By David MacDonald

Its been seven years since Dungeons and Dragons has been seen on the console. In that time, the pen and paper role-playing game has progressed significantly, going through two editions. Given the amount of changes the source material has undergone, one would hope that Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale would have made similar strides. Upon playing the game, my hopes and dreams were crushed utterly. (more…)

By David MacDonald

Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, or M:TG 2012, is a greatly revamped version of the successful online game released in late 2009. Each revision addressed a significant problem and has created a solid product with hours of play. Despite some holdover issues from the previous incarnation, I still enjoyed playing this title thoroughly. (more…)

By David MacDonald

In 2010, High Moon Studios released Transformers: War for Cybertron and single-handedly threw out any competition for “Best Transformers Game” in my mind. This year, High Moon Studios created Transformers: Dark of the Moon and lowered the bar. It may look like War for Cybertron, at times may even play like it, but this is not anywhere near that title. (more…)

By David MacDonald

Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the best matches for the Lego brand of video games, and is recreated perfectly in blocks and studs. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies all feature an over-the-top main character, outlandish maritime folklore, and a unique visual perspective that lend themselves well in Lego form.

(more…)

By Kevin Myers

Six years have passed since Painkiller was released, and “People Can Fly”‘s first game, which came out in April of 2004, was purchased for this reviewer on Good Old Games for less than the cost of a Taco Bell Grande Meal. At the time of its release, it received nowhere near the fanfare or attention that Doom 3 or Halo 2 received; both games in the same vein as Painkiller. This baffles me, since, at its core, this game does what neither Doom 3 or Halo 2 managed to accomplish. Both of those games were, to some extent, bogged down under the weight of their own pretensions.

Halo 2 was a placeholder. Meant to fill in the space in the storyline between Halo 1 and Halo 3, there was little feeling of accomplishment, and little added to the gameplay of the series beyond an energy sword and the necessity of the “Mute” button on the X-Box live headset. Doom 3 decided it felt like trying to play with the big boys of immerse gameplay like Silent Hill, F.E.A.R., and System Shock, and ended up making a bit of an embarrassment of itself.

Painkiller does neither of these things. Painkiller sits down, hands you a gun that fires sharpened baseball bats, a fist-mounted turbo-charged Garden Weasel, and seventeen million demons between you and your wife at the pearly gates of heaven. No part of that previous sentence is made up in any way.

You, Daniel Garner, are sent to Purgatory for unspecified reasons following the auto accident that kills both you and your wife. You are then contacted, some unspecified length of time later by an albino named Samael. Either this is a staggering coincidence, or this half of the Matrix Revolutions Twins is meant to be the Archangel Samael, Archangel of Death, and a fallen angel on par with Satan for bragging rights in the supernatural spiritual power department. Why then, he needs you, a man who looks like the angriest potato to ever stand upright, to slay the generals of Satan’s Armies rather than engaging in the conflict himself, is a bit of a puzzlement. The game decides to gloss over this, as well as the introduction of both Eve, of the garden variety, and Asmodeus, Prince of Hell, Chief Demon of Lust, Lord of the Second Pit, King of Shades, and Husband of Lillith. The game pays pretty much no interest in these characters motivations, backstories, or established identities, and instead, focuses on you butchering the unmerciful shit out of everything between you and reunification with your wife.

Painkiller performs that focused intent masterfully. In the same vein as Serious Sam, and the first two Dooms, Painkiller stands up a slew of varied, delightfully detailed enemies between you and the glowing pentagram marking the level end, and waits patiently for you to unleash a world of ruination upon all and sundry between these two points. The Painkiller itself, a whirling bladed contraption on the end of your arm, seems like a cross between a Power Juicer, a folding metal colander, and Link’s Hookshot. I really can’t do it justice with that previous sentence, but, leave it as read that it is a visceral joy to use, as are all the weapons in this straight-up genocide-a-thon.

