The Walking Dead series has been my biggest surprise of 2012. Going into it with no real interest in the franchise, or adventure games, its first two instalments have taken me on an emotional roller coaster unlike any other game has before. Based on what I’d seen of the trailer for The Long Road Ahead, I had concerns that the base premise wouldn’t be as interesting as the one in episode 2. However, all my fears were quickly quashed as revelation after revelation took place.
Episode 2 of The Walking Dead video game series picks up three months after the events of the first. Having found temporary solace in a run-down motel, Lee and his group of survivors find themselves facing off against a new threat: hunger. With tensions running high, and supplies running low, a pair of potential guardian angels appear. In exchange for some fuel, this duo of survivors are willing to provide your group with shelter, and rations from their supposedly large supply. Could this be too good to be true?
Zombies, as depicted in almost all forms of fiction, are simple creatures. Featuring great strength, limited intelligence, and (in most cases) limited mobility, their sole objective is to consume the flesh of the living. For this very reason, I don’t find zombies themselves all that interesting.
It’s what happens around the zombies that creates fictional magic. From The Night of the Living Dead, to Abraham Lincoln: Zombie Hunter, to Plants vs. Zombies, creators have found a number of different ways to leverage their simplistic traits into amazing experiences. For The Walking Dead Episode 1: A New Day, the zombies are a catalyst for a far more interesting tale of human survival under apocalyptic circumstances.
Apologies for the long delay, but my review for Kid Icarus: Uprising is finally live on Splitkick! It took me awhile to play through because of its surprisingly long length, and a really long time to write. I struggled with it for weeks, and wrote three completely different versions of the review before finally settling on one to submit for edit.
Thanks to the team at Splitkick for editing, and publishing the piece, as its a game I want to encourage others to try, even with its fundamental flaws. If you’re still on the fence about it, check out my review at Splitkick.
To label myself as “excited” for Mass Effect 3 would be an understatement. Anything less than “giddy like a little school girl” would be selling my excitement short. Mass Effect 3 is my most anticipated game of 2012 and it’s coming out in just a few days.
Despite the series success over the years, critics of the Zelda series have knocked it for being too formulaic. I don’t play enough Zelda games to feel that way, but I understand the point. With that said, I loved Twilight Princess and still believe that Ocarina of Time is one of the greatest video games of all-time.
Going into Skyward Sword, I was super-excited to jump back into the land of Hyrule to save the princess and save the world. As of writing, I’m at the front steps of the second dungeon, and my excitement has cooled off considerably.
I have no shortage of idols when it comes to Street Fighter IV. However, when it comes to choosing my favourite Street Fighter IV player, that honour belongs to Sako. Thanks to his creativity, extremely offensive approach and his masterful execution, Sako is arguably the most exciting player to watch. I never get bored of watching Sako destroy his opponents in the most creative and technically challenging ways imaginable. I’d go as far as saying that watching Sako play as Cammy and Rose is the reason why I use them as my two main characters today.
Thanks to YouTube user AnomuraSe, you can now get the Coles notes video of why Sako rocks. This 20-minute Best of Sako video has some of the most incredible displays of offensive firepower ever caught on tape. Click through to watch the video! Also, let me know what you think of it in the comments!
Though the game is but a few months old and the toys are incredibly difficult to find, Activision felt that yesterday was the perfect day to reveal the sequel to Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. Titled Skylanders Giants, this full-blown sequel will feature new levels, compatibility with all of your current figures and of course, all-new figures for you to buy. In particular, the inclusion of 8 “giant” figures that are twice the size of regular Skylanders in the game and in real life strikes me as an interesting addition.
The next game up on my list of pick-ups from Blockbuster’s epic closing down sales is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. As with Split/Second and Vanquish before it, Enslaved is another one of those games that was critically acclaimed but a commercial flop. To be honest, I had little interest in this game until the positive word-of-mouth hit, though only enough to buy it on the cheap.
As I work my way through this stash of games in this category, it kind of makes me feel bad to know that I could have made a difference if I bought these brand new when they first came out, as the odds of any of these games getting a sequel are slim-to-none. To be fair, I’m not made of money, and it’s unreasonable to expect me to pay full price for everything. Anyway, this is quickly going into a tangent. Let’s talk about Enslaved based on its own merits.
Shortly after writing my previous post on my time with the Catherine demo, I decided that I was going to purchase the game. Normally, when I’ve made the decision to buy a game before its release, I patiently wait until launch day and buy said game at a store. I like the experience of going into a store and getting the game immediately, rather than having the release date pass by while my game is in transit at the mercy of the postal service.
This time, I pre-ordered it online. I grabbed the PlayStation 3 version so that my girlfriend can play my copy too. I’ve never pre-ordered any games online before, and this is only the second time I’ve ever purchased a game online. No, I didn’t go out of my way to pre-order it so that I could get the bonus soundtrack and art book (though it’s a nice bonus, I guess). I pre-ordered it to save myself from any potential embarrassment.
In Third Person 
