goldeneyes82

MvC3 is not what we were expecting, and for fans of MvC2, it's not what we wanted, either. The gameplay has been reduced in complexity, with high/med/low kick/punch now replaced with a basic H/M/L + Special system. The Special attack amounts to a launcher to make starting air combos easier. Much of the depth has been stripped away, which in fact was probably necessary, given that the obvious focus of MvC3 is on it's appearance. The screen is a seizure-inducing blur of action that cannot be followed, with some of it even occuring off screen, so the simplified controls make sense in light of the very difficult to follow action. Overall, MvC3 is all flash, very little substance, and more of a cash-in for Capcom, given that the license and existing fanbase will allow them to spew out endless DLC with characters and costumes. if you have SSF4, BlazBlue, and enjoy them, you can do yourself a favor and skip this lowest-common demoninator effort.

Proving yet again that western reviewers can no longer be trusted to review any but the most high-profile Japanese games, Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll is a good, not excellent, Action-RPG. While the story isn't amazing, it serves well enough to push the action, which is where the game picks up steam, with a co-operate (In terms of interactions between your party, NOT multiplayer, which the game does not have) battle system that will allow you top hop between characters and combine their abilities freely. Combat is smooth enough to make it good, clean hack-n-slash fun. It's hard to understand where some of the "professional" reviews are coming from - feels more and more with each passing year as if Western reviews take one look at a niche japanese title, play for an hour, throw some cliches at it, and assume no one will ever notice that they didn't even try.

I've seen PopCap browser games with more depth than Dawn of War 2. Not Strategic thinking needed here - this is pure point-and-shoot action with the added "Spice" if hitting your special abilities whenever the cooldown is up. Moving your units is not smooth, either, given that they attempt to stick to cover regardless of where you want them to go. Boring, insipid, and an insult to fans of the original who opened their wallets for three expansions while waiting on this game.

Authentic? Simulation? I can't comprehend where the positive reviews for this game come from. Perhaps if you're an octopus and can pull of the obscene control inputs needed for even the simplest maneuver (Post up? Hold L2 + R2, Move R Stick in the Direction of the defender, Release L2 and sing "Dangerous" By Michael Jackson. Post up and Shoot? All of the above, but hit L2 Again, Release R2, move the L stick away from the defender while moving the R stick toward the basket and juggling flaming acorns). Now, even if you manage to figure out the controls, the defensive AI is an inhuman, swarming net of All-NBA first team defenders - and that's even if you're playing in D-League. Like most sports games, fans of the SPORT run up the review scores. Gamers who just want a fun, NBA basketball game that they can pick up and play need not apply here.

DCUO is a game I really wanted to like. After 10+ Years of playing MMO's across the spectrum, I've been looking for something different. DC Universe would be a fine game if it weren't trying to compete in this particular genre. It has the immediacy and action-oriented fun of say, inFamous, with more depth and a quality license. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't have the depth of character development to compete with other top-tier MMO's. Your appearance is more limited than in, say CoH or CO. There are six "Powers," which function like classes, but they share many abilities between them, far more than most MMO's do, and are limited to less overall abilities than any similar game, resulting in a very repetitive play experience beyond your first character. The Episodic quest content is likewise limited. Though there is plenty of content at launch, it all feels the same. With only two locations, Metropolis and Gotham, your experience will be boiled down to fighting thugs or law enforcement officers depending on your choice of side, with the appearance of DC hero or villian at the end of each storyline to finish things off. PvP has all the right parts (Arena's, Scenarios, Open World) but the combat is still more reminiscent of a fighting game such a street fighter than an MMO. There are blocks, block breakers, and interupts, all done with a combination of mouse clicks rather than hotkeys, at a speed that's more suited to fighting games or a CoD game than the more typically cerebral PvP of MMO's. The interface for the PC version is currently an exact replica of the PS3 version. Chat commands are limited, with /shout being the ONLY. Inviting or inspecting other players requires several layers of menu selections. In the end, while DCUO offers some out-of-the-box fun, it's the type of fun I could have in Co-Op or PvP MP in any number of games, without sufficient depth or variety to warrant it's subscription fee in competition with other PC MMO's. It may well be a hit on the PS3, given the lack of competition and streamlined combat and interface designed for that platform. Don't take this as a complaint about the Subscription fee - merely an opinion that, in a side-by-side comparison of other PC games asking for your monthly 15 dollars, DCUO does not do enough, well enough to get me to open up my wallet for it rather than another game.

