kane148

I wasn't sure what to think about this when it came out, but after playing it twice (once regular game, once 'integrated' with WotC), I just don't think it fits well in Xcom. The story mission is interesting, though ultimately just leaves you with more questions, but aside from that it essentially adds boss battles into random missions. Given how difficult Xcom already is--and the fact that most missions have relatively short timers--these bosses are potentially game-breaking. The bosses can easily take down an entire squad, so if you run into one on the way to escape or while already engaged with enemies, it can quickly ruin your chances of success. On the positive side, you do get a few new weapons that are pretty fun, and if you manage to defeat the bosses you unlock some awesome unique armors that will surely come in handy. If you're already an Xcom pro and want to spice things up a bit, this might be worth it, but if you're new to Xcom then it's likely to just be a huge headache.

As someone who loves Jurassic Park and who had just played and enjoyed the Telltale GoT game, I was expecting to really like this. Unfortunately, this was so bad I couldn't even force myself to finish this, despite multiple tries. After several hours, I realized that I didn't care about any of the characters or the things they were doing, and the 'gameplay' was nothing more than endless QTE sequences, interspersed with boring point-and-click adventure segments. I'm fine in principle with an interactive story that really isn't a game, but the story here just isn't engaging at all. I also encountered some really frustrating bugs that made me keep failing QTE segments, even when I did everything correctly. Thankfully I got it on Steam sale so only wasted $5, but it still wasn't worth that much.

I was really excited about this game after playing Just Cause 2, which was a phenomenal game. Unfortunately, this game turned out to be a pretty mixed bag. The gameplay itself is pretty fun, and I liked that they greatly expanded the variety of weapons available. The addition of destruction physics and additional tether mechanics was also really fun, and allowed you to do all sorts of new things. I really enjoyed the game when I was just running around destroying stuff. However, I dreaded playing the story missions because the characters were all either boring or annoying, and unlike the last game, this one seemed to take itself seriously. The story was pretty disjointed and uninteresting, and the ending sequence was just insultingly bad. I don't know if the devs ended up rushed near the end or just didn't care, but the ending was just awful and a total waste of time. Additionally, the game had way too many bugs. I played it quite a while after launch, so there's really no excuse for the dozens of crashes and glitches I experienced. All in all, this game is totally worth playing if you just want to run around and blow stuff up, but don't expect to care about anyone or anything, or for a smooth gaming experience.

Got this on Steam sale for about $15 and it was worth the price. It was enjoyable enough for a Star Wars game, but I couldn't really get into it beyond the relatively short campaign. The land battles are pretty boring, but the space battles can be rather fun. Unfortunately, its unit cap keeps them from ever getting too exciting, as you can only have a handful of ships at any given time.

I was really disappointed by this game. ME is one of my favorite series, and I was a huge fan for the first three games. This game had an awesome premise and plenty of potential to be incredible. However, Bioware really dropped the ball in several critical areas, resulting in a mediocre game overall. To be fair, it's NOT a bad game, but it surely fails to be a great game. The combat is really well done--that's something they got right--and the lack of class restriction on skills was definitely fun (if not lore friendly). I also really liked the open planets to explore instead of the corridor shooting of the last two games, and the Nomad is much more fun to drive than the Mako. The story has some good things going for it; I won't spoil anything, but it's interesting and does present some compelling situations. But the story execution--pacing, character development, narrative arc, etc.--fails in many places, with the result that you'll either stop caring or feel let down by the lack of narrative reward for your **** maybe just be confused. Easily the worst part of the game is the frustrating technical problems and poor design choices that make the game hard to play. Problems such as poor facial animations and lip-syncing errors don't ruin a game, but they really do undermine the immersion **** like this that's supposed to have such a big focus on narrative and characters. Moreover, the performance was just awful. I don't have the best PC, but I could run the Witcher 3 (which looks so much better) on max settings with no trouble; yet ME:A regularly struggled even on medium settings. (in fact it ran better with big fights in the open world than walking around the Nexus). Lastly, the interface is often clumsy and unhelpful, and is very limiting. As in Dragon Age: Inquisition, they force PC users to be limited by the UI for console players, so that you can only use a few abilities at any given time. The game also makes the frustrating choice to introduce a large array of weapon and armor crafting options, but does not let you customize your companion's gear at all, so that most gear you find or can make is useless to you. All in all, it's probably worth playing if you're a big fan of the series, but you will have to prepare to be underwhelmed. The real shame here is that, had Bioware put the care into this game that it did for previous titles, and not sacrificed the singleplayer game in favor of multiplayer, this could have been another incredible title. Instead, it's likely the end of the franchise.

