karmasleeper

Hyped as the spiritual successor to Fallout New Vegas yet no where near as interesting or compelling, Outer Worlds fails to deliver an engaging story or memorable characters. The game's character progression and companion systems ultimately make trying to create a unique build or adhering to a certain play style a futile experience. Visually, the game looks good and performs well but the writing and dialogue of the characters is simply awful. It all feels like a western themed reject episode from Futurama. Attempts at 'quirky' humor fall flat and only irritate. There is incredibly little variety in NPC faces and hairstyle. Many NPCs have brightly colored hair (blues, greens, purples, etc) to mask the lack of varying hairstyles. Outer Worlds is not a open world game and is instead hub based. You can travel to different planets/stations in a single solar system. Some locations have more than one area to visit. Locations have incredibly small open world areas. To say you explore them would be a stretch. Most quests are fetch quests or 'do this one favor first' quests before the story advances further. This gets old fast. At first, character creation at first appears decent. You choose a couple attributes to boost (strength, intelligence, etc). Then you choose skills to specialize in. So far, similar to past Fallout games. Where it's different is that skills are groups into categories based on which attribute governs them. Each level up you invest points into these categories boosting every skill in that category. Companions provide bonuses to certain skills. One might boost engineering, another hacking, a third speech, etc. By focusing your level up points on 2 - 3 categories you can fill in the rest with the two companions you can choose to bring with you. This effectively makes you able to do everything at least moderately well enough to never feel like your choices are restricted or never feel like you're making a difficult meaningful decision. A side effect of this is going into the game with a build or play style in mind and then never needing to adhere to it because companions are filling in the gaps for you. Only good things about the game are the sometimes multiple ways to solve certain quests and the combat being basically the same as prior Fallout games. Game is the definition of mediocrity. Nothing leaves a lasting impression because it's bogged down by crappy character progression and bad writing.

Destiny 2 is a game with a weak single player experience, weak main story, underwhelming gunplay, but entertaining cooperative and PvP content. Unfortunately, that good stuff comes all at the end game and you'll have to dredge through the 5-7 hour story to get there. Destiny 2 plays like a cross between Borderlands and Halo. It's a story driven shooter with repetitive level design, samey reskin enemies, and randomized loot. As you progress through the game, you'll travel freely between different planets in the solar system. Each location has an open world area with public events and side quests. When you start a story mission in these areas, it's instanced. When you reach level 20 (max level), you'll return to these same areas to complete daily and weekly activities and challenges for randomize loot rewards. This can all be done cooperatively or solo and none of it presents any real challenge to a seasoned FPS player. Player movement and enemy animations/behavior is very similar to Halo. Jumps are long and floaty as if there's low gravity. What's disappointing is character movement doesn't factor into class abilities or combat with one or two rare exceptions. It's simply there to serve as a way to navigate weak platforming sections. Enemies will sometimes juke to the side or drop a shield, but this doesn't increase their threat to the player. It only serves as an annoyance to increase the time it takes to kill them. Most enemies seem to fire the same slow moving energy projectile weapons. While enemy factions are thematically different in appearance, it quickly becomes clear they are just different models for the same type of enemy with similar abilities. Weapons variety seems weak. There's a sufficient variety of weapon types, but not a lot of options within those categories. Many weapons simply feel like reskins of weapons in the same category with no sufficiently differentiating characteristics. The story is incredibly weak and predictable. Having not played the original Destiny, I had no grounding for who the main characters were or why I should care. The writing for character dialogue vacillates between self-important melodramatic posturing and hipster tier cringe (I'm looking at you Cayde-6). All I could gather from the story is that Guardians are religious zealots who worship a giant sphere which has visited earth and granted some people magical powers and immortality. In short, the Cabal did nothing wrong. End game content and PvP are pretty fun. Strikes are Destiny's version of raids where you and other players go through much more challenging levels and boss fights to get better loot rewards. Revisiting some of the open world story mission areas to do side quests is sometimes entertaining, too. Doing these gives you tokens you give to a local story character for, you guessed it, loot rewards. Destiny 2 is not worth full price especially considering there are going to be at least two paid DLC expansions. If all you want is a good coop game with your friends, Destiny 2 isn't a bad choice, but it may not have long term value for you. Don't buy it for the story.

Excellent online FPS for the asking price. The game looks great and runs well. Haven't had any performance issues but I well exceed the minimum specs. Sound effects are really good. Gameplay is very similar to past Red Orchestra games. Teams are broken up into squads with an squad leader who can help players respawn closer to the front lines. Maps revolve around assaulting key points in order or a conquest style mode similar to the Battlefield series. Players select a role or class that determines the weapons and gear available to them. VC roles can lay traps, place tunnels for closer respawns, and conceal themselves from the map and recon planes by hiding in foliage. US roles have flamethrowers, close air support and transport helicopters, and the usual FPS fare. Like previous RO games, each team has a commander who can use radios to call in artillery and air strikes, recon planes, and for the US, an aerial gunship that can orbit the map and rain down chaingun fire on a designated area. To counter, VC commanders can activate anti-air to shoot these assets down. Squad leaders must place markers on the map for commanders to call in some of these assets. A radioman class can allow commanders to be closer to the front by providing a portable radio. In my experience in public games, commanders rarely utilize radiomen when available and instead sit at the back of the line glued to the radio. Even using voice comms to encourage commanders to utilize my portable radio, I wasn't able to get them to budge. Your mileage may vary. All that said, there is a degree of teamwork required to do well in Rising Storm 2. SL's must place markers and commanders must call in assets at the right time. Friendly players must also watch the map for asset markers to avoid dying from friendly air support or artillery. As a result, some people may find frustration in public games when teams lack cohesion or players just don't want to coordinate. Don't let that discourage you as you can still me an effective player in your role even when others aren't pulling through. One minor issue I ran into was frequently getting stuck in level geometry or hitting obstacles that seemed like I should be able to simply walk over but required vaulting with space bar. It's very frustrating sprinting to cover under fire and then dying because my character hit a tiny slope or a small step that stopped his movement. Any fan of Red Orchestra or the first Rising Storm should buy this. Any fan of Battlefield who laments the recent direction of the franchise should buy this. Rising Storm 2 Vietnam is a nice balance between the hyper-realism of games like Squad or ARMA and the more action oriented FPS games like Battlefield.

Extremely short adventure game with a few light puzzles. The game consists of moving your character from room to room chatting with an AI program at computer terminals located in each area. You can ask the AI questions and try to get answers. The AI is pretty decent at understanding complete sentences. Dialogue options are very limited, however, but this works to create the illusion of evasiveness on the part of the AI and is a great way to raise more questions with you, the player. I finished the game in a little over three hours in one sitting. There is too little content. I'm ok with not being able to ask the AI questions repeatedly to uncover nuggets of truth, but the characters, premise, and outcome deserved to be fleshed out more. I don't know if there are multiple endings. The game uses save slots and autosaves, so I can't simply load a save at THE crucial plot point. I have replay the whole game. This isn't that big of an issue since the game is so short, but it is tedious enough to be discouraging. Ultimately, the game is too short for the ambitious questions it attempts to ask. What could have been a bigger story simply isn't, and what could have been a real cat and mouse game with the AI is more like Simon Says and 20 Questions. Still worth a play at a discounted price.

