almossbb's GameSpot Friend's Reviews almossbb's GameSpot Friend's Reviews almossbb's GameSpot Friend's Reviews en-us Copyright (c)1995-2013 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved. http://www.gamespot.com 20 Fri, 24 May 2013 01:12:21 -0700 GameSpot almossbb's GameSpot Friend's Reviews http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/shared/promos/misc/gs_logo.gif http://www.gamespot.com 135 40 Wed, 22 May 2013 13:47:59 -0700 clock0 reviewed Sonic Jump for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-jump-2012/user-reviews/811613/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

When I got this I was amazed on how awesome it is.I simply love this game.All you do is jump but this game is simply addictive and fun.When you get this you will be amazed on how awesome it is.This game has addictive gameplay.I would highly recommend this game if you are a huge sonic fan.This game is one of the best games on the iPhone/iPod Touch.You really should get this game if you don't have it already.This is only 0.99$ you should get this.This game is more addictive and better then temple run,subway surfers,and Temple Run 2 combined.You should get this game.This has got to be a really impressive game on the iPod and iPhone.This game holds my attention every time I play it.Bottom Line get this game if you really like sonic the hedgehog.Score:9.0 out of 10.This game was a smashing success and as I said a million times in this review get it :).

Get the full article at GameSpot

"clock0 reviewed Sonic Jump for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by clock0 on Wed, 22 May 2013 13:47:59 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-jump-2012/user-reviews/811613/platform/iphone/ Tue, 07 May 2013 15:08:22 -0700 WTA2k5 reviewed BioShock Infinite for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/bioshock-infinite/user-reviews/811097/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Who dares doesn't always win, apparently. BioShock Infinite is a game that far too often goes only halfway in realizing its many grand ambitions. It dares to speak on ever-relevant issues of racism, classism, and nationalism, but in an odd twist of irony, it marginalizes these plot elements that, in the real world, often lead to oppression and marginalization to instead focus on some good old-fashioned mind-bending speculative science fiction. It admirably deigns to not fall back on jarring cutscenes, but predicates most of its major mechanics on familiar shooting structures, leaving most of its truly affecting moments to be navigated through singular button-presses, that is, if you are given the opportunity to have any real input in these moments in the first place. It wants you to lose yourself in the visually engrossing but philosophically abhorrent world of Columbia, but many of the floating city's major players are paper-thin caricatures, and the game's wealth of audiologs feels cheaper and more overly-convenient than ever.

Still, it must be said that the fact that Infinite even partly accomplishes any of the tasks that it sets out for itself is hugely impressive. Considering many games have difficulties spicing up even the most rote shooting mechanics, unleash a deluge of cutscenes and quicktime events on players at every possible opportunity, and often struggle to not, themselves, be racist, BioShock Infinite stands out as an important step forward for big budget games that strive for serious artistry and drama. Irrational's latest isn't the gaming medium's magnum opus of cultural expression that one might expect given the game's self-serious artistic posturing, and huge critical acclaim, but it's still an utterly important release, and a damn good one too.

This is because there are plenty of things that Infinite gets totally right. The game's astounding audiovisual presentation is perhaps the foremost place to start. The game doesn't overtly flex any technical wizardry in the way an id or Crytek release might, but its sheer artistic splendor makes it one of the very best looking games of this console generation. At the root of this is no doubt the game's stellar environment, which ranks among the pantheon of gaming's greatest settings.

In the game's opening hour, players are slowly, calmly introduced to the seeming utopia of Columbia, an opulent, sun-drenched city above the clouds defined by exaggerated American expressions. Bright, idyllic gardens surround grand Palladian building; a peaceful stillness remains pervasive even through bustling storefronts and chatting citizens, only to occasionally be interrupted by enticing music selections (seriously, pay attention to this game's soundtrack), or - as players will encounter soon after arrival - a gleeful carnival complete with silly games and booming fireworks.

The game is wise to devote such a long period of time to simply navigating and luxuriating in its enticing environment, as Columbia is a true marvel that demonstrates the fact that Infinite's surely ungodly budget was put to good use - Irrational's hugely talented art team seems to have been truly unleashed. And though the game reserves for itself a few more simple moments of quietude, players will also soon discover their chief motivation for the rip-roaring action that consumes the vast majority of Infinite's running time.

Lead by the self-righteous and disturbed Father Comstock, most of Columbia's denizens have adopted a worldview that takes notions of American Exceptionalism to ridiculous but no less frightening extremes. Here, other religions have been extinguished in favor of a faith that idealizes America's founding fathers, as well as Comstock and his family, and all but the Anglo-Saxon adherents to this dogma are marginalized, reviled and exploited. This, as you might imagine, is causing some problems within the floating city, and tensions continually escalate from the moment you arrive.

But don't ready your spinning skyhook just yet, as there's quite a bit to dissect with this hefty plot setup. As mentioned before, Infinite has no qualms about diving headfirst into seemingly risky storytelling territory. But, much like the original BioShock's awkward and contradictory critique of Randian Objectivism, Infinite handles its set of sociopolitical critiques in a rather bumbling, heavy-handed, and ultimately ineffective way. For most of the game, these heavy themes of discrimination are mostly shock with little substance. Early on, for example, players will find themselves in the headquarters of The Fraternal Order of the Raven, an environment whose every last bit of iconography - including statues of John Wilkes Boothe, and enemies garbed in darkened Klu Klux Klan robes - spews bigoted filth. Troubling, to be sure, but this environment is never explored to a satisfactory degree in a narrative context. We are never told what drove the Order's members to this disgusting mindset, or what function it plays in Columbian society as a whole; instead we're instructed to simply tear through the environment, dismembering every racist we can find. Indeed, almost every one of the game's on-the-nose explorations of racism and jingoism seems to exist as more out of a desire to simply justify Infinite's absurd level of bombastic violence than a willingness to earnestly and cerebrally comment on these weighty issues.

It's a true shame, but again, the fact that the game is willing to go to these dark places in an upfront and confrontational manner when most games dodge around similar issues or make heavy use of metaphor and allegory in order to indirectly speak on them is commendable, even if it keeps Infinite's apparent daring from being something to truly celebrate.

But there is a second major component of Infinite's ideological critique, one that is much more subtly woven throughout the game, and one that ultimately cuts much deeper. Forgiveness and rebirth, in regards to its inherent inclusion in many major religions, is relentlessly examined and scrutinized over the course of the campaign in some truly unsettling ways. This side of the game's narrative might be so uncomfortable, in fact, as to offend adherents to the faiths that Infinite draws some heavily parallels to with its own disturbing belief system. The fact, however, that these themes aren't merely dabbled in, as are the game's superficial commentaries discrimination, but rather made absolutely integral to the core narrative and explored fully and fearlessly leads Infinite, in this instance, to fully live up to its grandiose goals. This is the moment where Infinite's narrative triumphs, and I can only hope that more games follow in its footsteps in bringing to light serious thematic content in a more direct manner, as can be seen so often in other media yet so rarely within video games.

Alright, here's where you can start revving up your skyhook. As he progresses through the carnival that greets him as he first steps foot in Columbia, Booker DeWitt, the game's playable and decidedly not-mute protagonist, begins to fully unravel the noxious worldview of Columbia's inhabitants. On his way towards a strange raffle that serves as the fair's main event, Comstock's voice booms over a loudspeaker, warning the citizens of Columbia about the arrival of the False Prophet, a man who has the letters "AD" burned into his right hand. Sure enough, our anti-hero holds his hand up to reveal that exact marking. And sure enough, during this eerie raffle event, the Columbians take notice of the mark, and Booker DeWitt swiftly digs a spinning hookblade into the skull of the first police officer that attempts to apprehend him.

With this, BioShock Infinite reveals its heavy emphasis on twitchy shooter gameplay and ridiculous amounts of gore. Engaging in the game's slick shooting mechanics feels no different than it might in the latest Call of Duty game; guns have a fantastic sense of weight to them and the responsiveness and ingenuity of the game's heads-up display ensures steady environmental awareness despite the over-the-top freneticism of many of the game's combat sequences. But where Infinite's combat truly shines is in its surprising mechanical density. Vigors that grant Booker special powers like the ability to shoot electricity from his fingertips or absorb bullets and toss them right back at foes serve as the first extra layering. For those familiar with the series, these powers might seem quite like the Plasmids introduced in the first BioShock, and though they do perform the same function, they're implemented in a far more balanced way in Infinite than they are in its predecessors; they're powerful and readily available but must be dealt out conservatively, as the mana pool they run on is rather restrictive.

But as gleefully destructive as they can be, Vigors are decidedly uninteresting in the face of Infinite's more inspired new mechanics. Booker's ability to latch onto the aerial Skylines running throughout Columbia is perhaps the most mind-blowing gameplay feature of them all. Though the mechanic seemed rather unbelievable during its first E3 showing a couple years ago, it speaks to the ingenuity of the game's level design that fluidly navigating Skylines that weave throughout many of the game's rather conspicuous battle arenas while taking shots at enemies, a potentially disorienting feat, becomes effortless after only a few encounters. The verticality and freedom of movement this system grants the game is awe-inspiring, and almost attaches a sense of childlike wonder to the act of mass-murdering racists.

For the first few hours of gameplay, these are the mechanics that Booker is limited to. It's during this time that he seeks to accomplish a seemingly simple direction mandated by a mysterious client: "Give us the girl, and wipe away the debt." Though this phrase ends up holding more significance than an uninitiated player could possibly know, it nonetheless serves as the impetus for finding Elizabeth, a young woman whose power to tear holes in the space-time continuum has, perhaps expectedly, lead her to be sequestered on the looming, Statue of Liberty-esque research facility, Monument Island.

So, as one might expect, this ability of hers adds more than a few layers of complexity to what might've otherwise been a rather straightforward plot. As the extent of her powers is gradually revealed, a suitably mind-bending narrative begins to form that comments, among other things, on the frail nature of identity and the profound ways in which a single choice can influence personhood, for better or worse. Though the introduction of converging space-time might seem to risk devolving the story into an Inception-esque exercise in overly complex authorial self-indulgence, BioShock Infinite uses this storytelling conceit to build a truly tragedian narrative.

But Elizabeth isn't merely a means for crafting a brain-melting metaphysical storyline. Nor is Booker DeWitt a stupefied on-looker who hails from the same lineage of horribly flat shooter protagonists as Gordon Freeman, or Corvo Attano. They are both memorable characters whose defined personalities infuse the plot's affecting tragedy with a true sense of humanity. Elizabeth, on one hand, starts out as a surprisingly cultured and self-aware inversion of the classic damsel-in-distress trope, and her evolution over the course of the game's ten- to twelve-hour campaign is astonishingly well-paced and believable. Her exaggerated features and expressive animations that pay homage to the distinctive style Grim Natwick invented for Disney solidify her as one of the most memorable and empathetic characters in gaming. DeWitt, by contrast, is predominately a closed-book, limiting himself to practical, yet charismatic antics strongly reminiscent of classic swashbucklers like Han Solo until his dark past is fully revealed during the final act. When that happens, he extends far beyond his narrative role as a foil to Elizabeth, and the resulting revelations cut to the bone. Major compliments are due to Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper, who faultlessly brings this odd couple to life even through all the mind-blowing turns the story takes.

The duo also serve as a great team during Infinite's huge combat sequences. Though Booker, as mentioned before, is in charge of most of the direct combat, Elizabeth is a key ingredient in what makes the game's massive shootouts so dazzling. Most significantly, she uses her ability to alter time and space to bring objects into the battlefields that didn't previously exist. Asking for a wall of cover to hide behind when a dozen enemies are facing you down, or perhaps a Skyhook that lets you access a sniper perch adds an exciting tactical dynamism to combat that feels especially important considering the sheer number of foes the game throws at you. Since you can only select one object to tear in at a time, more heated battles require a constant mindfulness and economization of Elizabeth's power that is as exhilaratingly strategic as the best of tactical shooters.

A smaller, but no less genius touch is the fact that Elizabeth tosses you mana and ammo when it feels clutch. Even when it becomes obvious that she's scripted to do so whenever your resources are running low, the notion that an AI is looking out for you is relentlessly fulfilling, especially in a game that constructs a scenario that might've so easily fallen into the dreaded escort-mission trap. Indeed, going back to other first-person shooters has become tough, as Elizabeth is not just a delightful companion in a narrative sense, but she's also integral to the satisfaction of Infinite's moment-to-moment combat proceedings.

