Unless you’ve been living in a cave this past week, I’m sure you’ve read about the horrendous launch of Maxis and Electronic Art’s latest SimCity title. Having not played a SimCity game since SimCity 2000 so many years ago, I was pretty upset to hear that the launch went so poorly and that so many gamers were left with a purchased product plagued with issues that are still being resolved today. While there were still some outstanding harsh issues with the game, I was still willing to give it a shot.
2013 has turned out to be a hell of a year so far for successful AAA games and we’ve got another to add to the list. Released on March 5th, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix’s latest entry into the Tomb Raider series reboots the franchise to follow Lara Croft on her first expedition and tomb raid. For years the press has been spamming us with screenshots, artwork and videos showcasing the much younger, darker, would-be heroine to amp us up and for me, it was worth the wait!
If you watched my video “I suck at Dead Space 3” a few weeks ago, you certainly would have noticed that I hadn’t played the previous Dead Space games, that I had no idea what was going on, and that I was absolutely TERRIBLE at the game! For these reasons, I wasn’t all that excited for the full game to be released. I had trouble controlling my character, understanding what my abilities were and how to use them, and everything was just kicking my ass. Well, my opinion has changed drastically since then as starting from the beginning of the game put a new perspective on everything.
It’s been a while now since I’ve played a good classic JRPG. With the large amount of shooters and action games released over the past few months, I haven’t been able to get my fix. Unfortunately, when I first looked into Level 5 and Namco Bandai’s latest JRPG, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, originally released in Japan on the Nintendo DS, I thought it looked kind of stupid. I’ll tell you straight up, after playing through this, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Some neat plot twists near the end really take it from what I originally though was kind of a kids fairy tale-type of story, into something pretty special.
It’s been over four years since we last took part in Dante’s action-packed and extremely intense devil-slaying adventures. Released last week under new developer Ninja Theory, most recently known for their action game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DMC Devil May Cry reboots the series with a focus on a much younger, much more hot-headed Dante as he battles a new army of demons. There has been much controversy over the new direction of Dante from Ninja Theory, so is there any merit to the complaints from long-time fans, or does the new entry kick as much ass as the previous in the series?
It’s been five long years now since we last saw the Master Chief in action. While the releases of ODST and Reach gave us an entertaining look at the rest of the Halo universe, things weren’t quite the same without John-117. Lucky for us, the series’ star is back in action with Halo 4, this time developed by 343 industries. A year ago I said at the end of my Reach review, that I thought that the Halo franchise was going to die with its departure from Bungie. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Playing the Assassin’s Creed games over the past few years has been a hell of a lot of fun! Running through the streets of Rome, performing mischievous deeds for the sake of saving the world from the forces of evil, unbeknownst to the public. These in and of themselves were fun to experience, but to me, what has made the series great was the overarching story of Desmond Miles and The First Civilization. Released last week, Ubisoft released their latest entry in the series, viewed through the eyes of a new protagonist – that gives us a chilling conclusion to the epic tale. Note that this review will not cover the multiplayer due to time constraints and lack of interest.
With the large number of shooters that are constantly released each year, it’s tough to determine which one to pick up and hone your skills on. Of course there is the Call of Duty and Halo franchises that so many follow, but you don’t often here as much about Medal of Honor. I spent the last week playing through Danger Close’s latest franchise entry Warfighter, and I’ve got to say, I had a blast! 2 years ago I thought that the previous Medal of Honor had a great campaign but I didn’t really care for the multiplayer. Things have changed.
Back in mid-April I posted an amazing trailer for Arkane Studios’ latest first-person action-stealth game Dishonored. At the time I thought the game looked pretty freaking amazing and being published by Bethesda, I thought it might have the amazing open-world game-play style of Skyrim. After playing through it though, I’ve got some mixed feelings. Dishonored is somewhat of a hybrid between Assassins Creed and Bioshock, which in and of itself sounds pretty sweet. But when playing the game, not everything stood up to awesome that we saw in the trailer.
This past Tuesday I took a lot of grief on Facebook and Twitter – from whom I have to assume are some of my younger viewers – because I wasn’t playing Dishonored in favor of Firaxis Games’ reboot of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Most of them had either not heard of the title or simply thought it looked stupid. I on the other hand couldn’t have been more excited to play it, as XCOM is one of my fondest and most memorable gaming experiences of my early teenage years so long ago! Well, I’ve had an amazing week thus far playing through it, but was it because the game was great, or because I had a raging Nostalgia boner?
Dungeon crawlers have a place in my heart. It’s fun to build a character up from the ground, see them evolve over time and gradually become more heroic looking as legendary gear is acquired. It’s unfortunate when some of today’s modern dungeon crawlers, see Diablo III, fall short on these things and create a grindy game that requires farming gear to progress. Luckily Runic Games’ Torchlight II takes everything I’ve loved about Dungeon Crawlers, does it right, and kicks Diablo III’s candy-ass straight to the curb!
It’s been three years now since I spent what seemed like countless hours working my way through the rustic wastelands of Pandora while theorycrafting the best builds and gun-types with my friends. Finally, my wait is over as another opportunity to dive into Gearbox Software’s wonderfully crafted world has arrived. I picked up Borderlands 2 for the PC on September 18th and I’ve been having a hell of a time playing through this great adventure with my friends!
Developer: From Software Publisher: Namco Bandai Platform: PC Price: $39.99 Release Date: 8/23/2012
Developer: High Moon Studios Publisher: Activision Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 Price: $59.99 Release Date: 8/21/2012
Developer: Talawa Games Publisher: Teotl Studios Platform: PC, iOS Price: $10 Release Date: 4/8/2012 (PC), Unknown iOS