Excellent top down shooter with rogue-lite RPG elements in the form of stats, character classes, abilities, and cybernetic enhancements (passive upgrades and buffs). Everything comes together in this game. The classes feel sufficiently varied, the weapon variety is good, enemy types are diverse and progressively more lethal, boss battles are good, and the synergy between class, weapon, abilities, and upgrades leaves ample room for variation and experimentation. The premise is to work through the levels to eventually face the Overseer. Your character assumes control of human proxies via a control chair at your safe house. After you (more accurately, your proxy) dies, you wake up to spend the money you collected on stat upgrades before plugging back in for another slog. This is a fantastic way to keep the pace going in a game where death is really just a new beginning. No loading screens, no complicated menus, just sit down and get to killing. Levels are divided into sections each with its own boss battle to cap it off. Once you finish a boss battle for the first time, you "unlock" that section meaning next time you start the game, you can choose to begin at section 3 rather than section 1, for example. This makes looking for unlocks and secrets specific to a particular section of the game much easier. Levels are procedural with small variations between chapters. Ultimately, the environments get samey. You loot cash from slain enemies which, once you die and are forced to start over, can be used to upgrade your base stats like weapon damage or ability slots. At this "base" of sorts, you can also track your progress in discovering weapons, abilities, etc. The gameplay is fantastic and simple without being shallow. Each class requires a different approach and upgrade/weapon considerations. There are slower, tankier types, stealthy assassin types, and everything in between. The hacker can open locked containers and has a defense drone, the "techie" has an energy shield, and the assassin is undetectable in dark areas. In each level, there is usually at least one upgrade station where you can select a passive buff for your character. Pair the assassin with the upgrade that makes you invisible when standing still and you're virtually a ghost in every level. Discovering little synergies and complementary upgrades is a thrill. One critique would be that you really have to love the gameplay formula for it to have staying power. I can see people getting turned off by the short initial grind to unlock some useful abilities that work well together or improve some base stats a little to be more survivable. Level design, while procedural, only varies between chapter. Slogging through 4 or 5 levels in one chapter with very similar layouts gets tiresome. Visually, the game is blocky but has a good aesthetic. I found the tracer effect on enemy projectiles to sometimes clutter and obscure the screen enough to the point that it was difficult to keep track of character movement because of how bright they are in relation to the other textures. The game is a must own. Neon Chrome is an amazing example of a simple game with just enough variation between runs to keep the wow factor alive and to keep you thinking about new ways to approach the experience.

Linear gameplay, few consequential choices, restricted travel, bugs everywhere, terrible UI with awful arrangement, lame story, bad writing with shoehorned "vibrant" characters, and my save games got corrupted. Black Isle Studios is no more. The golden age of RPGs has passed us by. This game may look the part, but it's a modern piece of trash through and through.

Arguably the most refined game in the series. Witcher 1 felt like a point and click adventure with terrible combat (and too much of it). Witcher 2 had a story that felt like a cliff hanger interlude, a diversion from the over arching narrative. Witcher 3 caps the series nicely and ties into the novels in a more meaningful way than its predecessors. The open world is divided into a few different areas featuring a good amount of geographic diversity. There is a lot to explore and uncover but it does not feel as rewarding as it should. Weapons and equipment are locked by character level. You can craft the high level items if you have the materials, but you won't be able to use them until much later in the game. Witcher gear is often the best equipment in the game. You "unlock" witcher gear by completing Treasure Hunt quests - exploring the game world to find the diagrams so craftsmen can make it for you. Witcher contracts provide your primary source of income - slaying monsters or solving problems usually involving monsters for peasant villagers and the like. Because quests have a recommended level, it can be difficult to get going at first. You can, of course, brave high level quests at a low level, but on higher difficulties this is not advisable. Overall, the story is very good. It ties into characters from the novels not featured in previous games. Due to the open world mechanic, the pacing of the story will vary with how much emphasis the player places on pursuing the main quest or getting lost in side quests and activities. Players who spend their time trying to eek out everything the world has to offer might feel the game has poor pacing. It's difficult to care about the urgency of the main quest when Geralt is more concerned about doing side jobs or playing card games with NPCs. Many quests have surprisingly well written twists in the narrative. Things are often very cynical and this gets repetitive. I also felt this way about the novels in general. The writers for this game have emulated the author's writing style so well some side plots or twists in the narrative become very predictable. Character leveling allows for a wide variety of builds on three archetypes - combat, signs, and alchemy. You can mix and match to your heart's content. You get 1 skill point per level but can accumulate more through world exploration. Combat is fluid and responsive. A great variety in enemies requires a great variety in tactics. You can drink potions in combat again and switching between equipment is very easy with the pop up wheel. The mouse and keyboard controls are fine but I found the game a lot more enjoyable with a game pad. Parrying or deflecting arrows no longer consumes stamina - only signs do. Every time you meditate, alcohol is consumed to replenish both potions and bombs. Overall great game. Some people might wish exploring the world yielded more XP or material reward. The game's length is somewhat artificially padded by requiring you to pursue side activities in order to advance your character or produce/procure supplies. This could lead to pacing issues for some people. Great, if sometimes predictable, story with memorable characters and events.

Never played the mod much but this standalone version is fantastic. Game has a decent variety of maps, weapons, and attachments. There are roles on your team you select when joining a server which determine what main weapons you can select. You have a certain amount of points to spend on attachments, grenades, etc. Everything is unlocked from the start so you don't have to grind just to unlock some stupid optic (thank God). People are generally friendly and helpful to new players. Game has PvP multiplayer and PvE co-op modes. In co-op, players have to complete objectives while dealing with AI enemies. On higher difficulty settings, the AI is pretty competent, very accurate, and very trigger happy. The co-op modes are a lot of fun and are not simply tacked on modes. Tons of fun with friends. My only complaint is the game seems to suffer from poor performance even on higher end systems. Tweaking settings to get consistent frame rates seems silly since it's using the Source engine but that's what I had to do.

The game would deserve a higher rating, even with the massive performance issues most mainstream reviews ignored, if it weren't for the turn limits on most missions. When a low turn limit requires you to rush forward to reach an objective on the other side of the map you can't take the extra turns setting up ambushes requires with the new stealth system. You can't cautiously make your approach always sticking to full cover and creating overlapping cones of overwatch fire. You absolutely must rush ahead to get there in time. When the majority of missions have a timer, whatever sense of urgency you feel the first few times you play them evaporates quickly. It soon becomes a repetitious formula. Other than this, the game is upgraded Enemy Unknown and is a worthy successor. New classes are fun, stealth mechanic is a lot of fun when you aren't restricted by time to set up the perfect ambush, and the new overworld mechanics with the resistance and flying mobile base are a welcome addition. My only other gripe would be that attacks still fly through cover (even full cover) and world geometry as if they weren't there. Part of this may be due to the fact that everything is procedurally generated this time around. A new class also has melee attacks that can hit enemies through windows and the adjoining wall, often completely destroying the structure as if a bomb went off. Enemy melee attacks will also connect in physically impossible ways completely destroying immersion and your carefully laid plans. Wait for a sale. There will probably be great mods and performance improvements by then.

Good L4D copy in a fantasy setting with a focus on melee over ranged combat. Co-op mode only, no versus mode as yet. Distinct character classes with different play styles and favored weapons. Varied quality of level design. Special skaven are almost all copies of L4D special zombies. Randomized loot system encourages playing the multiple classes but means finding gear for your favored class is a total grind. One complaint I have about the loot system is the dice roll mechanic at the end of each level. In most levels, you find tomes which occupy an inventory slot. The more players that carry these tomes through to the end of the level, the more special dice are awarded to increase the chance for rarer variety loot. There are also grimoires which guarantee a successful dice roll. When your team has one grimoire in possession, it takes everyone's health down by 1/4. With two grimoires, it takes everyone's health down by 1/2. Playing the maps to find all tomes and grimoires and strategizing to make it through the level with all of them is essential to maximizing the grind for random gear. This means, that already, players are sacrificing survivability and exploiting shoddy AI and level design glitches to compensate in order to get better RNG at the end of the level. The grimoire and tome mechanic encourages exploits and as a result, in my opinion, lessens the overall fun factor of the game. It makes exploits the only viable strategy on harder to difficulties in order to beat the level and get the RNG loot. If your team wipes a level, you get less XP and no loot drops. Melee hit boxes feel good, but ranged ones are all over the place. Although poor latency and projectile travel time could be giving the illusion of shoddy hit box design. It's difficult to tell. Performance on certain hardware setups is rough. CPU usage is extremely high and GPU usage is correspondingly low. CPU and mobo temps may also be very high for some people depending on cooling solutions and case air flow. One work around is to cap frames and enable vsync, but some people might not find this a satisfactory solution. There's a good game at a reasonable price beneath the glitches and poor optimization. If you're ok with constant exploit runs to get good loot at higher difficulties (the only way to get good loot) you'll have more fun than others.

