Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for the Nintendo DS

Now that I'm also posting these game reviews for examiner.com I have to try and keep the word count a little limited. So sorry for the length. If my readers ask for more details I can start doing a more detailed version here and a simpler version for examiner.com if people want.

Concept: 4/5

Take an established franchise with its own characters that the fans of the series have known for years and chuck it all out the window. Then keeping the same play mechanics reinvent the story and artistic style. This is the concept that formed Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and make it stand apart from the rest of the series.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are great no doubt about it. The developers chucked the cartoony anime style of the past and replaced it with a more serious anime style. It definitely works too because it would be jarring than seeing the old comedic cartoony characters talking about serious and depressing things, that are central to this game’s plot.

Sound: 4/5

The sound is great in this game. It does what is necessary of sound and then goes above and beyond that to actually make the player focus on playing. The soundtrack is one of those musical masterpieces that energize the player into a rhythm which is conducive to playing the game.

Playability: 3/5

The missions are challenging but not too difficult. It is usually possible to beat a mission on either the first try or the second try once some element of gameplay has been revealed and shows the player one strategy is the key to winning on this battlefield. The fact that it sometimes takes two attempts is a little disheartening but not overall game breaking and the mechanics of the turn based strategy game are so tight that it makes the game worth buying.

Experience: 4/5

The characters and the story of what has happened are enthralling, if you let it be. If you’re willing to dive into the story and care about the characters then you’re in for an emotional experience and you’ll love it. If you’re a type of player that doesn’t care about story and thinks it gets in the way than you’re missing out.

X-Factor: 4/5

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin definitely has the X-Factor to make you want to keep on playing. Whether it’s to play through the campaign and follow the story, try some of the challenge missions in the campaign, or to play with friends and see who the better commander is. The game will suck you in and make you want to keep playing.

Total: 23/30 Very Good

This is a great Turn Based Strategy Game. If you like Strategy games in general give it a try. If you don’t, who knows this game may change your opinion about the genre but don’t hold your breath on that.

Assassin's Creed for the PS3

Perhaps I should apologize for all the PS3 games I've been reviewing recently. However, I'm currently in the process of moving and the PS3 is the only system I have hooked up and have games to review with. So on with the review!



Concept: 5/5

This has been one of the more refreshing game concepts I have seen in a while. The game is set in the crusades but my first thought for a crusades based game would be to have it be an RTS or a hack and slash 3rd Person action game. And while Assassin's Creed is a 3rd Person action game it's not a hack and slash game. It's a, more or less, stealth game. I enjoy this concept because I do not think of subtlety or stealth when I think of the Crusades I just think of big massive armies. Then you take the game idea a step further when you add the concept of the main character is actually "reliving" his ancestor's memories that have been stored in his genes.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are pretty good. I have two complaints about them and one is more of a personal issue that I'm sure other people had no problem with and in fact I'm not even sure how I feel about it. It's such a strange nit pick that it's sort of in limbo for me when it comes to my opinions. This "complaint" is that the HUD that the player uses is all very technical and futuristic looking. Which does make sense, considering that the main character is using a sci-fi machine to "relive" his ancestor's memories. But when playing through his ancestor's memories I get so immersed in the crusade era that when I see the futuristic HUD it kind of jars me and reminds me of all these other things about the game taking me out of my little circle of the crusades. So yeah that's a pet peeve, maybe others share that maybe they don't I don't know. My other complaint is clipping issues. On a number of occasions when climbing a wall Altair's arm would stick straight through his body to hold onto a handhold. When it first happened I thought his arm had been chopped off in a sword fight and I didn't notice. But I quickly realized what had actually happened and put it down to complain about later.

Sound: 4/5

The sound like most games to me, is the sound. I do not find the sound to be amazing or terrible. It simply is. So I give it a slightly more than average rating to signify that the sound designers did a good job on the immersion of it all without distracting me.

Playability: 4/5

The climbing walls mechanic is great, I absolutely love it. I've played a few other games that have wall climbing and they didn't do it well to the point where it became annoying to climb walls. But in Assassin's Creed I found myself preferring to climb walls and go in a straight line rather than try to navigate the city streets.

Now the gameplay does get a little repetitive. But if you find this to be particularly annoying to you than you can actually avoid most of the repetition. This is because you have to go to a section of the city and do certain deeds before you can assassinate your target. But you only have to do these deeds, which are the same every time basically, 2 or 3 times. If you want to 100% complete the game and do everything there is to do in the game than you have to do it 6 or so times in each area of the city you unlock. So if the repetitive nature of the game is getting to you don't try and 100% it. I actually found doing all of the tasks over and over again a bit relaxing and therapeutic.

Now the combat is a little less likable than some of the other parts of the game. To make the importance of staying secretive when assassinating people and to not just hack and slash through the entire population of the cities the developers actually gave the guards brains so that they know how to use their swords and actually fight. This is true enough to the extent that I quickly stopped attacked and relied on the one move that the guards didn't have. Counter-Attack. All my little battles and skirmishes quickly became, "wait for it... wait for it... wait for it... There! He's attacking me press the counter-attack button! Oh it didn't kill him, just knocked him down... oh well maybe next time... wait for it..." I think you get the picture.

