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There are other reviews saying Shadow is the best because it's most like the original games, with less emphasis on action and greater emphasis on tombs and puzzles. I disagree. This is a REBOOT series, and the first two reboot games were massively successful based on their new, fresh take, which included a greater emphasis on combat. Yet, despite that Shadow took the less-combat route, that didn't have to be a deal breaker. They just had to make up for it in other areas. They didn't, and that's the problem with this game. But where Shadow really went off the rails was by rug-pulling nearly all combat from the game and confusingly not removing other systems related to it. The skill tree, for example, is mostly composed of combat, gathering and hunting abilities. You hunt and gather to acquire crafting items to upgrade weapons or make potions that enhance combat. So all hunting, gathering and direct combat skills are of almost no value BECAUSE THE GAME HAS VERY LITTLE COMBAT. This could not possibly have happened without a lot of copy and paste from Rise's source code. I can imagine the meetings: SENIOR DEV: "Well, that was already done in the last game and it works. Just copy it over." JUNIOR DEV: "Uh... but we're de-emphasizing combat, so shouldn't we pare this down a bit?" SENIOR DEV: "Did you hear what I said? Copy. And. Paste." But you're thinking, "Fine, just ignore them, then." However, they're something like 70- 80% of all available skills! It's a total bait and switch. I spent several hours grinding skills, exploring, getting XP and investing in skills, only to realize nearly all of it was pointless. At the very least, if Shadow wanted to switch focus they needed to massively improve exploration, puzzle-solving and platforming, and change the leveling and progression to support it. There could be multiple ways to solve a puzzle, for example but some approaches require certain skills. Shadow gutted a working part of the reboots (combat) and replaced them with slightly better tomb raiding. And then left a clunky, broken skill tree "hanging around" that just served to confuse and raise the hopes of all the fans of the previous two games. If they wanted to make such a dramatic shift in gameplay back toward the originals, they should have saved it for the next reboot, not created this confusing, disappointing mess.

The first Secret Files game wasn't stellar but it had its charms. Secret Files 2 feels generic and tired. The english voice acting is amateur and wooden, and will actually make you loathe the characters a bit since they come off as unlikable bores. The story is a bit interesting, but not enough to keep you playing through this game's bad points. By the second act, far too few clues are offered for the puzzles and it immediately devolves into the try-everything-on-everything tedium we all know so well, not helped by huge inventory bloat. Hard pass except for hardcore adventure gamers.

This is an example of how indie games can go just a bit too far. Genesis Noir is visually striking but fails in every other department. It's simply not fun to play or explore. It's confusing most of the time, but not in ways that give way to pleasant discoveries or puzzle solving. More in the click on everything variety. And even when you stumble upon the way forward, you still don't really understand any of it. It incorporates science concepts in an abstract and pretentious "Genesis" story to... uh... explain... uh... solve a murder? Something like that. It just doesn't make much sense. The "Noir" bit exists in the music and some of the visuals, but what's the point? It's not a noir story, really. It's just all over the place. If you extract meaning from it, good for you, but I'm pretty sure it's all coincidental. Genesis Noir is the classic example of people assuming they should like something because it seems artsy and hard to understand and different. It's striking, artsy, minimalist visuals seems to be a trend these days with games like West of Loathing and Superhot. But the game still has to deliver in terms of being a game, or it's all frosting and no cake. And that's exactly the problem here.

If you look at the profiles of the vast majority of "user" reviewers giving this a 10, they're all obviously bot or fake accounts with a small number of reviews - many with only a single one for 2077. This only happens when a company is spending serious cash to furiously paper over their worst blunders. It's not a good look, CDPR.

It's very charming at first but as other reviewers have noted, the game mechanics are achingly shallow and it gets very repetitive, with only the clever humor and tropes to keep it interesting. The combat gives you tons of options but you won't need any of them. A little exp and stat grinding makes all encounters one-shot affairs, and this game pretty much hands those grind sections to you on a silver platter. It runs on low end devices and is a decent time waster on a long drive, but I could honestly take it or leave it.

This is basically FarCry 2 with good stealth mechanics. In every other way, like FC 2, this is utterly mediocre and forgettable. The environments all look the same (various shades of brown). The missions quickly get repetitive and there's no sense of accomplishment. The side quests are the epitome of filler. There's lots of boring travel with nothing to do along the way. When you clear an outpost, it quickly respawns, so you're better off ignoring them. What will make or break this game for you are the stealth and combat mechanics. If you love going deep on those you might be able to overlook all the other stuff. You have to really, really love the combat, otherwise this gets old fast. This would have been a much better game in a more level-based format to anchor the story and keep the tension high. As it is, the open world does nothing but water down an already weak story.