SOMA is suspense/horror adventure game with light puzzle solving and an excellent story that keeps you engaged and guessing. Rather than juggle multiple gameplay mechanics, SOMA instead leads players along a linear path sneaking around monsters and performing menial tasks all while learning more about the world and its characters. The only gameplay to be found in SOMA outside of interacting with various computer terminals and objects is avoiding detection by monsters. Monsters patrol on set paths and if you make noise they will come to investigate. Monsters do not hound the player as aggressively as they did in Amnesia. This is because you cannot hide in furniture and other objects as you could in Amnesia. To compensate for this, monsters will only investigate part of a room or simply stand in the door way if you alert them. The unfortunate result is a loss of suspense and urgency. It also means you do not get the sense that you are being actively hunted as you did in Amnesia. Multiple times during my play through, monsters would block the only way through a section and I was forced to get attacked or intentionally alert a monster to my presence just to progress. When detected by a monster, you get knocked down and black out. When you wake up, the monster is gone but nearby and you suffer reduced mobility. If you get attacked again, you die. The simplistic stealth and primitive monster AI made these portions of the game very tedious after a short time. Early portions of the game I could simply sprint through, get knocked down once, and keep sprinting until safe or until enemies gave up pursuit. Unlike Amnesia: The Dark Descent, there is no inventory system and no need to manage supplies of any kind. While this makes sense given the context of the story, it removes a level of suspense and desperation, things sorely lacking in a game that bills itself as a horror title. Instead, items you carry simply materialize in your hand when you near an object they can interact with. The story and characters are the strongest aspect of the game. While predictable, I had a genuine desire to learn more about the events and characters of the station. The voice acting is top notch except for the player character. Much like Jason Brody in Far Cry 3, Simon sounds and behaves like a complete **** - especially in the final scene of the game. Listening to him give voice to the transhumanist themes of the story is like listening to an edgy philosophy student who read Descartes for the first time. For much of the game, you travel with another character. Your character will often question or idly banter this NPC when exploring a room or solving a puzzle. While a nice way to present the narrative or offer clues, it results in uneven pacing of calm and tense moments and because those tense moments become so tedious, I often found myself eager to rush past them rather than take my time evading so I could get the game over with more quickly. If you're ok paying $30 for a story driven walking game, SOMA is for you. If you were looking for a deeper horror experience with more challenging puzzles and more layers to the gameplay, you'll have to keep looking. Wait for a discount.

It's not pay2win, it's pay2notgrind. Objective based gameplay similar to Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Player movement is very fast, wall jumping is a thing, and head shots are almost a necessity. It's not a game like Call of Duty that you can pick up easily shoot first and always win. Skill is involved, believe it or not, and it takes some getting used to for people who are only familiar with modern shooters. The game is still in beta so new characters are still being worked into the game. That also means there are some balance issues that have to get worked out. Characters fill specific roles from medic to support to front line fighters to objective specialists. There are multiple choices for each role. Loadouts are determined by character cards that have up to 3 perks. Perk and weapon choice fall to random chance, unfortunately, but you can use in game cash to buy specific ones you want. You can also trade up cards to a higher tier that has all three. Bronze tier fills all 3 perk slots and all higher tiers (silver, gold, cobalt, obsidian) are simply cosmetic differences. People who are saying you have to fork out a bunch of cash to be competitive are full of it. You can be competitive through just a few hours of play without spending any real money. The maps so far are really well designed but there are very few. Can't wait to see more. Also can't wait to see the new strategies new characters will introduce. All in all, shaping up to be a well rounded competitive shooter with a fair business model.

Risk of Rain is a game that is fun on your own and even more addictive with friends. Unfortunately, I fear most people are going to be discouraged by the old style direct connect multiplayer method. I found multiplayer through Hamachi worked well after an initial set up and removed some of the hassle. The game is difficult and is designed to require many many playthroughs before seeing every level and unlocking each class. As you move through the levels and kill monsters you earn gold that you can use to buy power ups. Some of these have neat descriptions but others are very vague and require you to experiment with them to figure out how they work. After a while, you start to learn which power ups work well with which character class. Unfortunately, things aren't as easy as selecting which power ups you want like a class load out. No, you have to find them in the game world in chests or buy them from dispensers. It's random chance if you'll find something useful or get your money's worth. This might be frustrating for some players as your success in any given game will largely depend on the luck of the draw. For others this will enhance the skill based aspect of the game, and the game does require a degree of skill. Each class has four abilities. Learning how and when to use them is essential to survival. Some abilities combo well with others and some even complement the power ups. The game is more intricate than it first appears and with each game you peel back another layer. My only major criticism is the game's visual appearance. It's a nice pixel art style, which looks charming, but with so many things on screen in the latter levels from ability effects to explosions to experience and coin pickups to burning terrain, things get messy and indistinguishable fast. While it does add a certain layer of tension it is also frustrating. In short, great game with great value for the price. Excellent co-op experience with others - provided you can get over the initial hurdle of setting up a game.

This sequel picks up where the first game left off, but instead of controlling point man, you're part of an entirely new set of characters and their involvement with the aftermath of the first game's story. Gameplay is very similar to the first game. You have slow mo, you have very similar weapons but also some new ones, but you can't carry as many health packs this time which I think was a good decision. Enemies are also very similar but there is the addition of ghoul type monsters that break up combat with typical soldier goons. These segments also provide a new kind of tension that was absent from the first game. Level design is very similar to the first game but the environments are more varied and there seems to be more polish to break up the monotony. Like the first the game, FEAR 2 is very short and won't take you long. Unlike the first game, however, I didn't feel as strong a desire to replay this one through higher difficulties. Maybe it's just me, but the AI didn't seem as competent. There were times when I could just stand near a doorway and blast everyone that walked through it like lemmings. It's difficult to put my finger on, but the combat segments didn't feel like they had the same punch of the first game. Sound effects, even in slow mo, just felt kinda stale and flat. In short, there are some definite improvements over the first game but also one or two steps back. Nevertheless, a worthy sequel.

Hands down one of the best FPS games ever made. Why people call it a horror FPS is beyond me though. I did not find the game frightening at all aside from a couple jump scares. Best gun play and attention to detail. Bullets rip out chunks of dry wall and bullets will spark off certain materials. This is all magnified by the slow mo ability. The AI is easily some of the best in an FPS ever. They will flank you, grenade your position if you stay in one place for too long, and lean around cover just like you can. Enemy variety is limited but they are tough. You have standard troopers, big armored suits, and even small mechs that are quite deadly. Your melee attacks are also very powerful and you can also execute a jump kick and a slide kick. The story isn't bad and you learn about it through scripted events, voice mail messages, and laptops littered throughout levels. A couple things I didn't care for. This is basically a corridor shooter with a more open or varied area from time to time. Environments mainly consist of industrial areas, office parks, and secret underground labs. The weapon variety is standard fare until about half way through the game when you start finding way more interesting weapons like the rail gun, the autocannon, and the multirocket launcher. It's a short game, but it's worth another playthrough or two if you like experiencing different difficulties.