I think that this game is great overall, but unfortunately suffers from some fairly significant flaws that make it less enjoyable than it otherwise could be. As usual Bioware has good plot and character writing, and from what I've seen I think they hit a sweet spot between introducing new characters and using characters from previous games. As tends to be the case, some characters were very interesting and loveable, while others were frankly annoying or kinda boring, but that could just be a matter of taste. I did feel that it fell a little flat though trying to balance the main character between the very open approach of Origins and the extremely restrictive approach of DA:II--you can choose the race, sex, appearance, and voice of your character, but it doesn't affect the story (even the intro sequence, as in Origins) in any significant way, and your character's background story is never developed and is pretty much irrelevant to the story. I very much liked the vast open-world approach, with its many different environments and visual themes, especially after DA:II forced us to play in the most confined, dull, copy-pasted environments ever. I also liked the introduction of armor/weapon crafting, which is great for players who like to tinker with that sort of thing and maximize their stats, while still being entirely optional, for players who don't want to bother. Likewise I enjoyed the customizable base, but felt that Bioware was pretty arbitrary with what it allowed you to customize: for example, you have over a dozen choices for curtains, window glass, beds, etc. but you cannot customize your casual attire, which is boring as hell, nor can you ever actually finish repairs on the castle--even once you're the most powerful person in the realm, apparently you can't get someone to fix holes in the wall or clean up debris completely. My major complaint for the game, and one that really bothered me throughout the game was the big changes to battle mechanics, UI & controls, and character's skills/attributes/tactics. First, unlike previous games you don't have an auto-attack, so you must hold down a button to continue to attack, which can make other tasks (like selecting enemies) difficult. You also must manually maneuver from enemy to enemy, and you can't 'lock on' to enemies as in previous games, so its often difficult to make sure you're attacking the right enemy, and if you're a melee fighter, positioning correctly can be a huge pain. There are also many changes to battle mechanics, such as the absence of healing spells and the introduction of barriers and guard for defense, lack of sustained abilities, non-regenerating health, etc. Most of these aren't necessarily bad, but they do take some getting used to. Second, and worst of all, is the UI, which was clearly designed with consoles, not PCs, in mind. The quest tracker blocks a significant portion of the screen, which is especially annoying given the huge beautiful environments. The action bar is limited to only 8 ability slots, which is incredibly frustrating as you will end up learning plenty of abilities that you won't be able to actually use, since they're not on the bar. Moreover, your companions can likewise only use abilities on their action bars, so they too are very restricted on what they can do. The tactical overhead view, which was a very helpful part of Origins and even DA:II is practically useless in this game: the camera is awful and companions don't like to actually do what they're told, and with so few abilities to choose from, your tactical options are very limited anyways. Lastly, the ability/attribute system is somewhat different than previous games, and not for the better in my opinion. Much like DA:II your skills are organized intro various 'trees' (more like webs) of talents, but unlike DA:II here some are for new abilities that you can use, while some are just stat increases (e.g. +1 to cunning, +25% armor penetration). Ultimately you'll end up choosing abilities that you won't ever use (because of the action bar limit) just to get to a stat increase. This is also due to the fact that, unlike previous games, you don't get additional attribute points when you level up to spend as you like, but only through spending your 1 point per level on the ability tree, or through gear. I was rather unhappy about this, especially before I had the means to make whatever gear I wanted, because it meant that my character was effectively only able to increase 2 stats. As a rogue, I got cunning and dexterity bonuses from the skill tree, but I had no option to put points into say constitution, so that I wouldn't be so squishy in melee. To me this seems like an unnecessary restriction of player choice & customization in an RPG. In the end, I would recommend this game, and I'm sure players new to the franchise would not feel many of the same frustrations that I did, but Inquisitions falls short of being truly spectacular due to some of these flaws.

This DLC isn't terrible, but it's really not worth the price in $ or probably even in time. It adds a little bit of lore about the Qunari and Orlesians, but that's honestly all stuff you could read on a wiki in 10 mins. Although some of the locations and new enemies are visually appealing--especially after the drudgery of so many hours around Kirkwall--most of what you'll find here is just not that interesting. There's some new game mechanics to play around with, but they're really not that fun. What I found most frustrating is that this DLC doesn't seem to have any meaningful impact on the larger game: the story is entirely self-contained and doesn't affect the main plot at all, even though it's ripe for a tie-in, you don't get a new permanent companion, and the loot isn't even impressive (at least if you have loot from other DLCs). I did give this a couple more points in the score for Felicia Day's performance, and for the final boss fight, which was at least challenging (something most fights in DAII are not).