This made the combat a bit simplistic and a little boring. I mean the developers gave me a sword, a dagger, throwing knives, a hidden blade, and the ability to punch people. But when in combat all I ended up doing was pulling out my dagger or sword and waiting for someone attacking me to make the first move so I could use their own attacking against them. Basically waiting for an opening. Now this is probably a great way to fight in the real world. But it's a pretty dull way to play a game.

Entertainment: 4/5

Regardless of any complaints I have made about the playability. This game is quite entertaining. Learning the secret plans of the Templar and finding little clues and things to interact with and decode through out the game was quite entertaining and brought me back to when I was a kid and love to try and decode things and solve puzzles. This is probably the first game in a long while that has gotten me to pull out a pad of paper and decode a secret message or jot down some passcodes, which was not necessary but I did it anyway. It made me feel young and giddy again.

Plus I had some people that would come and watch the game for a bit, intrigued by the secret plans and stories that the game was telling. If you want to know if a game is entertaining, getting people to watch you play even though you're the one playing not them, is a great way to tell.

X-Factor: 4/5

Assassin's Creed definitely has an X-Factor. Even now I want to go back and perhaps not play through the whole game again but take a look at some of the clues, puzzles, or perhaps it's gibberish, and try and figure out if there's a code or hidden message. Try and find some new little bit of knowledge that I can learn. The X-factor is so strong that it makes me just want to walk around in the game not just play it again.

Total: 25/30

Amazing. Assassin's Creed is definitely a game to pick up. You may not love this game but it's definitely one of those games that if you on a PS3 or an Xbox 360 you need to get this game, if for no other reason than to have it in your library. Because it's going to be considered a classic of the current generation of consoles.

Heavy Rain for the PS3

Sorry for the tardiness everyone. Graduating has a tendency to distract a person I suppose.

Concept: 5/5

The concept of Heavy Rain is a genius one. I do not wish to toot the game's horn too much but they really tried to push the idea of an Interactive Drama. You play through the game as four characters and if at any time one of these characters die than you don't lose the game you just lose their part of the story. That coupled with the fact that they were talking of pushing the uncanny valley? It was a game just waiting to be played.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics of the game are quite good. The lighting was a bit touchy during the opening scene which was in broad morning light. But the lighting in the rest of the game, aka the lighting when there was a lot of cloud cover, was awesome. I admit I am not much of an artist but other than the lighting issue at the beginning and the fact that video games in general, not just this one, haven't figured out how to make human skin not look like plastic. Which this game still suffers the curse of. So unfortunately while the game does look amazing I can't give it perfection on account of the two faults I find in it.

Sound: 3/5

The sound... Now that I think about it for I played the game a few weeks ago... I can't really remember. Other than the whole annoyance of running through a mall and calling out "Jason!" constantly and being annoyed by that. But you know what? I can't fault the game for that. Because it was ME who was choosing push the button to have the character call out the word again and again. So getting mad about that would really be like getting mad at myself. So overall I have to give the sound an average score because nothing about it really screamed at me.

Playability: 3/5

The game plays rather well in all aspects except for one. Movement. I enjoyed the interacting with people, interacting with the environment, interacting with your own thoughts. The problem I had was movement. You see you could move your head with the left thumb stick, and to move around you had to hold a button and move the left thumb stick. Which normally isn't a horrible system but there was something about this game that when trying to walk around in the world you were fighting against the game to go where you wanted as opposed to working with the game. I even had the opportunity to watch other people playing the game and hearing them curse and yell at it simply for being unable to walk where they wanted not for anything particularly difficult in the game. Because WALKING was so hard to do in this game I can't give it a great playability score. The walking really hurt this game THAT much.

Entertainment: 5/5

The game was incredibly entertaining I must say. I was hooked and didn't want to stop playing it. I just kept playing it every time I sat down at my TV. My friends, those that didn't want the game spoiled for them, sat down and watched with bated breath. We were captivated by the story of this game. As the story progressed we were picking out our favorite characters, discussing who we thought the origami killer was, talking about how much we hated certain characters. If the definition of a good story requires you to talk about it and discuss it. Than this story definitely has it.

X-Factor: 4/5

Like I said I was hooked and didn't want to stop playing. This game has an incredible X-Factor for your first play through. You want to know what happens and fight for it and struggle for it and see these characters come through to the end. Unfortunately the game has no real replay value I found. After I beat it once I was done as was everyone else I know who played it. We had sated our curiosity and our drive after the first playing.

Overall: 24/30 Very Good

This game is an exceptional piece of work. Unfortunately there are a few glaring issues that keep me from screaming from the rafters that it is the game the industry has been waiting for to vindicate us to the rest of the world. It is a wonderful technical achievement and a wonderful game for those willing to give it a try. But it is still a fair distance away from the perfection that we all crave.

Pokémon SoulSilver

This month I take a look at one of the latest games in the Pokémon franchise. I believe the only differences between SoulSilver and HeartGold to be what pokémon are available to you and nothing drastically different in terms of gameplay so I guess this review can work for both.

Concept: 1/5

Continue the remaking of old Pokémon games with updating Gold and Silver to HeartGold and SoulSilver. Overall, knowing how much money Pokémon games make there really wasn't a lot of new thinking put into these games. They just took a couple ideas from other games and put it into this remake. Most noticeably being having a pokémon follow you around from Pokémon Yellow. Nothing else really felt new.