The gunplay mechanics are precise but combat overall is boring. You face the same wave after wave of vanilla enemies. You never have to think creatively. Alternative approaches to situations are either non-existent or unnecessary. It throws several set pieces at you, such as dropping you in the middle of multiple enemies at close range, and it's obviously just to force a little variation to make up for its own lack of creativity. Graphically the game can best be described as "dark and cluttered", with terrible object separation and depth. A filter and film grain are applied to everything reducing all colors to drab browns, greens and grays, which while apropos the setting, simply goes too far. Lighting and shadows are annoying and obnoxious. When are devs going to get it? Lens flares that render the entire rest of the scene indiscernible are never, ever good. Like ever. And you can't even shoot out lights to get rid of that horrible effect. When the game isn't blinding you by sticking a light right in your face, it's just plain too dark to see anything. You can override some of the fail by cranking up your monitor's brightness but then you'll get total washout in the next (sort of) normally lit scene. Lastly, there's fog, and it's some of the worst fog I've seen in a video game (and I've been doing it since the days of software 3D). Partly due to the graphics, often times trying to find the path through the levels is very "where's Waldo". This is made worse because there's no waypoint system. They went old school and left it out, but unlike games of old with usually fairly straightforward paths through levels, this is anything but. Expect to backtrack a lot to find that one vent door hidden by a lens flare and shrouded in fog. Ever wish your action FPS games had an element of old school adventure game pixel hunting? You sort of got your wish. This brings us to the next problem. While stumbling around half blind because of all of the above, stealth is pretty much pointless. You'll backtrack multiple times to find your way through the level and trigger every enemy in the process. Overall it's not big on stealth anyway, but it might as well have left it out altogether. The one good thing here is that as of this writing (5/2020), it's well-optimized and runs fine in HD even on my aging GTX 1060 PC. Summing up the graphics and gameplay, A first-person shooter should be a ballet of death. This feels like stumbling through a crowded attic and the only light source is a flashlight aimed directly in your eyes. Overwrought graphics and mediocre gunplay would get this turd a 5/10, but they weren't done yet. This has the most heavy-handed and hackneyed SJW posturing I've ever seen in a game. It's so over-the-top I thought it might even be caricaturing SJWs. Every check-box is ticked: the anti-semitic, racist, wife-beating father. The fat-shaming, homophobic mother. Gotta earn them abelist points by making the whole first level feature the hero as crippled and wheelchair-bound. What's that you say? You need a no-nonsense, big afro'd, "power to the people", black revolutionary woman? We got you covered. And as a bonus, we even threw in her white, meek "whatever you say, m'lady" husband. All of this would be forgivable if these characters were backed by good writing (example: Jackie Brown), but they aren't. They exist in place of the writing. They'll regurgitate lines that have been said a thousand times in a thousand braindead Hollywood scripts. I bet when the writers went to the producers and said, "You know, I just can't quite flesh out this character or create a compelling story." The producer replied, "Well, then just make her fat and ****, and they'll eat it up." New Colossus marks a turning point in gaming for me. I've always researched games before buying, but now I additionally check if there's an over-abundance of heavy-handed political nonsense making up for lazy writing and characters. As a progressive centrist, nothing in this game is progressive. It's just mindless cheerleading. It's just replacing an old stereotype with a new one. It's just dumb. Can I say that without being called racist, sexist, etc? Probably not, but I'm saying it anyway. My last thought on this game is it would be forgettable and not worth a review as a standalone game, but on the heels of New Order and Old Blood, it's just an incredible disappointment. I won't return to the franchise until I see good evidence that the head has been excavated from the posterior.

This game is such a hot mess, and couldn't be more disappointing given the amazing blueprint that was set with the first game. Like many of the "hardcore" trend of late, it mistakes poor design or outright frustration for genuine fun and challenge. I grew up in the 80s. I know those games well. You want hard? Beat Ghosts 'n Goblins on one quarter and come talk to me. If they took save-scumming out of this game, all the people saying, "git gud, n00b" in response to valid criticism would also be trashing this game. At the heart of the problem is this is a tactical, methodical game that was force-fed high-fructose corn syrup. It comes in the form of mission timers for nearly every mission you'll play. And like pounding can after can of soda, it doesn't take long before you're sick of it, and start to ask an obvious question: "why did they think this is fun?" Then there's the broken game mechanics, like that time you ran your guy behind their guy and stuck your gun into the back of his head and it says you have 90% chance to hit? Yeah, sorry, that's more like 50/50. See this game is so clever it knew you'd do the, ya know, LOGICAL thing, so they made that not work anymore! So clever. Such good game design! 10/10! Seriously, check around the forums. I kid you not: the most oft-repeated strategy is to run forward and chuck grenades, for the main reason that grenades will hit 100% of the time. Let me be clear: in a turn-based, tactical game. 1) Run forward. 2) Chuck grenades. And I tried it. And sadly, they're right. The absolute dumbest, guaranteed to get your squad wiped move is a great idea in this game. That's how BROKEN the RNG outcomes are! No, you don't save grenades for tactical opportunities, like when two or more enemies are bunched up or you get in a jam. You throw all your grenades up front and pray it's enough that whatever's left over won't be able to full-wipe your squad in the face of the RNG screwing you over for the remainder of the battle. Gaming at its finest. XCOM 2 is the out-of-the-box paradigm shift of game design we don't deserve, didn't need and never asked for. Save the world? Nah. Save your money.