Each of the augments to the core shooting experience are satisfying in their own right, but once they all start working in tandem, Infinite's combat scenarios reach the upper-echelon of FPS sublimation. Not since Half-Life 2 has a shooter married pulse-pounding twitch thrills to a deeply strategic core so seamlessly, and while leaving so much room for experimentation. The gritty sound design that punctuates the action is equally superb; a combination of abrasive string stabs, impactful weapon sound effects and some truly horrifying enemy damage reactions unfailingly sell you on the weighty ferocity of the mayhem you cause.

All this, of course, sounds amazing, and on some level it truly is. But consider this: for all its fast-paced entertainment, Infinite's combat never fully works. In a mechanical sense, it's pretty much as polished as can be, but the game's massive amount of carnage doesn't quite work within the context of the story. In fact, story and gameplay don't feel merged at all. While there's a fair amount of narrative justification for the heavy degree of violence, the fact that shooting people and ripping their heads of with a spinning hook is pretty much Booker's only way of interacting with the world undercuts much of the arresting emotionality of Infinite's narrative.

Highlighting this problem is the fact that many of the game's most powerful moments either preclude player input, or limit interactivity to the push of a single button. Elizabeth's ability to tear holes in the space-time continuum, for example, may have been the basis for some ingenious puzzle solving and narrative interaction, but players are instead left to simply push a button to demand entry into a new reality where they can proceed to shoot more people in the face. Again, this feels like BioShock Infinite going only halfway in bringing its many fantastic ideas to life; some truly inventive mechanical structures may have been borne out of the game's central narrative conceits, but Irrational has disappointingly opted to instead rely on more comfortable and pre-established action gameplay.

This disconnect is furthered by the game's odd focus on scavenging between each firefight. While the opportunity to really dig into and appreciate each environment, as well as get a break from the nearly nonstop action is welcome, the context of the narrative doesn't really support these detours either. Booker's mission is given an impactful sense of urgency, so the fact that the game encourages you to stop down for long stretches of time to eat random food items littered about and try to uncover Columbia's many secrets is rather off-putting. Early on, for instance, Elizabeth finds herself in immediate danger. An objective indicator flashes on-screen telling you to go rescue her, yet you find yourself surrounded by lootable objects designated by a pulsating golden glow. Of all the moments to try and fish pieces of cake out of a trashcan, this may be the least opportune, but Infinite's structure, which evidently values narrative over gameplay in terms of pacing and logic, continues to tempt you astray regardless. This might all seem a bit nitpicky, but considering the fact that Infinite is so intent on being treated as a significant work of art, these small annoyances can't be ignored, as they gradually undermine the meaning the game tries so hard to construct for itself.

BioShock Infinite is a game worth any mature player's while, but it has come at an unfortunate time. Within the past year alone, the industry has been treated to games like Spec Ops: The Line, The Walking Dead, and Hotline Miami, just a few titles that are capable of eloquently and expertly exploring dark themes while being cognizant of their respective mechanics' impact on the narratives they try to weave, making a game like Infinite - one that never fully accounts for the ways in which its gameplay influences the meaning and effectiveness of its story - seem a bit clumsy by comparison. David Jaffe, the brilliant designer behind games like God of War and Twisted Metal once deemed the relationship between gameplay and narrative as being like the combination of "chocolate and tunafish." I would argue that this claim isn't necessarily true, and games like Spec Ops are perfect demonstrations as to why that is. In the case of Infinite, however, Jaffe's argument has a haunting validity. But take heart, the chocolate that is BioShock Infinite's gameplay and the tunafish that is its story are pretty much premium grade when enjoyed separately. Just accept the fact that the combination is going to taste a little odd and find something to savor within it.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"WTA2k5 reviewed BioShock Infinite for the Xbox 360..." was posted by WTA2k5 on Tue, 07 May 2013 15:08:22 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/bioshock-infinite/user-reviews/811097/platform/xbox360/ Tue, 07 May 2013 13:42:46 -0700 WTA2k5 reviewed BioShock Infinite for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/bioshock-infinite/user-reviews/811095/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Who dares doesn't always win, apparently. BioShock Infinite is a game that far too often goes only halfway in realizing its many grand ambitions. It dares to speak on ever-relevant issues of racism, classism, and nationalism, but in an odd twist of irony, it marginalizes these plot elements that, in the real world, often lead to oppression and marginalization to instead focus on some good old-fashioned mind-bending speculative science fiction. It admirably deigns to not fall back on jarring cutscenes, but predicates most of its major mechanics on familiar shooting structures, leaving most of its truly affecting moments to be navigated through singular button-presses, that is, if you are given the opportunity to have any real input in these moments in the first place. It wants you to lose yourself in the visually engrossing but philosophically abhorrent world of Columbia, but many of the floating city's major players are paper-thin caricatures, and the game's wealth of audiologs feels cheaper and more overly-convenient than ever.

Still, it must be said that the fact that Infinite even partly accomplishes any of the tasks that it sets out for itself is hugely impressive. Considering have huge difficulties spicing up even the most rote shooting mechanics, unleash a deluge of cutscenes and quicktime events on players at every possible opportunity, and often struggle to not, themselves, be racist, BioShock Infinite stands out as an important step forward for big budget games that strive for serious artistry and drama. Irrational's latest isn't the gaming medium's magnum opus of cultural expression that one might expect given the game's self-serious artistic posturing, and huge critical acclaim, but it's still an utterly important release, and a damn good one too.

This is because there are plenty of things that Infinite gets totally right. The game's astounding audiovisual presentation is perhaps the foremost place to start. The game doesn't overtly flex any technical wizardry in the way an id or Crytek release might, but its sheer artistic splendor makes it one of the very best looking games of this console generation. At the root of this is no doubt the game's stellar environment, which ranks among the pantheon of gaming's greatest settings.

In the game's opening hour, players are slowly, calmly introduced to the seeming utopia of Columbia, an opulent, sun-drenched city above the clouds defined by exaggerated American expressions. Bright, idyllic gardens surround grand Palladian building; a peaceful stillness remains pervasive even through bustling storefronts and chatting citizens, only to occasionally be interrupted by enticing music selections (seriously, pay attention to this game's soundtrack), or - as players will encounter soon after arrival - a gleeful carnival complete with silly games and booming fireworks.

The game is wise to devote such a long period of time to simply navigating and luxuriating in its enticing environment, as Columbia is a true marvel that demonstrates the fact that Infinite's surely ungodly budget was put to good use - Irrational's hugely talented art team seems to have been truly unleashed. And though the game reserves for itself a few more simple moments of quietude, players will also soon discover their chief motivation for the rip-roaring action that consumes the vast majority of Infinite's running time.

Lead by the self-righteous and disturbed Father Comstock, most of Columbia's denizens have adopted a worldview that takes notions of American Exceptionalism to ridiculous but no less frightening extremes. Here, other religions have been extinguished in favor of a faith that idealizes America's founding fathers, as well as Comstock and his family, and all but the Anglo-Saxon adherents to this dogma are marginalized, reviled and exploited. This, as you might imagine, is causing some problems within the floating city, and tensions continually escalate from the moment you arrive.

But don't ready your spinning skyhook just yet, as there's quite a bit to dissect with this hefty plot setup. As mentioned before, Infinite has no qualms about diving headfirst into seemingly risky storytelling territory. But, much like the original BioShock's awkward and contradictory critique of Randian Objectivism, Infinite handles its set of sociopolitical critiques in a rather bumbling, heavy-handed, and ultimately ineffective way. For most of the game, these heavy themes of discrimination are mostly shock with little substance. Early on, for example, players will find themselves in the headquarters of The Fraternal Order of the Raven, an environment whose every last bit of iconography - including statues of John Wilkes Boothe, and enemies garbed in darkened Klu Klux Klan robes - spews bigoted filth. Troubling, to be sure, but this environment is never explored to a satisfactory degree in a narrative context. We are never told what drove the Order's members to this disgusting mindset, or what function it plays in Columbian society as a whole; instead we're instructed to simply tear through the environment, dismembering every racist we can find. Indeed, almost every one of the game's on-the-nose explorations of racism and jingoism seems to exist as more out of a desire to simply justify Infinite's absurd level of bombastic violence than a willingness to earnestly and cerebrally comment on these weighty issues.

It's a true shame, but again, the fact that the game is willing to go to these dark places in an upfront and confrontational manner when most games dodge around similar issues or make heavy use of metaphor and allegory in order to indirectly speak on them is commendable, even if it keeps Infinite's apparent daring from being something to truly celebrate.

But there is a second major component of Infinite's ideological critique, one that is much more subtly woven throughout the game, and one that ultimately cuts much deeper. Forgiveness and rebirth, in regards to its inherent inclusion in many major religions, is relentlessly examined and scrutinized over the course of the campaign in some truly unsettling ways. This side of the game's narrative might be so uncomfortable, in fact, as to offend adherents to the faiths that Infinite draws some heavily parallels to with its own disturbing belief system. The fact, however, that these themes aren't merely dabbled in, as are the game's superficial commentaries discrimination, but rather made absolutely integral to the core narrative and explored fully and fearlessly leads Infinite, in this instance, to fully live up to its grandiose goals. This is the moment where Infinite's narrative triumphs, and I can only hope that more games follow in its footsteps in bringing to light serious thematic content in a more direct manner, as can be seen so often in other media yet so rarely within video games.

Alright, here's where you can start revving up your skyhook. As he progresses through the carnival that greets him as he first steps foot in Columbia, Booker DeWitt, the game's playable and decidedly not-mute protagonist, begins to fully unravel the noxious worldview of Columbia's inhabitants. On his way towards a strange raffle that serves as the fair's main event, Comstock's voice booms over a loudspeaker, warning the citizens of Columbia about the arrival of the False Prophet, a man who has the letters "AD" burned into his right hand. Sure enough, our anti-hero holds his hand up to reveal that exact marking. And sure enough, during this eerie raffle event, the Columbians take notice of the mark, and Booker DeWitt swiftly digs a spinning hookblade into the skull of the first police officer that attempts to apprehend him.

With this, BioShock Infinite reveals its heavy emphasis on twitchy shooter gameplay and ridiculous amounts of gore. Engaging in the game's slick shooting mechanics feels no different than it might in the latest Call of Duty game; guns have a fantastic sense of weight to them and the responsiveness and ingenuity of the game's heads-up display ensures steady environmental awareness despite the over-the-top freneticism of many of the game's combat sequences. But where Infinite's combat truly shines is in its surprising mechanical density. Vigors that grant Booker special powers like the ability to shoot electricity from his fingertips or absorb bullets and toss them right back at foes serve as the first extra layering. For those familiar with the series, these powers might seem quite like the Plasmids introduced in the first BioShock, and though they do perform the same function, they're implemented in a far more balanced way in Infinite than they are in its predecessors; they're powerful and readily available but must be dealt out conservatively, as the mana pool they run on is rather restrictive.

But as gleefully destructive as they can be, Vigors are decidedly uninteresting in the face of Infinite's more inspired new mechanics. Booker's ability to latch onto the aerial Skylines running throughout Columbia is perhaps the most mind-blowing gameplay feature of them all. Though the mechanic seemed rather unbelievable during its first E3 showing a couple years ago, it speaks to the ingenuity of the game's level design that fluidly navigating Skylines that weave throughout many of the game's rather conspicuous battle arenas while taking shots at enemies, a potentially disorienting feat, becomes effortless after only a few encounters. The verticality and freedom of movement this system grants the game is awe-inspiring, and almost attaches a sense of childlike wonder to the act of mass-murdering racists.

For the first few hours of gameplay, these are the mechanics that Booker is limited to. It's during this time that he seeks to accomplish a seemingly simple direction mandated by a mysterious client: "Give us the girl, and wipe away the debt." Though this phrase ends up holding more significance than an uninitiated player could possibly know, it nonetheless serves as the impetus for finding Elizabeth, a young woman whose power to tear holes in the space-time continuum has, perhaps expectedly, lead her to be sequestered on the looming, Statue of Liberty-esque research facility, Monument Island.

So, as one might expect, this ability of hers adds more than a few layers of complexity to what might've otherwise been a rather straightforward plot. As the extent of her powers is gradually revealed, a suitably mind-bending narrative begins to form that comments, among other things, on the frail nature of identity and the profound ways in which a single choice can influence personhood, for better or worse. Though the introduction of converging space-time might seem to risk devolving the story into an Inception-esque exercise in overly complex authorial self-indulgence, BioShock Infinite uses this storytelling conceit to build a truly tragedian narrative.

