires you to use teamwork to win. However, it isn't without its problems. The spawn points on the map are ****, in that the game spawns you in the dumbest possible spot - even though you get to pick the spawn location/area. A lot of the times I died right after spawning because the game would put me in the most open area possible. The multiplayer game itself is fine, but the platform used to connect to games is ****. Connecting through something that looks like a regular webpage (through Origin) is tedious. Origin is glitchy and caused my game to crash multiple times both in game and in the process of joining games. The auto join doesn't work very well either. I hope they fix this over time. EA really should have went with Steam on this one... Overall Multiplayer Score: 8/10 (Would have been 9 without Origin)