A not horrible but mostly forgettable shooter. Cliche "dropped into a meat grinder" story. Gun play and movement aren't very satisfying. You can't dive or roll like in Max Payne, so the bullet time is just basically a slow-motion cheat button. The jump scares are formulaic to the point that you start to ignore them and just charge forward. Speaking of which, running is in very short bursts because it's limited by a tiny stamina meter, which is just... odd. A highly trained soldier can't sprint for more than 30 feet without running out of breath?

I loved OMD 1 and 2, bought all the DLC, even bought copies for friends. I also paid $30 to be in the closed beta of Orcs Must Die Unchained. All of that is why this game is such an unmitigated disappointment for me. I already know what you're thinking, fanboy, so let me stop you right there. I'm not automatically against this game because it's F2P. I knew it was F2P going into the beta, after all. I'm dislike it because on nearly every level it's just a far weaker playing, dumbed down OMD game. Here's a partial list of what was made worse: 1. No Single Player campaign* 2. No Double-jumping 3. No Head shots 4. No Sprinting (yes, you cannot even sprint in this game!) 5. Slow rate of fire 6. Bad guys are bullet sponges, primary weapons are nearly useless (except to add a hit to your combo counter) 7. No charge shots 8. Traps do less damage and fire less often. 9. Traps cost more and thus you place far fewer in the course of a match. (If you manage to lay down 10 traps in the course of a half hour match, that's about typical in this game) 10. No trinkets 11. Slow movement: as mentioned, no sprinting, but backing up or strafing are oddly far slower than moving forward. 12. Character stops dead to cast magic or melee (again, adding to the SLOW feeling of this game) 13. The excellent progression of unlocking traps each level in OMD 1 and 2 is replaced with a deliberately complicated crafting system that requires (literally) dozens of hours of grinding to make any real progress. 14. Most levels limit trap placement to a single small hallway. The entire trap mechanic in the game is hugely downplayed. 15. Guardians cannot be placed strategically, only on designated spots *As for single player, yes, technically you can play solo. Except all the maps were designed for PvP and PvE, and as single player maps they're not very good. Also, there's no story, no humor, you just start a level and that's it. If that's a worthwhile single player game to you, then have at it. Is it the worst game in the world? No, certainly not. But it's just really, really mediocre. It's trying to shoehorn their previous success into a new multiplayer game and making far too many compromises in the process. Now it's to the point the older games are recognizable mainly in appearance only. Such a wasted opportunity. OMD3 with one or two additional modes, a couple new characters and improvements to the old ones would have been a fantastic seller. In fact, they probably could have easily made it to OMD4 before the community was really hungry for "something different." OMDU is the game precisely zero players and fans wanted.

Solid shoot 'n loot, a bit on the easy side. Low gravity offers some very fun combination possibilities, like fire a grenade, fire rocket launcher, slam to the ground and then jump away before the grenade goes off. Combined with elemental effects it can be complete chaos and total fun. Some of the complaints are just dumb, for example, running time. Playing most of the missions and side missions, I got a solid 40 hours out of BL:TPS, so I don't see what all the complaints are about it being an "extended DLC". As for it being "more of the same", I guess I'm someone who appreciates that. The formula wasn't broken so they added some new elemental types, vehicles and low gravity, but other than that, it's still Borderlands. If you just want more Borderlands, this is your game.

Not nearly the game that Dragon Age: Origins was, but a good action-rpg all the same. A key change includes making combat more action-oriented, but sadly, far less strategically deep. The game world is also much smaller as most of the events take place in and around a key city. Graphically, without the high-res texture pack, it looks worse than Origins in some respects. Speaking of graphics, they get reused quite a bit, which is both lame and confusing. For example, a single dungeon or mansion is reused several times, just in each "different" instance, some doors don't open and others do, yet the entire environment can be seen on the overhead map. This caused me to think I might have missed some secret passage or route, but no, it was because of code reuse. And one last dig: dialog and interaction don't impact the story nearly as much as DA:O. What DA2 retains, however, is strong characters, great dialogue and quests which rarely feel mass-produced, arbitrary or rote. It also retains an "epic" feel as the events transpire over a ten-year period, though you don't start to get a sense of it until around halfway through the game, when your actions from much earlier affect the story. It's not a bad game at all, but compared to its older brother, the disappointment from fans is easily understandable.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

As a fan since Under a Killing Moon, I really enjoyed this game, but if you're not already a fan or Adventure Gamer, I'm not sure I could honestly recommend it. Overall the game just feels a bit thinly realized on all fronts: humor, story, dialog, environments, puzzles. Not a terrible game by any means but it's probably on par with Tex Murphy: Overseer, which is considered the weakest of the series. Still, it's great to get another go with Tex Murphy in the saddle again. If anything, this character/series needs the reboot treatment. Most of the actors are really showing their age and some new young blood both in the game and in the design would help a lot.