But Elizabeth isn't merely a means for crafting a brain-melting metaphysical storyline. Nor is Booker DeWitt a stupefied on-looker who hails from the same lineage of horribly flat shooter protagonists as Gordon Freeman, or Corvo Attano. They are both memorable characters whose defined personalities infuse the plot's affecting tragedy with a true sense of humanity. Elizabeth, on one hand, starts out as a surprisingly cultured and self-aware inversion of the classic damsel-in-distress trope, and her evolution over the course of the game's ten- to twelve-hour campaign is astonishingly well-paced and believable. Her exaggerated features and expressive animations that pay homage to the distinctive style Grim Natwick invented for Disney solidify her as one of the most memorable and empathetic characters in gaming. DeWitt, by contrast, is predominately a closed-book, limiting himself to practical, yet charismatic antics strongly reminiscent of classic swashbucklers like Han Solo until his dark past is fully revealed during the final act. When that happens, he extends far beyond his narrative role as a foil to Elizabeth, and the resulting revelations cut to the bone. Major compliments are due to Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper, who faultlessly brings this odd couple to life even through all the mind-blowing turns the story takes.

The duo also serve as a great team during Infinite's huge combat sequences. Though Booker, as mentioned before, is in charge of most of the direct combat, Elizabeth is a key ingredient in what makes the game's massive shootouts so dazzling. Most significantly, she uses her ability to alter time and space to bring objects into the battlefields that didn't previously exist. Asking for a wall of cover to hide behind when a dozen enemies are facing you down, or perhaps a Skyhook that lets you access a sniper perch adds an exciting tactical dynamism to combat that feels especially important considering the sheer number of foes the game throws at you. Since you can only select one object to tear in at a time, more heated battles require a constant mindfulness and economization of Elizabeth's power that is as exhilaratingly strategic as the best of tactical shooters.

A smaller, but no less genius touch is the fact that Elizabeth tosses you mana and ammo when it feels clutch. Even when it becomes obvious that she's scripted to do so whenever your resources are running low, the notion that an AI is looking out for you is relentlessly fulfilling, especially in a game that constructs a scenario that might've so easily fallen into the dreaded escort-mission trap. Indeed, going back to other first-person shooters has become tough, as Elizabeth is not just a delightful companion in a narrative sense, but she's also integral to the satisfaction of Infinite's moment-to-moment combat proceedings.

Each of the augments to the core shooting experience are satisfying in their own right, but once they all start working in tandem, Infinite's combat scenarios reach the upper-echelon of FPS sublimation. Not since Half-Life 2 has a shooter married pulse-pounding twitch thrills to a deeply strategic core so seamlessly, and while leaving so much room for experimentation. The gritty sound design that punctuates the action is equally superb; a combination of abrasive string stabs, impactful weapon sound effects and some truly horrifying enemy damage reactions unfailingly sell you on the weighty ferocity of the mayhem you cause.

All this, of course, sounds amazing, and on some level it truly is. But consider this: for all its fast-paced entertainment, Infinite's combat never fully works. In a mechanical sense, it's pretty much as polished as can be, but the game's massive amount of carnage doesn't quite work within the context of the story. In fact, story and gameplay don't feel merged at all. While there's a fair amount of narrative justification for the heavy degree of violence, the fact that shooting people and ripping their heads of with a spinning hook is pretty much Booker's only way of interacting with the world undercuts much of the arresting emotionality of Infinite's narrative.

Highlighting this problem is the fact that many of the game's most powerful moments either preclude player input, or limit interactivity to the push of a single button. Elizabeth's ability to tear holes in the space-time continuum, for example, may have been the basis for some ingenious puzzle solving and narrative interaction, but players are instead left to simply push a button to demand entry into a new reality where they can proceed to shoot more people in the face. Again, this feels like BioShock Infinite going only halfway in bringing its many fantastic ideas to life; some truly inventive mechanical structures may have been borne out of the game's central narrative conceits, but Irrational has disappointingly opted to instead rely on more comfortable and pre-established action gameplay.

This disconnect is furthered by the game's odd focus on scavenging between each firefight. While the opportunity to really dig into and appreciate each environment, as well as get a break from the nearly nonstop action is welcome, the context of the narrative doesn't really support these detours either. Booker's mission is given an impactful sense of urgency, so the fact that the game encourages you to stop down for long stretches of time to eat random food items littered about and try to uncover Columbia's many secrets is rather off-putting. Early on, for instance, Elizabeth finds herself in immediate danger. An objective indicator flashes on-screen telling you to go rescue her, yet you find yourself surrounded by lootable objects designated by a pulsating golden glow. Of all the moments to try and fish pieces of cake out of a trashcan, this may be the least opportune, but Infinite's structure, which evidently values narrative over gameplay in terms of pacing and logic, continues to tempt you astray regardless. This might all seem a bit nitpicky, but considering the fact that Infinite is so intent on being treated as a significant work of art, these small annoyances can't be ignored, as they gradually undermine the meaning the game tries so hard to construct for itself.

BioShock Infinite is a game worth any mature player's while, but it has come at an unfortunate time. Within the past year alone, the industry has been treated to games like Spec Ops: The Line, The Walking Dead, and Hotline Miami, just a few titles that are capable of eloquently and expertly exploring dark themes while being cognizant of their respective mechanics' impact on the narratives they try to weave, making a game like Infinite - one that never fully accounts for the ways in which its gameplay influences the meaning and effectiveness of its story - seem a bit clumsy by comparison. David Jaffe, the brilliant designer behind games like God of War and Twisted Metal once deemed the relationship between gameplay and narrative as being like the combination of "chocolate and tunafish." I would argue that this claim isn't necessarily true, and games like Spec Ops are perfect demonstrations as to why that is. In the case of Infinite, however, Jaffe's argument has a haunting validity. But take heart, the chocolate that is BioShock Infinite's gameplay and the tunafish that is its story are pretty much premium grade when enjoyed separately. Just accept the fact that the combination is to taste a little odd and find something to savor within it.

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"WTA2k5 reviewed BioShock Infinite for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by WTA2k5 on Tue, 07 May 2013 13:42:46 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/bioshock-infinite/user-reviews/811095/platform/ps3/ Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:44:29 -0700 Opnotikis reviewed BioShock Infinite for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/bioshock-infinite/user-reviews/810846/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

Bioshock Infinite is an ambitious story, an innovative story, a strange twisted tale.

Like the previous entries the story the story is such a big part of the Bioshock games that you have to pay close attention or you'll miss a key part and may become confused. In the beginning of the game read all the signs/banners/torn pages it will help setup the mood. Once in the floating city of Colombia, listen to the people and the voxaphones. The voxaphones give you a deeper look into the city, just like the audio logs in Rapture. Also listen to the music that is sung in the game. It will really surprise you which songs are played and how well they work where they are. My personal favorite song is Fortunate Son by CCR. I believe most of the songs show up more then once in the game so if you miss it the first time it may be somewhere else for you. The story would suffer if the game play was not viable.

Now the game play is the same as Bioshock 2. You get to dual wield a gun and vigor, but this time you only get to have 2 guns with you, but you get to have 2 vigors to switch between instead of only one out. The big difference is the sky rail. Boy is that fun, chaotic, and if your scared to heights (Like I am) and little terrifying. But once you get the mechanics down, you should have a blast using it to get around and fight enemies.

Graphics this time are bright, warm and almost a little more terrifying then Rapture. In Rapture you saw the destruction and decay of the city all around you. Here in Columbia you don't see that. What you get thou is a first hand experience of a city crumble around you as it falls apart. It starts off slowly and you don't see much of the city change around you, but then all of a sudden buildings are on fire and destroyed. The city looks amazing as it changes, which makes you feel like you're effecting the city more this time.

The voice acting is well done and really helps the story and game move forward. Nice to have a protagonist say what he is thinking, then just move around the world. And Elizabeth is one of the most useful escort characters I have ever seen. She doesn't just run to a safe spot and hide, she helps you when and if she can, in and out of battle. She'll give you ammo, coins, salts, and health, as well as figure out codes, and pick locks. The conversations between her and Booker feel weighted and meaningful.

The mood in this game starts off in an erie of mystery, with a light house and a quickly written note. Then for a quick moment there is the wonderful feeling of amazement as your get your first look at Columbia. Then just as quickly you start to get a creepy feeling. It could be from anything you're seeing or walking through. That creepy feeling will stay with you the whole game. It may not be front and center but it's still there. You will be in awe of the situations, the sights and sounds of the city, and curious of what is right around the corner or down in the next room. The mood may be ever changing, but that is a good thing. To be in one mood for too long and you start to get comfortable, or unnerved (If this was a horror game). An ever changing mood keeps you off balance and engaged in the world the whole time.

Bioshock Infinite is an ambitious game that does not over reach its self. I always felt like I could understand what was going on in the story line. Even thou I am not a person into Quantum Science. The ending still made sense to me and I was able to get the whole purpose of the tears and the other worlds. In a simple way thought of the film The One with Jet Li. If you know the film then you get the connection. For those of you who have not, the connection is all about the multiple yous and worlds. The key is the brother/sister Lutece and who they are to each other.

So is this game worth playing? I believe so, but I am bias in that I enjoy the series. Is this game for everyone? No, and I will not say that it is. If you're not into FPS games or Dystopia stories that you can skip this game. I enjoyed it and will enjoy it over the years. I hope that more games could have stories that were just as interesting, compelling, and thought provoking.

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"Opnotikis reviewed BioShock Infinite for the Xbox 360..." was posted by Opnotikis on Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:44:29 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/bioshock-infinite/user-reviews/810846/platform/xbox360/ Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:46:48 -0700 clock0 reviewed Sonic Dash for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-dash/user-reviews/810718/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

This is one of the best apps I have ever played.This is a sonic version of temple run but even better then temple run you can chose to play as 4 characters Sonic,Tails,Amy and Knuckles.My favorite character in this game is knuckles but it doesn't matter which character you have because they all do the same moves but it is cool to add different characters to play as.This game is really awesome.What do you get when you put temple run and sonic in a blender? A pretty damn good smoothie.Temple Run + Sonic=A pretty damn awesome game.This is a free app and it is worth getting.If you liked all the temple runs then by all means get this really awesome game.I deleted subway surfer because I had this awesome game to replace it so goodbye subway surfer and hello sonic dash,but I didn't delete temple run because that game is too good to be deleted but this game I will NEVER delete it is just so damn awesome.

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"clock0 reviewed Sonic Dash for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by clock0 on Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:46:48 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-dash/user-reviews/810718/platform/iphone/ Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:14:56 -0700 ad0234 reviewed New Super Mario Bros. U for the Wii U... http://www.gamespot.com/new-super-mario-bros-u/user-reviews/810485/platform/wii-u/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Last year has been a significant one for the New Super Mario Bros series, since Nintendo had released two games of it in that year. That isn't to be said it was a very good one. The earlier one, New Super Mario Bros 2, released on the 3DS, was shoved in during the development of the Wii U version, with young, more inexperienced people working on the game, and one that didn't really succeed all too much, because it was simply too similar to it's predecessors, adding barely any novelty to the series. And then there was New Super Mario Bros U. A game with more significant changes and additions, and simply put, a game that savored more professional work and effort. And New Super Mario Bros U is also the first Mario platformer launch title since Super Mario 64 on the N64. Plus the Wii U needed some fresh, exclusive titles for it's launch, since a lot of the launch games were only ports of games already existing on different platforms. Luckily, New Super Mario Bros U, unlike the 3DS version, has succeed in bringing the series back to a more glamorous shine, even though it isn't that kind of launch title to show off the new console's possibilities and strengths.

--- Presentation ---

Believe it or not, but in New Super Mario Bros U, the story actually gets a little twist. Instead of having Bowser and family kidnapping the Princess and taking her to Bowser's own castle, Bowser this time decides to simply take over Peach's castle, throwing Mario and CO. far, far away from the castle, and now it's up to the heroes to make their way back to the castle and save Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser's mighty plans. In every other game such little twist would have absolutely no impact, but for a Mario game, it's actually quite a nice one.

Actually, it is the twists, the little or not so little twists to the New Super Mario Bros formula, that separate this game from it's predecessors. In a nutshell, New Super Mario Bros U is what you expect, and what you've come to know. You have to make your way through eight different worlds in order to defeat Bowser and save Peach and the Kingdom, each world contains it's own typical theme, you'll always encounter a level count that retains the ca. 8-10 levels per world, and so on.

Making your way back to the castle instead of moving away from it gave the developers an opportunity to give the game another load of novelty they have missed. Since your way to the final stand of Bowser is more the exact opposite direction than it is usual, it would have been more than fitting to have some dramatic shift in world themes and the order of them. Instead, New Super Mario Bros U has pretty much the exact same world themes as well as order like in the previous New Super Mario Bros games. Yet, New Super Mario Bros U gives each world theme a new, little twist to make them feel at least a little different.