There is a phrase I have been struggling this entire review not to use, used by a much more polished and experienced reviewer than myself, regarding one of the weapons in this game, but there is a gun that shoots Shurikens and Lightning and Shurikens charged with Lightning that arcs between nearby enemies. There is no part of this that is not blisteringly awesome. There is a gun that shoots re-bar and pinball grenades. There is a gun that is both a rocket-launcher AND a mini-gun. There is a Mini-gun that is also a Flame-thrower that fires flaming barrels of propane. The entire arsenal of this game reads like they grouped a number of seven year olds from 1987 into a room, fed them as much caffeine as they could hold, and then let them describe what would be the single most awesome way to kill an angry skeleton.

The game shines. Stellarly. Both when it was released, and today. Modern first person shooters, such as Rogue Warrior, Shellshocked 2, or C.O.R.E. Simply lack the spirit, focus, and tight to the frame gameplay that Painkiller still offers. With a multiplayer mode that is a bunnyhopping blast-to-the-past reminiscent of the finest moments in Quake and Unreal, Painkiller sits firmly in a niche of titles that have stood the test of time, in their designed oeuvre.

By Stephen Holowczyk

Here it is, the long-awaited Resident Evil 5 review. No jokes allowed.

If you’re like me (in that you’re charming, witty, attractive, and have great taste in games), Resident Evil 4 is most likely one of your favorite games of all time. It’s the action game perfected, and one of the very few games I would give a ten out of ten. Don’t expect that review anytime soon, though. . Chances are, if you’re like me, you bought RE5 on launch day and you don’t really need to read this review. Let’s review it anyway.

For Resident Evil 5, we return to the series’ favorite meat head, Chris Redfield. Chris has been keeping busy since his last appearance, working with the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), hunting down bio-engineered monsters left over from Umbrella’s evil experiments. His latest assignment brings him to Africa, where for the most part, the actual gameplay is just Resident Evil 4 on steroids. There are some minor changes here and there.

Let’s stick with the major changes, as I’m sure that’s what most of you care about anyway.Weapons no longer have an exclusive power. While some weapons do have different attributes from others (increased head shot chance, piercing, etc) these are all upgraded right alongside damage, capacity, and so on. Treasures have also been simplified, with very few “hidden” treasures and none that can be combined. That’s about it regarding most of the major changes.

Well, of course, besides coop. Yes, now you can a friend can be racist together. Now, even though this is a game designed to be played with a friend as Sheva (Or Chris), there are of course going to be times when that simply isn’t an option. Sheva’s AI is schizophrenic, to say the least She’ll do an excellent job of keeping up with you, and there was only one time in my +30 hours of gameplay that she got stuck behind something. Sheva’s AI also does a great job with her inventory, giving you the ammunition she finds for a weapon that only you have (unless you give it to her for storage purposes, in which case she won’t just turn around and give it to you). The AI tends to be a little loose with healing items, but then again, I’d rather her be more using of those then never.

There are some serious faults, however. She will never use grenades, and the two tactical settings you are given simply aren’t enough to control her during certain parts of the game. She’ll either use her most powerful weapon or her weakest weapon, and will never switch to a better weapon for a certain situation (she won’t take out a rifle to shoot at a distant enemy, for example). She also wastes ammo like there’s no tomorrow, putting rounds into downed enemies instead of just finishing them off with a melee attack. In fact, she almost never goes out of her way to use melee, only using it when she’s right next to an enemy. She will never run forward more then a foot or so to melee a stunned or downed enemy. Needless to say, this frequently leads to you rationing her ammo as if she was a child. I really wish that there was some sort of more in-depth combat settings for her, a la Fallout 2, being able to set her weapon priority, distance from you, use of medical items, and so on. While this certainly would have led to slowdown of the gameplay, I would rather that then having her getting killed during a frantic boss fight.

The graphics are astounding, and honestly even a year later very little has surpassed this game. All of the character models are amazing and have great expressions during the cut scenes, which are all rendered using the in-game engine. It’s said that this was Capcom’s most expensive game to date, and it shows.

Level design is pretty stellar throughout, with the settings and locales changing often enough that you won’t get bored. You’ll go from African shanty towns (honestly, I do wish the game hadn’t had gone by this setting so fast, as it’s the best part of the game) to tribal villages to oil rigs and about six other different settings. I can’t give away everything in the review, can I?