Omega isn't bad but it's a bad value. The action and environments are very good but the story is pretty plain and vanilla. I was hoping for things like side-quests or possible tie-ins to the main storyline. This is as stand-alone as it gets. Plus, it's only around 3 hours long. If you're getting this one to "revisit" Omega, I wouldn't recommend it. You fight your way through it and then that's it, and you can't even return to it. So no additional quests or shops to explore. Worth it for $5 - 7 tops, but not worth the $15 it typically goes for.

The original GRID seemed to nail the balance between a simulation and an arcade experience. GRID: Autosport has a more sim-like feel, which may appeal to some but not to me. The cars feel big and like you have to lug them through turns, yet oddly there's a tipping point while braking where suddenly the car will basically do a 180 if you so much as tap the stick. The braking feels all over the place, probably because the game doesn't convey an intuitive sense of speed: 75 mph feels the same as 150 mph. Regardless, this is a game where proper braking is absolutely crucial, but the game does you no favors. The distance markers are too small, for example, and the announcer is useless. It all adds up to an unintuitive sense of control, and in racing games, if the control isn't there it's a good bet the overall gaming experience is in serious trouble. I've only played a couple drift events but so far it's a hot mess. This game seems to think spinning your tires = drifting. The sweet spot of control through a turn is almost non-existent. You never get that "let it all hang out" feeling through a turn because going open throttle on even a straight will send you out of control! What were they thinking? But worse, there is no sense of what makes a good drift or a bad drift. There's some vague connection to markers on the sides of the turns but I've done absolutely sh**ty drifts of just tire-spinning and fish-tailing and they seem to score as well if not better than a controlled slide (on the extremely rare occasion the game lets me perform one). Menus and skill progression, similar to Dirt 3, are terrible and totally uninspiring. I don't know why it's so hard for them. In the case of G:AS it's an extremely minimalist design that could easily have come from an 80s or 90s game, and gives you very little sense of progress, or why progress even matters. The tiers in the original GRID were not a standout but they did the job. Every game Codemasters has produced in the last few years has this sort of wannabe minimalist avant-garde look that also happens to be just passable at conveying information. It's better than Dirt 3's triangles, is about the best I can say. And Codemasters, it's just a videogame. You don't need to confirm every freakin' decision I make. Do I really want to exit Practice Mode? YES, FREAKING YES!! If I accidentally pick the wrong thing and lose my race, it's not like I just deleted my dissertation or formatted my hard drive. So enough with the stupid confirming. Please Please fire the menu team. They have no idea how to design menus that compliment the rest of the game and they're annoying as hell. Bottom line: all this adds up to a game that is just not terribly fun to play. It's not a horrible game but in both real cars and car racing games, the crucial make or break element is that intangible feeling of driving excitement. Racing is supposed to be edge of your seat type stuff, and this doesn't feel like it at all. It just feels mediocre. Glad I got this on sale but unless future Codemaster game reviews are overwhelmingly positive, this is likely my last purchase.

The scores of this game baffle me. This is a very average adventure game. It's not terrible it's just nothing special. It's not original, being largely an homage to other adventure games and fantasy/sci-fi mainstays like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. However, even in its tributes it isn't terribly clever. It's not especially difficult but it does have a touch of that old-school annoying adventure game flavor (that most modern adventure games have wisely done away with). For example: you can hold the space bar and all interactable items will be highlighted, but on one puzzle, it only worked if you were standing right next to the key item. So basically you try every other possibility until, thoroughly bored, you hit the walkthrough. It's then you realize it wasn't your inability to solve the puzzle but the game deliberately breaking it's own rules to try and add more challenge. The environments are pretty, but tiny and boring. You start in a boring Gnome town, then go to a deserted castle town, then to a sunken temple. It just never wows you with its visuals. A great adventure game feels full of possibility even if you're somewhat limited in how much you can explore: a feet created by great storytelling. Again, no idea what the hype is with this game. I played Tesla Effect and Deponia recently and both are easily superior on every level. It's full of nods and adventure game in-jokes, as well as

Basically a more open-world version Tomb Raider with some key differences. First, the narrative isn't nearly so tight. Second, menu navigation, tutorials and the like feel clunky and confusing. Third, too much narrative and opening exposition. I've been playing for an hour and all I've done is shoot a couple pigs and pick flowers. The narrative structure was executed top-notch in Tomb Raider, but in Far Cry 3 it's already feeling like work because the story is just too been-there-done-that. We didn't come to Far Cry 3 for story. We came to Far Cry 3 for action and great game mechanics, and if this game doesn't start delivering soon, into the trash it goes.