This game was a very mixed experience of good and bad, and while it's not too bad in the end, it suffers from several flaws that could have easily been fixed to make it a much better game. I tried to play it for the first time about a year ago, but before even finishing the prologue sequence I got frustrated and gave up. It took me awhile to give it another try, and this time I stuck it out played all the way through. Connor's story has some really good moments, especially at the end of the prologue sequence (easily one of the best moments of the whole series). However, both Connor's and Desmond's stories went through stretches where they didn't make much sense or were just boring. Worst of all, both stories' ending were pretty anticlimactic. Right when you're waiting for a big payoff (after several games and many hours of play), they just putter out. The game introduced some new features that I liked, such as having different abilities for assassin recruits, hunting game, and crafting. Unfortunately, these features failed to reach anywhere close to their full potential: once they level up some (or you recruit several) the assassin's abilities are not too helpful, as they can just kill anything anyways. Hunting is mostly used for crafting and trade, but there isn't much worth crafting after you get the few available upgrades, and money quickly becomes useless once you upgrade your ship, which you can do pretty early on. By far my favorite new aspect was the addition of naval combat missions. While quite different in nature from the traditional AC gameplay--going for all-out combat instead of stealthy kills--it was fairly well implemented and gave a welcome break from running around through endless streets and trails. One thing that this game did horribly, however, was the controls: AC games on PC have a reputation for being lazy console ports, but it seems like instead of getting better, this issue is getting worse. Instead of allowing you to take advantage of having a keyboard with more than a half dozen keys, the game wants to force you to use the same couple keys for everything, with the result that you frequently end up doing something completely different than you intended. Finally, the voice acting is pretty terrible in general, and this is especially noticeable with Connor, the protagonist, who spends the whole game sounding like he's reading his lines and just doesn't care. Overall, it's not a bad game, and it's worth playing if you're an AC fan. I just wish that Ubisoft had put more thought and effort into the game, as it had the potential to be a very good one...

This game was probably the most fun I've had with an FPS in years! It was certainly way more enjoyable than the original Far Cry 3. Not only is it very fun to play, but it's also extremely funny. The core gameplay is mostly the same as FC3: kill baddies, liberate strongholds, hunt animals, kill more baddies. However, it makes everything so much more fun. Not only do you have access to a number of weapons from the start, but you can also do many 'takedowns' (stealth melee kills) early on. While you do level your skills over time, it's a linear progression, and you get to focus on killing more stuff instead of deciding which dumb tattoo to get. There are also a host of weapon upgrades to earn, which make the already over-the-top guns (like the "Phazertron") even more awesome. Now, one downside of all this is that you're pretty powerful from the start, so there's much less feeling of accomplishment. By mid-game you'll be taking on while garrisons without worry. But I personally think this fits in with the game in general: the entire thing is a larger-than-life satire of 80's movies and modern video games (especially FC3), and part of that is the way you feel like 80's action hero as you gun down scores of soldiers and fight off lazer dragons. This is not to say that it's overly easy, but rather that it correctly realizes that we're having more fun laying waste to the enemy than dying every 10 mins. For a $20 game, this was worth every penny!

As someone who was a big fan of the first two Bioshock games, this game did not let me down. The environment, which in a Bioshock game is also pretty much a character, was stunningly portrayed: the graphics, the ambient sound, the random conversations and music... I did generally find the supporting characters to be less interesting than in previous games, but this was more than made up for by the splendid duo of main characters. The story in which you find yourself is worthy of the Bioshock mantle, though far more bizarre and cryptic than previous titles. Gameplay-wise, it feels familiar enough while still introducing some awesome new features: you still fight your enemies with a combination of powers and weapons, but there are new options for utilizing the environment to your advantage (not to give any spoilers). Definitely a good choice for anyone who likes FPS games, but especially for gamers who love compelling stories.

This game was the worst of the series, in my opinion, but it was still pretty decent overall. The visuals are obviously great--but that's a given these days. The story is not terrible, but not great either. Then again, storyline never was the big selling point for the Crysis series. Unfortunately, the game introduces almost no new features from the previous title--so it's just more of the same. The nanosuit upgrade system is a little more fleshed out, and there's new bow weapon, but that's about it for new features. While lacking the open-world environment of the original Crysis, this title does at least provide an interesting city/jungle hybrid environment. In the end, the thing that really made this game lose points with me was that it felt like it was designed to be easy: most areas have only small pockets of enemies, which can be stealthily dispatched at your leisure. You usually have the time to just pick them off one by one until you clear the area--and even if you alert them, you can play hide-and-seek with your cloak all day. Also, there were almost no intense fights: one of the few things I really liked about Crysis 2 was the parts where you just have to stand your ground and fight off big waves of alien attackers. In this game, about the only time you have to fight anything is when you get spotted whilst sneaking. Overall I still think it's worth playing, if you are a fan of the series, but sadly it just doesn't live up to its predecessor in most areas...

I got this game for $5, so I guess I can't complain--I got what I paid for. But this sequel is much worse than its predecessor. While the first MOH had a fairly simple and believable story: soldiers hunting down targets in Afghanistan, this game tries (and fails) to be like COD: MW, with a lot of different locales and big, bad plots to blow up the world. It also introduces a lot of cuteness and *tries* to use them to develop characters, but ti's all very bland stereotypical nonsense that we've seen a million times. Gameplay wise, this game introduces a few interesting features (such as different breaching methods and alternate optics), but they cannot redeem it. Most missions are clunky and poorly designed, with plenty of bugs. A few missions are kinda interesting, but they can't make up for the many other frustrating hoops you'll have to jump through,