And another, much better twist of New Super Mario Bros U: It's the first of the New Super Mario Bros games to contain a big, full featured world map with all the smaller worlds fit into it, making the vibrant and rich world of Mario viewable in a whole. It's smaller worlds are connected great with each other, the path Mario must take through the main worlds takes you everywhere, and the different world themes make for a colorful and detailed world map. Not only does it look beautiful, but it also adds a better sense of an actual adventure happening. During any time you may scroll around the map and take a peak at where the adventure will take you, and adding to the charm, the game tosses a few cut scenes that show what happens to the castle while Mario's on his way to that destination. And one last note: the game's world map also contains extra content such as enemies and powerups wondering around the world map, as well as a few other clever features, including some little by-the-by minigames, and hidden paths that must be found, making the world map part of the fun.

As far as the new features of the Wii U go, New Super Mario Bros U doesn't take that much usage of them. It's the best launch title to show off the off-screen play, but the touchscreen is only used for multiplayer, with some good yet limited use of it, and the visuals do not push the graphical abilities of Nintendo's system at all. Don't get me wrong, though, this isn't counted as a negative.

What does seem like a negative is that it seems like Nintendo took it quite easy with this game and made it themselves quite comfortable. They did put a lot of thought and polish into this game, but you'll also notice that they only did that, what was really necessary. Take the visuals, for example. Seeing the typical New Super Mario Bros visual style shine in HD, with backgrounds finally being 3D and getting lots of depth really is great. Actually, there are multiple beautiful and impressive looking backgrounds here to be admired. However, seeing the game recycling backgrounds for multiple levels is a bit odd. Or take the animations. Seriously, Nintendo took the amount of newly created animations to the possible minimum, making some cutscenes look a bit dated.

However, what's absolutely not acceptable is the soundtrack. It's still heavily the soundtrack from the Wii game, with some more, new tracks than New Super Mario Bros 2 had, but it's still lame having to hear so many tracks from the Wii game a third time. It's reaching a limit where the music just comes soaring out of people's ears right after entering them, and it's pretty frustrating and odd to see that Nintendo was so lazy with the game's soundtrack when considering that Nintendo puts a lot of effort into making good music for most of their games.

--- Gameplay ---

Just as the presentation, New Super Mario Bros U's gameplay is very familiar. Like usual for a 2D platformer game, you guide Mario from left to right, avoiding the usual obstacles while snagging powerups to enlarge your chance of success and coins to collect 1-Ups, which are as easy to become as stomping yet another Goomba. Controls are, weirdly, even better than ever. Mario has all of his typical moves at disposal, and he controls as if you're controlling him with your own thoughts. Level Design in New Super Mario Bros U is even more creative than ever, offering the best levels of the series so far, with some meaty challenge after the first 4 worlds of the game, and the 3 Star Coins in each to find, some of them hidden cleverly, while some other are hard to reach. Not to forget the occasional secret exits that unlock hidden paths among the world map. It's all quite familiar yet all still so fun. And like stated before, it's not as if the game hasn't improved over it's predecessors, since it's got clearly the best level design of all four games. And there is some innovation in the level design; a few new ideas and objects as well as a combination of 2 familiar ideas that haven't been combined within a level before make for some innovation, though not much. The majority of the levels seem rather familiar, just better and more cleverly designed than ever.

It's outside of the level design where the game picks more up in novelty. Baby Yoshi's can be found on the world map which than follow you from level to level, until you die or lose them, granting Mario some unique, new powers. Meanwhile, Nabbit, a totally new character to the Mario Universe, steals Mushrooms from Mushroom houses and hides in specific levels, who you then have to chase down in the level he hides in. A much different, but nice addition is the integration of Miiverse. It lets you state your opinion about levels you've just played, while at the same time let's comments from many different people appear on the world map. It really is these touches that make the game stand out from the other ones and let it feel fresh.

And of course, this game can be experienced, just like the Wii one, with multiple friends among your side. While the main four players still play the same role and characters, a fifth player can join the Mustache-Mushroom fun and create platforms out of thin air, as well as interact with some enemies and platforms. The multiplayer is as fun and chaotic as ever, and definitely a particularly great offering for parties. The addition of a fifth player engaging himself with a kind of god-mode is a nice one, though it's probably not as fun as playing as one of the 4 main characters. It can however be a great help for inexperienced gamers, or a great option for those who aren't very good at platformer games and just want to join the fun fast and easy. Oh, and if you're up for some competitive play, Coin Battle mode is the perfect choice. It's the same as in the Wii game, yet a bit more competitive this time around.

Snagging a copy of New Super Mario Bros U will also mean you'll have quite an impressive amount on content to discover. The lengthy main game is only part of what forms New Super Mario Bros U, as there are also two additional modes, Boost Rush Mode and Challenge Mode. Boost Rush Mode is about mastering side scrolling levels as fast as possible, speeding up the scrolling by collecting coins, which is accessible from one to five players. The real surprise is challenge mode. This mode tosses challenges towards you that rate from one star (fairly challenging) to 5 stars(super-enormous-tough), in which you can get a bronze medal, silver medal or gold medal. Or of course a fail. These challenges take place either in totally new terrains or in levels from the main game, and it's incredibly fun to try to beat each challenge, and succeeding in them is tremendously satisfying. They are also quite varied, and only the fewest are less than good or frustrating.

--- Verdict ---

It's simple: New Super Mario Bros U prefers to deliver an experience not very different from it's predecessors, while at the same time, never falling into the category "predictable". Sure, there are some overly predictable parts in the game. But others, like the sudden appearance of an classic Mario enemy in glorious HD on your TV screen that hasn't been seen since the mighty Super Mario World, or a level with a theme unlike any other level seen before in the New Super Mario Bros series, form some truly great moments of the game. You won't be able to shake off the familiar feel the game has, but these new, little twists make sure you will be getting enough "new" to keep you playing.

In fact, New Super Mario Bros U is without a doubt the best entry into it's series yet, as well as one of the launch titles worth to get for the Wii U. It's level design is always creative and fun, it is an overall challenging and satisfying game with lots of secrets, it's got some cool bosses and a very epic final battle, and, unlike the 3DS version, it's able to separate itself from it's predecessors, with new features and innovations, new, additional modes, in particular challenge mode, that add variety, novelty and more fun content as well as HD graphics with much nicer visuals. It's definitely not a good showcase of the Wii U, and does not present next-generation gaming in any ways, but that isn't a negative at all. What does disturb at some occasions is when you do notice that it could have been more, it could have been grander, as Nintendo did stay relatively save with this title, not taking too many risks (and yes, even in terms of level design that is). But it's still an incredibly enjoyable game that is definitely worth getting.

The Good
+ creative, varied and challenging levels
+ fun and cool boss battles
+ Incredible controls
+ Nice HD visuals
+ a full world map with all the little worlds connected with each other adds to the experience and looks really good
+ new features and other innovations give the game a fresh enough feeling, while still featuring many throwbacks
+ Multiplayer is a blast
+ great use of Miiverse

The Bad
- Recycled music, again
- occasionally predictable
- game lies on the safe side


Review Score: 8.0/10

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"ad0234 reviewed New Super Mario Bros. U for the Wii U..." was posted by ad0234 on Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:14:56 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/new-super-mario-bros-u/user-reviews/810485/platform/wii-u/ Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:12:47 -0700 PHILRYABKIN reviewed The World Ends With You for the DS... http://www.gamespot.com/the-world-ends-with-you/user-reviews/810480/platform/ds/ ...and gave it a 10.0!!!

The World Ends With You has consumed me in so many ways. This game has kept me busy for so many hours and as an RPG and it might just be the best one SquareEnix has ever made. It has a very awesome Risk Reward type system with gameplay that seems so fresh it always keeps you coming back for more. Now the story is that there is a Seven Day period game known as the UG in the area of Shibuya,Tokyo. Now you play as Neku Sakuraba who is an anti-social teenager who just doesn't get people and seems to hate them. However as his life was taken from him and he's forced to enter into the game he has to learn to trust his partners or he won't make it out alive. Now The World Ends With You has some awesome gameplay functions. Using the Touch Screen of the DS you use it to attack your enemies by doing a different variety of functions. Which could include slashing, dragging the Stylus, Focusing on the enemy, Blowing into the Microphone and much more. By equipping different abilities by using your pins you can find a gameplay style that suits you right and it always keeps the game fresh and engaging. Your partner can also do attacks and you can command them by using either the Face buttons or D-Pad. It all works out really well and it has a really addictive gameplay premise with the simple aspects of Kingdom Hearts and the style of Devil May Cry. With Challenging bosses thrown in and a couple of unique enemies for good use as well. You will also encounter some unique characters along the way. Such as Shiki Misaki who is your first partner who just wants to help Neku and see things to the end. The smart guy Joshua who helps you along halfway through the game and is really powerful, Sho Minamimoto who is a crazy boss who goes against the rules but is a super smart Math genius, Beat who might seem like a idiot and a pretty unfriendly guy at first hand. But when he gets down to business he really helps out in the end and cares about all of his friends. Overall the characters are really unique and they really add to the game. You can also go around Shibuya to explore the area. Such as Buying stuff to equip for your character like clothes or accessories for stat boosts. Eating Food to increase your Attack, Defense and ect. You can also read people's mind in the game to find areas of interest, Facts, Funny stuff which add to the game. The music is also really awesome with an awesome mix of Japanese Techno, Rock, Electronic and Rap. The soundtrack is fresh and unique which adds style to the game. The graphics are also really awesome with an anime inspired Art style, Manga Based Text boxes and the really unique design of the game's version of Shibuya. Overall The World Ends With You is an awesome RPG experience that shouldn't be missed. It's a really fresh take on the RPG genre and it's a game that will keep you busy from time to time overall.

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"PHILRYABKIN reviewed The World Ends With You for the DS..." was posted by PHILRYABKIN on Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:12:47 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-world-ends-with-you/user-reviews/810480/platform/ds/ Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:47:10 -0700 Steel_Rain777 reviewed The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct/user-reviews/809559/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 3.0.

Did anyone really think a game in development for 10 months by Activision based off a popular TV series would actually deliver? No. Not really. I was instantly skeptic. Being a fan of the The Walking Dead TV series as well as the comics it's based off, I was cautious the minute I heard the yearly update publishers of Call of Duty had a hand in this. But then I recalled Tell Tale's excellent Walking Dead episodic iteration of the lore, so I thought maybe they would surprise all of us TWD fans, especially with the fact that it told the prequel story of the pre-Atlanta events, with the Dixon brothers at the wheel. Sadly, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is neither original or fun. Instead it tells a dull paper thin story, with bland graphics, boring game play, and ideas that look good on paper but are poorly implemented.

The story starts off with you playing Dixon Senor who quickly gets ambushed by zombies during a deer hunt gone bad. Daryl quickly enters the scene and is tasked with putting his father out of his misery, but can't. Afterwards you take control of Daryl who decides it's time to find his brother Merle, who is known as the black sheep of the family. And, that's pretty much it. The story really doesn't give any room for development as you travel from spot to spot scavenging for supplies and looking for Merle.Once you find him you then get tasked with some weird, uninspired tasks, like setting off fireworks in a church or going back to Merle's old hangout to get his stash. Here's the big issue with the story itself, Merle is barely with you. You never see him helping you out or even by your side and once you find him you quickly lose him and gain another partner. The only times you have any communication with him is during cut-scenes or through radio calls where he says non-sensical jibberish over the mic. It just makes no sense. When it's all said and done the game ends abruptly in the second worst ending I've had to experience this year. That crown has been given to Aliens: Colonial Marines. The only redeeming quality of both the story and dialogue is Michael Rooker and Norman Reedus supply great voice work for Merle and Daryl, but that's like saying the bright side of being hit by a car is that you found $10 where your head smashed the pavement.

The game itself has an interesting way of approaching your next objectives. You start off with a truck and you can find different vehicles that carry more supplies and survivors. Once a mission has been completed you choose your next destination and your method of getting there. You can take the back roads which waste more gas, but have more opportunities to find scavenge locations. Taking the highway gets you to your destination faster but you have a higher chance of your car breaking down. Scavenge locations though are recycled too often with slight variants such as it being night time or starting on the south side instead of the north, making scavenge missions boring. Pretty lazy design choice. Sadly the means of traveling are not without flaw. Sometimes you'll waste fuel taking a back road if during the traveling screen there is dialogue. In a nutshell, all the instance where your car breaks down or you have the chance to scavenge is all scripted. I took the highway once and I managed to have my car pop a tire, need a new battery and I needed to move some cars out of the way. Then I took the back roads to get supplies, lo and behold we did not stop cause the scripted dialogue started, causing me to waste a ton of gas.