At first I really hated this game. It seems really straightforward (as far as tactics/strategy), and yet random and unfair. The tutorial is extremely basic and doesn't really prepare you for how to play. The biggest omission is that while the game happens in real-time, you can pause everything and coordinate multiple actions, and then un-pause to set them in motion. In fact, it's absolutely critical that you do. It's sort of a combination of real-time and turn-based. You can play the game real-time but eventually it will throw a situation with four or five things going on and you'll get rolled. You're meant to pause everything, figure out the best counter-moves and then set everything in motion. Once you "get it", the game isn't nearly so frustrating.

This barely qualifies as a game to me and I'm pretty critical of "non-games" that are sold as such. The game play consists of wrapping various objects in a rope by manipulating the object with the mouse. Unfortunately, the main challenge in the game is controlling the wild swings of the mouse with any precision. It's not zen, it's not relaxing. It's a glorified mouse training tool. Then there's some world music in the background. Cue finger twirling. Just glad I got this in a humble bundle.

In a nutshell this is a classic puzzle game with incredible art and engaging sound. If you like puzzle games then definitely give this a try. If you're expecting a platformer, you might want to steer clear.

Can't believe how much love this game gets. Controls are phenomenally bad, even with the well-known vsync and other fixes. It's just such a chore to play with such awful controls. I played it for an hour, tried all the fixes, uninstalled. Too many good games to play rather than fight with this one.

One of the best introduction sequences to a AAA game in the last dozen years. Sadly, the combat and graphics take a big step down from Crysis. Seriously, 2014 and blurry textures in sign text? I sort of did a WTF and then checked to make sure my settings were indeed on Ultra. It's like I stepped into a time machine back to 2007. On the upside, you can probably run this on your laptop. That and Bejewelled 12 (twirls finger). The characters are also feeling weak. The first game wasn't strong, merely adequate, but this one pushes the limits of generic bad guys. The gun play is solid, and I had fun stealthing up to bad guy 1, snapping his neck with precisely the correct torsional force, and then finishing off bad guys 2 and 3 with my hand gun/melee combo. Nothing like shooting a guy in the face and then elbowing him before he hits the floor. Level design is also showing it's age, with urban building landscapes that initially feel open but are really closed with only a few potential routes. I'm okay with this so long as it's truly scripted narrative. Crysis 2 can't seem to make up its mind what it wants to be: an open world-like game or a tightly integrated frag-fest like the latest Tomb Raider. Whatever. It's fun enough, just don't pay full price.

I really want to like this more. It's a nice throwback to games like Twisted Metal and Carmageddon. The humor is awesome. The upgrades are awesome. The music is awesome. But... The driving is extremely mediocre. The cars need to handle a bit more arcade-like for this kind of game. They feel heavy, they don't turn, and it feels like it takes weeks to get back up to speed. Even standing on the nitro you rarely get a sense of speed. The tracks need to be less annoying. I'm talking Nitro-ing through a straight and then of course there's a strategically placed pillar right as you enter the turn to stop you dead. This, and other "don't go fast" annoyances are far too common in this game. Who the hell wants to approach turns with caution in a game like this? I love more tactical games like Grid, but if I want that I'll go play Grid. These annoyances really start to become glaring about 10 hours into the game when the difficulty ramps up. At some point it stops feeling like a smash-mouth racing battle and it starts necessitating too much deep thought, strategic pick-ups and conservative nitro-ing. In fact, not firing your weapons starts to feel like the better option in most cases. This game will start out as an 8 or 9 but as the frustration creeps in you'll eventually settle at 6 or 7.

Turns out my initial impressions of this game were wrong. It's true, it does suffer from a bit of miasma early on, but once you get going and get a feel for the controls, it's an engaging feast of action and adventure. I played it relentlessly to the end, and while the finale could have been better, this is still a very solid game.

It's extremely rare I give a game a full 10, but this is it! Combat dynamics, story, variety, drama, this game has it all! You feel like you're in a movie. Graphics are gorgeous, voice acting is top notch, xbox 360 controller integration is perfect, and the pacing never lets up. If you want a tightly scripted and superbly-paced action game, you need to play this. I can't think of anything better.