Graphics: 2/5

The graphics are good for the Nintendo DS. Not amazing but it's still nice too look at. I especially liked the pictures they showed when you enter a new area, like the Ilex Forest, or the Ice Path. I feel like they set the world a little better and I'm more immersed. But that's about it. Otherwise it's just the DS pokémon engine... nothing really awesome.

Sound: 4/5

The sound is average. Does what it needs to do, the sound effects and songs are the same ones we've known since the beginning. So that's average, they are updated however from the original midi files to newer better sounding audio. But after you beat the game you can unlock the ability to play the original sound clips which is amusing and gives a good sense of nostalgia that I enjoyed.

Playability: 2/5

The playability is to be expected. It's another pokémon game. You have to wander from town to town beating gym leaders gaining Hidden Moves and the ability to use them outside of battle to unlock new areas of the map. You can still only carry 6 pokémon and they can only know 4 moves. Really a case of same old same old. This formula has not changed since the original. Which is the thing that really ticks me off. They've released more than a dozen games by now, and the formula is still exactly the same? Can we not get any innovation on this section of the game? Are the developers so unwilling to try something new? Or have they been trying things behind closed doors and discovering it doesn't work? I don't know but I can tell you this style of gameplay is getting really old really fast.

They did add a new gameplay element with the pokéwalker. But is a tamagotchi minigame with the element of you need to walk to gain things really new? I feel like they just took some other people's ideas and tried to fit them into the pokémon universe. Again where's the innovation? Where's the newness to the game? Why do I continue to feel like I'm playing the same thing over and over again and again?

Entertainment: 3/5

The game is entertaining. It's a pokémon adventure. It makes you feel like you're a kid again and that you can actually do some of these epic events and journey with friends on a wonderful adventure without fear of death like a normal rpg/quest with monsters/goblins/demons/etc. There is still a bit of fun to have in this game because of it.

X-Factor: 1/5

There's no new X-Factor to this game. It's a pokémon game and it'll be enjoyable on that basis. There's nothing that grabs you. Nothing that makes you think, "Oooh, this is surprisingly fun." There is no soul to this game. Just another game off the pokémon game factory line. Which makes good pokémon games. But it is again just another of the same.

Overall: 13/30 It's Ok...

This game is actually a bit of a weird overall rating. Because when I announced I was going to review games and explained my rating system I said that the rating this game received would make it best received by fans of the series. But as a fan of the series I felt like this was sort of just the same old same old. It's got differences from the others but I felt like I had played this before, just like the latest Zelda games. I felt like it was just another one in the series... nothing to write home about.

Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360

I have been looking forward to this game almost as much as I was looking forward to the original. When they announced the original game I knew I would be owning a 360 at some point in the future. So when I had a chance to play the original I knew that my original assumption was right and I have to say the sequel doesn't disappoint either.

Concept: 5/5

Continue the story of Commander Shepard and his crew in an attempt to defeat the reapers. A species of Giant Alien Robots that want to erase all organic life from the galaxy. Pretty simple and everyone that loved the first game will love the second. Plus the second might draw some people in that the first missed.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are definitely improved over the original. I love everything about the graphics except for a couple things. The faces. I don't know maybe it's just me but I felt like everyone's faces were kind of static throughout the whole game. To explain, if their character's default face is smiling than I felt that whenever they showed any emotion it wasn't a case of taking a passive version of the face and making it angry, sad, etc. It was taking that smiling face and then trying to make it angry, sad, etc. It just felt off. But who knows maybe this is just a quirk I have and no one else has or had a problem with it.

I also noticed the texture popping come back. For those who don't know what this is: When you're far away from a character or person, in real life or in a game, you can't make out all the little individual patches on a person's suit. So the engine is set up in a way to pretty much say "why bother" with all that detail if no one can see it. So when at long distances it loads a fuzzier version of the suit so there aren't all those patches and it doesn't take up processing power to render something you can't see. But the "popping" issue is when you're standing next to a character and the character has a low quality texture on because the game hasn't caught on that you're standing next to them yet, then it does and you notice the texture visually "pop" into a higher quality.

But by far the greatest visual complaint I have of the new game is that it will fail to position people properly during conversations. The first time I spoke to the character Jacob I was somehow standing next to him not across from him so whenever the game would go to show me a reaction shot of my character there was no one there. It was really weird. Then another time I was talking to another person and someone from my team was standing INSIDE the character I was talking to. This issue was very experience breaking.

Sound: 4/5

Overall the sound of the game in terms of music and sound effects is average. There is no real particular effect or song that I found really amazing. However, this game does have amazing background conversations and advertisements. Walking around an interstellar market place and hearing an advertisement for the latest show of Hamlet staring all aliens, this particular species can't share emotion like we do so they say how they feel, was hilarious. Or hearing about the latest future video game and what the fans are grumbling about. All the weapons sound like weapons and the atmosphere of the galaxy is amazing.

Playability: 4/5

The game plays amazingly well, it plays even better than the first game. The inclusion of heavy weapons really makes the game a whole lot better. Especially since the heavy weapons replace grenades. Because in the first game you seemed to be the only person in the galaxy that could use grenades. Honestly I never once came across another person that used grenades. But in this game every now and then someone else will have a heavy weapon so it doesn't feel like you've randomly developed this skill that no one else has.