That's pretty much all the ingenuity given in this game. Levels look bland and static. Except for a blood stain and a destroyed fence or wall here and there, everything looks boring. Walker models are used extremely often except for a suit and tie or shirtless variant. You'll often revisit similar locations even though you drove 40 miles from said location. Aside from the few walker jump scares peppered around, you'll quickly see the developers gave no thought in smartly placing your enemies. If you're about to cross a threshold or door, chances are there is a walker to your left. It gets old quick.

The gameplay itself, for lack of better word, is boring and exploitable, even with interesting ideas that, if properly fleshed out, could have slightly made this game more fun. The main focus of the game is having to forage for supplies to heal yourself or keep your car fueled up, and at first it gives that challenge, but about 35 percent it become remarkably easy to find healing items. When you run out of fuel during travel, you can find a half-a-tank's worth of gas with little resistance. Bullets didn't seem to rare either, and having the ability to re-use crossbow bolts pretty much gives us infinite ammo with a silenced, one-shot kill weapon. Walkers barely react to your movements, unless your sprinting and sweating up the place or shooting firearms.

I was surprised at the amount of weapons available to you but you will probably only use melee and the crossbow for your entire adventure.
Shooting weapons alerts walkers to your immediate area making normally easy access areas a little more difficult. I'm not knocking this based off difficulty but just the sheer idiocy of the zombies. Yeah we know zombies aren't really capable of thinking clearly or making huge assessments of situations, but when they walk past you or start attacking fences and not you, something is wrong. Also being crowded by walkers isn't really too much of threat if not for two exploits you can use. The first, being that if you climb anything slightly high such as a table or car, walkers will never reach you. You can proceed to jump over them and run to wherever you need to go or use a long reach weapon and kill them. Second, let's say you are grabbed by a zombie and have 15 more surrounding you. Game over, right? Not necessarily. Once grabbed by a walker you are instantly thrusted into a mini-game stab fest where you have to line up your knife to a walker's kill spot: the head. Once you drop one you instantly get grabbed again and have to do this again. I kid you not, this is easy to master and I wiped out a horde of twenty walkers with 30% health loss for the entire encounter. Who knew surviving with a knife would be so easy? If you decide to take the recommended "silent" approach to all situations be prepared for a button prompt to pop up on the screen to instantly drop an unsuspecting walker. If you have the misfortune to have to tackle one mash the attack button and you'll kill it with 3 or 4 swipes. Amazing.

Throughout your bland and boring walker disposal quest, you stumble upon different people who ask for your help. Nothing of great variation to the tasks they need help with, just typical "fetch-questing" at its finest. The nice thing is that you can choose to ignore or help them. Sadly this doesn't alter or change the story. If you decide to help them, they will most likely join you and provide aid to you in future missions. Before starting a new area you can give your survivors different scavenge tasks to find ammo, fuel, or food and at the end of the level it shows what they brought back. Another idea that sounds good on paper but is broken. Even with the ability to equip them with weapons and "low risk" parameters in the stage, they always manage to come back nearly dead and only bringing back two pistol bullets, or 1 fuel, or 1 healing item that you will most likely use on their nearly dead selves. It makes you wonder just what in the hell where they doing out there. You never see them during the mission. I started commanding them to stay behind cause it's not too hard to find 1 bullet or 1 fuel. The survivor-forage mechanic is an interesting one and would have been amazing with co-op gameplay or a better fleshed out mechanic.

The game took me about 7 hours to complete. The first half of the game I stopped to scavenge and tried to help all the survivors but I knew it didn't matter and nothing changed they either died later or just left you. So, technically your play through can be different than the first. During level selection, there are times where there are two destinations, so on your next playthrough you can see who stumble upon. But seriously why would you play this a second time

Now probably the hugest over-sight of the decade is the lack of any replay beyond playing the dull campaign again to find all the survivors. No co-op or multiplayer is present in this game. A game about the Dixon BROTHERS, as in more than one, plural not singular, and it only has single-player. Terminal Reality said they wanted to focus on the story. What story? There is no story here, or least not one worth telling. The game has some pretty worthless collectibles you can find such as squirrel statues and portraits of random people, whom I'm assuming are the developers. There is no trophy viewer in the game so who knows who they're supposed to be. You also unlock different relics such as silenced weapons are starting with an assault rifle or the crossbow. Basically making the game easier than it already is.

The Walking Dead: Survivor Instinct brings interesting concepts to the table, but all that remains in the end, are concepts. It does nothing for fans of the show and comics, nor does it do anything for the zombie genre. Yet there are those who defend this game, and that worries me. How can people be so narrow-minded to not see this game's glaring flaws. This game is nothing more than a cash-in from Activision, and people buy into it and more and more games of this low caliber are allowed to be released, because people are dumb enough to support it. I only recommend if you absolutely love the series, slightly hate yourself, have lowered your expectations to near nothing, and have nothing else to rent. I'm glad I rented this, even with it being 10 dollars less than the normal asking price for games, I cannot forgive this game. With a poor story, horrible ending, lack of co-op/multiplayer weak and boring gameplay, bland graphics and poorly implemented survival mechanics, It's near impossible to recommend this title to anyone. This should have been and Xbox Live Arcade or PSN Title at $15 cause at $50 it's highway robbery.

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]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct/user-reviews/809559/platform/xbox360/ Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:37:57 -0700 clock0 reviewed Temple Run: Oz for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/temple-run-oz/user-reviews/809547/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

This game is a great game in the temple run series.It has all new stages and powerups.If you liked temple run 2 then you will really enjoy this game.This game is 0.99$ in the app store this is worth buying because it is fun and it will get you going for awhile.This game is the better then temple run 2 because it has better powerups and new and better improved techniques.This is like temple run brave but even more better.This is basically a 2nd version of temple run 2.If you are a big temple run fan then b all means you should really buy this game.Though in this game you can only use one character.This has 2 stages to play at. 1.The woods 2.The Dark forest.This is the best temple run game as of now.If you liked the first 3 Temple Runs then you will for sure like this version of temple run.

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"clock0 reviewed Temple Run: Oz for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by clock0 on Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:37:57 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/temple-run-oz/user-reviews/809547/platform/iphone/ Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:17:52 -0700 PHILRYABKIN reviewed Resident Evil 6 for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/resident-evil-6/user-reviews/809511/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 6.0.

Resident Evil 6 is a perfect example of when a series shows that it tries to add as much content as possible to the game, But in the end sometimes the quality doesn't always show up. It proves that sometimes more content in a game doesn't make it the best game ever made. With sometimes way too much action in some sections and not enough horror in the others. Granted their is some enjoyment to be had with Resident Evil 6 in some form, But there are some questionable design choices and gameplay elements that should have gotten a check overall. Now the story is that the C-Virus has spread all across the world. Now a group of Bio-Terrorist organizations have been sent to deal with the virus and try to end the Infections. Which include Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield and newcomer Jake Muller who have been sent to deal with the issues. Now their are 3 initial playable scenarios with 1 unlockable after you beat the first 3. Now Leon's gameplay might have the best experience in the whole game. His gameplay is very remenisance of Resident Evil 4 with his behind the shoulder shooting and some survival here and there with the occasional boss. The controls are what you expected it to be if you played RE4 as well. It's really fun and it keeps everything going by well. He's also got a few small quick time events here and there but there not fully overused with an occasional puzzle as well. However it goes down when we get to the gameplay of Chris. It plays like a 3rd Person shooter like Gears of War but the controls are so bad and unresponsive. Chris feels like a tank when he moves and it doesn't get any better. The shooting is very shoddy and it never has any impact. The quick time events really get annoying in this section and it boggles down the experience. It really begins to get quite tedious as time goes. However their is some fun to be had with controlling the vehicles but the lack of scares is quite depressing as well. Jake's gameplay is no better then Chris as well. He has way more action set pieces which include escaping helicopters or Nemesis type enemies. It's fun at first but then it really begins to boggle down when you expect it to happen. The quick time events once again are terribly overused and the shooting feels very shoddy. It's really not that fun once again and it begins to show just how tedious it is once again. The Co-Op in the game makes things a lot more enjoyable overall and it's recommended. The competitive multiplayer is quite terrible as well. It's like Left 4 Dead versus style but controlling the infected is quite hard and the Human Survivors will have an advantage most of the time. Overall Resident Evil 6 is a mixed bag. Leon's campaign show's where most of the effort went to gameplay wise. Chris and Jake feel very lackluster and the multiplayer needed some work. Give it a rent to see if you really like it. But otherwise it's really disappointing to see that style and action presentation went over the quality gameplay the Resident Evil series is known for.

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"PHILRYABKIN reviewed Resident Evil 6 for the Xbox 360..." was posted by PHILRYABKIN on Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:17:52 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/resident-evil-6/user-reviews/809511/platform/xbox360/ Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:44:49 -0700 ad0234 reviewed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/user-reviews/809408/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

I still remember the first time I started Skyrim on my PC as one of the first PC games I had bought. Quite some time has past by since I've done that. But no wonder, after being astound by the visuals, I found out what was so amazing about Skyrim: I had never seen such a huge world within a video game before. After the introduction and first few hours with the game I knew I wouldn't regret the purchase of Skyrim.

---Presentation---

Skyrim gets a lot right, that's for sure. For one, the story is very entertaining and quite gripping. You play a character who was accidentally accused by the empire, which rules Skyrim, for belonging to the enemy (there's a war between the empire and rebels) and is supposed to lose his head. He/she gets saved by an sudden attack of a dragon, a creature that is actually said to be extinct, since the chaos the dragon causes gives him/her the chance to flee with the help of some other people. During the story you'll find out that the Dragons are back to take over Skyrim, and as it comes your character is the only one able to stop the evil dragons from mischievous plans. It's an exciting story that evolves in a good pace.

Of course, the main story is only the core foundation of what is to happen in this game. Along your way, choices you make affect the story a lot. Actually, you are the one who can decide how the story shall go on. While the main story will end the way it is supposed to end eventually, you may decide how your relation ship to different people are, are able to make crucial decisions that make one group of people to your friends, and another to your foes. And of course, you may decide whether you'd like to be on the good side, or the bad side. You even decide if you want to become a warrior, magician or even a thief. Skyrim has a lot of freedom where you self are able to decide what kind of person your character is, and are able to create your own story. With that said, while it is nice to be able to make such big decisions, the consequences of a few of the little decisions aren't always fitting. The majority yes, but sometimes the consequences of decisions you make are quite incomprehensible. Other times it also felt like the developers had squeezed in one or two too many different decisions to make, when multiple decisions had the same consequence, even though they were two quite different decisions made.

Another reason why Skyrim is gorgeous are the beautiful visuals. The many landscapes of Skyrim are beautiful to have a sight of. There's an incredible amount of details in the world of Skyrim, which can be considered surprising since Skyrim is so huge. Textures are also mostly good, though taking a close look at some objects might end with some unpleasant pictures. Despite some rather muddy looking objects, it's still an outstanding looking game. The same can't be said about the soundtrack. It contains some great tracks, but not very many memorable tracks. Actually there isn't a hell of a lot of music appearing in the game, a lot of the time there isn't any music at all to be heard, and it seems quite random when the music does appear, which does make for some unfitting moments of when the music suddenly starts to play again.

By all means though, what really makes Skyrim so special is that it presents us such an lively, beautiful and exciting world to explore. The world brims of charm, the game represents so many different areas, among them very different kingdoms, so many different characters with personality and other life; it really is amazing what Bethesda has done with Skyrim. They have put so much effort into this game to really give you the feel you're exploring a real, huge world. Not unexpected, but unfortunately, there are quite some glitches and other issues that hold the world of Skyrim back at times. The misleading consequences are only the beginning of many little annoyances that ruin the immersion of Skyrim's world at times. Glitches like getting stuck in environments aren't too common, but they do happen. I don't know about you, but I do perceive it as darn strange when a Mammoth suddenly takes off into the air and lands safe short after the take off. Also, while many people in the game have quite some personality to them, I did encounter people who all shared the same sentences. Which isn't really anything bad, though it also seems very weird when over twenty guardians all seemingly have a cousin who is allowed to fight dragons, meanwhile they have to do their generic, average job as guard. Well maybe they all share the same cousin, an unlikely but still possible solution. Another situation that bothered me quite a bit was the one time where an old lady had died and was lying in the middle of a street. After I had once left and then come back, the lady was still lying there. But the stupid part is still to follow: Whenever a guard who walked along the pathway came along the dead body, he said something like "oh geez, what happened here", knelt down, then stood up again and walked further on. After turning back and coming along the dead body, he did the same thing again. The chances you notice something like that isn't high, but if you do, it really does ruin a bit of the immersion of the world for you. The same goes for dead Dragon bodies, that like to lie in the middle of a way quite some time. Sure, this doesn't have to be unrealistic, but when people suddenly walk through the bones and pretend their isn't anything lying in the way, you do get an awkward impression.