Unpopular opinon: I like Far Cry 2 more than Far Cry 3. The cons first: - Super repetitious gameplay. Once you clear an outpost, it stays clear until you enter a safe house and save your game, then it repopulates with guards. This wouldn't be as annoying if you didn't spend as much time driving as you did. - You spend too much time driving around. - Outpost guards chase you 100% of the time if you don't painstakingly clear them out first. - The game's story is the same no matter which character you pick. - Malaria is pointless and only services the Heart of Darkness subtext. - The world is empty. No civilians, virtually no wildlife. - There is little reason to explore. - Side quests feel like filler. The good: + The weapons are diverse and fun to use. + Gun play is very fun. + The world is super detailed and the graphics have held up really well. + Dylan's mod and graphics enhancement mods add to these strengths. With so few positives, why do I like this game more than Far Cry 3? Like Far Cary 3, 2's story is very much a descent into madness. The Heart of Darkness overtones beat you over the head, yet the journey into madness is much more subtle. There are no hallucinogenic mushroom sequences and no schizophrenic QTE boss encounters or combat with a giant lava beast here. Only a man with malaria alone in a hostile (if empty) wilderness trying not to die. The realism mods that exist for this game improve combat and make many of the repetitive gameplay elements more endurable. I've had a lot of fun replaying this game with Dylan's mod for the added challenge. Stealth is also more viable with this mod whereas before it was basically broken.

4gb of RAM user here. I had to get a crack from some Russian kid to play SP. SP is your typical follow this NPC and do whatever he tells you uninspired crap. Set pieces look neat but 6gb of RAM? Nothing I have seen so far justifies this system requirement. Can't play MP but it's probably not that terrible. Battlefield 4 is a game with larger maps, dynamic destruction, vehicles, more players on screen at any given time, better animations, and only requires 4gb of RAM. Last Call of Duty I buy.

This game is everything good about FPS games from the late 90s and early 2000s with welcome modern additions. Secrets galore, linear levels but plenty of exploration for those with the eye for it, gratuitous violence, cheesy one liners, skill trees, power trees, weapon upgrades, and move sets to unlock and master. There is so much variety with the skill and power upgrades that the game constantly surprises me with fun new ways to kill baddies. There's some story about a magic sword and demons but who cares? Kill everything in sight and scour every corner.

Why people praise this game as a model of story telling and a critique of modern shooters is beyond me. The story is super linear and full of scripted events which present the illusion of player choice but are painfully transparent. And a critique this is not. Instead, Spec Ops The Line is full of every stereotype of modern shooters. You have a simple cover based mechanic, corridor level design even when outdoors, and while I admit the story had some surprising twists and memorable moments, it's all super predictable. Despite the short length I found myself wishing for it all to end so I could go play something else. You have your standard military assault rifles and SMGs and the occasional grenade launcher or whatever. You have emplaced turrets that no console shooter would be without. You have rail segments where memorizing the pattern of enemies is the only way to survive. This game is shooter cliche central and NOT the masterpiece other user reviews present it to be. Of course, no one is playing multiplayer anymore. If I had a dollar for every game this gen that tacked on multiplayer instead of creating a memorable and replayable singleplayer experience, I'd have a lot of dollars. Avoid this game unless you have a compulsion to play every shooter on the market.

First the good. The seamless integration between range and melee combat makes combat fluid and enjoyable. The variety of weapons is nice and largely well balanced. While there aren't a lot of graphics options for PC, the visuals and effects are good and the game performs smoothly without devouring a lot of resources. Controls with both gamepad and mouse and keyboard work perfectly and are very intuitive. Now the bad. The game is short and not very replayable. The multiplayer fell way short of expectations. Peer to peer matchmaking means a load of lag. While this may be ok for THQs RTS games, it makes the action oriented Space Marine nearly unplayable in multiplayer. In order to get the most out of multiplayer (access to all modes and characters) you will need to let THQ nickle and dime you with DLC packs. So much superfluous DLC it's just nauseating. Since THQ is now defunct, multiplayer is no longer getting updates, though it still works as far as I know. The single player experience is worth it for both action game fans and Warhammer fans. Outside of that, there is no reason to play this game.

Shadowrun Returns is an isometric tactical RPG reminiscent of classic RPGs like Fallout, Neverwinter Nights, or Arcanum. The game takes place in a cyberpunk Seattle populated with fantasy creatures, magic, and high technology. Right from the start, the game world **** you in with beautifully detailed levels and characters. Surprising for some, this game features no voice acting. Instead, brief narrations often accompany NPC dialogue which do a great job **** you into the world. Few modern games have writing as good as this, and yet, your dialogue choices are still lackluster. Every response you can give is essentially a variation of "Alright" with varying degrees of attitude. Player choice is essentially non existent as the game is highly linear. Levels are cramped and there is rarely room for exploration. The few side quests there are are purely optional, but you'd be a fool not to do them as they often provide essential cash. The interface is largely good but certain mechanics, namely spell equipping, could have used more information. The leveling system is fine but Charisma is a largely useless stat. Character class balance could be better but overall isn't bad. Mages often become little more than heal bots unless you're on a higher difficulty and riggers leave a bit to be desired. Deckers (hackers) have limited combat usefulness but can enter the Matrix and hack systems thereby gaining control of turrets, opening locked areas, or shutting off security cameras. Anyone familiar with the recent X-COM reboot will be familiar with the turn based combat. There are varying degrees of cover and you expend AP to perform various actions. The game is considerably less challenging and more forgiving than the classic games it emulates so well, but the game never felt too easy or too hard. Unfortunately, there is no manual save and you are forced to rely on a checkpoint save. Messing up often means restarting an entire mission making playthroughs on higher difficulties more of a chore than it needs to be. The story is interesting though predictable. The saving grace of this game, provided people care to take the time with it, will be the mods. Already on Steam are a few interesting additions to the game and I look forward to see what else the community dreams up. If you're big into classic RPGs some of Shadowrun's design choices will upset you more than a bit, but for everyone else this is an enjoyable (if brief by RPG standards, 9-12 hours) experience.

Pros: Excellent graphics for the nearly eight year old PS3 with consistently smooth frame rates and animations. The level design is not very complex, but the attention to detail is astounding. I never felt like I was visiting the same place twice. Areas are also designed in such a way that multiple paths or styles of play are possible for completing them. Great story, believable and memorable characters. Superb voice acting. The crafting system is not revolutionary but, because multiple items require the same materials, forces you to make tough decisions regarding what you think you will need and what kind of play style you're going for. For example, molotovs and med packs use the same supplies, so you're forced to balance increased offense with survival. Also, because crafting takes place in real time and because you can only carry a limited amount of equipment, you can't simply pause the game to craft a bomb and then throw it at your foes. Combat and stealth are really tense and every shot counts. You absolutely cannot run and gun this game. Cons: Sometimes you have to figure out how to traverse certain areas in the game, a bit of light puzzle solving. But all of this boils down to searching an area for a ladder or plank and becomes pretty transparent after the first few times. Character movements and animations can sometimes get a bit clippy. When in melee combat a number of times, attacks would not connect when enemy NPCs were in certain animations. Additionally, my melee attacks also pushed NPCs into terrain or objects making me unable to hit them, but they were still able to attack me. I was forced to back up a bit and leave myself open to other attacks just so the NPC I was attacking would get itself unstuck. The stealth segments are great, but tend to break the immersion when you have Ellie or other friendly NPCs following you. Certain zombies in the game use sonar and are attracted to loud noises. You have to crouch and move very carefully, but the NPCs following you will often sprint short distances when these zombies are only a few yards away and no enemies are alerted. When sneaking around human NPCs, those following you will sometimes expose themselves trying to keep up with you but again not get detected by the enemy NPCs. I admit the game would be unnecessarily difficult if goofy AI quirks broke your stealth, but once you figure this out, stealth segments are far less challenging than they first appear. The multiplayer at first glance appears tacked on, but the real time crafting is a major component of the gameplay. Sneaking around with your team, scavenging materials, and crafting equipment to use against your enemies is ridiculously rewarding. The multiplayer levels are well designed, too. Even though I've never been a fan of the Uncharted games, I find The Last of Us way more enjoyable. The characters are more believable, the story is more engaging, and while the gameplay in some ways has less to offer, the real time crafting, tension, and pace of combat are way more impactful than what Uncharted offered.