Personally I did not like the fact that this game gives you a lot less information than the first game did. You have to kind of guess what everyone's class is based on how they talk to you and what they reveal about themselves. Which is ok I was able to piece together who I wanted in my squad this way but I think it would be nice if they just told you their classes. Also all of the weapons seem to be the same? There's no statistics so I can't tell if one shotgun does more damage than another or if they just reload differently.

Also the whole finding resources on planets, scanning thing? Horrible. It wasn't fun the first time I did it, I don't know if it will ever be fun. But doing it vs. not doing it has gameplay repercussions so I have to tell you to do it.

Entertainment: 4/5

The entertainment is great. I played this game with a friend watching that had never played the first one and she was getting as excited as I was whenever things went down. People that hadn't met Shepard before would be trying to act tough in front of him and my friend would yell "Don't you KNOW?! That's SHEPARD!" it definitely helped the amusement of the game.

No spoilers, but during the last couple hours of the game, this one particular location, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was so nervous, excited, and energized all at the same time. It was capable of making me that emotionally charged.

X-Factor: 5/5

The X-factor to this game is pretty great. After I played the first game, as a good guy, I wanted to play through again as a badass. But I didn't feel like a badass I felt like an asshole. So I stopped playing. I have tried to play through the renegade side of the first game at least 5 times and I hardly make it past the first mission each time.

This time when playing I was still a bit of a goody two shoes, but I felt my character had evolved a little bit so I allowed him to do some renegade options every now and then and they were so amazing that I plan on playing through the renegade side. Once I catch a break from playing all the other games I need to review for you all.

Overall: 26/30

Killing Floor for the PC

Killing Floor for the PC

What can I say about Killing Floor? Let's find out shall we?

Concept: 2/5

They didn't require a whole lot of thought to make this game concept. Hey let's take that hit Left 4 Dead game make a mod where people can do that but with a maximum of 16 players and sell that! That's the concept. They took a preexisting game and added the number of players. Well that's not entirely true but that's a gameplay thing so we'll discuss this in Playability.

Graphics: 2/5

The graphics are pretty poor in my opinion. I'm pretty lenient on graphics too. I think Half Life 2 is beautiful and we don't need to increase our graphics from that level of quality for another 5 years while we wait for our programming and design to catch up. But I feel like the graphics in this game could have been slightly better. All the enemies you fight could have been replaced with a card board cut out with no animations and it would have been fine. Maybe even better if they stylized the game properly.

Sound: 3/5

The sound is average. It does the job with only a couple exceptions of both good and bad variety. First the bad, since there's only one, the siren. She's an enemy in a straight jacket so to solve this problem of not being able to claw the player to death she screeches exceptionally loudly and makes their ear drums burst. I'm not even kidding that's what the game says happens when you die because of a siren. And I will not lie to you. I feel like my ear drums, not my character's but mine, are going to burst every time I hear her scream. On the positive end, I really enjoy the voice acting when the players try to heal each other. I find their comments to each other quite amusing.

Playability: 3/5

In Left 4 Dead the players have to go from point A to point B and survive the hordes of enemies thrown at them. In Killing Floor, the players just have to survive until all the zombies are dead then make it to the trader, buy some more weapons and then do it over again until the 8th out of 7 levels, on normal difficulty. On different difficulties there are a different number of levels but on the last level plus one the players have to defeat a boss character... Inspired. The only thing inspired about this game is the "perks" which are actually classes. You can specialize in certain types of weapons and by killing more things with those weapons they become more powerful, they become more accurate, they get cheaper to buy, etc. You also don't have to BE that class to level up in it which is excellent. So yeah, that's the best thing about the playability really.

Entertainment: 2/5

I have a couple problems with the game. For one, to play it unless you get it via a steam sale you have to pay $20 which is the same as a good game that's been out for a while. Then they ram some commercials down your throat in the lobby while you're waiting for your friends to join so you can start playing. It also has some dlc so you can get more characters you can play as. But the thing is... it's a pure cosmetic thing to change your character and it's a First Person Shooter game so you NEVER see your own character... unless you die or beat the game, for like 5 seconds. So that's just some annoyances. Overall the game is mildly entertaining while you're yelling at your friends to look out behind them but you can do that in Left 4 Dead which does this whole genre better.

X-Factor: 1/5

There really is no X-Factor here. It's fun to play every now and then with your friends, as I've said many times. But it is really a once in a blue moon thing. It's pretty pointless otherwise.

Overall: 14/30 It's Ok...

If you find it on sale on steam for $5 get it. Maybe even for $10. But for anything more? I can't suggest you get this game. And to answer my earlier question... Apparently I can't say much about Killing Floor, it's just that unremarkably good or bad.

Mirror's Edge

This time I'll be talking about Mirror's Edge. I have played a bit of this on the console as well as the PC so I will be able to share with you my feelings of the game on an overall scale.

Concept: 4/5

Parkour! That is the concept behind this game. It's a nice and simple concept. Let's take parkour which has been exploding in popularity on the internet and make a game about it. Better yet! Instead of making it a third person camera viewed game so that we can see the person doing all the parkour stuff let's put the camera in the person's head, aka First Person view, so that the player feels like they're the ones doing all these amazing awesome things.