---Gameplay---

Despite my complaints about the presentation of the game, it's still outstanding in general. The same goes for the Gameplay. Right from the beginning you'll be involved in some great action, with battles that look and play great. The main Gameplay aspect of Skyrim is simply traveling through the world and finding all the different areas, always finding more and more content as if it seems that the game does not know what an ending means. And in actual, it doesn't. There are so many different places to find, and so many different missions to complete, that I hardly believe anybody really is able to complete the game with a 100 %. And even if you do have found all locations throughout the whole entire world of Skyrim (which, again, is very unlikely), there are still the many different attributes of your character that you can always improve until there isn't any more to improve. And I'm sure there will always be some foes to have a fight against.

Of course, the game would probably wear out sometime. The main reason why Bethesda had put so much work into creating a world as huge as the one in Skyrim isn't because they expected their player's to explore every single spot in the world, but that players get the feeling their adventure is taking place in what could be a real world, which also leads to even more motivation exploring at least a part of the present world. And it really works. Whenever I come across yet another cave leading into the undergrounds, it's hard to resist for me not to take a peak into the cave. And mostly it ends with me going through the whole cave, beating the baddies that get in my way and coming out with yet another completed mini-adventure that might even be very likely a part of an mission you don't even know about yet. And it's always good to find more and more places since you can fast-travel to any of these places whenever you need to. Also, seeing always more places popping up on your huge overworld map is quite satisfying.

The amount of missions is just as mind-boggling. Granted, I don't know how many there are in numbers, but I know there are a lot. I've got many on my "to do" list, I have done already a lot, and I'm absolutely sure I haven't even seen a quarter of the missions in Skyrim. The missions are also very varied. Find someone or something, bring an object to a specific place or clear off a cage from all monsters in it, these missions are varied enough and most of them are entertaining, at least the ones I've played. The game also always indicates where exactly to go to complete the mission, which guarantees that you won't be stuck on missions because you don't know where to go. That is, except when a glitch appears that let's the arrow disappear, which should normally indicate where to go: then you've got a problem. Luckily, this glitch is a very rare one.

Of course you've got the freedom and can mostly decide which mission you want to do and which not, except the missions that are required for the story mode and other missions that are part of another type of a adventure you choose to take. The freedom of the game really is an awesome part of the game. For instance: you get to make the crucial decision whether to become a magician, thief or warrior. To become a magician for example, you'll have to visit the magic academy, which will then start a kind of totally new adventure for you, that's totally separate from the main adventure, which will then confront you with many more, new missions that become mandatory if you want to end that adventure as well. It really is fun to decide what your character shall become, and to create your own story of your own character.

One thing I didn't talk about yet is the combat: a very important aspect of the game. And it's fun generally. There are tons of different weapons, armor and other spells you can learn to help you in battles (you've guessed it, you can even make your own weapons and armor), and it's really fun using the many different attacks against your enemies, finding out which one's are the best. And combat is quite satisfying as well. No matter with what you battle your enemy, seeing him finally fall is pretty satisfying, especially when special death-scenes occur. Just watch out, as you never know if you're already powerful enough to battle against a specific enemy, or not. It probably won't always end good. Combat isn't masterful though. Without a lock-on system, it's easy to miss your enemy when in a steamy fight, which can make up for some briefly frustrating moments. What really can get a little frustrating however is when you slash right through an enemy and he doesn't take any damage. Doesn't happen too often, but the collision-system isn't always precise.

If there's anything I really have to complain about the gameplay, than it is the check point system. Since there isn't anyone, actually. The game saves automatically whenever you enter an area, house, cave or whatever. But otherwise, there's no automatic saving. Sure, I know, a proper check point system wouldn't be easy to do in a game like Skyrim, but always having to think of saving the game yourself can become a tiny bit annoying, and maybe even interrupt the gameplay a little bit. The real problem of this is simply that whenever you die, you get sent back to your last saving point. And if you have forgotten to save during a long period of time, you might just have to replay a whole lot you had played before. It happened to me once or twice and it wasn't a nice experience. Not at all.

---Verdict---

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an exceptional game. Exceptional when it comes to size, freedom, imagination and design. The main story will lead you through many exciting locations and moments, and it's only one little fraction of what is to be found in the game. But instead of just squeezing in a lot of content into a game without giving it a lot of thought and attention, most of what is to experience in Skyrim is a simple joy, with incredibly lots of content and lots to do, may it be exploring the huge world or trying to pump your many different attributes, and the game makes sure that the game still has a lot of content to be discovered after you finally get tired of the game. Put all remaining issues together in one game that mar Skyrim and you will be confronted with some of Skyrim's weaker moments not too rarely, but compare it with all the positives in the game that deserve to be mentioned, and the issues of the game seem undeniable tiny. No matter how long you expect the game to entertain, you'll be satisfied in the end. It is an everlasting game.

The Good
+ An absolutely gigantic, lively and gripping world that will always have much more content to be discovered than you plan on to discover
+ Huge number of missions with lots of variety, most of them entertaining
+ Beautiful visuals
+ Good main adventure that should keep you hooked until the end
+ A lot of freedom that lets you create your own story of your character
+ satisfying combat with many, many different fighting options
+ Overload on content that you will most likely never ever experience totally

The Bad
- technical problems and other weird moments ruin a bit of the immersion Skyrim's world creates
- automatic saving system barely even exists

Review Score: 9.0

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"ad0234 reviewed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for the PC..." was posted by ad0234 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:44:49 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/user-reviews/809408/platform/pc/ Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:41:21 -0800 clock0 reviewed Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for iPad for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/ultimate-mortal-kombat-3-for-ipad/user-reviews/808588/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Mortal kombat 3 in your hands is a very great idea for true mortal kombat fans.If you like Mortal kombat 3 then you will love this game and you will love it even more now that you know you can play it on the go.This is not the best Mortal kombat game but this is a very great mortal kombat game now in your hands.I would prefer this over Mortal kombat advanced on the Gameboy advanced.This game is touch controls so the controls might be frustrating to some people but im not complaining about it.This game has a decent amount of characters and a nice list of fatalites.This game allows you to play mortal kombat 3 anywhere and at anytime.This is a nice classic on the go.If you played Mortal kombat in the past then this game will bring you down memory lane.Score 7.0 out of 10.Thanks for reading my review of Mortal Kombat 3 on the iPad,iPhone and iPod touch.

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"clock0 reviewed Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for iPad for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by clock0 on Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:41:21 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/ultimate-mortal-kombat-3-for-ipad/user-reviews/808588/platform/iphone/ Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:23:12 -0800 adit942 reviewed Tomb Raider for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider/user-reviews/808528/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

It's actually risky to reboot an iconic character. Not only do you need to bring fresh ideas, but to make sure that he character still has those traits that make the character memorable in the first place. Ninja Theory's Devil May Cry tried to reboot the Character of Dante with mixed results. Now Crystal Dynamics attempts to reboot Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

For the first time in 17 years, Lara feels like a real person. She is unsure of herself, cares for others, and feels pain as the events of the game pans out. Very few games allow having the character abused as much as Lara has. Past games from the series have Lara escape death, and she doesn't even have a scratch. Not even Nathan Drake gets a cut. You see the damage Lara gets throughout the game. Not only does Lara get through a blender, but we feel her pain as well.

The game more or less begins with her dropping straight onto a conveniently place piece of rebar and getting pierced through the side. I consider myself to largely desensitized to awful things on the internet and video games, but at a certain point in the game, even I felt the latest bone crunching drop onto the unforgiving ground was a bit excessive.

Whether that is considered a success in terms of creating a connection between game and player or gratuitous character abuse is something I haven't decided yet, but either way, it was effective.

The set pieces are a sight to be seen, it even rivals that of the Uncharted series. From escaping from a burning building to parachuting down a tree infested mountain side. Her will to survive allows her to come back stronger than ever. By the end of the game, Lara Croft has never been this bad ass. There is not a lot of weapons to choose from, but the weapons you do get you will use. There is not a weapon you will not use. There are ways to upgrade your weapons and deal out more damage.

Lara begins with nothing and over the course of the game, collects and upgrades all her equipment to further aid the attempt at a gentler, more believable path from defenseless victim to feared killing machine.Finding salvage and weapon parts will maximize your weapons. Finding relics, journals, and GPS caches will give you experience to upgrade yourself, by the end of the game, you can deal melee damage.

The combat is fast and exciting; the game is challenging, but never frustrating. Each fight that comes with it feels hefty and real. Each bullet and arrow that flies passed your head feels earned.The combat in Tomb Raider successfully makes almost all of your weapons feel useful. At its best, you are fluidly switching between them depending on the enemy and situation, and it feels comfortable, effective, and satisfying. I preferred to use the bow as much as possible because, despite being more or less the same as firing a gun, it feels just different enough to be a nice change of pace. It is also the weapon that allows for a stealth approach to the game, which I prefer to the hide behind waist high cover corridor shootouts that the game degenerates into once you break stealth. It's a thrilling experience that most games strive for. The light stealth is excellent and very satisfying. You can complete full section using only stealth. Cover is the best around. When enemies are nearby, Lara will cover down automatically and it has a sense of realism. No button is needed. The enemies will do the same. They will flank you or rush you and it never feels old.

As you progress through the game, you will come across tombs. There is not as much as I hoped for, but they do allow a mixture among action and puzzles. There is a focus mode called Survival Instinct, but a part of finding the way point, I hardly used it. The Survival Instinct provides the pieces to the puzzle, not the solution. In the game you can explore the whole island. While the game is leaner, it doesn't feel like it with its many places to find. Moving around is fast and fun while using the pick axe is a blast to do. Lara movies as you would expect someone will do, if she trips her body will have a response to it. Lara Croft's story to protégé to Survivor is an interesting one; it's not about looking for tombs, but her will to survive.

The side characters are not the most fleshed out, but they are interesting. The parallel between Lara and Mathias is interesting and the focus point of the game. As one goes mad with the will to survive, the other finds themselves stronger than ever. What helps this new Lara is the new actress playing her. I hope that we see more of her as Lara in the future. This is a rare game where the guns have power behind them. The game is not the most detailed, but it still looks great.

No game is perfect , There are some unbelievable flat stereotypes in the main cast. There are absurd moments that are presented as emotionally resounding yet fall flat due to these hammy characters. What the game calls "archaeology," is generally closer to looting or antiquities hunting. It's a travesty that flies in the face of peer review and I am disgusted! lol jk, obviously they can't put real science in, but 75% of the exposition in this game has the feel of being dumbed down from some hypothetically cooler or more intense concept. Would it hurt to portray real intelligence in characters that are supposed to be smart? It's hard not to root for Lara though, when she's doing the dirty work only to get blamed at by her friends, her mentor is an eternal skeptic who might be probably evil, and her quaint passion for a controversial archaeological venture that would raise an eyebrow of all but the most dubious of naked archaeologists.

Anyway enough bs. Just Play it.

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"adit942 reviewed Tomb Raider for the PC..." was posted by adit942 on Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:23:12 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/tomb-raider/user-reviews/808528/platform/pc/ Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:34:41 -0800 clock0 reviewed Subway Surfers for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/subway-surfers/user-reviews/807559/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Some might call this a copy of temple run but I find it really great and not much of a copy of temple run.I find temple run better then this but this game is still a very great rocking game.This game is used with your fingers and may slow down sometimes but it still it a great and addictive game to play.This game has a lot of great stuff in it.This is a free game on the app store this game's new update makes the game even better this game has been fixed with all of its slowing down it use to have but now that is all fixed.This game is good and is a very great passable game on the iPod/iPhone or any other device that this game is on.You will not be disappointed when you get this rocking game it is great and deserves at least a 7.0 out of 10.This game has all the things you need in it.You should really get this game because hey it free and is a very fun and addictive game to play.

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"clock0 reviewed Subway Surfers for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by clock0 on Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:34:41 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/subway-surfers/user-reviews/807559/platform/iphone/ Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:18:02 -0800 Steel_Rain777 reviewed Aliens: Colonial Marines for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/aliens-colonial-marines/user-reviews/807543/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 4.0.