Why this is associated with Far Cry and not its own IP is beyond me. Blood Dragon, in a twisted sense, is more realistic than the original Far Cry 3 since you are cyborg commando supremely adept at killing and not a 20 something faceless **** who magically becomes a legend the moment he picks up a gun. Everything about this game intones the over the top 80s machismo absurdity associated with cheesy action flicks of the decade. The combat is a blast, the weapons are entertaining, the side content, while severely limited, doesn't get stale. You can run super fast and jump super high and even fall from any height making the pace of the game far more frenetic than Far Cry 3. I disliked Far Cry 3 because it tried to hard to be a super serious adventure in saving people I cared nothing about. I love Blood Dragon because it doesn't get in the way of letting you be the ultimate badass. It focuses on the action with a consistent pace and never slows down. The ride is far too short, however, and there is little to do once you complete the main story unless you want 100% completion or want to replay the action on a higher difficulty. Even if you didn't like Far Cry 3 it's worth checking this one out for $15 since if feels very different despite retaining many of the same gameplay elements.

First the good. Shooting is fun, controls are responsive, I have not encountered any lag spikes that make the game unplayable or unresponsive both during solo and group PvE and during massive co-op events with hundreds of people on screen. Quest variety is standard MMO fare but this is really to be expected. Tons of weapons variety which is great, but the weapons are not very customizable. Weapons have upgrade slots and things like stocks and barrels improve certain qualities of your gun. The problem is, unless you have a super rare weapon mod, the improvement is inconsequential and has no tangible effect. If you encounter players doing the same quest as you, they won't interfere with your progress. Instead, you can enter the quest midstream so to speak and help other players finish, or other players can stumble along and lend you a hand if they choose. This makes grouping seamless and a lot of fun. Random events are dotted all over the landscape and those are often fun to complete. Fun arcade like or time attack challenges with leaderboards are also a nice diversion. Co-op missions are few but well constructed and fun to play. Now for the bad. The arkfall events, where hundreds of players, in the open game world a la Rift, work together to complete big challenges or bring down tons of enemies, are fun and yield good experience and loot, EXCEPT the mechanics behind completing them really ****. The more people there are, and yes, there will be tons of people heading toward these events, the harder the enemies are to kill. So your dude with his +5 shotgun of kickass that normally takes a couple blasts to down guys will now take dozens if not hundreds of rounds to down that same low level enemy. Instead of scaling the number of enemies for large scale encounters, the game simply rockets the HP of enemies to absurd heights. PvP is also a mixed bag. On paper, it sounds nice TDM and Battlefield style domination game modes, but it's super unbalanced because everyone is entering combat with their +3 assault rifle and spray n' pray. There are only 4 active skills, one of which you choose at the start of the game. This becomes your bread and butter similar to how each character in Borderlands had one active skill. You have a lot of freedom in how to craft your character, but characters fail to feel distinct as many of the passive bonuses you invest in are either useless or too context sensitive to be useful. Sometimes, the passive bonuses simply clash with the best, least frustrating ways to play, encouraging play styles that seem counter productive. Truthfully, I'm a bit disappointed having purchased this at launch for full price. Wait for a drop and or more content.

Good fun for the price but it is very short. The more people you play with the more zombies there are. The cramped levels make the game feel more like a 3rd person shooter than a sniper game, and you almost have to have one or two players avoid sniping just to guard the rear approaches. The "defend against the horde" sections almost require you to play through the game, fail, and then play through again to know where exactly to place traps, snipe from, and fall back to otherwise you're gonna have a bad time. As with most co-op games, playing with strangers can be frustrating as hell because people either don't communicate or do dumbass Playing with friends is strongly encouraged. The atmosphere of this game is great. The music, the fog, the slow zombies, it's like an 80s zombie flick set in the 40s. And oh there are plenty of zombies to kill. Nothing compares to shooting the grenade on the webbing of a **** zombie to have it explode and kill nine of his zombie pals. There are also armored zombies toting MG42s and kamikaze zombies who happily run at you and explode. Downing them in a group of slow zombies and watching the resulting boom is also glorious. This is a great arcade-like stand alone expansion to Sniper Elite V2. You better enjoy playing the same levels over and over again a la Left 4 Dead and not care that everything is scripted, though.

Played this game a lot at launch, took a break, and recently picked it up again. Around launch time, things revolved too much around the real money auction house. They still do. Even though the developers continue to make changes to itemization, and while setting the monster power level increases XP gain and magic find chance, finding legendary items is still super rare and requires tons of grinding. The auction house is the carrot on a stick tempting you to bypass that grind by paying real money or tons of gold for end game items. End game items are pretty lackluster thanks to the changes in character development. The damage your skills do is now purely based on your weapon DPS which is tied to your character's chief attribute point. So if you're a barb all you'll care about is strength and vitality, a demon hunter or monk dex and vit, wizard int and vit, etc. So when you see a new item, if it doesn't have those bonuses to those attributes, it's essentially useless with a few rare exceptions. You also no longer have control over how to distribute your attribute points narrowing the list of viable builds for each class. Additionally, you unlock skills in order as you level up. "Runes" can be selected for each skill which augment or totally change how it works. Skills can also be swapped out at will once unlocked. This helps maintain some variety in play, but the number of skills are pretty scant compared to Diablo II. PvP was recently implemented, but most people seem to be doing PvE runs for legendaries or unique sets. Very few people are playing compared to Diablo II, a game nearly 15 years old at this point which should tell you something about how long times fans have been receiving it. Unless you're new to action RPGs or have never played a Diablo game, it's hard to recommend Diablo III.

Somewhat underrated game. GTA clone set in **** occupied Paris. You play an Irish race car driver turned French Resistance fighter seeking revenge. Interesting personal story, interesting characters, but their voice acting, except for the main character, is pretty bad. Dialogue is pretty good, though. Unique graphical direction where **** occupied Paris is rendered in black and white. As you complete missions and destroy **** targets, color returns to portions of the city which lessens the amount of soldiers on the streets and makes it easier to get away when in trouble. Getting away when in trouble, especially when in a vehicle, is super hard as troops are all over the street. Sometimes I had to travel to an extreme opposite side of the map just to escape when under a high alarm level. Since there is no fast travel, I then had to drive all the way back across to trigger the next mission. Stealth is difficult and rewarding, but it's so much easier to take the guns blazing approach. Controls with the sticks on PS3 felt off. I adjusted the sensitivity for a while and things still didn't feel right. This game succeeds in the hit and run style combat a la Red Faction: Guerilla. Missions allow you to bust in the doors shooting, turn a fixed gun on your target, sabotage a car and ram it into enemies, or sneak across rooftops disguised as a ****. The side missions are varied and interesting, but there isn't much to do outside the main story. Frankly, I'm glad there aren't a plethora of half hearted mini games like other open world games. The weapons and vehicles are fun, the city layout is well designed and varied, the countryside is also interesting, there's a lot to blow up and see, and the game is a decent length. Once it's done though, you'll have little reason to keep playing unless you want to grind for achievements.