I expect that's how the concept was made. If it wasn't that energy driven then I don't know how they made such an energetic game.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are great. I'm a huge fan of the graphics in this game. Basically what they did was made everything very minimalistic and simplistic. In fact everything is pretty much white washed and kind of blends into each other a little bit. UNTIL you add "runner vision." This is a special game mechanic that lets players see what things on the screen are possible for use in jumps, wall runs, climbing, sliding, etc. And when the "runner vision" notifies you of these special environmental objects they turn into a bright primary color, usually red or orange all though not always. This allows you to see a bit of where you're supposed to go and if you get used to the different types of moves you can pull off you can even figure out where that environmental parkour piece is going to send you and look for the next one.

Sound: 2/5

The sound is sound in this game. It does its job. I really have nothing memorable good or bad about the sound in this game except for one thing.

And unfortunately it's a bad thing but I'm also pretty sure that's because I died so much. When you fall from a great height you hear the air rushing passed your head. Which is cool. Except that it's incredibly loud and when you keep dying attempting the same jump over and over again you keep hearing the wind blasting passed your head at an incredibly high volume over and over again. If this sound effect wasn't so loud and obnoxious I probably would have gotten a lot farther in the game a lot faster but it just wore on my nerves when I was stuck on certain parts so I said "Enough!" and turned the game off for a while.

So a sound effect that can get so annoying it makes you want to stop playing the game? BAD!

Playability: 2/5

The game has some great playability to it. Not only can you beat the game but after you beat a level you can go back into the game and play through it again to try and beat a timed score. Basically racing through the game.

There are a couple problems though. For one, there were times when the cops started chasing me and I just died over and over again. Not because the cops were all that hard to avoid but because I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go and I couldn't take the time to look for the exit with the cops shooting at me. This forced me to fight them... which wouldn't be that bad except the controls are made for running not fighting.

In fact in the 360 version of the game there's an achievement for never shooting a cop in the whole game. So if you can get away with only disarming and avoiding the cops you're rewarded. But the thing is, it was hard to tell where I was supposed to go at times and I found it really hard to disarm in the game. You can disarm when a cop moves to pistol whip you with whatever firearm he has. His firearm will flash red for a moment right when it's time to press the disarm button. But the thing is that I could never time it properly for some reason. Maybe my reflexes aren't sharp enough? Or perhaps it's that I was able to get away with just about everything I had to do in the game by spamming the "jump" button so when I tried to disarm if you spam the button it breaks it and I didn't know and couldn't stop myself.

Another problem I had with the playability of the game is that you have to line up perfectly. If you're jumping from one roof to a pipe on the side of a building next to you, you have to hit the pipe so that it's in the dead center of your screen. If it's just to the left or just to the right, in the real world I'm pretty sure people could grab onto them anyway. So on the 360 I played this game and died over and over again on one section of the game near the very beginning. It may have even been the first level and I just couldn't do it so I gave up on the game. Then when Steam was having a sale I bought the game for the PC for I think $2.50 or $5 something like that. With the keyboard and mouse I had a lot more control and only died twice before making that jump. But it was still a pain.

There is also the added benefit and detriment of checkpoints in the game. I say benefit because you will die often so the game having checkpoints throughout the level is very helpful and keeps you from losing too much progress in the game when you die. I say detriment because the game doesn't just quick save from where you are when you hit the check point. The game loads you back into the game from where it knows the check point to be. So if you were on a wall when you hit the check point you might be loaded back in after you die in the middle of a hallway. It's weird and disorienting when you don't realize you've been in that place before.

Entertainment: 3/5

The game has some good entertainment points. For one the main character is a nice strong woman and the person feeding her intel through a radio is a guy. It's a nice reversal of roles that have come to be expected from video games. I really applaud Mirror's Edge on this.

The story is a bit poor however. The game starts off talking about some riots and protesting and then how the city is completely controlled by the dictatorial mayor's office now... but I have no proof of this actually being the case except for what the main character told me. Seriously, the player never gets a chance to see how the average people are suffering under this dictatorial dystopia.

It's kind of like in the movie "Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" when you never see the Naboobian people dying or suffering from this trade blockade. When the main characters land on the planet everything seems nice and idyllic, nice lush forests, beautiful cities... No over population... Seriously except for the end sequence during the parade, all the people you see in the Naboobian cities are volunteer guards for the Queen and diplomats! As far as I could tell when the blockade began everyone on Naboo decided to go on vacation and left the planet.

It's the same thing in Mirror's Edge. I saw some civilians walking around street level... once. Otherwise the only people I've seen in this city are runners like me and cops/private military cops people... Where are the suffering masses? Where are the people that need the services the runners provide outside of the system because the government is going to look through their stuff that their shipping? I have no feel for the dystopia. Especially seeing as everything is so nice and brightly light and clean. Except for the occasional rat I see running away.

X-Factor: 4/5

With all my complains about the gameplay and story and sound... There's something that captures you in this game. It's a challenge, like the older games on the NES and such. You may be hitting your head against the wall but you want to. You want to hit your head against the wall until you break it down with your skull. The game makes you want to do this. And for that it has a great X-Factor.