While the game is polished to a sheen, there are some minor quirks throughout. Unlike Resident Evil 4, quick-time events aren’t exactly integrated into the story as much. It’s kind of strange. In RE4, every level had at least one quick-time event, and whenever a enemy had an instant-kill attack, you were either given a lot of warning in advance or you were given a QTE to get out of it. In RE5, there are nowhere near as many QTE situations in cut scenes. This led to quite a few deaths on my part, since by the time a QTE showed up, I had completely forgotten about them and had laid my controller down to watch the cut-scene. Whoops. Also, one enemy in particular doesn’t give you a QTE that really should have, and has thus won my award for lamest enemy (Hint: It’s in level 3-1 and the star of many SyFy original channel movies).

I suppose I must talk about this in my review, even though I may come off as a jackass. I hope I don’t. Is the game racist? Yes, it is. There is a sequence in the game where you shoot tribal Africans dressed in warpaint and armed with spears and then steal their tribal gold. The game is racist, there’s no doubt. However, I doubt that Capcom is made up of Japanese Klu Klux Klan members. The Japanese are known for taking stereotypes to the extreme, it’s what they do. Chris himself is basically what you’d imagine Americans to be like if you only watched 80’s action movies. It just so happens that the elements of culture that the Japanese played up for RE5 happen to be considered offensive in our culture. You can’t really blame for that, can you? It wasn’t done with any sort of intentional commentary.

So, in the end, is the game just perfection with more things added? Sadly, no. There are a few too many quirks for me to rate it as highly as Resident Evil 4. Regardless, the game is an absolute must-own for any action gamer.

Final Rating: 9 out of 10

By Brian Perry

Most games when you sit down to play them are either good games, that you enjoy, or bad games that you can turn off and be comfortable knowing you didn’t miss anything. Rogue Warrior strangely manages to sneak into that androgynous zone that is technically solid, and yet makes you wonder why you bothered to play it.
(more…)

By Stephen Holowczyk

After replaying Fallout 2 and Tactics, I’ve found myself interested in the strategy genre again, especially turn-based and grid-based games. I started to replay X-Com and Jagged Alliance, but I soon realized that I wanted to try something else. Not just anything else though. Something… old-school in design, yet it would still take the best parts of the modern era and fuse them seamlessly into gameplay. Enter Darkwind.

Darkwind is a persistent turn-based car combat MMO with elements of EVE (the good parts, anyway) and the old board game Dark Future. Yes, you read that right. How does it work? It’s rather simple, actually.
(more…)

By Brian Perry

After the fantastic Grand Theft Auto IV, the announcement of downloadable expansions from Rock Star were immediately heralded as a great thing. Now, after both downloadable episodes are completed, they have been compiled together into a single stand alone expansion disk for those who may not have internet access or no longer have access to an original GTA IV disk.
(more…)

By Stephen Holowczyk

It’s been ten years, but there’s finally a Diablo clone that’s better then the original Diablo. That’s right, you heard me. It’s Torchlight, and it should come as no surprise. After all, two of the lead designers, Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer worked on both Diablo I and II. The rest of the team is rounded out by many people who made Mythos, another action-RPG made by former Blizzard employees.
(more…)

By Kyle Krueger

Having covered cities, planets, farms, ant colonies, theme parks, helicopters, and more, Wil Wright’s massive Sim empire has long been the king of the genre. Yes, yes, there are imitators, and some might point to the expansive Tycoon franchise, but anyone who has played simulation games extensively will tell you that there is simply no contest. This year, however, French developer Monte Cristo is trying their hand at dethroning the long-time king with their city-building sim, Cities XL. However, unlike other clones that simply remade Sim City and hoped that people would bite, Cities XL takes the genre into relatively foreign territory by including massively multiplayer online play.
(more…)

By Brian Perry

When a childhood game remake is being announced it’s a lot like remakes of TV and movies, nine times out of ten you expect the worse. Gameloft’s Mobile remake of The Oregon Trail however bucks the trend. Many people often remember The Oregon Trail as the pinnacle of Edutainment. The treat at the end of computer lab during elementary school with it’s boxy graphics and epic journey along across the nation in hopes of reaching Oregon before the period ended and you were shuffled back to English or Math. Thankfully Gameloft’s rendition was ported to the iPhone, and iPod Touch portable devices allowing you to take the adventure with you from meeting to meeting or class to class.