Home presents an errie atmosphere, some mildly tense sections to explore, but fails utterly in the delivery of its story. Home is reminiscent of 2D adventure games where the player navigates the main character through a series of pixelated homes, caves, and woods. Along the way, he finds clues to recovering his memory about the events leading up to the present situation. The problem is, by the time you finish this short hour to two hour game, you are left with so many unanswered questions that even if you wanted to pretend the game had a certain narrative you would have no foundation to support it. Without any other sustaining gameplay to speak of, Home is the worst $2 I ever spent. The game seems to be an exercise in allowing players to forge their own narratives, one that Home executes poorly.

Single player game is absolutely forgettable. Shallow characters with indecipherable motivations, alright but ultimately uninteresting story, and huge missed opportunities in gameplay. Using pseudo-quicktime events, you use hacking applications via an implanted biochip to manipulate both enemies and objects in the world. One early level features an operating room where you can hack the power supply of operating tables forcing them to retract thereby exposing the enemies hiding behind them. These moments are few and far between and sometimes scripted. There are only a few apps or powers to choose from throughout the story mode. Enemies are fairly generic but there are some challenges. Some enemies are invulnerable to damage until you hack their chip to lower their defenses. This makes timing and positioning hugely important. The game also features xray vision that also slows down time. Despite these cool powers and rare opportunities to interact with the environment in a meaningful way, the gameplay is standard fare FPS. Levels are cramped but the style is great. Most of that style is lost by the overdone bloom and outlandish lighting effects which sometimes impair the FPS gameplay. The co-op multiplayer is better than I expected but so few people are playing at this point. More powers to choose from than in singleplayer, working together is a must, and there's a good selection of challenging stock levels. Don't buy it for the story; buy it for the online co-op with friends.

Good game. Unless the player base grows, small issues are fixed, and new content is added, however, this game will have no staying power. Coolest feature about the game is that sticking close to your team mates earns you an XP multiplier. The longer you stay close to your team, the more it grows and the more XP you get for kills and support actions. Never before have I played an online shooter where strangers cared about sticking together and working together this system works. Additionally, active skills provide short term bonuses to those currently in your "team" when activated. Another neat feature is the ability to "build" the map in the pre-game lobby. Once you select your gear, an overview of the map comes up divided into three sections. Players vote on which prefab assets they want to occupy each of the three slots. Awesome concept, but the small amount of assets to choose from and the lack of diversity between them means you WILL play the same map twice. Other than that, this is your standard progression based online shooter with a third person cover mechanic and there is nothing wrong with that. This game deserves more attention than it is getting and I hope more people give it a chance so the developers continue to support it.

If you've played the original Katamari and We *heart* Katamari on PS2, then you have played Katamari Forever. The game features two main types of levels, black and white dream sequence levels from the King of All Cosmos which are essentially revisits to PS2 stages, and all new stages inspired by Robo King of All Cosmos. Yes, I want what they were smoking when they thought this up. The game attempts and fails to incorporate six axis motion into the new Prince Hop move, but fails miserably. It's far more effective to press the shoulder buttons to initiate this new move instead. Other than that, the controls are identical to every Katamari game. Great game for those who never had a chance to play the PS2 Katamari games and still a great game for those who don't mind revisiting past levels.

Underwhelming and over hyped. Once the world opens up to you, the game becomes a series of tedious exercises in collecting plants and animal hides to work around the ridiculous caps on money, ammo, and equipment the game saddles you with. Worst part about the crafting system is the specificity of materials required for a given upgrade. For example, collect two hides of species X for the first upgrade. Congratulations! Next, collect two hides of species Y who is only found on the other side of the **** island! Why does the same item require leather from a specific sub species of tapir when boar hide was good enough for the first upgrade? The map doesn't tell you which animal icons are what animal, so most of the time it's blind luck you're after the right one. The side missions are silly mini games that undercut the atmosphere of gritty survival the game attempts to conjure. Much like Far Cry 2, stealth **** because enemies instantly know where your position is even when using a silenced sniper rifle. The story is terrible and I could give two **** about the main character and his obnoxious friends. I'm tired of open world games that craft a visually stunning world with the promise of exploration and adventure only to populate it with tantalizing caves and abandoned buildings whose only point of interest turn out to be a wooden crate with a shark tooth necklace and absurdly repetitive side missions/farming tasks. Also, no predatory cat should be able to withstand half a magazine 7.62 rounds from an AK-47 when it takes two rounds to down a human NPC. It's like Red Dead Redemption's cougars all over again.

Wow, I wish I knew about this game sooner. Recently picked up the gold edition which comes with the expansion pack. Haven't made it to the expansion yet, but this is a great action RPG. The dialogue and voice acting are deliciously absurd. It's nice to a see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. Great sense of humor. Fewer amount of skills and spells than other action RPG games, but really intuitive and it gives you a healthy diversity of play styles for each class. Most of the fun comes from exploring on your own and doing side quests which can get tedious. Main quests aren't bad either. The camera, however, is atrocious. The angle is such that you can't see very far ahead of you, making playing ranged characters especially frustrating. Thankfully, the minimap is well detailed and easy to read which helps alleviate this problem. Hugely addicting, pick up the gold edition if you have Steam.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Many maps are too still too large for the 24 player cap even after having been redacted from the PC version. Input lag from the controller makes aiming and maneuvering the maps a chore. Choppy framerate and loooong texture load times make an otherwise good looking game that much worse. VOIP is broken. The singleplayer portion of the game is less a game and more a series of quicktime events and long corridors with no freedom of movement or exploration - aka every modern FPS. Save yourself the trouble and just get the PC version. I have no idea if the 360 version suffers similar issues or is more sufferable.

This game is what Diablo 3 should have been. There is nothing else that needs to be said but Metacritic has a 150 minimum character requirement. The difficulty is more consistent than Diablo 3 and the game is not afraid to challenge you. The skill trees (yes, there are skill trees) are well thought out and reward focusing your point distributions. The loot is copious, the enemy variety refreshing, and the gameplay is like crack cocaine. Get over the cartoony look, get over the generic story and buy this game and play it.

Big, open world, except terrain often funnels you down the same path over and over as you travel across the game. There is no fast travel system, which I don't mind, and while this results in a great sense of exploration and atmosphere, it also means you back track across the same areas time and time again. Ferrystones will instantly teleport you from your location to the main hub city, but these are initially very expensive until you amass enough gold to be able to afford them regularly. Combat is hit or miss - it's either a fluid dance or a chaotic mess. Squad AI is generally more than competent, but framerate slowdowns and the quick pace of battle makes things easy to lose track of. You also have no direct control over your pawns. The game's unique feature is the pawn system. At the start of the game you create your main character and your main pawn. Your pawn is your right hand man and he levels along side you. You have full control over his inventory and skills, which is great and gives you a real sense of teamwork with the AI as you train it to match your play style. At certain points throughout the world, you can summon pawns created by other players to help you out. Other players can also summon your main pawn. Every time you rest at an in, the game will let you know if your pawn brought some item back for you and you always get points you can use to hire more pawns. If you find an area too challenging, you can hire a high level pawn if you can afford it instead of grinding in order to help you get through the area. Best part is, you still get full XP for their kills. My only complaints are framerate slowdowns, lack of enemy variety, and side quests which are all dull fetch errands or kill X number of bats. There's a lot of satisfaction to be had customizing your character and your pawns to execute the perfect battle strategy. When the AI manages to pull it off, it's a beautiful thing. When it stumbles, it's either a fault in your setup or the AI's fault. All in all, it's a game worth checking out for RPG fans but don't expect the masochistic difficulty of Demon's/Dark Souls.