Overall: 19/30 Average

This is an average game through and through. It has some great originality to it and an interesting art style. But the gameplay is lack luster and the story is a bit cliché and contrived. If you can pick this game up cheap do it. But if someone wants you to pay $20 or more I'd say don't bother.

Left 4 Dead 2 for the PC

I'll add pretty pictures later.

Concept: 2/5

So Left 4 Dead 2 has a really simple concept really. It's the Zombie apocalypse and four people have banded together to try and survive it. Nice and simple. Sound familiar? That's cause this is the concept for Left 4 Dead 1. So Valve decided to try and take the best selling game of last November and do it again. I know a lot of people complained about how L4D2 didn't do anything new... but I find most of the people that complained about that and thought that everything in L4D2 could be released as Downloadable content or patches for L4D1 haven't actually played it. Not to say that there are things that couldn't have been included in L4D1 it's just that if they had it would have stolen some of the thunder from L4D2 where there were things that couldn't have been done in the first game.

Graphics: 3/5

The graphics aren't bad. They decided to go in a different direction than the first game. This time around the zombies are a bit more stylized especially the special zombies. But it's not a bad move. Overall I can't really say that the graphics are any better or worse than the first one they're just different. And when not comparing the game to the first just in general, the graphics are OK. There's nothing to say good or bad... not really.

Sound: 2/5

Nothing special to report here. I mean the sound is the sound. It does what it's expected to do. I really dislike Rochelle's scream when she gets knocked down and needs to be helped up though. She screams at the top of her lungs in a high pitched wail and while I'm sure it lets all the other player's know she was knocked down it made me want to hold my head in pain. Otherwise the sound went unnoticed. Ignoring some beautiful voice acting work from the guy that plays Nick and the other two were so southern I was turned off from playing them because I couldn't relate.

Entertainment: 4/5

If you've played the first L4D and enjoyed it you'll enjoy this one too. It definitely got me excited to be a Zombie killer again. There's nothing quite like rolling into an area with a bunch of your friends and slaying untold numbers of undead. Especially when the undead are really cool/don't sparkle in sunlight. Actually thanks to their normal mapping they might sparkle... Oh well I'm shooting them anyway. Plus some of the new finales and horde alert moments in this game a lot more intense than the first one because you have to keep moving and can't just hold up in one corner and slay they while you wait for a timer to tick down.

Playability: 4/5

A lot can be said for the playability of this game. But I'll try to be brief. Each level has a different feel or theme or specific challenge to it. My favorite has you start in one spot go to a certain location and then make your way back through the areas you passed through before. This means you have to ration some of the supplies you take as you're making your way to the target because when you come back through you may not have needed supplies if you took them all the first time. Plus there are witches EVERYWHERE in that level. Witches are a type of zombie that are passive until you get too close or shine a flashlight on them, then they get angry and will attack you and at the very least knock you down if you're not careful. Playing through this area with my friends I had so much fun especially since during the second half a huge rain storm blows in and reduces your visibility. It was probably the most epic time I had playing the game. But while I preferred this mission they're all pretty epic and I'm sure some people liked the other ones more.

X-factor: 2/5

The game is missing a bit of it's X-factor though. I mean once you've played the first one you've played the second one really. There were definitely things that this game added to the franchise. The fact that there is a bit of cohesion to the individual campaigns is nice. The fact that there are now uncommon common zombies are great. More special infected like the Jockey, Spitter, and Charger are AWESOME it makes the versus mode actually feel a lot more flushed out. But other than those things the major differences are underneath the hood of the engine. The section of the programing that decides how difficult or easy certain sections of a map are was overhauled and it definitely helped. The melee's cool too but it only adds so much.

Overall 17/30 Average

In the end the things that they could have added to the original through patches and such. I feel they should have and taken another year or two to release this game. There were definite improvements but they were so small compared to what they were trying to release it really felt like they were just trying to add a 2 to the end of their title since most of their franchises' greatest hits are the sequels not the originals, i.e. Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. I really wish it was better and it's still a solid game if you liked the original pick this one up. If you think you might like playing either of the L4Ds I say pick this one up too. The first one was nice but compared to the second one it's night and day from how intense and epic this one will make you feel.

Resident Evil 5 for the Xbox 360

So here we are again. Another month, another review. I have to say though. I'm a little scared. I've hit the point in my gaming career where a lot of games just don't interest me. So I've basically matured to the point where I'm not like a puppy chasing after every game that comes along... Which is cool I guess, but... it also means I'm not sure what I'm going to review next Month... We'll see if I find anything to talk about in between now and then.

Also in a special note about this review. I've noticed that my previous reviews were pretty wordy and I realize that people probably don't want to read all that. So I'm going to try and keep each section down to a single paragraph. If you disagree with this decision please comment on this post. Or even if you agree, please comment. I'd like to know I'm being read.

