Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Let’s face it: The Saboteur wasn’t on anyone’s immediate radar until creators Pandemic Studios got canned in late 2009. With virtually no hype and no marketing campaign, the circumstances surrounding the game’s final stages of development were more intriguing to most than the notion of actually playing the studio’s last project.
While the Pandemic brand lives on, the majority of its staff rushed to finish The Saboteur on time, only to be laid off days before its release. Some employees even went so far as to place a countdown clock in the building which predicted their job eliminations while others shook one last fist at the company who shook them off. Of course, the ultimate question was whether or not The Saboteur would be the doomed studio’s swan song or yet another of their current-gen disappointments.
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It’s always something.
It’s seems almost immediately after Commander Shepard and company defeat Saren and put a stop to the Geth attack on the Citadel, a new threat to the galaxy pops up. Thousands of human colonists have been disappearing from settlements throughout the Terminus Systems. The Alliance isn’t doing jack about it either, which forces Shepard to look for help elsewhere. That elsewhere turns out to be Cerberus, the shadowy organization with very questionable ethics which was the source of many of the Commander’s woes throughout first game. But like any galactic savior worth their legendary reputation, Shepard sucks it up, joins forces with an ex-enemy, and sets out to find out the culprit behind this new threat.
And then kill it.
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Action games have come and gone, but over the years some very specific titles have become the best (i.e. most well known) embodiments of the genre. A trio of very well-loved characters have been the shining stars of a category that – let’s be honest – doesn’t really get all that many newcomers. When I mention this trio, I’m of course referring to The Big Three: Dante, Kratos and Ryu Hayabusa.
As I said, this power team hasn’t really had much competition (aside from each other) for a while now. Oh sure, a few games have tried to get close to them, but none have really managed to reach that same level of Awesome. Now it’s Bayonetta’s turn to make a grab for that ring. But just how well will the witch with the magic hair and foot guns fare in what has been (up until now) an elite boys club? Something tells me you’ll find out after the jump.
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Assassin’s Creed was 2007’s “love it or hate it” game. Personally, I was negative on the title. It was plagued by a predictable story, repetitive and bland side-missions, and a bizarre (and boring) decision to center the game’s focus on Desmond Miles, a modern-era bartender who happened to be related to historical assassins. A mysterious doctor named Vidic and his assistant, Lucy, forced Desmond into using a machine called the Animus to retrieve memories encoded within his DNA. These Animus sequences occurred in interactive cutscenes that popped up after you completed an assassination, but required little more of you than to put Desmond to bed.
That said, Assassin’s Creed II completely blindsided me. I had no interest in this game outside of the new, interesting setting in the Italian city-states of the Renaissance period. What I found, however, is one of the deepest and most creative open-world video games in recent memory. +Continue Reading
I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that we’ve all played at least one 2D shooter at some point. I also think we can all agree that over the years there hasn’t been a whole lot of progress with the genre’s mechanics. Don’t get me wrong; there were a handful of games that truly managed to do something new (Ikaruga’s polarity system and Einhander’s emphasis on “weapon flipping” and 2.5D presentation are two good examples), it’s just that those types of games have been few and far between. So what about PixelJunk Shooter? Does it raise the bar and present a new experience? Or is it just another fun, albeit uninspired, blast-fest?
PixelJunk Shooter is a quirky, stylized shooter that plays like a puzzle game with a variety of liquids which will each react differently to one other and are governed by their own rules and physics. Feel free to take a stab at that answer.
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To overlook New Super Mario Bros. Wii based on the assumption that the game is either a) just another Mario game or b) just a sequel to the fun, yet underwhelming New Super Mario Bros. on the DS is, putting it bluntly, wrong. What NSMBW does, and what the aforementioned DS game failed to do, is take 20+ years of Mario games and create an experience utilizing elements from each installment. Going further yet, the game also introduces new variables, yet the pieces effortlessly fit together, as if all somehow planned from the beginning.
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Looking back, it’s hard to imagine Mario, circa 1986, ever breaking loose from the platformer world he was (and arguably still is) king of. The context and structure of Mario’s universe would hardly seem adequate to play host to another genre, much less serve as the center point of roughly half a dozen RPGs spanning multiple console and handheld generations since 1996. But through a delightful combination of excellent writing and translation, clever character design, and general lightheartedness, Nintendo established the Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi franchises as legitimate contenders in the RPG world.
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What can someone do in 30 seconds? Well, they can melt butter in a microwave for starters. They can also wash the germs from their hands, preventing the spread of horrific diseases like The Flu, or the even more terrifying Flu With an Unnecessary Prefix That Makes it Sound Even More Scary. They can tell a joke, watch a commercial, delete the junkmail from their inbox, guzzle a carbonated beverage for a belching contest or come up with a better idea for a sitcom than anything that’s been featured on primetime TV for the last ten years. They can also save the world.
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I have something important to tell you: Dragon Age: Origins is not Mass Effect.
I know it sounds silly, but let it sink in for a moment… Okay, that’s probably long enough. The reason I’m telling you this is because, like me, I imagine there will be a lot of people booting up Dragon Age for the first time who will be expecting an experience similar to BioWare’s other recent RPG. And, like me, those people will probably begin their game with a rather unfavorable attitude due to all of the major differences. This is why I want to make sure you all understand that they aren’t similar games. AT ALL. This way you hopefully won’t judge one of them based on the merits of the other, and end up cheating yourself out of what is possibly the best RPG experience in the past several years.
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“A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material.” – Wikipedia
Best to get this out of the way first; Shadow Complex borrows more than a great deal from a certain franchise involving an intergalactic bounty hunter, giant flying jellyfish and a huge brain in a jar. The exploration, power-ups, perspective, and even the map all share many similarities with one of Nintendo’s most popular series.
Obvious inspirations aside (the developers cited Super Metroid as a big influence many, many times), a game would have to do more than just copy a beloved (and arguably transcendent) favorite in order to be considered anything more than a knock-off. It would have to build upon that foundation, find ways to improve that which seemed perfected, and ultimately create something that is both an homage and a step forward. In short, it would have to be… well, Shadow Complex.
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Zuri Grimm
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