I recently acquired all the FEAR games through the 2012 Steam Summer Sale having never played any of them before. I played them all in order and FEAR 3 is not as bad as people on metacritic make it out to be. In fact, it's somewhat comparable to FEAR 2 in terms of gameplay with the twist that it incentivizes replayability in allowing players to control Fettel. The story mode is similar in length to FEAR 1 and 2 and is more similar to FEAR 2 in terms of gameplay. The player will fight hordes of Armacham goons and mechs and bland supernatural enemies that do nothing but lunge at you. As you play through each level as Point Man or Fettel, you earn huge score bonuses by completing challenges a la Call of Duty. Each level is scored and your final score tallied after the last boss fight. Depending on who has the higher score, Point Man or Fettel, one of multiple endings will be unlocked. This encourages players to replay the game as Fettel, attempt to top their previous high score as Point Man, and view the game's alternate ending. I find this a very creative approach to unlocking multiple endings and preferable to pressing a magic button during the last few minutes of play. Playing as Point Man, players must use slomo, cover, and a slim but solid variety of weapons to get through the game. Playing as Fettel, players can shoot psychic energy from their hands, possess enemy soldiers and slaughter their friends, and use telekinesis to throw objects. Despite the games linear level design, I was impressed by how well the layouts supported both drastically different styles of play. The gameplay, while fun, does nothing to innovate and brings absolutely nothing new to the series. The game is full of obnoxious scripted moments, blocked off areas players might be eager to explore, and tons of "Hey, player! Look at this and then we'll let you progress!" scenes. The game is also WAY too easy, even on the hardest difficulty. Your health and slomo bar simply regenerates way too fast. Removing health packs was a terrible design choice for FEAR. The enemy AI, as in the previous games, is more than competent, but your slomo lasts forever and your health regenerates super fast, you have no fear of death. The game is not scary at all either. It's full of cheap jump scares. There is never any genuine tension because the enemies are neither difficult to kill nor deadly. I would really recommend FEAR if you want closure to the FEAR story or are looking for a great co-op game. I wouldn't recommend this at all for multiplayer. I was unable to find a multiplayer match of any type running.

What disappoints me most about MAG is how the PS3 hardware is incapable of coping with the 256 player game modes MAG boasts. Game maps are larger than normal but not terribly so, but large enough to separate the players into different hotspots during the 256 player modes. Teams of 128 are split into different segments so initially the game feels like a 32 vs 32 game. As the game mode progresses, more players meet in flashpoints and the framerate tanks under the pressure. My PS3 locked up numerous times during the 256 player game modes, even after cleaning the dust out of it. Because the controls are so sloppy and wonky, people seem to mostly nade spam in the hopes of downing the newbs who blindly rush into the meat grinder. The weapon variety is stale and you'll find yourself grinding for in game currency to get better guns of which there are only a couple meager improvements. You'll also struggle to keep up as you grind for XP to invest in enough skills to increase your survivability and make the game playable. Coordination is essential in this game, and yet so few people have mics. The game had ambition, I'll give it that, but it utterly fails in execution.

If you enjoy **** murder simulators as much as I do, you will love this game. The single player game is short but somewhat replayable as the difficulty levels affect bullet physics and how much the game handicaps you. The co-op multiplayer modes are fun and require teamwork. Best played with a friend and not a total stranger as communication is essential. It is very difficult to follow the stealthy approach in this game, and if you aren't careful, you risk turning the game into a mediocre third person shooter experience. Setting traps, timing who you kill and when, and luring the survivors into your trip mines is extremely satisfying. The game performs a CSI style kill cam highlighting body parts in x-ray vision that you've nailed with your bullets. Testicle shots are included to much glee. All in all, great co-op game, good single player game. Recommended despite the stale WW2 setting.

As a gamer fairly new to the 4x genre, I found Endless Space a great introduction. The mechanics are easy to grasp and the game becomes less intimidating the more you play. Unfortunately, a couple annoying flaws prevent it from standing out. The developer has admitted the game is not a finished product and I can only hope they dedicate themselves to continued improvement of a promising title. One flaw is the enemy AI. It will frequently amass huge fleets in one or two systems and do nothing with them. The AI does not actively challenge the player as he or she grows an empire across the galaxy map. The more your empire expands, the more your populace becomes unhappy. Even if you are playing an expansionist or militarist faction, you suffer an enormous approval penalty for growing your empire too quickly. Many people have complained about fleet combat because players have very limited control over it. Once you engage an enemy fleet with one of your own, your fleet attacks on its own. You have three rounds of combat to play a tactics card that gives you bonuses and rock paper scissors counters to other cards. You have no direct control over fleet movement or attack during combat. Personally, I don't mind this as it simulates managing an empire from afar and leaving the dirty work to the admirals. You can customize ships with technology that forms another rock paper scissors mechanic. Admittedly, I have not played multiplayer, but I am thinking it is probably a lot more rewarding than playing against the AI. If you're new to 4x games, I would recommend Endless Space. If you're a veteran looking for a new, engrossing experience, you might not find what you're looking for. The game is a good amount of fun, rewarding (if only for a while), and a nice segway into games like EU3, GalCiv2, and Victoria.

Fun but brief campaign of twelve linear but replayable missions. Replayable because of how gun customization affects your approach to situations and how challenges incentivize due to additional...challenge. Graphics are ugly and look like a cross between a PS3 launch title and a PS2 HD remake. Performance is fine, though, as the game runs at a stable 30FPS. I have not encountered any debilitating slowdowns. Multiplayer is the meat of this game. Maps are well designed but mostly consist of cramped corridors with a few high vantage points. Very few open areas all in all. Surprisingly enough, this complements the games alternating objective play well which is very similar to Killzone 2 and 3. The classes feel well balanced in general with the exception of the engineer. Situational awareness is a huge factor of success in this game that having almost all the engineers abilities revolve around this play style seems strange. Every team needs at least one to win, and while having too many will have the opposite effect, it's incredibly easy to rack up experience thanks to the game awarding more points for spotting enemies than actually killing them yourself. The game modes are many and varied, the most interesting of which being Decoy. In Decoy, three objectives appear on the map, but only one is the real objective. Neither team knows which objective is real and which is fake. It makes things interesting and unpredictable as teams try to feel things out and react accordingly. One of my few complaints is that the game's unlock system revolves around tokens which you must spend to access cosmetic and more utilitarian upgrades for weapons and equipment. Tokens are the only way you have access to improved optics which are always more accurate than firing from the hip, even when zoomed in or when behind cover. I sincerely hope this game retains a large player base for multiplayer because it deserves it.

Standard but well done TPS gameplay. Excellent level design and visuals, but the framerate on the PS3 gets bogged down at certain points in the game and for certain boss encounters. The characters are very enjoyable and the voice acting is great, but tactically, it really doesn't make a difference which characters you choose to bring with you. The voice command system works well but it's much easier and safer to issue commands with the controller since the game doesn't always pick up your commands correctly. The AI is also goofy at points, often bumbling into your line of fire and forcing you to lose trust with them as they complain about it. Trust is another mechanic that didn't pan out that well. By doing well in combat or responding favorably to dialogue cues, you can increase trust levels with certain party members. This affects the outcome of certain plot points in the story, but little else. These plot points are also few and far between. I was hoping choosing different companions when replaying portions of the game would affect the outcome of the events more, but sadly, it doesn't. The competitive multiplayer modes are awful but the cooperative modes are a blast. Buy this game mainly for the single player, which is somewhat replayable, and the coop modes. Great game.