Concept: 2/5

The concept of this game is pretty terrible. The Resident Evil Series has this weird rut, where the head designer of the first game made that one and then moved on to other projects and they just kept rehashing that idea over and over and over again. He finally said enough is enough and came back to work on Resident Evil 4 to try and get them to make something new and it worked he jumpstarted the series again. Now that we're on to Resident Evil 5 though... they're just rehashing his idea from 4 again... It's just horrible. The only thing I give it props for is actually having a "zombie" infestation in Africa. Maybe it's because I live in America but every Zombie media I've seen has taken place in America, or England for the 28 whatever series. So Resident Evil 5 gets credit for taking "zombies" out of America and Europe. I'll explain why I put zombies in quotes in the Entertainment section.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are amazing. I mean other than a couple facial quirks of one character I think they're damn near perfect. And the facial quirks, I learned from watching the bonus DVD that came with my copy, were little ticks and stuff that the actor did when voice acting and motion capturing the character. Capcom did a lot of motion capturing, they did a lot of story boarding with the cut-scenes, heck they even motion captured the actor's faces when they were voice acting. In the end they spent a lot of money on the graphics for this game and it shows.

Sound: 3/5

Sound is normal in Resident Evil 5. There's nothing particularly amazing about it but at the same time it's not bad. It's doing its job which is to make the game feel right without being distracting. There isn't really much to say about the sound. Other than in the "making of" video in the bonus DVD when they talked about the music and such it definitely made me feel that if I were a musician I would almost exclusively want to work on soundtracks for movies and games. It just seems like a more stable and entertaining job than being part of an orchestra that plays the same 20 famous songs by the same 8 famous dead guys over and over again.

Playability: 3/5

The game handles itself pretty well. There's the all time Resident Evil complaint of not being able to shoot and walk at the same time. But that helps lend to the scariness because it means you can't just shoot everything and keep moving you have to become a target before you can start shooting which makes it tougher and like I said scarier. This game also focuses heavily on co-op. To the detriment of trying to play this game by yourself. The AI of your partner is so abysmal that as soon as I learned that I drafted one of my roommates to play with me and we worked through the whole game together. So this means that this game is 2 player only, really. So I went from Ghostbusters which was single player only, to Resident Evil 5 which was 2 player only. Which was nice I guess. My other complaint about the playability of the game is that during the final boss there's a sequence where you have to do certain things in the perfect order otherwise he will one hit kill you, so as you're learning how to do this you will be replaying the same sequence over and over again for probably close to 20 minutes.

Entertainment: 4/5

OK. Time to explain "zombies." Here's the thing, ever since RE4, there are no more zombies in the Resident Evil  universe, well none that you fight anyway. You are instead fighting people infected with a special germ, plant, seed thing which makes them mindless slaves. But it's easier to say "zombies" than to say "people infected with a special germ, plant, seed thing which makes them mindless slaves" so everyone still calls them zombies. Now as for the story of this game it's pretty good. For fans of the series it will explain a lot of the history of how Umbrella Corporation was founded, where the T-Virus, G-Virus, etc. came from, and what's been happening with two or three of the original characters that kind of fell off the face of the planet as far as the series is concerned. So there's a lot of fan appeasement in here. Also the story while not the most mind blowing thing ever, is solid so it will be enjoyable too. A note of warning though. This game is only enjoyable for the people playing it. So if you have people that like watching games being played. They probably won't enjoy it. Mostly because since this is really a two player game each player will be staring at their half of the screen and the people watching won't know where to look and it will be confusing for them.

X-Factor: 2/5

There's not much x-factor here. There's no replay value, there's no feeling of attachment to the characters. It's all about playing with someone else. This game will give you a good couple nights of hanging out with someone and enjoying a story together. But once those couple nights are over... this game is going to go into your library and you're probably never going to look at it ever again. It's a onetime game. You play it onetime and you're done. That's all there is to this game.

Overall: 19/30 AVERAGE

If you're a fan of the Resident Evil Series, or more specifically Resident Evil 4, than you'll love this game... That is you'll love it if you have a person to play with. If you're by yourself you'll probably grow frustrated, annoyed, and not want to play anymore, if you do have a partner in crime it will be a nice fun experience that the two of you can share together.

Ghostbusters for the Xbox 360

This month I shall be reviewing the Ghostbusters game for the Xbox 360. As a note I am a huge fan of the movies so some bias might seep into this review. Also thank you for patiently waiting for this review. Midterms wait for no one and I should have planned accordingly.

Concept: 5/5

Who didn’t grow up with, or watch, the Ghostbusters movies and think to themselves “I wish I could run around with a proton pack and do that stuff!” Honestly, I can’t think of a single person who has seen the movies and didn’t like them. Watching the ghostbusters running around New York City, getting slimed by slimer, or each other in the second movie, running from the librarian ghost, driving the statue of liberty, making the city a giant s’more

The ghostbusters have lurched from one amazing adventure and story to the next. If any of them ever have any grandkids they will have some amazing stories to tell. It just sparked the imagination and got everyone that watched it to feel like they were a little kid again. Of all the intellectual properties in the world that have been made into video games, the fact that they took so long to make the Ghostbusters  video kind of makes you want to smack your head and say “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics in this game are near perfect. They made everything beautiful but halt just short of trying to make the game look real. They knew they could walk into the uncanny valley and decided to stop just short. For those of you that don’t know, the uncanny valley is when computer graphics get so close to looking real that you notice that all the little things that make it look not real, such as lack of facial twitches and little nuances of the normal human beings.

The graphics of Ghostbusters  goes all the way to the uncanny valley and rather than walk into it turn around and take the realistic models that they made for everything and make it slightly cartoony. So that you can easily tell who is who and everything but give it a feeling that it definitely is a video game and everything belongs here.