What happens when a developer produces a game in 1 year, and then goes on vacation for the next 5 before finally releasing their product? While I'm sure that's not what happened with Polyphony Digital and GT5, it certainly gives us a glimpse of what the outcome of such an act might be. The game feels pieced together in the worst way. Before I get into the meat of the review, I'll simply state - I've played every GT up until this. Any further attempts to assure you of my status as anything other than an Xbox Fanboy would be wasted, I'm well aware. I'd like to say that GT5 is a flawed but excellent game. I can't. What it is is a flawed mediocre game. The driving physics no longer stand head and shoulders above the competition, the car selection, while immense, is deceptive - how many variations of the Nissan Skyline do we really need? And to make matters worse, cars are split between "Standard" and "Premium" varieties. The standard vehicles look like they were rendered 5 years ago, early in the development cycle. They would be passable if this were a launch title. The Premium cars look considerably better, with a level of detail that's hard to appreciate outside Photo Mode. There are far more standard than premium cars, sadly. The backgrounds and tracks are likewise bi-polar - some seem to be taken directly from the PS2, with only a hi-def makeover for improvement, right down to the 2D trees and skyboxes. And the driving? It's the equal, but not better, of any racing game on the market. But where other racing sims succeed, GT5 fails, for the first time, to distinguish itself, for while the driving physics are superlative as ever, the opponent AI is worse than ever. Other cars seem, at most times, to not even acknowledge your presence on the track, attempting to drive through you on their racing line far too often. And when a collision does occur, it's as if the other car is bolted to the track - good luck trying to get the better of a close ****, regardless of whether you're in a 1,600lb GT and your opponent is in a 1,040lb hatchback. You will spin out, they will not. In the end, the things that made GT great are still there, at times. But much of the game feels and looks 5 years old, and the competition has more than caught up. This is no longer a worthwhile offering from a developer that once commanded the genre.

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit - It's Burnout Paradise 1.5. Unfortunately, in the 'transition' from Burnout to NFS, Criterion has stripped away several things that made their previous racing games fun. I'm not a huge fan of the "Open world" concept in racers, but NFS is essentially a butchered variation of it. Tracks are simply segments of highway in "Seacrest County" - selecting and starting a race or other mode will drop you in at full-speed into what is supposed to feel like an ongoing event. Sadly, by taking an Open World approach to the tracks, but limiting them to being raced in bite-sized pieces that require dropping to the menu and loading each time, you get neither the free-flowing fun of Burnout, or the variety of other racing games. New cars are available after almost every race, and an incremental system of rewards will continually give you new ranks, which open up new races, car classes, and even types. Playing off the previous complaint however, they all end up feeling quite the same - a Time Trial through the desert in a Maserati is the same thing as a "Rapid Response" through the desert in a Maserati painted in police blue and white, but NFS:HP thinks that you won't be able to tell. The most appealing point here is the Hot Pursuits themselves, and to a lesser extent, the pure Races. Hot Pursuit plays out the same from both sides - Racer or Cop. Both are equipped with a variety of weapons (Spike Strip, Road Block, EMP, etc) and are tasked with taking out other drivers (Either to "Bust" the criminals or simply eliminate competition/pursuit. The mode is tons of fun, but their simple aren't enough Hot Pursuits in the game. More often than not, your shiny new car will only be useful in a Preview, Time Trial, or Rapid Response. When one mode so clearly shines above the others, why is not the true focus of the game? Variety has it's place, but not when it results in the superior experience taking a backseat to an inferior one. Overall, NFS:HP is good fun over a weekend. Car handling is slick, presentation is excellent. But the lack of real variation and lack of commitment needed to open up new cars (Which don't distinguish themselves, anyhow) and rewards will make most casual race fans feel like they've gotten their fill of it in no time at all. For more "hardcore" arcade race fans, it's a solid choice for your collection. For all others, Rent it.

Broken. Unintuitive. Frustrating. These are the main terms that come to mind regarding this game. I'm a long time "4X" gamer, among other genres, though this is by far a favorite since the days of the very first Civilization. I've been looking forward to Elemental since I first heard about it, and it may be the most crushing dissapointment of the past few years. **** has a rep for great strategy titles, and while some of their previous games have been rough around the edges, they've always come through as balanced, fun, and absorbing experiences. Elemental is none of these. Even after the 1.05 patch that fixed the majority of the most egregious, game-breaking crashes and bugs, the game is still utterly broken. There is no "Balance" to speak of between factions. Alt-tabbing to do something on your desktop while result in a crash as often as not. The map freezes, stutters, and locks up. Creating a new Sovereign (Character) is iffy at best, as textures and meshes may or may not apply properly, causing corruption and a crash. Beyond these game-breakers, the game is the least intuitive I may have ever played. Civilization IV on the hardest difficulty? Been there. Same for most any 4X game you can name. And while I understand the concepts in Elemental, the implementation and explanation is simply so bad as to be impenetrable unless you had months in beta to figure it out. Resources are intuitive. The mathematics behind resource production and accrual are flawed, badly. The economics of the various resources (Gold [gilar], Material, Ore, Tech and Arcane Research) are nowhere layed out in a comprehensible form. Nothing in the entire game is made clear to the player, unless you want to wade through the official forums to find the explanations of how things actually work from beta-testers. I've enjoyed every **** game before Elemental, but this game is bad enough that I will be very cautious buying anything from them again, and that's saying something. Just terrible all around.