The Aliens franchise is well known and vastly loved across many mediums. From the movies to comics, and At one point the video games as well. Sadly, video game and Aliens fans alike have not received a great game in the franchise since 2001's Aliens vs. Predator 2. Three years ago AvP was released, and I gave it a slightly above average score, but after playing Aliens: Colonial Marines, I feel I was way to harsh on Rebellions's iteration. What Gearbox and Sega have done here is on the brink of deplorable and near-suspicious "cash-cow" of the franchise. A:CM barely ever feels like the source-material it's trying to portray, but instead becomes a short-romp of mediocrity and false identity.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this review, I want to briefly discuss what Aliens: Colonial Marines went through for it to finally release. I didn't follow this games crazy 6+ year development cycle like many others did. I'm a big fan of Aliens, but not a true die-hard like many people I know. I remember, though, seeing a cover story of an Aliens-based game titled "Aliens:Colonial Marines". We were all happy with the two Aliens vs Predator games before, but it always felt like the true focus was obviously on the xenomorph and predator campaigns. A:CM was an entirely different approach, and wanted the focus to be on the marines. Was it going to take place on LV-426? Is it an unoffical sequel? Was it an entirely new story? would it be canon? A lot of questions but little answers. Trust me I was intrigued from the get-go. Sadly about a year later, many sources claimed that A:CM was in development "limbo" and no one knew if it would ever see the light of day. Of course, that wasn't the case here. As more and more screens and demos of the game started to surface, everyone was excited, especially At E3 2011, where Gearbox showed off what looked to be an amazing game. This demo video is circling the internet now more than ever. Why? Because absolutely nothing from that near two-year old demo is in the final product. It was a slap to the face of consumers and fans by Gearbox, we want that game Randy Pitchford(President of Gearbox), what happened?

What are we treated with them? A poorly done game that was outsourced to multiple developers to meet a release date. How can someone develop a game based off the Aliens franchise and make it so boring? You play as Corporal Christopher Winter and along with other marines, who have literally no character, you answer the call from a distress call placed by none other than Corporal Hicks. You jump aboard the U.S.S Sulaco and from their ensues your bland adventure against Xenomorphs and..Weyland-Yutani mercenaries?

You read right, mercenaries. Guys with guns. Why am I fighting mercs in an Aliens game? Did they not have enough faith in their own product, that they had to throw in some grunts with guns to appease shooter fans? No, they didn't. There was a huge following for this game from the get-go. Everyone, myself included could not wait for it's early 2013 release. I'm sure not one person said, "If there are no soldiers to shoot in this game, it's a no sale for me." I'm quite sure there wasn't, and if there was, they should be arrested. Basically these mercenaries are thrown at you right out of the gate, and in that moment you know this will be another "Weyland-Yutani-is-an-evil-corporation" schtick of a story again. There goes any preconceived notion of a good, original story prior to playing. It's bad enough they're a threat to you so early on, but it's even worse that they encompass near 50 percent of the game. 50 percent. In a game about ALIENS! There's something very wrong here. You fight Xenos in about 1/3 of the game, the other 1/3 is mercenaries, and the last part has you fighting both. I just can't fathom what they were thinking when they made this design choice, it pains me. If I want my game littered with mindless soldiers I'll play Call of Duty or Battlefield.

As stated, from the get-go you know Weyland-Yutani is involved in this, no surprise but the story is further enforced with an unlikable cast of characters. You just don't care for these people and their issues. You, as Corporal Winters, are your typical "Straight-as-an-arrow" boring protagonist taking orders and being accompanied by 2-3 other bland characters. Most of the time you and your partner O'neil are solo, and boy is O'neil just an unlikable character. From his dumb dialog to his A.I. you wish you were by yourself the entire time. The game has a twist in its story though, not a good one by any means. You find out there is a prisoner held hostage by We-Yu, Not to ruin anything, but when it happens and you see who it is, and their literal "one-liner" on how they were captured, you want to punch the screen. And then there is the Boss "encounter" at the end. I use quotations because it's a two-minute bout of flipping some switches and watching a cut-scene and then the credits. By the end of the short campaign the game literally just ends. I cringed at the terrible and sudden ending. It pains me to say that this is now Canon to the franchise and I wish it wasn't. I can't imagine what's going to happen if a sequel is made, if it follows this same story-arc.

The game plays out like your typical FPS, go from point a to point b, activate some switch, hold a standoff of either mercanaries or xenos, rinse and repeat. The game play itself just suffers immensely, it neither feels like a survivor-horror or Aliens game, and this is my biggest gripe with the game. The xenos have some of the dumbest artificial intelligence. The don't flank or surprise, they literally walk up to you and try to slap you. That's it. I wish I was lying but it's true. You have your motion tracker, and it'll will show an alien above or below, or you will physically see one crawling on a wall or the ceiling, but they jump down and clearly walk up to you to hit you. One section had a bit of broken fence and the aliens came flooding out, single-file, waiting to get blasted by my pulse rifle. I kid you not, I stood there for 5 minutes, and killed every single one from their point of origin. If that's bad enough I even saw instances where xenos would attack the air or remain completely still. Did they not watch the movie this is based on, while developing this game? Not only that, but ammo, armor and health are peppered throughout the campaign, which takes away the survivor aspect right there. And to even further take away any semblance of peril, whenever a xeno gets to close just melee them. Easy as that. Melee them enough times and they may just die or you'll automatically pull out your pistol and shoot them in the face not suffering from acid burns. But of course it doesn't end there. It has been confirmed that during the alien segments you can just sprint to the next check point and Ta-da you're safe. You can seal doors sometimes or close them behind you but you don't ever have to. The only time and alien will attack from behind is if they're in your face and you turn your back on them. In my play-through I saw Xenos walk from behind me to my front, turn to face me, then attack. This is only cemented by heavily-scripted set pieces, if you have to reload a checkpoint for any reason, aliens will attack from the exact same direction. So much for the dynamic a.i. we were promised. There is however, one section of the game where you are captured and stripped of your weapons and you have to make it back to your gear solely using stealth. This part was probably the only small glimmer in the entire game. It doles out suspense as you try to quietly sneak by a new alien-type, the husk, who are blind but react to sound and instantly combust if they feel a threat is near. Here is the only time I felt they sort of captured that fear we were craving, but sadly it's nowhere near enough. I had to stress why game play is so important in a game like this, but here it's just tossed out the window.

Enemy a.i. isn't the only type that's terrible, but so are your npc tag-alongs. Your annoying buddy, O'neil refuses to shoot things directly in front of him and will sometimes run off way ahead of you, stand completely still, sometimes right in your way, hindering your progress, and even get stuck on a wall for two minutes. When your partners do actually shoot something it's like they have airsoft guns. O'Neil's smart gun would literally hit and enemy 40 times, showing their blood splatter out, but they don't go down. It wasn't until I shot them once or twice with a pistol that they died, basically leaving me to be the janitor throughout. I recommend playing on Hard from the get-go or even Ultimate Bad-Ass, the game's hardest difficulty. I also recommend playing with a co-op buddy, if you have one willing to suffer with you. It makes things less annoying, but it feels tacked-on. Gearbox stated that Four-player cooperative was a big emphasis during development, I figures maybe we can be different classes or have different roles, kind of like Borderlands. You know, the game you guys make that doesn't suck. But what's here is just you and 3 other clone characters suffering together. No strategy needed just shoot anything that moves.

Your arsenal is one of the few things that makes you remember you're playing an Aliens franchised game. The Pulse Rifle looks and sounds the part, and was one of my favorites throughout the campaign's entirety. The other weapons weren't in the universe, but they made them look like they could've been. It's a small strong point, but not much. The smart-gun is awesome to use, as always, but you only get to use it twice in the entire game, Ouch. The main problem however, is that you basically have your entire arsenal at the ready. You can equip two weapons and a sidearm, plus a grenade to switch to quickly, but whenever you want, you have access to your entire armory pretty much whenever and you can change your quick loadouts. In the off-chance you run out of ammo, which believe me will take a miracle in this game, you can easily switch to your shotgun or rifle or any gun that suits the situation, and to me that should not be the case in an Aliens game. I know a lot of people hate the two-weapon mechanic, but let's face it, it's realistic. I don't know many people who carry a Rifle, Machine gun, Shotgun, Burst-rifle, SMG Side arm, grenades, a ton ammo and Under-barrel secondary ammunition on their person at any given time. It's fine and works in some games, but here it once again throws out any and all types of survival.

From a Technical stand point, Aliens doesn't suffer as bad, but it neither impresses all that much. The sound department is pretty well done. The pulse rifle sounds the part and the xenos screeching bring back memories of better games and movies. The music is cued very well during high-action or stress moments and it works. Voice-acting however is not the same. Characters are not believable as lines of dialog are spoken with little emotion. Graphically, Aliens is hard to describe. Playing on the PC, the game had a lot of pop-in and tons of low resolution textures. The environments, on the grander scale, looked and felt pretty iconic. Seeing Hadley's hope and what's left LS-426 is nicely done for the most part. Slimed up walls and destroyed door panels and roofs give a nice touch as well. Other areas however feel a little bland and some are re-used in other levels. The main problem is the severe lack of dynamic lighting. A lot of areas seem to be overly bright and are missing the atmosphere from the movies or past games. If any one saw the supposed "Work-in-progress-Demo" it looks completely different and better. This is a completely changed game from the ground-up. Graphics don't make a game, but in this game it severely hinders the source-material being portrayed. Aliens should feel like an unseen threat, something that can strike from the shadows and it doesn't help that we can see their every move. Characters designs and animations all feel stiff. Xenos have wonky movement and character faces look stiff when they talk. It's also pretty bad that you can clip into NPC's something I thought was fixed back in 2002. The game, on PC, also only uses Direct X 9, which is pretty sub-par for something released in 2013. Even AVP 2010 supports Direct X 11 and that game is three years old. It's bad enough to release a game with these lighting and graphical issues but it's even worse when modders have already released an unofficial Direct X 10 patch as well as a SweetFX mod which tries to enhance the lighting and colors. After applying these the game looked better, but it's low res textures and stiff animations still bear their ugly head. This took 6 years? Come on guys. I can't comment on the console versions, but I hear they are quite terrible in comparison.

The game took me about 7 hours to complete on Hard. With a co-op buddy on the hardest difficulty about the same time, since I didn't have to suffer with spastic a.i. counter-parts. I don't see much reason to replay again. There are audio logs and dog tags to be found in the game which bring back some nostalgia from the movies, as well as legendary weapons, like Hicks Shotgun or Vasquez's Smart-gun. These are really cool, but trust me you will find most, if not all in your first play-though You also level up during the campaign and can complete a few challenges for more xp. You can use that to upgrade your arsenal with different attachments, camos, or secondary-fire options.

Multiplayer is here and can give you some longevity to the game if you decide to keep it. Games themselves can be quite fun and intense as play either side. You have your Aliens vs Marines play style with a couple of different modes of play. You have your typical Team Deathmatch modes which is self explanatory and three others which give a small twist to common Multi-player modes. Extermination is essentially domination, but marines only have to do the capturing, where as the aliens don't need to capture any, but just stop the marines in their tracks. Escape is technically "Vs" mode from Left 4 Dead and Survivor is your beaten to death Horde mode. Both sides have their strengths and weakness and as you level up you acquire new skills for both sides. Here though, customizing your Xeno is pretty nice with some cool skins. Playing as Aliens is always fun, but I miss being able to play in first-person like past games. Unlike in the campaign, your motion tracker is pretty vital online when playing as the marines. Also you don't have to deal with the horrendous A.I. problems here, which is a breath of fresh air. But, sadly the Multiplayer is limited. You can take less than day or so to pretty much unlock everything and with only 5 maps for two modes and only a pathetic 2 maps for the other two, makes me wonder how much was taken out of the final game. Also there are no dedicated servers and even on release day I had problems connecting to some matches with P2P. Also matches will not launch unless the full amount is present, which can lead to problems in the near future once the game's online community starts to dwindle. Also a ton of innovation was lost in this portion of the game, and I am not surprised the online feels stripped since a Season pass was already announced for this game prior to release, which promises to add more single-player as well as multiplayer content. Unless major updates and/or content arrive quickly, I don't see how long we can stay entertained with the multiplayer portion of the game, which is probably it's strongest selling point.

I wanted to like this game. The whole time I kept hoping it will get better. Sadly it didn't. With Horrendous A.I., complete lack of survival-horror, which should be the focus in this type of game, Poor writing, unlikable characters, short campaign, emphasis on fighting human mercenaries and not xenos, and dated visuals it's hard to recommend Aliens: Colonial Marines. Even though I paid only $30 for the PC version, because of a game distribution site's special promotion, I still feel cheated. Having to pay $50-60 for this is downright thievery from both Sega and Gearbox. The game is nothing like the demo vids that made me, and ton others fall in love with what's to come and we all feel lied to. Randy Ptichford himself swore on this game, claimed it was his "baby" and a bunch of other lies, so why did it get outsourced to a ton of other companies, like Time Gate and Nerve? It makes no sense, if your dream was to work on a game based off the Aliens Franchise why let other companies mess it up? It's just too many questions and no answers. I'm being generous with my score because of the source-material and my love for Aliens. But what has transpired here is just shameful and I only recommend for it's Decent Online play, only when it gets major price cut. Sadly by then, the online portion may be dead. Here's hoping a development company can finally pay proper homage to the Aliens franchise, and make a game that rivals the classic Aliens Vs Predator games.