Apparently this game started out as an MMO project and it shows. In many ways, it plays like an offline MMO. Character classes are the three standard archetypes - fighter, rogue, mage, and any combination of the three you desire. Every time you level up, you place a skill point in one of these three trees. You can mix and match, but doing so often necessitates putting skill points into passive bonuses or active skills you will never benefit from. The story is good and the combat plays out like God of War in many ways. There's an assortment of weapons to choose from, each with ups and downs. One of the best features of Kingdoms of Amalur is the ability to respec almost at will and reallocate your skill points as you desire. Have you been playing as a mage and just took a bunch of sidequests that would be a lot easier as a rogue? No problem. Just respec. In fact, the game encourages you to respec early and often. One reason for this is because there is so much content in the game that it would quickly become boring playing through as one character class. Another reason is because the three class trees are VERY limited. There are too few active skills. I never thought I'd say this about a game, but there is too much content considering how quickly it takes to max one of the class trees. The up side to this is again, your ability to retool your character at any time throughout the game. This helps what would easily be a stale experience remain fresh, but even this system has its limits. I highly recommend this game to RPG fans. There's simply a staggering amount of content here even if the quest types start to repeat. Just wait for a price drop first.

What could have been a true zombie survival game requiring scavenging food, water, weapons, and ammo turned out to be Borderlands with clubs. The combat is well done and incredibly gory but wears thin fast. The sidequests are tedious fetch missions which have constantly traveling between point A to B locating items or collecting some other **** The crafting system is neat but it takes entirely too long to find the items you need in the gameworld and trading with NPC merchants isn't an option since they never carry what you need. It's also interesting how important cash is when everyone is scrambling for their life. Who needs money when they're trying to outlast the zombie horde? Food and water anybody? The framerate on the PS3 version is iffy, especially when you get to the city portion of the game. The light RPG elements of the game involve character skills. Many are passive bonuses since your character only has one active skill (like Borderlands). Weapons are surprisingly fragile and necessitate repairs at magic workbenches that costs - you guessed it - money! Why not scavenge for raw materials or break down existing items into base components to repair weapons instead of throwing money at what is essentially a vending machine? So many missed opportunities in this game it is not even funny. Even as a co-op game, it falls short. The classes have different active skills, but because the enemy types are so few and far between, none of this matters. There's no sense of interdependency between the characters. Skills do not feel like the complement one another. There is no challenge here whatsoever, no reason to keep trudging through, and no reason to care about any of the people you meet. Avoid this game.

Loads of simple, replayable fun. The campaign is short, but the four classes and large variety of weapons and equipment to choose from makes missions a joy to revisit. The graphics are dated but perform well. Animations are smooth and the game hardly slows down with tons of crap on the screen. I recently purchased this game through Steam, and boy, online is dead. I haven't tried to play the campaign co-op, but I could not find a single person to play survival. This is a shame because this is clearly a game designed around co-op play. Your AI squad mates in the campaign are competent, but things would go so much more smoothly if I had a human player or two. The survival mode is a wave defense game type that is also highly replayable. The downside here is, unlike the campaign where you have multiple classes, you can only choose one class for survival - the trooper. You can still equip him with the trooper specific unlocks you acquire for him during the campaign, but why the developers chose to limit class selection for this game type is beyond me. It severely detracts from the game's lifespan. Since this game has been out for a while, I'm beyond hoping they will patch it in. If you have some friends to play with or are simply dying for some chaotic old school shooter mayhem, pick this one up.

Not owning a Wii, I was excited to journey through the nostalgia that is Goldeneye 007: Reloaded. This is essentially the HD version of the remake which initial debuted on the Wii. I was pleased to see this was not simply a reskinning of the N64 Goldeneye game, but a remake in a present day setting with some welcome diversions from the N64 game's faithful adherence to the movie's story. The shooting mechanics are solid and there are plenty of weapons to play with, but the SMGs and assault rifles feel very samey. Bond's smart phone allows him to hack doors and turrets or take pictures to complete various secondary objectives. The level design is linear but there is often at least one alternate route through an area. You can go in guns blazing, sneak past, or a mix of both. For example, one level on a naval vessel allowed me to either burst through a door and face down several guards with an automated turret, sneak through a side entrance and evade patrols, or crawl through an air duct, hack the turret, and watch it massacre the guards. It's refreshing to see an otherwise linear shooter with a cinematic flair allow for a bit of player choice. The game is a decent length similar to the original N64 game, but there is little in the way of replayability. There is a difficulty setting where your health does not regenerate and you must manage armor, and outside of the MI6 missions (think Call of Duty SpecOps), the competitive multiplayer mode is rather weak. While it's not yet difficult to find a game, lag is ever present, and the game seems to suffer from framerate hiccups in large matches despite the singleplayer portions having no such issues. Buy this game if you are a FPS or Bond fanatic. Otherwise, don't expect lasting appeal.

Everything you expect from Serious Sam. The new engine is amazing and performs excellently. With over 45 graphics settings, you can tweak the visuals to suit your system specs without sacrificing too much on quality. New weapons like C4 bricks are loads of fun. I read some people complaining that you have to reload certain weapons and you can aim down the sights on a few guns as well. Really? It may sound weird to be able to do these things in a Serious Sam game, but CroTeam made it work. Melee synch kills add a new dimension to combat and are not a "press E to win" feature. They simply provide a new way to play should you choose to use them. Entering synch kills leaves you vulnerable, so you cannot spam them and expect to do well. The first few levels of the game are insultingly easy to any Serious Sam fan and feel more like something out of Call of Duty. Once you get past these nauseating moments, the game really picks up and remains true to the franchise. Multiplayer co-op is a blast, but the high player count can cause some systems performance issues. The high player count also makes the difficulty unpleasantly inconsistent. This game is reasonably priced, doesn't have any ridiculous DLC, is loads of fun, and hearkens back to a time when FPS games were about intense action instead of following an NPC and watching it play the game for you. The weapons are well balanced as are the enemies and their vast variety. If you've never played a Serious Sam game before, this is a great place to start since it is a prequel to the previous games. If you're a returning fan, don't let the first few levels turn you off to what is a genuinely enjoyable game.

Marginal graphical improvements over the first game. Still runs and looks like ass compared to 360 version. I got this over PSN not too long ago, and maybe it's because it's running entirely off the 5400rpm HDD, but the framerates are inconsistent and certain sound effects are delayed or garbled. New XP system lets you unlock weapons, armor, and cosmetic crap over time. The AI, both friendly and enemy, is still ****. While in infiltrate ROE, killing an enemy in the open caused all his buddies to run over to his corpse, allowing me to pick them off one by one. Enemies either magically know where you are or are totally clueless even though you just noisily murdered their friends in the next room. Friendly pathfinding can sometimes get your NPC friends killed when ordering them to a new location as they take the worst possible route. The gameplay is identical to the first game, but it's a formula that works and is fun. If you haven't played the first one, get Vegas 2 as there's no real reason to play it. If you do buy Vegas 2, don't get the PS3 version because the performance is terrible. Get the PC or 360 version if you can.

For $13, this game isn't bad at all. It's a straightforward hack n' slash very similar to the Champions of Norrath games on PS2. Three archetypal classes to choose from - mage, fighter, and thief. Four player co-op both local and over PSN. The content you would expect in a hack n' slash is there, but some of the execution detracts from the overall enjoyment of it. Combat is "mash X to attack" and you can assign aquare, triangle, and circle to abilities. Most other buttons on the controller are wasted. Each class has skill trees that can be reallocated for a fee in gold. Portions of the game are randomly generated and encounters can be challenging - especially boss fights. Especially when playing melee characters, attacks sometimes do not connect. You control the direction of your attacks with the left stick, which also controls movement, and you have to be quite accurate it seems to be able to land blows. The fixed camera also makes it difficult to tell where you need to aim especially when there is a lot going on. There is no targeting feature, so if you have a ranged weapon like a bow or staff, you will sometimes find your character taking steps forward between attacks if you are not mashing X fast enough. I wouldn't recommend looking for games over PSN, but if you want a fun local coop game, or just something to slog through on your own, Dungeon Hunter is not a bad choice for the price.