To add to the original games charm the new mini games update the older hunting portion of the trail, utilizing the iPhone’s touch functions to aim and shoot in the classic hunting, and to cast and reel in the new fishing modes. Each mode adds variety to the food gathering portions of the game keeping the trek fresh, and the wagon well supplied. Additional games for repairing the wagon, with a DDR style timing game, or a Simon Says telegraph game for money, spice up the Trails stops as well as provide the player with opportunities to make and save money on the Trail.

The game does however suffer from one fatal flaw, it’s nostalgia wears off when you can play it any time you want rather than just once a week at the end of computer lab. A full trail run can last around 1-2 hours however the trail just in real life doesn’t change between sessions, making the game fun in small does but not something to fill the endless hours of commuters or regular “quick session” gamers.

The Oregon Trail received quite a bit of a face lift since its first inclination in 1974 including a surprisingly good soundtrack, new graphics, new mini games, and the ability to save between sessions, The Oregon Trail has actually been able to stand out as a decent game on its own right, instead of just a rehash of childish dreams.

Score 7/10

By Brian Perry

You win some, you lose some, and sometimes its just a push. For fans of Bioware’s Mass Effect franchise, their new iPhone game Mass Effect: Galaxies definitely falls in the latter category. Unfortunately those not steeped in the lore wont get much out their latest adventure.

Galaxies is a game made of two parts, interactive story telling via animated comic book style drawings and dialog selection, and an odd mix of a contra style shooter mixed with one of the old labyrinth marble puzzles, each with their own ups and downs.

Where Galaxies excels is in the story telling, a hallmark of Bioware’s games. Working as a bridge story between Mass Effect, and it’s upcoming sequel Mass Effect 2, the game follows the story of Jacob Taylor, who will show up in Mass Effect 2 as a companion character, as he attempts to thwart a Batarian attack on the galactic capital “The Citadel”. The story is decently crafted in the Bioware style and is rich with the lore of the universe, letting experienced players slip right in and enjoy the extension. However for those not familiar with the series, allusions to races and locations can be easily missed as the 2 hour adventure doesn’t have time to enlighten the player on the intricacies.

For a game, Galaxies can easily be found lacking. The combat mode is uninspired and repetitive and seems more of an excuse to call it a game than an interactive storybook. utilizing an overhead view, the player tilts the iPhone from side to side to navigate Jacob around the map much like a Labyrinth Marbel puzzle. As you navigate him around the map, Jacob will automaticly fire at his designated target, automaticly picked by the computer but can be over ridden by tapping on a new target on the screen, whenever he has line of site. Keeping with the setting the player can also utilize one of 3 power attacks based on the biotic abilities from the original game. The combat is also where Bioware’s unfamiliarity with the iPhone hardware begins to show, watching a mobile app significantly lag on the newest model iPod Touch is disheartening to say the least.

In the end Mass Effect: Galaxies fares poorly as a stand alone product. Despite the beautiful animation, the decent if limited voice acting, and well crafted story it, it fails to be something any random gamer could realistically pick up and enjoy to the degree the developers were hoping. But for the franchise enthusiasts the cheap price tag is well worth the purchase if only to get a peek at what’s next in the Mass Effect universe.

Score: 6/10

By Grey Perry

Atari’s foray into the realm of survival horror, Alone in the Dark, broke no boundaries whatsoever with it’s lackluster approach to innovation. From the menu screen to the control scheme the game smacks of gimmicky “ain’t it cool” hooks that are little more than aesthetic in approach, and pure frustration in application. The creators, Eden games, really seemed to have tried to make a compelling game, maybe they just got lost in the details.