Unfortunately this amazing graphic style is hampered by one thing. They made everything colorful and beautiful. So when you look at one thing it is awesome looking, but when you put it all together it gets a little busy on the screen and you can’t always tell where certain things are. This is especially hard on the level after the librarian when you’re walking through the city and fighting gargoyles, construction worker ghosts, and other things.

Now I have to talk specifically about the proton pack. I have one great thing to say about it and one not so great thing to say about it. First the great thing, it looks AWESOME! Just absolutely perfect and when you change your firing mode, little doodads on the pack activate and deactivate so if you forget you can just look at the pack and know which mode you’re in. Unfortunately they also included your health bar and your overheat bar on the proton pack. Specifically on the side of the pack making it very small and very hard to see so you have to listen to the sounds of the game to know when you’re overheating and look to other visual feedback for when you’re hurt.

Sound: 3/5

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the soundtrack and the sound in this game. Claiming that what works for a 2 hour movie doesn’t work for a 10 hour game. Which I can understand I guess, I mean if you’re a bit of an audiophile than I guess you’ll pick up on it and it’ll become annoying… but for the rest of us it works fine.

This game is the epitome of good sound. Good sound, not great sound, just good solid sound in a game is overlooked. It’s ignored. It does its job and doesn’t ask for anything in return. Everything sounds right and everything works properly. It’s like the sound wasn’t even programmed it just naturally happens. This is exactly what happens in Ghostbusters. Everything’s just… right. The only problem I had with the sound was Bill Murray’s performance.

Some people have said he just mailed the performance in and didn’t really try. But what I think it is is that he just isn’t sure how to voice act. It’s a different skill base than what is necessary for stage and screen acting and if you check imdb.com than you can see the only time Bill Murray’s voice acted other than the Ghostbusters video game is the Garfield movies, which from what I’ve been told are some of his worse movies.

Playability: 4/5

The gameplay of Ghostbusters is phenomenal. The controls handle great and once you get passed the lack of feedback for overheating and your health it plays near perfectly. They don’t give you all the abilities that the proton pack has, right from the get go. It seems common in most games these days that they just give you everything and let you go. But Ghostbusters harkens back to its time in the late 80s and 90s by using the unlocking abilities as you go system that was very prevalent back then.

Strangely enough this isn’t a problem. I don’t think the game would have suffered at all from just giving the player all of the abilities from the get go, but it doesn’t suffer from slowly making them available to the player one at a time. Shooting ghosts with the different beams from your proton pack is great. Especially when you’re using the normal proton stream and you wrangle yourself a ghost. After the first time the game asks you to capture multiple ghosts I relished in the nerdiness and said “Two in the box, ready to go, we be fast and they be slow!”

There is one glaring flaw with the gameplay though. There is no local multiplayer, which is just awkward. In this day and age it is just odd for a game to not have local multiplayer. Seeing as games have gone from only multiplayer and only singleplayer, to both, to both with online multiplayer as well, and then some only online multiplayer, it’s weird to see a game that’s singleplayer and online multiplayer. I actually felt a bit gypped. I had heard about all these cool multiplayer modes and I was looking forward to playing them with some of my friends. I can’t afford to pay for Xbox Live and I’m sure there are plenty of people that in the same position too.

Entertainment: 4/5

The story is really great. The developers masterfully use the main character, when he’s present. They strangely enough don’t always use him. There are times where every other character is present and talking to each other and planning stuff out and he’s not there. He’s not even in the background, which is all I would want. The main character never speaks but he should be present. He is part of the team after all it is very strange that he’s absent so much.

The ghostbusters are training this guy so why wouldn’t they want him around to learn from them? It’s just weird. But when he is there, it is amazing; he’s a fully developed character not just a random guy that you take control of at times. There are a few times in particular when they use him that I was so in awe that I now want to see them at least reference him in Ghostbusters III.

Also, in the movies and tv shows they were able to toy the line of funny and scary. So there were some definite situations that were just flat out creepy but never anything too nightmare inducing. They were able to do the same thing in the game. While there are plenty of times where I'm running around and smiling and enjoying myself. There were also times when I was sneaking about afraid to anger any nearby malevolent spirits. They did this masterfully just like in the movies.

X-Factor: 5/5

With everything else having been said, other than the local multiplayer I wouldn’t change a thing. Sure this game isn’t perfect and some things could be done to try and make it better. But honestly, there isn’t a perfect game on the planet.

The sense of coolness I got from just running around with the other ghostbusters and living out a childhood fantasy was too much fun to pass up. Even now I’m thinking back to my time spent in the game and thinking of the adventures I had with the team. How I feel like I was a part of it all and that, if I were a bit more delusional maybe, I’d be telling these stories as if they actually happened to my grandkids one day.

In the end it just captures your heart if you’re a fan of the movies.

Overall: 25/30 A Cut Above the Rest

This game is a definite must have for anyone that's a fan of the Ghostbusters universe. And if you only have a passing interest in the movies and shows than you can still probably buy this game and enjoy it. Honestly, the only people who won't enjoy this game are people that despise Ghostbusters. But something tells me that even a few of those people may come to a better appreciation for the franchise if they play this game.