You'll really want to love this game, but as much as you try, it will beat you into submission. The problems start with a menu system that I can only describe as baffling, like they gave it to the intern and he got his degree at a trust fund art college. It's a series of unfolding triangles that give you zero sense of your overall progress. Are you improving? Moving up the rankings? Who knows. Cause if it's one thing we race game fans like it's to have absolutely zero sense of our progress. Next you get to see their DLC advertised obnoxiously throughout the game. It's a constant reminder that while you paid full price for the game, they lazily threw in a few extra cars and other dumb stuff that took them 15 minutes to program while they licked In-n-Out grease off their chubby fingers. But the biggest sin of Dirt 3 is the driving just isn't much fun or satisfying. Dirt 2 and Grid really nailed the driving, and at the end of the day that's all that matters. Dirt 3 is either condescendingly easy with all the driver assists turned on, or a sloppy ice rink mess when they're not. There are literally times on certain tracks when the car becomes uncontrollable for no reason, usually in the form of your breaks having no effect (but in other parts of the track it's like the calipers are stuck closed). So you end up strategically "sneaking up" on these sections of track, breaking way ahead of when you should need to, just so the game won't send you flying through the air like a rag doll. The drifting, in particular, is terrible. No combos or flags like in Grid. If you like to do handbrake turns, look elsewhere. They put you sideways every time and control is basically non-existent until you finally come to a stop. Bottom line: Frustrating, unsatisfying game play is enough not to recommend Dirt 3. But add on the terrible interface and DLC and you might have enough reason to think twice about Dirt 4.

This game is becoming a cult hit. The basic elements are a solid goth vampire storyline and Deux Ex action-rpg play style. The voice acting is excellent and you'll have a lot of fun just exploring the richly detailed world. There's tons of overt and covert humor and references to gaming culture. If I had one minor criticism it's that it could use a bit more action.

Only two hours in and I had this gnawing feeling it felt like a big DLC kind of thing. Come to metacritic and find out I'm not the only one. So far, SR4 feels like a game with all the whacky bonus modes unlocked. The kind that are fun to screw around with for a few hours but then you get bored of being "god" and play something else.

As a newcomer to Prince of Persia (well, I played the original back in 1989...) I really enjoyed this game and was disappointed it didn't go over with the fans very well. The action is super-fluid, just as a game like this should be, and the fighting system is deep. You can set up insane 10+ hit combos on the bad guys. A deep fighting system is a welcome relief from the "keep pushing the A button" depth of most 3D platformers. Unfortunately, the game's biggest flaw is there is really no penalty for dying. They start you RIGHT back where you died. They were trying to reboot the series and keep it accessible, but this was just a misstep. Still, on a pure gameplay level this is just an incredibly fun game.

Lots of fun but doesn't quite reach its potential. Game movement and fighting are fun, but too easy. One power (the rats power) basically makes all other offensive options unnecessary. Graphics are fine for gen 3 consoles but looking very 2008 on the PC. Story is passable.

Between crashes I played this game. It should be called Crash Payne 3. And crashes aren't the half of it: scenery often doesn't load, in some cases it's so bad you can fall through it! And no, check the date of this review, this isn't what I experienced on or near its launch date. This is a full year after release and it's still broken to hell. Action is clunky and repetitive, with bullet time frequently interrupted when so much as Max' little toe clips the edge of the over-crowded scenery. It doesn't feel like a gun-kata ballet of death. It feels like white guys dancing at a wedding to gangsta rap. South America as the location was a mistake. In MP1 and 2, the city was a character in the story. In MP3, we don't care about the setting or who Max is trying to protect (a bunch of rich people yay!). We don't even care much about Max. In MP1 and 2 it was about his wife and his life. In MP3 he's just a loser. What little redemption is managed comes way too late for anyone to care. To obfuscate the weak setting and plot, the game jumps all the hell over, with flashbacks to NYC, some boat, and other places so thinly realized I can't really remember them.

Oh this is a weird one. Cat Lady has a rough, indie feel and yet it works perfectly to the game's ends. It's like watching a murder on a grainy 8mm film reel or a really worn out VHS tape: the crudeness of it makes you wonder if it might be the real thing. Conversely, when goth goes mainstream the result is Hot Topic, and why a lot of mainstream horror titles like Alan Wake and Resident Evil just don't work for me. They're too slick and too packaged. They might as well have call-outs on the screen that say "Be Scared Now" or "Feel a Sense of Dread For Next 15 Seconds". Cat Lady feels like it was written by a schizophrenic in the bowels of an asylum. Just being indie and "crude" is not enough, though. There is a lot of indie crap out there that the anti-mainstream will label as brilliant simply because it's indie. Cat Lady brings the goods. It took a couple hours but the story **** me in and now it's one of those games I don't want to play because I know eventually it will end. Many indie titles like Minecraft started out playing in the minor leagues but all the while hoping for mainstream success (and of course, with that game, they found it). But to me, The Cat Lady is exactly what an indie title should be: unafraid and un-apologetically creative, and without ever even the concern of appealing to a mass audience. Bottom line: this is a avant garde video gaming at its finest.

Like many I got on the Mass Effect train with ME2. So you're probably wondering if it's worth it to play the first one. Short answer is 'yes'. ME1 is less polished but more intelligent than ME2 and 3. Your decisions and interactions seem to alter the story more. Combat is less forgiving (at first). You're thrown into more moral dilemmas. Speaking of combat, if you have FPS experience definitely play this one on hard or you'll find the combat getting repetitive and boring. Additionally, once you get some skills boosted, some of the combat mechanics are easy to abuse for the guaranteed win. The higher difficulty really pushes you to think about your skill choices and approach combat situations strategically. Bottom line, this ME is "different but good in its own way."

