Tag Archives: video game
Rayman Origins: Old-School Platforming Done Right
AHHHH… To be a kid again… I miss my platformers. The last one I played was New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii. But that game lacked some character and soul. Rayman Origins has tons of character, but most importantly, it plays really well. The controls in this game really flow. The game also does a really good job of slowly adding new abilities. This allows you to really master all existing abilities before you get new ones. The result is that the game controls feel natural even once you get all of your abilities.
From Great Demos to Bad Ones
I just read an interesting article on IGN.com about some bad demos. I have already written a blog about what I think the best demo is (crackdown) and why.
The IGN article seems to criticize demos based on the full games. They said the Darkness II demo was all over the place because it made you play different sections from throughout the campaign, which they claimed was confusing. It was only confusing once you played the actual game and realized the demo was out of sync.
I thought the Darkness 2 demo was pretty good actually. It made me get the game…
Same is true for Asura’s Wrath. While I agree that the demo made it look like the game was an interactive anime, I thought that was damn cool! I was sold! And after playing the demo, I wanted to get the game. So I disagree there too.
Seems like this article was stretching a bit to find excuses to label demos bad… At least it didn’t list Crackdown… Then we’d have some serious beef.
Fez=The Best $10 You Will Ever Spend on A Game…. EVAR!
Holy crap this game is good. I can’t believe how good this game is. If you have an Xbox 360, get this game. One of the things I love about video games is when they have atmosphere. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery for iOS did an amazing job with the atmosphere… But there was no gameplay and it was unbelievably short.
Fez has the coolest atmosphere of any game that I have played in a long, long time; perhaps ever. The music is perfect. It has a really cool and unexpected Blade Runner feel that perfectly matches the magical, abandoned feel of the various settings.
Speaking of DLC…
Where is the new Battlefield 3 DLC? It has been many months since Back To Kirkland, the Costco sponsored DLC came out! Me and my BF3 crew have not played in a long tome, and we have rent a dedicated server! I don’t understand why EA would put so much money into BF3, which paid off with a sizable user-base, and then not keep taking our money with regular DLC!!! Take my money EA! I want to give it to you!
ME3′s From Ashes DLC is DLC (Down-Loadable Crap)
<rant>
You know that feeling when you are playing a great game that is coming to an end and you start to get really sad that soon you won’t be playing it anymore? That’s exactly how I felt when I got to disk 2… And then back to disk 1… in ME3. It is no surprise then, that when I finally beat the game I was panicked, and from this illogical reaction to beating a video game, I immediately bought the From Ashes DLC, with the hopes of extending my ME3 experience a few pesky hours.
What’s up with IGN’s scoring lately???
Ralph and I noticed some unbelievably low review scores IGN has given out recently, far below the industry average. The most notable of these is I Am alive, which IGN have a 45!!! While the average critic score for this game was 70/100, the vast majority (30) were positive with 22 neutral and only 5 negative reviews (IGN being one of the five).
Mass-Erection, Mass-Effection, for Mass-Effect, Son. (3)
Damn, this game is awesome.
How these guys managed to make an action RPG that plays as a shooter, better than most stand-alone shooters, is beyond me. That’s right, I think that as a shooter alone, Mass Effect 3 is as good, if not better than Gears of War 3 or Uncharted 3.
I Was Wrong About The Vita!!! (It’s Awesome)
Sony, Please forgive me! The Vita is an awesome little gaming device. And I have been playing it a lot.
I originally said that games on the Vita were basically watered-down versions of their PS3 counterparts and I was sort of right here. But one of these watered down games: Hot Shots WE, has been a blast and provided a competitive experience to what I would get from my PS3… Only on a small beautiful handheld device.
Darkness 2, Syndicate and The Art of Multitasking
I recently played Darkness 2 and Syndicate around the same time and I was struck by how similar the gameplay was in these two very different games. Darkness 2 has a sort of supernatural, horror comic book thing going on, while Syndicate is 100% cyber punk goodness. Yet both have play mechanics that involve alternate methods of attacking enemies while you shoot.