If AC: Brotherhood felt like "more of the same," then Revelations felt like a second helping of leftovers. While not a bad game per se, it simply had very little improvement over previous titles. Most of the game mechanics are carried over from Brotherhood with little change, such as shop investment, apprentices, weapons. One significant improvement is the introduction of a variety of bombs which can be crafted, from frags to smoke bombs to poison gas. While this could be rather fun to 'play' around with, I found that, in combination with the array of other weapons, it often made fights and missions too easy. Now you can clear the way to the target with a crossbow or gun, then toss a bomb and blow up your target and any bodyguards with a single bomb. While this game benefits somewhat from a new setting, Istanbul, I found this city much less fun to play in than Rome. Moreover the new characters were largely uninteresting, and the story was drawn-out and boring. Revelations attempts to finish telling the story of Altair through a series of 'flashback' missions, but these are mostly tedious and boring, and do little to bring real closure. I felt that Revelations raised a lot more questions than it answered--and not in a good way--and from a gameplay perspective was mostly just Brotherhood recycled. I guess that's what you get when rush to release 2 AC games within one year...

AC: Brotherhood is a good game that suffers a bit from feeling more like an expansion of AC II and not enough like a full game. It continues the story, setting, and characters of the previous game, while introducing a few new mechanics. Unlike the first 2 games, in this one you spend most of your time in a single city, Rome, which is considerably larger than previous cities to compensate for this. While this isn't a huge problem, it does end up feeling like 'more of the same,' and after awhile running around the same location gets a bit boring. Brotherhood introduces a few new weapons and skills, but nothing special. The shop investment mechanic has been expanded to allow you to buy and invest in various shop types around Rome. This is an interesting diversion, but adds little to the game. The real virtue of this game is simple in continuing the story and further developing the characters. It is certainly worth playing, and is plenty fun, but lacks significant originality: it just feels like AC II part 2.

I have to start off by saying that I never had any trouble with stability or DRM, so I'm not taking off points for that. Assassin's Creed II, as a game, is simply amazing. This game has exactly what you want in a sequel: continued solid story, improved game mechanics, improved graphics, and more content. AC II continues Desmond's story from the first game, while introducing a new and likable protagonist, Ezio. The new settling of Renaissance Italy is both fresh and exciting, while preserving and improving on the extensive open world gameplay of its predecessor. It also introduces more sophisticated characters which you actually begin to care about, unlike the dull characters of the first game. Gameplay-wise, AC II skillfully introduces enough new mechanics and improvements to keep it fresh, while not feeling too different: you have a greater variety of weapons, including (thankfully!) long-range weapons; you can now use money to buy weapons and armor on your own schedule, instead of waiting around for mission rewards; you can hire mercenaries, thieves, and prostitutes to assist you in your missions; and plenty of other interesting things. While AC II isn't perfect, I think that it is a shining example of what a good sequel should be.

While not nearly as refined as later titles, the original AC game stands on its own merits too. It features a compelling story, great atmosphere, and fresh gameplay mechanics. I found the parts where you must control Desmond to be rather tedious, but thankfully they are relatively short and do at least help to build up the story. The actual heart of the game, playing as Altair the assassin, is plenty of fun. The world is fairly large and mostly open, so you can explore, cause havoc, or do missions largely at your own pace. The cities are beautiful and each have their own look and feel, whether it's the holy city of Jerusalem, the crusader fortress of Acre, or the Muslim city of Damascus. Unfortunately the game provides you with limited weapons (you don't have the luxury of crossbows or smoke bombs as in later games), and most major assassination missions end up in huge sword-fights or long desperate chases. Still, there's nothing quite like hearing the chase music pumping as you leap around rooftops trying to escape a horde of pissed guards!

Spec Ops combines mediocre gameplay with impressive visuals and a compelling story to create a must-play experience. The 3rd-person shooter gameplay is pretty unimpressive: the cover system is temperamental, the aiming ****, the weapons are boring, and stealth is rarely possible. Moreover, the two squad mates which you are obliged to work with are rarely more than a liability. Thankfully the game makes up for these major shortcomings by placing you in a truly impressive setting: the sand-covered city of Dubai. Not only does this uniquely-opulent city serve as eye-candy (the attention to detail is as impressive as the models themselves), but it creates a truly memorable geography: the sand-dune you're fighting on might turn out to be on top of a ****, or you might take refuge from a sand storm inside a hotel with a giant aquarium beneath your feet. Finally, the narrative told through the game and the emotional impact of the events as they unfold are very good. Spec Ops does a surprisingly good job of not only telling a compelling story, but of making you empathize with the characters and internalize your actions. It's a game that will make you question your own actions within the game and by extension, your attitude toward such military/shooter games. Despite its flaws, this is a game which I wholeheartedly recommend.