As the game begins, Edward, the protagonist has been beaten into a stupor. His vision is blurry and so the game is our of focus. The game asks you to “blink” repeatedly in order to clear your vision. This entails clicking the right analog stick for each blink. At first you might think, “Neat! How original.” This is probably what the developers were aiming for. What they failed to consider was that after 5 minutes, this gets bloody annoying. Granted that’s about how long you have to keep it up but you’re left with the feeling of wanting to ask the developers “honestly?” Later on, blinking, or rather keeping your eyes closed becomes an essential technique, and this is a well themed way to introduce a game mechanic, as inexcusable as its abuse on the player may be. Another attempt to invigorate the genre was the revision of the inventory system. When accessing the inventory you’re essentially looking into your coat. Seems neat, even inventive. However the fact that this is done it real time is purely infuriating. While trying to battle the denizens of horror, it’s perhaps not the best time to be standing about in the classic flasher pose examining the contents of your coat in search of an appropriate item. The combat is what you’d expect from a survival horror game, though Alone in the Dark suffers often from poor camera AI, which is no help in either melee or shooting. One thing that makers of survival horror games rarely seem to grasp… sure there’s panic when the camera goes screwy as a zombie is just about to tear open your throat. On the heels of that panic, however, is not the “fun” of being scared, rather the rage at being cheated by a poorly placed or disorienting camera.

The story is a thin vehicle to string along events, and by no means integral. There’s a secret to Central park, and it feels like that secret is an intrigue that needn’t be. The plot seems aimless and almost apologetic. There are few shocking moments, as one would expect, though the moments would be more poignant if the you could bring yourself to like the two dimensional characters. There is a point in the end where you must make a difficult choice, unfortunately the personality of the afflicted makes me care as much as I would if they were a cardboard cut-out. Maybe the frustration of slogging through the rest of the game muted the impact, but I’d say the writing was just uninspired.

The atmosphere is typical of your average survival horror, albeit a bit ham-handed. The one point this game does excel is with it’s use of sound. Very often ambient sound is overlooked in favor of visuals. In this much Alone in the dark has it right on. The sounds of the night are almost enough to make up for the pallored skin and mechanical movement that prevent immersion. The music was well done, and generally seemed appropriate to the tone of gameplay. Graphics are average for the genre. Fire is nicely done, and textures have at least a little thought. The lighting was frustrating throughout the game, I hate to have to lean forward and strain to see what I’m after. I understand that the dark is scary and part of the title, but at the point of retarding game progress, it’s poor design.

Alone in the Dark is just not fun. It’s novel in idea, but that needs to be in concert with fluidity and well executed game mechanics. An intelligent or interesting story might have excused trial and error gameplay, and frustrating mechanics. Honestly, I felt it was just boring. Alone in the Dark would appeal to only the most die hard Survival horror fans. At least you’ll perhaps have a chuckle the first time you whip open that trench coat in central park, wink wink.

Decent ideas, poor execution.

Score 4/10

By Brian Perry

If I told you one of the most anticipated titles of 2009 was a virtual dollhouse, you would give me some strange looks, however if I told you it was The Sims 3 you would instantly understand. The Sims franchise to the love and hate of many has captured the hearts and minds of hardcore, and casual gamers alike. The Sims simplicity, building a home and populating it with virtual people then guiding them through their lives hides the depths the game holds.
(more…)

By Brian Perry

One of the nice things about license games is that if you play enough of them you don’t have very high expectations. The reason that its a good thing is that when every now and then you find a decent one you can really enjoy it. Quantum of Solace for the XBox 360 falls soundly into this category. Developed by Treyarch – the folks behind Call of Duty 3, and Call of Duty World at War – Quantum of Solace is a first- and third-person action game that follows the events of the newest James Bond through the plot lines of both films Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. This does have the effect of making the game’s title rather disingenuous, as the majority of the game consists of reimagined versions of the events of Casino Royale.
(more…)

By Kyle Krueger

I’ve been a tower defense buff for many years. Before [blippr]Defense Grid: The Awakening[/blippr], tower defense games were all free, and restricted to being either online flash games or user-created maps for popular RTS games such as Warcraft III. When I noticed Defense Grid on Steam, I was instantly skeptical. Any commercial tower defense grid game would either be a shameless money grab with no inspiration, or ridiculously unintelligent. While it is by no means perfect, this game is not the horrid mess I was expecting.

For the uninitiated, a tower defense grid places the player overlooking an empty map in which they can create a network of “towers,” or buildings that automatically fire on nearby enemies. Once the player has built their towers, wave after wave of enemy monsters attempt to make their way through the tower maze to reach some objective, usually an exit portal or a critical structure. In Defense Grid, you command a series of towers meant to protect a collection of power cores from being stolen by the enemy alien hordes. If an enemy grabs a core, he then makes for the exit, but he can still be killed while he’s carrying the core, and the core slowly drifts back to its storage location.

