Onelargeprawn
Since the debut of the PlayStation Move controller, there have been precious few games that take proper advantage of it. Sony’s own Japan Studio has recently released Ape Escape into the wild, a game that uses only the Move controller. Is it a game that will make you go…ape? Is is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys? Or is it just…monkeying around? Find out, after the chimp.
It saddens me to write this review. I’m trying hard to look on the positive side of Duke Nukem Forever, but every time I try to see the positive, the game throws my childhood memories into disarray and shatters my last few shreds of hope and I find myself back on the dark side. I had hoped that despite all the bad press, sheer nostalgia would keep me pushing through. As it turns out, nostalgia just is not enough. Find out why after the jump.
The time has come, the reviewer said
To speak of many things:
Of knives and pots, and evil eyes
And creepy doll-faced beings.
Of hidden paths and sidequests,
And pig-snouts sporting wings.
All this and more, after the jump.
2009 saw two sandbox action-adventure titles vying for our attention. inFAMOUS was a thinking man’s game that presented consequences for the player’s action. The other, Prototype, let you surf down the streets using human bodies as surf boards. Neither of these games were all that interesting to this reviewer. Two years later and the sequel to inFAMOUS, the aptly title inFAMOUS 2, is at our door. Is it bigger, better, faster? I step into the shoes of Lightbulb Man, Cole McGrath, to find out. My full review of inFAMOUS 2 is after the jump.
Let’s get a few things straight as an arrow right off the bat. Any game that lets you use a giant hammer to crush your foes into so many tiny pieces, is alright by me. Any game that lets you—nay, requires you—to use a giant mech suit and assorted robots is all right by me. And Red Faction: Armageddon does all that and much more. It’s a riotous ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Find out why I looked past the bore and enjoyed the gore, after the jump.
Level 5 has released the latest game in their White Knight Chronicles JRPG series, and Level 5’s well-paid marketing department have sat many long, coffee-laden hours to bestow upon it the creative name of White Knight Chronicles 2. I have always been a fan of JRPG games, because the driver behind the game is the story, not the character. Because WKC2 is a direct sequel to WKC1 (unlike some JRPG games **cough** Final Fantasy **cough**), Level 5 thought it a good idea to also include WKC1 on the same disc. In the same breath, they addressed many of the issues that fans had with the first game, so you can almost call the version that ships on-disc White Knight Chronicles 1: Remastered. Is it worth playing, however? Let me answer that question for you, after the jump.
I was never terribly good at Geography. Being continuously scolded for my inability to pay attention by my Standard 7 teacher meant an early exit for me from the subject, and only confirmed my suspicions that I’m probably more a GPS kind of guy instead of a paper map reader. I’m a sucker for simplicity. Nevertheless, there are certain, perhaps more historical, aspects of it that even I find fascinating in small doses: the bizarre eating habits of an indigenous tribe somewhere in the Amazon, the religious furor a lunar eclipse would awaken in some bizarre cult residing in the Andes, or—and perhaps most fascinating of all—the mating habits of a porcupine. National Geographic Challenge!, a quiz game that is able to draw from the vast library of the National Geographic vault, only served to remind me that I may forever remain geographically challenged, even when it’s trying its darnedest to drill some knowledge into my, admittedly hibernating, noggin. My full review after the jump.
The world was a completely different place back in the late 1940s, and many things we take for granted did not exist: today’s gender and race equality ideals had not been born yet, and neither had the Internet. Man had yet to step on the moon, and the world was just freshly scarred from a global war. Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire pulls us back through time to that era to find out what life was like with the LAPD. Did they do a good job? And is the game any good? Hit the jump to find out.
Codemasters has been pumping out quality racers like no other studio in recent memory. From Fuel to Grid to their fairly recently acquired F1-license, their racers are almost always met with universal aplomb, always delivering polished experiences for the motorheads out there, and the Colin McRae DiRT series is certainly no exception. Offering a symbiotic mix of compulsive progression, accessibilitym and diversity, its end result has never been anything less than pure unadulterated fun. DiRT3 continues this trend (sans the Colin McRae prefix) and while it’s more of a slight evolution than a revolution, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more instantly gratifying racer. Read my full review after the jump.
Ahoy, lubbers! Th’ latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides wa’ just recently let out o’ th’ shipyards and onto yonder movie screens and, as almost always be happenin’, there be a video game offering as well. The game tha’ we be getting be Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, which sails us through not only th’ most recent swashbuckling film, but also th’ three priors, savvy? The Lego series of games ha’ been ken for their high quality gaming an’ excellent humor, but does Lego Pirates follow this most excellent legacy in a like-minded, sword swinging manner? Onward, scurvy dogs, if ye be wantin’ to know more.