Super fast and super crazy, but a little too arcade in execution. Nail'd at times almost feels like you're on rails with turning being a sort of quick-time event, but then eventually interrupted by an awkward crash. The upgrades to your bike also don't feel like they make a noticeable difference. Nail'd could have been saved with a comprehensive stunt system or some good old fashioned racer on racer violence. As it is, once you get over the initial high-speed rush there's not much left over.

I'm not sure what people will make of this game. There's a lot of good but unfortunately a lot of annoying. The arcade mode only allows you to play on Hard and Insane, so if you want a "pick up and play" kind of experience, prepare to die a lot. To that end I started off in Story Mode, yet the story itself quickly became too cumbersome for me it isn't terribly interesting or well-integrated into the gameplay (basically back and forth dialog and reading paragraphs on the screen not cut-scenes), but it brings the action (why we play this type of game) to a dead stop. I love a good story and play RPGs and Adventure games all the time, but the role of the narrative should have been to get me pumped for the next stage and it didn't do it. Bottom line: learn that Fast Forward key and prepare to use it, my friends. The next glaring problem with this game is you can't change the resolution. A lot of games in this genre are known to be lacking in this area, resulting in screen stretching and the like. Sine Mora has found a new way to ****, however, by fixing the resolution at 1080p and then scaling the output based on whatever resolution you're in. Not a problem if you're playing on your 1080p television, but if, like me, you're on a 20" 1680x1050, you get to see huge, wonderful black bars above and below the screen (think widescreen movies on old 4:3 televisions). So Sine Mora's tiny sprites are made even tinier. Seriously nearly half the screen is black bars. Other people have covered the games features so I'll skip that except to mention the game has what is basically "bullet time". You can slow down time and weave through showers of bullets. It makes the game more accessible but at the same time, I don't play these games "to go slow". Max Payne's bullet time is not just to slow things down, it's so you can fly into a gun kata ballet of death, so while time slowed down, the action never really did. On a pure gameplay level this one is just average. Action games should, at their heart and stripped of all their various gimmicks, just be damn fun to play, and this one is just so-so. The levels are so broken up by dialog and awkward pacing you never sink into that zen of you and the game.

This is definitely a 'cult' game. People generally either love it or hate it. I didn't hate it, necessarily, I could see why others would enjoy it, but for me it simply became too tedious to play. Events unfold in real time but in many cases there aren't enough clues to know where you should be next, never mind that time is also a factor. There's a ton of die-and-retry in the game. Even a vague clue at the end of each attempt might have made the game a lot more playable. As others have stated, the rotoscoped graphics are kind of a treat or were, back when this game was made. However, the tradeoff is the animation and movement are literally frame by frame, so be ready for circa 1984 gameplay. The story, costumes and historical setting are where this game really shines. You really feel like you're on an old train. The art and camera direction are excellent. That might put it over the top for some.

It doesn't have the sexiness of the original but it's a fine game on its own merit and the cyberpunk themes win me over. Unfortunately, with everything needing to play nice with consoles, it's doubtful we'll ever see a game on the level of the original.

It didn't quite fill the Deus Ex shoes. It's basically Deus Ex lite. The story is still interesting and the graphics get a nice update, but in every other way it's a notch below its older brother. The game mechanics, exploration and atmosphere all seem diminished somehow. On its own, it's still a worthy title and anyone into cyberpunk style games will like it.

Shatter is good clean arcade fun. It's very easy to just pick up and play. It has a lot of similar elements to Arkanoid, however, I probably wouldn't recommend it to Arkanoid fans because it's not nearly challenging enough. Any decent player will beat the arcade mode within five hours of gameplay. Still, it's a great game for when casual gamers come by. The music and visuals also make it a good game for those who like pot. hahahaha

This game is an homage to the old 8-bit action adventure games I used to play when I was a kid. If you enjoy those old games you may like Cave Story. The game has a few cool innovations for the genre and so far the story is reasonably interesting and charming. On the downside, as a platformer, it's only passable. The movement and jump mechanics don't feel tight and you tend to slide off edges of platforms technical sections will seriously test your patience. If you're hoping for the precise, predictable feel of games like Metroid or Mega Man, it ain't happening. For me, play mechanics are king for old school platform games, and with 25 years of time this one should have gotten it perfect. It just holds back what could be a much better game.

Pretty much all you could ask for in a port of this classic game. The cell-shaded art, which was groundbreaking when it was released, looks fantastic in high res. Xbox 360 controllers are plug and play. The gameplay is no different from the original and that's my only gripe. Cool as the original was, it could feel darn clunky at times. Starting from a full stop is especially annoying. Another flaw in the control scheme is pushing forward on the analog stick while initiating a jump often sends you wildly out of control. The correct way to do it is to let the stick go neutral, hit jump, and then immediately get back on the stick to control direction, but it's neither intuitive or fun.