The game comes with a fairly decent number of towers to choose from, ranging from the standard machine gun and high-caliber cannon towers to the more exotic time-slowing temporal tower and the explosive concussion tower. There are ten types total to choose from, leaving a little to be desired; the best tower defense games have many more options to choose from. However, each tower fills a specific role and has its own strengths and weaknesses, and none really feel unbalanced. The low number of towers means the player quickly falls into a specific pattern and strategy that allows little variation, and as the game goes on, it slowly runs out of steam. The game is also very easy to complete fully, especially for a seasoned tower defense veteran like myself.

Graphically, the game is quite attractive – each tower is well-designed with multiple moving parts and great lighting effects. There are beautiful backdrops to each level and the scenery is all fairly good looking for a tower defense. The sound is a bit lacking, however. Explosions and gunshots overpower almost everything and make the weak music hard to hear. A narrator walks you through what little story there is when he’s not giving vague descriptions of new towers or offering a depressing look into the history of the world, which is flat, bland, and impossible to get in to. The narrative adds nothing to the game.

The gameplay itself, however, is solid, even with the low number of towers. The towers all have their uses and each map is different, forcing the player to develop a new maze on the fly. It’s obvious the developers had some experience with tower defense games because they included a welcome pair of features. The first is a fast forward button that allows you to bypass the duller times, and the second is an option that lets you fall back to the most recent save, which is helpful, as the game autosaves very regularly. The types of enemies keep you on your toes and you have to be able to adapt quickly or die trying. There are a good number of levels and the challenge and casual modes let you play around even after beating the game.

I picked Defense Grid up on a weekend deal for five dollars, which it was well worth, but it isn’t worth the MSRP 19.99. Hold off until it goes on sale again if you can, but definitely give it a look, especially if you enjoy a good tower defense.

7/10

By Brian Perry

What do you get when you put an endless stream of jets, private planes, and helicopters all trying to land at the same airport? If you’re a member of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, it’s frequentflyer miles at the local psych ward. If you’re an Iphone owner on the other hand you’ve got bundles of fun.

Firemint studios Iphone/Ipod Touch app Flight Control puts your fingers in control of the lives of hundreds of digital denizens as you map flight paths for an increasing stream of flight craft in for safe landings. using your fingers you grab an aircraft and chart it’s flight path into one of the three color coded landing zones, instructing them to duck and weave to avoid the other paths you’ve assigned their colleagues. Each aircraft has a designated landing zone and a unique speed, leading to some rewarding challenges.

Flight control shows excellent design through and through. For example, the start of the program offers you the opportunity to disable the game sounds so as not to turn off any music you may be playing, and in an additional stroke of design genius each aircraft is assigned a color code that corresponds with the runway you must land them on that will fade when you have assigned it an approach vector making quick and easy identification of stray craft just a glance at the screen.

One of the few flaws I’ve experienced so far is the classic touch dilemma. My fat fingers usually end up getting in the way of viewspace, sending hundreds of digital denizens to a fiery death. As well there is only a small amount of maps, severely limiting the amount of replay value. Thankfully, Firemint has committed to adding future airports, via a title update in the future.

For a quick mindless puzzle game, Flight Control definitely fits the bill. You can find it on the Itunes App store.

8/10

By Stephen Holowczyk

This is a review I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, but I’ve had trouble putting into words. It’s really hard to put how I feel about Far Cry 2 into words, especially since I am Italian and speaking with my hands just comes naturally. I’m just going to lay this out as best as I can: Far Cry 2 was without a doubt one of my favorite games of 2009 but it is heavily flawed and I can completely understand why people would see it as a bad game.

(more…)

By Brian Perry

[blippr]Dawn of War 2[/blippr] is a game solely focused on refining the key successes in Relic’s past. The tight, gripping story of Homeworld, the grasp of setting and de-emphasis on resource management of the original Dawn of War, and the strong emphasis on squad-based tactics of Company of Heroes.

(more…)