As a fan of the Far Cry franchise, I really wanted to like this game, but I found it remarkably difficult to enjoy. It has a few interesting concepts (hunting, takedowns, zip lines) but they are poorly implemented and do little to make this game fun. They have eliminated many of the major flaws found in Far Cry 2 (e.g. infinitely respawning guards), but also many of the things which made that game enjoyable (e.g. 'buddies' and weapon deterioration). Many of the new features and mechanics feel like they were borrowed from the Assassin's Creed franchise (e.g. looting bodies, climbing towers to reveal the map). The story is much more developed in this game than its predecessor, but unfortunately it is also less interesting overall. Throughout the story you are forced to endure many dream or hallucination sequences that are generally boring and do nothing to advance the story. Even the major 'boss fights' are ruined in this way, forcing you to endure quick-time events or repetitive corridor shooting, rather than allowing you to just play the FPS game you wanted. Probably the worst part is that although this game is technically 'open world,' the world feels very empty and boring. There's plenty of lush terrain to explore but precious few things to do there: the handful of enemy bases are easily captured (permanently), which also removes all enemy patrols from the area, and the few civilian settlements have almost nothing to do there, and you cannot talk to hardly any civilian NPCs. Overall it's not a terrible game, but I did find it to be a big let-down, and it certainly does not live up to the hype surrounding it.

I went into this game with very high expectations but was significantly let down. It's not a bad game, and in fact I would call it a good game, but it has some serious issues which bring it down a lot. There were numerous features lacking or underdeveloped such as auction sorting, group matching, and chat options. These oversights are inexcusable in my opinion, because they have long been implemented in other MMOs, especially WoW, and since SW:TOR seems to copy so much else from that game, they should have done a little more stealing and at least had a decent auction house and chat system. On top of that, the character creation is pretty lousy with very few customization options for an MMO--especially if you don't want your character to look silly. I did however like that the racial bonuses are pretty much just cosmetic, so you don't have to choose between the race with the best stats and the one you want to play for aesthetic or role-play reasons. Where the game really shines is in its fully-voiced quest dialogue and relatively-strong storylines, which do a decent job of making your actions seem significant. However this becomes time-consuming after awhile--especially when you are re-running instances or playing a second character--and I felt that, in the end, Bioware had not done such a good job of blending their signature singleplayer RPG dialogue/story with the demands of an MMO. I played for a couple months and then quit, having already leveled 2 characters and gotten bored. Hopefully it has improved a lot since then, but even as a big Star Wars and Bioware fan, I don't miss it enough to give it a second try.

This game improves upon the things that made the first Battlefront a success and then adds some new features such as space battles and a reasonably well-done single player campaign. If you like the gameplay of Battlefield games and are a Star Wars fan, you'll probably love this game. I never played online much, but had plenty of fun fighting in epic ground battles against hundreds of NPCs (using simple mods) and dogfighting in space. Even many years later, still a fun little game for fans of either series.

As should be obvious, this is a Battlefield clone in a Star Wars package. If you like the gameplay mechanics of the Battlefield series, you'll probably also like this, and if you're a big Star Wars fan like me, you'll like it even more. Definitely not very creative, but still manages to be pretty fun.

This game's only real redeeming factor is, obviously, DINOSAURS. The 'characters' are entirely forgettable, the 'story' is a boring rip-off, the graphics are unimpressive, and the gameplay is unimpressive. I did like that there was a decent diversity of weapons, many with alternate fire modes, but that's hardly sufficient to carry a game. It is fun to fight dinosaurs--especially when it comes to stabbing raptors in the face or slitting the throats of compys--but unfortunately you spend all too much time listening to boring 'characters' talk and fighting human mercenaries with bad AI. Definitely worth a play-through, so long as you're not a **** that doesn't like dinosaurs, but be prepared for some frustration along the way.

This game has some interesting concepts, but largely fails in the execution of them: the shootout action sequences are clunky and boring, driving the streets is tedious and the vehicles handle poorly, and collecting clues for your cases is a rather haphazard affair. Then there's the interrogation segments, which regularly involve your character verbally abusing a suspect when you chose to "doubt" them, followed by you apologizing and backtracking. The whole interrogation system is just too illogical and unpredictable: you have no idea what your character will actually say, given any particular option, and backing up your accusations relies on having previously discovered particular clues--catching them in a lie or making reasonable deductions doesn't seem to count for much. One thing the game does do well is providing a detailed and convincing environment of 1940's LA, and the facial graphics are pretty advanced. But these aren't enough to make LA Noire more than a mediocre game in my opinion.

This game isn't bad, but after a few hours I found that it wasn't particularly good either. I enjoyed the 2D levels, which were a nice tribute to the Sonic games I grew up playing, but found the 3D levels to be frustrating on a number of counts. I will have to try it again once I get a controller--playing with a keyboard felt rather awkward--and see how it fares with a more natural set of controls. I did find the story/character elements to be either boring or annoying, and the level-select world to be unnecessarily complicated.

Portal 2 takes the awesome premise and gameplay of the original and incorporates it into a shiny new game, complete with a full-length singleplayer game, new co-op modes, a more developed story, and impressive new graphics and level design. It thereby answers most of the criticisms of the first game without feeling like simply a remake of it. This game has lost much of the dark humor and mystery of its predecessor in favor of a more epic journey mixed with lots of witty and absurd humor. Overall I think it did a good job of taking the original concepts of Portal to the next level and creating a game experience that felt familiar without being stale.