First, to those with performance issues, create a shortcut to the game with these switches: **** -str -npd +jobs_numThreads 0 I'm sort of surprised LA Noire got made, but I'm glad it did. This game is to Rockstar what Punch Drunk Love was to Adam Sandler. It confused the heck out of people but if you kept an open mind it paid off.

A charmer **** and perfect for "non-puzzle" fans since the game is so tightly crafted and doesn't confuse players with complicated red herrings. It's not that long or deep, just sort of an evolved simple arcade game. I can pull Limbo out when non-gamer friends come over and it has instant appeal for everyone.

I also agree the Destructoid review doesn't do this game much justice. The core game play is there for shooter fans. This is game is definitely heavy on the visuals and it's certainly possible to get lost in a sea of bullets, but like most shoot 'em ups, Ether Vapor's formula is pattern+execution. Learning what wave of enemies is next and being in the right place to wear down tougher bad guys is absolutely key to avoid being overwhelmed. Another thing about Ether is that its multiple weapons aren't just for variety they're absolutely necessary to learn and use, and knowing when to switch off weapons during scene transitions or after taking down a micro-boss is also key. These old school style games require both pattern memory and execution, and even though they're easy to pick up, getting good is a whole different story. This is not the best of this genre, but the 4.5 Destructoid gave it typically signifies a game that's unplayable for me, and that's not even close to the case here.

A train wreck **** and basically dead on release. Based on the incredibly good UT99 and 2004 games, I, like others, bought this on "day one". Within a couple hours of playing realized I'd been had in the worst way: a console controller had been jammed firmly up my crack. It exemplified the "lazy console port" trend which was popular at the time (and is thankfully finally starting to recede). Capped framerates, dumb-downed menus, wildly inconsistent performance, missing multiplayer modes, and one of the worst multiplayer connect menus ever. I remember a week into this game's launch there were one or two players per server basically server admins playing bots hoping someone would join. In the face of the avalanche of performance issues, EPIC's response was basically to blame PC gaming. What an incredibly stupid move. Eventually these issues were addressed and by the Titan patch it was finally worth playing. Still, without a critical mass of players there was no online community. No players no game. The colossal failure of Unreal Tournament 3 should be required reading for game developers and distributors.

Witcher doesn't do everything right but where it's good, it's great! Finally we get a story where choices matter and the player isn't treated like an idiot. Compared to the average game these days, the interface is a little daunting at first. Soon enough it's easy to work with. The combat mechanics are this game's weak point. Occasionally you need to think strategically in combat but on normal difficulty it becomes fairly easy if you've invested time in side quests to boost your skills. Players who want to be forced to master the intricacies of the combat system should definitely play this one on Hard. Another issue is stability. The game tends to crash, particularly in certain graphically intense areas of Chapter 2. Save and save often. Normally, this would be a deal-breaker for me, but the games other positives allow me to me to give it a pass.

Definitely not for everyone. The fighting is somewhat counter-intuitive and took a good hour to get the hang of, but now that I understand the mechanics of the fighting, I like it more than the usual left-click-fest dungeon crawlers out there. You actually need timing in this game. Spells actually make a difference but aren't so over-powered you can just sit back and play menus. There are several context-sensitive menu options, such as meditating, which only appear when you're near a fire or talking to someone who can offer you shelter. Once you know this, it's fine, but the first time I was told to meditate I was pretty confused since I couldn't find a meditation option anywhere. Once you get passed the initial learning curve, Witcher 2 is quite a lot of fun to play.

A good, not great Adventure Game. To avoid the tedium of pixel-hunting, you can hold down the spacebar to reveal all interactive items on screen. This alone makes the experience worthwhile over similar games. Where it comes up short is the main character is a total **** bag. The supporting characters are either nonsensical or annoying. It's hard to embrace a story without any likable characters. Voice acting, art design and puzzles are all good to great.

Torchlight is an inoffensive dungeon crawler. Inoffensive because it doesn't do much wrong but it also doesn't really inspire in any way. Of all the spells, magic weapons and enchanted armor you'll find, what this games needs most is a Potion of Give a Damn. At first I enjoyed the gameplay, particularly with the opening town exploration and "buddy" mission to kick off the story, but that all ends within an hour of play. After about ten hours I suddenly had an epiphany that it was undeniably repetitive and it didn't really matter what I did. It very quickly became a run-of-the-mill level grind with almost no story development. 99% of the time you'll be left-clicking bad guys or adjusting your inventory. The levels also started to get visually so repetitive it was easy to get turned around and accidentally back-track. The sudden realization that all the armor, stat and magic advances my character had made really were pointless was enough to move on for greener pastures.