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"Steel_Rain777 reviewed Aliens: Colonial Marines for the PC..." was posted by Steel_Rain777 on Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:18:02 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/aliens-colonial-marines/user-reviews/807543/platform/pc/ Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:19:43 -0800 adit942 reviewed The Walking Dead: Episode 1 - A New Day for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/the-walking-dead-episode-1/user-reviews/806656/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

After their recent ventures into turning the franchises of Back to the Future and Jurassic Park into Point and Click Adventure games, Telltale Games have decided to enter into the apocalyptic realm of The Walking Dead. Originally a series of comics and now a popular TV series, it seems now that the latest incarnation of the franchise is a series of adventure games split into 5 episodes starting off with Episode 1 - A New Day, and for only 400 Microsoft Points an episode, you really get your money's worth.

You take on the role of Lee Everett, a convicted criminal on his way out of Atlanta (in handcuffs) when the dead start rising. Suffice to say he finds himself trying to make sense of the changed world around him with help of people he runs into. I'm deliberately trying to give away as little plot specifics as I can with good reason. The best thing about The Walking Dead: Episode 1 is it's story and characters, with Lee being one of the most interesting of the bunch as is troubled past is slowly revealed and his father/daughter relationship with fellow survivor Clementine is brought to life thanks to great writing and voice acting. You'll also run into a couple of characters from the Graphic Novels/TV Series (the former being the universe in which this game takes place in) and better still you'll have to make some frantic, hard and grim choices through gameplay and conversations.

If you've played any of Telltale's previous titles you'll be familier with how the gameplay works, this time around you're given direct control of the character. You'll still be clicking on various spots in the environment to either pick up/bash/examine/talk to objects/people/zombies but this time you'll be doing it in some distressing moments which means you'll have to be pretty swift with the cursor as well as be ready for a couple button mashing sequences. There is also a dialogue system in place almost identical to one seen in Alpha Protocol, in which you're given a list of things to say but a timer counts down giving you only a few seconds to select your choice adding to the level of urgency. You can also have the option of having helpful UI which will tell you exactly which parts of the environment can be interacted with and also which of your dialogue choices will affect conversations later in the episode, for example, telling another survivor that you're not Clementine's father will create different lines of dialogue later on and it's own consequences to boot.

The one part in which The Walking Dead: Episode 1 - A New Day is held back, is the bevy of technical and graphical issues (for the Xbox 360 version anyway). In fact it's a shame because the game sports a detailed cel-shaded art style that gives it personality and is very reminiscent to the comics that it's based on and canon to, but low-resolution textures, frame rate drops, hitches between scene transitions and some horrible audio problems nearing the episode's climax really sullied my experience.

Although the game's technical issues really bring it down, for the cheap price that it is, The Walking Dead: Episode 1 is a great way to start the episodic series off, with a fantastic character driven story that is rare for an XBLA title, especially when you decide how the story unfolds differently depending on your actions. If you're a fan of The Walking Dead, Zombie movies, story driven games and/or point and click adventure games, Episode 1 will keep you engrossed for it's 4-5 hour length and when it's all over you'll be craving for more just like a zombie would be for the proverbial brains.

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]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-walking-dead-episode-1/user-reviews/806656/platform/xbox360/ Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:22:30 -0800 clock0 reviewed Temple Run 2 for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/temple-run-2/user-reviews/806401/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Temple run 2 is better then temple run 1 by a long shot because this has a way better level with way better things added to it.As in,You are being chased by a huge ape instead of 3 apes,you can hang on things,new things to help you get more points.This game has really improved and deserves a 8.5 out of 10.This game has improved since the first one came out over a year ago.This game is one of the best iPhone/iPod apps ever made.This game is is one of the best free apps on the iPod/iPhone.This game has controls used by your fingers so the controls might be frustrating to some people but im not complaining about it.This is a great game and has a great all new level to it.If you liked the first temple run trust me you will like this temple run even more.Score 8.5 out of 10.Thanks for reading the first review of Temple Run 2.Get it and hey its free.

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"clock0 reviewed Temple Run 2 for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by clock0 on Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:22:30 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/temple-run-2/user-reviews/806401/platform/iphone/ Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:46:51 -0800 clock0 reviewed Game & Watch: Ball for the DS... http://www.gamespot.com/game-and-watch-ball/user-reviews/806176/platform/ds/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

Game and watch ball is simply the best Dsi Game and watch classic.I got this on my 3DS XL and I think it is worth the money you pay for it.This game is ok.This game has 2 modes Mode 1 is easy Mode 2 is faster and better then mode 1 because it is challenging and more tougher then the first mode.Nintendo did the right thing t bring this to Dsi/3DS because this is a great mini game and is really worth the money you pay for it.This game is really cool.This game as you go on gets harder and harder and EVEN MOR HARDER.I have a great high score in this game because it is easy but sometimes could be hard.It depends if you play this a lot but I dont play it much but I do find it a really good and passable nintendo game and watch game.Nintendo did a good job at this game.If you are a huge nintendo fan and game and watch fan then by all means get this game.

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"clock0 reviewed Game & Watch: Ball for the DS..." was posted by clock0 on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:46:51 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/game-and-watch-ball/user-reviews/806176/platform/ds/ Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:34:14 -0800 adit942 reviewed Far Cry 3 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/far-cry-3/user-reviews/805291/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

* Fall damage is pretty punishing. This is somewhat offset by your ability to slide down hills without taking damage, but you still might find yourself cratering more often than you would like.

* There are juggernauts/heavies. Personally, I really dislike this type of enemy. They are not plentiful, and you can deal with them easily and creatively enough, but I find them off-putting.

* The save system could be better. It autosaves often enough, and you can opt to save anytime except when mid-mission, but you're only allowed one save slot (in addition to autosave) per game.

I...got nothing else. Everything else about the game is stellar. The gameplay is some of the most fun I've had in years. This is easily in my top 5 games.

When I played, I killed four men back-to-back with a knife, pulled the pin on a grenade attached to the fourth one, and kicked him into a group of other guys.

I shot a bear with an RPG.

I C4'd a shark.

I fired a pistol shot from my hip and shot a helicopter pilot out of the driver seat.

I shot a man with an explosive arrow from 80 m away.

I shot two men while ziplining, and then dropped and knifed a third.

I kited a pack of dingos into an enemy camp, where I released a jaguar, and killed all the enemies without firing a shot.

I fired a sniper round through four enemies who had lined up attacking me (they were four feet away).

I went from a clifftop-tower, to a zipline, to a wingsuit, to a parachute, to a swan dive into the ocean, all in once decent.

I let loose on a technical vehicle with a SPAS-12, and the truck rolled to a stop at my feet; it's passengers slumped to the floor.

I fired a wayward arrow at a passing enemy boat, heard a grunt, saw a man tumble into the water, and saw that I had hit him square int he face.

I molotoved a watchtower, with the sniper still inside, and giggled when he screamed.

I was about to be murdered by an enemy juggernaut, when one of his teammates vehicles sped by out-of control and splattered him across the hood.

I tricked a pyro enemy into flamethrowing a carful of pirates when he was aiming for me.

I did all this completely outside of the campaign itself.

I could go on and on about all the things you can do in Far Cry 3, but they outweight the things you can't do. I will say that the scenery is beautiful, the music is thrilling , the driving is solid, the shooting is tight, and every kill is satisfying. Buy this game now.A List of Everything Wrong with Far Cry 3

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"adit942 reviewed Far Cry 3 for the PC..." was posted by adit942 on Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:34:14 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/far-cry-3/user-reviews/805291/platform/pc/ Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:27:09 -0800 adit942 reviewed Hitman: Absolution for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/hitman-absolution/user-reviews/805290/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Six years. Six very long years. That's how long it has been since the release of Hitman: Blood Money, the last released game in the beloved Hitman franchise. And while I can't speak for exactly why it took so long for this game to be released, mostly because of Eidos Interactive being bought out by Square Enix, this is much more noticeably a 2010 game being released in 2012, and there lies the main problem I had with Hitman: Absolution.

For the first time in the history of this franchise, Hitman: Absolution tells a centered story. Rather then the normal "Here are your targets, dispose of them at your own discretion", Absolution instead tells the story of how your handler, Diana Burnwood has betrayed The Agency, leaving you the sole Hitman to take her out. But upon doing so, you discover the true reasons for why she is wanted dead. The game centers around you saving a young girl's life, in which the agency want to use her for their experiments. But all of this doesn't mean you are taking a complete break from making hits.

A big thing that some will argue is a departure in this series, others will see as a step forward, but Absolution does away with the ability to choose what weapons you want to bring in with you. Very early on, Agent 47 has to give up most of his equipment, instead relying on equipment found during missions. While I wasn't the biggest fan of this approach, it didn't really bother me. Absolution also introduces the "instinct meter". This meter is helpful in several ways. You fill the meter by killing or incapacitating your enemies, and hiding their bodies. When full, you can either use the meter to do a "point shooting" (a very similar version of Bullet Time) or, you can use it to put your face down while walking in front of other enemies disguised. This lead to one of the more frustrating aspects of Absolution though, The Disguise System changes. In Blood Money, enemies would treat you differently based on what disguise you had on; each disguise had different "permissions", in terms of what areas of the map you can go in. Enemies would never see through your disguise unless you acted strangely (carried guns as a waiter, throwing objects, bumping into people while sprinting).In Absolution, enemies with the same disguise as you will start pursuing you if you stand in their vision too long (which is a very short time limit). After this, it's only a matter of time until they realize you're not really who your disguise says you are and start opening fire. This prompts everyone to start shooting you. Add in the fact that maps typically are CRAWLING with guards of the same uniform and disguises have little worth the majority of the time.

My primary tactic in response to these changes was to change disguise to something beyond a typical cop/guard so I would not be noticed. Sometimes this worked, sometimes I got noticed by other janitors/ushers/etc of the same kind. The only difference of being caught by these guys is that they run away and tell the nearest guards to start shooting you instead. Later levels had high saturation of many types of NPCs, which made me hop from disguise to disguise.

My second biggest issue with Absolution is that when I played through the game on Hard (which is the third in a five tier difficulty ranking), the game is almost impossible to complete in a full Silent Assassin run. Enemies will give you no chance to get by them, and I ran into many instances where extra enemies would be placed right in front of a door that I had to pick the lock on to continue. Extra enemies should never be the way a stealth game is made harder, but for some reason, they decided this is route they needed to take.

Hitman has never been about run and gunning, but several points of the game have you doing just that. For the most part, these sections of the game feel out of place. While I understand from a story aspect why these are in the game, I would have much rather the developers made all of these cutscenes, which leads me to my final and biggest complaint on Absolution. What is up with the terrible looking cutscenes? The cutscenes of this game become so pixilated that they make a video watched on netflix at the worst streaming quality look good. This really took me out of the experience at times, especially when the in game graphics look stellar (except for a grain effect, but I can live with that). I don't understand that two weeks ago, I played through Halo 4 and saw some of the best cutscenes this console cycle, so why is this looking so awful? It made me long to have a pc capable of running this game, just to see if they fair better there.

But not everything is awful about Absolution, I actually loved every minute of the game. The sound design is top notch, I loved the score this time around, and everything else about the game works. While I do miss the ability to bring in weapons for the missions, all of that judgement is replaced when you play the all new Contracts mode. Contracts mode allows any player the ability to go in game, any level, and mark any targets they want to for another person to kill. You can pick up to three targets, hell, you can even pick the outfit and weapon you want for the kill. The best part is, the player creating the contract has to finish the created contract for it to be able to be shared with other players. So that eliminates people from creating contracts that are impossible. The mode works flawlessly, and is something that I really enjoyed, especially when the main story of this game was over.

Absolution will take an average player around twenty-hours to complete first time through, and it's quite a long story. While you might not like the beginning, it defiantly has a fantastic ending that's worth sticking around for. While I know that IO Interactive is working on a follow up, and has been for awhile, Absolution is a fantastic sequel that is worth every penny you spend on it. The changes to everything else here are top notch, and no longer does Hitman feel like an average pc port on the home console. Welcome back, 47.

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"adit942 reviewed Hitman: Absolution for the PC..." was posted by adit942 on Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:27:09 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/hitman-absolution/user-reviews/805290/platform/pc/