This game was simply fantastic in most every way: it is humorous, dark, intriguing, fun, challenging, and innovative. While it is pretty short and the graphics are not particularly good, I don't hold this against it considering how cheap it was (basically free in the Orange Box) and because it was a small-team effort with impressive results. I was glad to see this game get a big-budget sequel that could be longer with higher production values, but the original Portal remains a gem in the video game industry.

This is an excellent shooter with a good storyline, characters, and environment. The game starts out a bit slow, but it does a good job of pacing and building up to the big action. The physics in the game are fun and make for some interesting possibilities which were impressive when it was released. The episodes do a good job of building on the story and offering some improvements without changing what makes the game good. Personally I found it very refreshing to have a female character/sidekick with an actual personality and skills, rather than someone who was just there to be a tough dude with boobs.

After looking at reviews on this site and elsewhere I figured that this game was sure to be a great choice. I was wrong. It might be a good game, but I couldn't keep with it long enough to find out because after several hours of frustrating quests, overly complicated menus, boring combat, and totally forgettable characters and story I gave up on it. The most fun I had was looking for women to seduce, but that got dull quickly. One thing I did appreciate was the lack **** morality or alignment system, so I felt free to make whatever choices seemed best, but this was like a cherry on top of a tasteless cake. By the end of the first act I found that I had no real sense of what I was supposed to be doing or why and didn't care about any of the characters, including the protagonist. Not a good sign for a RPG...

Far Cry 2 followed in the steps of its predecessor by failing to live up to its potential. This game has a lot of good points: the graphics and audio are excellent, the weapon selection and mechanics are great, and it has superb open-world design. However these elements are tarnished by some lousy mechanics such as repetitive missions, endlessly-respawning checkpoints, and a pointless faction system. I did like the buddy system, where your mercenary friends will occasionally give you intel on missions or rescue you if you get shot up in a firefight. I had mixed feelings about the story and characters (well there's only one or two 'characters' that deserve that title): the premise of the story and the elusive nature of your target is intriguing, and the monologues of the antagonist are compelling, but the game fails to deliver a coherent plot or ending. With a few changes to mechanics and a good writing team this game could have easily earned a 7 or 8, but as it stands Far Cry 2 falls far short.

This game is a mix of very good and very bad elements, and while it ends up being a good overall package, it could have been much better. The graphics were gorgeous for its day (especially the environment) and many of the levels are very large and open, with plenty of options for approaching problems. However, as you progress through the game you spend more and more time in linear bunkers and facilities and less time in open environments. In addition, the enemies you face eventually become very tough and thus severely limit your tactical options (e.g. soldiers that can survive a sniper shot to the face or mutants that take 5 rocket hits to kill). The characters are entirely forgettable, the voice acting ****, and the story is cliche and boring. The vehicles are very difficult to control and often just make you a bullet magnet. The weapon selection is moderately good, with an array of choices for both subtlety and fireworks. Far Cry is a game well worth playing, but one which failed to live up to its stellar potential.

Bioshock 2 is a thoroughly enjoyable game which improves on many aspects of the first game, but suffers a bit from lack of originality. In this game the 'morality system' matters a little bit more than in its predecessor, but in the end it mostly just determines whether you see the 'good' or 'bad' ending cinematic. There is also a improved array of plasmids and upgrades, a quicker and simpler hacking minigame, and a greatly improved research system. However, the basic gameplay remains the same and the storytelling is very similar. The story itself is not bad, but I found it less interesting and engaging than Bioshock, especially since you (presumably) already know all about Rapture--and thus there is far less mystery and shock value. Still well worth playing tho, especially if you enjoyed the first game.

This is definitely one of the best games I've ever played. Where it really shines is atmosphere: the graphics, audio, and detailed level design serve to really bring the story to life, fully immersing you in a wonderful and terrifying world. The story is excellent and the way it is told is intriguing and helps create a good pacing. The FPS elements are pretty average--nothing new there--but when combined with the plasmid powers, weapon and power upgrades, security hacking, etc. make a very entertaining whole. Personally I found it very refreshing to play an FPS that actually had a unique atmosphere and a solid story, unlike the multitude of 'modern,' WWII, or space shooters.

This game is rather fun in its own right, but the fact that it's free-to-play makes it excellent. While its graphics are not the best, they are plenty sufficient for an enjoyable experience and have been improved over time. The gameplay is simple enough to quickly learn the basics but also has a great deal of depth for advanced players to master. There is a truly staggering array of champions to choose from and several different roles, so there is plenty to learn and experiment with. This does mean that the game has somewhat of a steep learning curve--since you will have to learn to recognize 50+ champions and remember their abilities--but after a while this will come naturally. My one major complaint about this game is that there is no way to boot out AFK players, players who disconnect, or trolls, so if your team gets stuck with one or more you may be at a permanent disadvantage. Hopefully Riot will address this problem in the future.

The best thing that I can say about this game is that it isn't terrible. It's mostly a tedious hack 'n slash with just enough RPG elements to drag down the action, but not to actually make it interesting. As with many obvious console ports, the controls are awkward and the menus are difficult. The graphics are decent but are not enough to distract you from the bad voice acting and poorly-scripted, dull story. I made myself suffer through several hours of this game, hoping that it would get better, but it didn't really. If you're a big LOTR fan then maybe you'll find this tolerable, but otherwise I'd recommend avoiding it.

This game was simply fantastic. It offers a long singleplayer campaign (I got about 50 hrs out of it) which has a good amount of depth while still being very accessible. I haven't played the original XCOM, so I won't compare it against that, but it's clear that this game could have been a lot more complex and allowed for many more strategic options. By mid-game, it begins to suffer from these limitations since you are limited to only having one party of troops out at a time or intercepting one UFO at a time. You also begin to run out of things to research, making your investments in labs less valuable. The combat is also very unforgiving, and if you're playing it on normal difficulty or above you will end up paying dearly for many mistakes (unless you are willing to save/reload regularly). Personally I liked that this game wasn't easy, but felt that it was occasionally too brutal: all it takes is one wrong move and your squad of elite troops might get slaughtered. Despite these critiques, the new XCOM is definitely a great game and well worth your time and money.

I've heard that the multiplayer on this game is good, and so I was more generous than I would otherwise be. But the fact is that this game also features a single player campaign which was just terrible. I made myself stick with it for a couple of hours, but it was mostly tedious and boring. The story seemed very cliche and the voice acting was bad. There were plenty of interesting gameplay ideas present, but they were virtually all failures in the execution. A game that manages to make flying a jet fighter boring is really in trouble, and that is exactly what BF3 does.

If you loved the original game you'll probably like this expansion as well. It offers two new campaigns which are worth playing, if not fantastic. Overall I liked these significantly less than the original, due to short length, limited unit selection, and insufficient information. I found that often you just had to figure out on your own what the new units/buildings did, and this was even more frustrating on the German campaign because all the unit/structure names were in German. Despite this, Opposing Fronts was a fun experience and I wouldn't let these shortcomings deter me from recommending it.

If you play CoH multiplayer then perhaps this is worth it, but as someone who only plays the singleplayer I was disappointed with it. While the missions are interesting and fun, they are very short--you might get three hours total out of all of them. Maybe. Thankfully I got this on sale on Steam, but I would have been upset had I paid the full $20.

Got this on sale on Steam for about $6 (with DLC), and for that price I can't say I'm disappointed. This is a very fun and funny game, one which is great for killing a few minutes or a few hours. As others have pointed out, its major flaw is that once you beat the story mode there's little else to do but try it on Nightmare mode or replay old levels with your newer toys. I would definitely recommend this if you can find it for $10 or less. Hopefully the second installment will fix some of this game's shortcomings.

Any negative aspects of this game seem like nit-picking to me, because almost every aspect of this game is fantastic. The graphics and music are very good, but more importantly the gameplay is enthralling. This RPG has pretty good amount of depth to it, and while you can manage without it, you'll probably find yourself frequently referencing online guides to understand the intricacies of the game mechanics (alignments, evolution sequences, special characters, etc.) The story is very interesting and well done, drawing you into a fascinating world of ever-increasing wonder and danger. There are numerous difficult decisions to make, and while the storyline is generally linear, you often do have multiple options for which location to visit next--sometimes with important ramifications. The game is fairly lengthy, which I consider a good thing, but it means that if you take a long break from it you might have difficulty remembering what's happened. One little downside is that once you've played it once and therefore know how cool it gets, the early levels can be tedious (fighting with weak, basic units, etc.), but on my first playthrough I enjoyed it just fine.

Although the single player mode is not particularly good, it is an excellent multiplayer game which will keep you and your friends entertained for hours. The later titles in this franchise have improved and expanded the concept of this game, but the original stands firm as a quality game in its own right, and still plenty of fun after all these years.

This game has held up well, in my opinion, and is one of the very few N64 games I've continued to play years and years later. While it has it's flaws (e.g. no bots in 3/4 player mode, no additional single player content), it is a solid game that continues to be fun long after you've beat it. Mario Kart 64 is really a multiplayer game: play it with some friends and you'll have hours and hours of fun, especially in battle mode!

I felt that this game was great for the N64, and had several significant improvements over Goldeneye 007--though for numerous reasons I never enjoyed it quite as much overall. The single player has a MUCH more pronounced story, complete with voiced cutscenes, and follows the movie a bit more closely than the previous game. It introduces alternate fire modes for weapons (like Perfect Dark), as well as several gadgets, and while many of the weapons are not as iconic as Goldeneye's, there is a much better diversity and balance. Where this game really shines is multiplayer, which offers more game modes, weapon sets, and character models than its predecessor, as well as the option for AI bots (which are great for practice or rounding out a 3-player session.

I didn't like this game as much as Rogue Squadron, but it offered similar gameplay with enough improvement to keep me playing even after I'd beaten it. The addition of ground vehicles was an interesting mechanic, though in practice not as cool as it might sound. In the end, how much you liked this game was probably heavily influenced by how much you liked Star Wars.

This was one of my favorite games for the N64, and I played the heck out of it. While it was very much lacking in story, characters, etc., it was so darn fun to fly around in such exotic and diverse places blowing up stuff! Despite the repetitiveness of the levels, there was pretty good replay value due to the different ships you could unlock and the power-ups. Who wouldn't want to attack the Death Star while flying a Naboo fighter or a TIE fighter? Definitely a classic!

By time I played this game, they seemed to have sorted out most of the major bugs, for I didn't have much trouble at all playing Empire. I found it to be a good game overall, with a mix of great improvements and disappointing letdowns. The available world is at least twice as large as that of previous titles, as this game introduces North and Central America and the Indian subcontinent to the playable map (as well as a few more distant trade destinations). This gives much more potential territory to conquer and enemies to face, though it has the downside of requiring you to spread further and quicker than in previous games in order to win the campaign. Diplomacy is further developed from earlier games, and there is now much more incentive to be a faithful ally or honest enemy--although countries tend to have the annoying habit of hating you forever once you go to war with them. The introduction of the research system is nice, since it gives you another way to gain (or lose!) the edge against your rivals, and the ability to buy, sell, trade, or steal research can be handy. The battles are somewhat different in this game, since many units now use guns of various sorts, but Empire follows the same basic style as previous titles. I loved the addition of defensive works for besieging armies (mines, trenches, stakes, etc.), which allow one to prepare for counterattacks, as well as the ability of most infantry to use stone walls as cover. There is a pretty good diversity of unit times in this game (especially if you have the DLC unit packs), and this is keenly seen in the vastly improved array of ship types, which make the naval theater much more exciting. For the first time, players can choose to control their fleets directly during naval battles, allowing for strategy to play into the outcome instead of just numbers. Personally I gave up on figuring out the relatively complex controls for naval battles and just used the auto-decide, but I'm sure next time I play I'll find them easier. There are too many other aspects of this game which I'd like to mention, but I'll leave those to others and just say that this game is definitely worth playing if you are a fan of the Total War franchise, and even if not, I'd recommend giving it a shot.

This was the second Total War game I played, the first being Rome, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved this game even more. Many improvements were made for this game, such as militia units, fortresses, larger unit queues, and more advanced diplomacy. Like any game, this one has its faults (e.g. bugs, bad AI), but overall it was a very fun game to play. I very much enjoyed the addition of castles and upgradable turrets, which offered a much more secure defense for contested areas, as well as the introduction of traders, which can be very useful for developing strong economies. I'd definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes strategy games, especially fans of the Total War franchise.

I thought this was overall a good expansion to DA:O, although it felt very much like 'more of the same' with few improvements. The new skills and specializations are fun additions, and the ability to craft runes is handy--though both contribute to making Awakening much easier than Origins. Aside from that, the gameplay is essentially the same as the main game. The story is fairly good, and leaves open interesting possibilities for future games. Unfortunately, the characters are less interesting in Awakening: most have potential but are simply underdeveloped due to the significantly reduced dialogue and lack of romances. The locations are a mixed bag: some are fairly good, while others are just more of the same (more Deep Roads, more elf-forest). If you liked DA:O, then you'll probably like this well enough, and given that you can get the two for $20 or less, there's no reason not to give Awakening a try.

What this game lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer fun and solid storytelling: this is a game which will make you want to keep playing, and which offers dozens and dozens of hours of entertainment (if you get the Ultimate Edition, which comes with the expansion and several DLC packs, you will easily find 80-100 hours of play). DA:O offers the usual assortment of classes, abilities, weapons, and enemies which you'd expect in an RPG--nothing too original here--but works them together into a package which is easy to learn while offering significant depth for advanced players. Where this game really shines is in its story and characters (which you'd probably expect from a Bioware game). The many companions and other characters are generally well-written and interesting, each with their own secrets, quirks, and personal growth throughout the story. The banter between party members can be downright hysterically funny at times, while at others is offers a more serious look into the relationships between your companions. For those who really care, there is truly a LOT of (mostly-optional) dialogue in this game, which provides the opportunity to further explore the lore of the game, build relationships, and find allies (or enemies!). Moreover, for the truly curious gamer, there is much lore to be discovered in books, etc. throughout the game, providing plenty of background information on all sorts of **** far I've played through this game three times, and enjoyed every time. While the main story remains the same, DA:O offers significant potential variety: 6 different origin stories, 3 races, 3 classes (each with multiple play-styles), and numerous in-game choices which affect the story. All of this helps keep the game fresh and very replayable: so far I've played it through 3 times (once as each race/class so far), and will certainly play it again in the future. It would be hard to recommend this game enough, so go ahead and give it a try if you have any interest in RPGs!

This game is very fun and challenging, with a fair amount of replay value from challenges. It's a pretty simple game, but a great way to stay entertained while you wait in line or take the bus.