third person action

Impressions on Resident Evil 4 iPad Edition

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Resident Evil 4 still stands as one of my favourite video games of all-time. When it came out on the GameCube, it featured hands-down the best graphics on any console game and basically gave birth to the third person shooter. I’ve played through this game at least three times and it will always hold a special spot in my heart.

The iPad edition of Resident Evil 4 is a weird product. It tries really hard to be just like the original version, but in some cases, to a fault. What you’re left with is a game that feels like a hollow shell of its former self.

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Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Review

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After beating Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, I was overcome with two emotions. Those emotions are joy, and anger. I feel joy because Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was a great game from beginning to end. I feel anger because the game had just enough flaws to stop this great game from being mind-blowing. I’m not sure if a game that I enjoyed so much made me almost equally as angry.

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Game Design Talk: Exploding Barrels and Other Video Game Clichés

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I’m on pace to finish Uncharted in the next few days, and I’ve had a really good time with it. If my queue of PS3 games to play wasn’t so big right now, I would have likely jumped to the sequel immediately. There are however, a few very specific gripes I have with this game, and one of them I wanted to use as a jumping-off point for a bigger discussion. For a game that at times tiptoes into the realm of realism, there are some very specific video game clichés that really take me out of the moment. In particular, I can’t help but shake my head every time I see strategically placed explosive barrels in the environment.
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Girlfriend Gaming: God of War Collection

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For the last few months, my girlfriend has made it clear to me that she’s wanted to play God of War. Each time she’s said that to me, I’ve given her the same puzzled look. When I think about video games she likes, I think of stuff like Just Dance, Crash Team Racing and the Raving Rabbids series. Based on what I knew of her taste at the time, I thought a series where players kill thousands of monsters in brutal fashion wasn’t up her alley.

I picked up God of War Collection recently for two reasons. One, because I’ve been curious about this series for a while now and two, because I wanted to see if my girlfriend would actually get into it. I’ve yet to start this game on my own, but she’s already killed Medusa and can’t wait to play more.

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I Just Discovered Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune From the Depths of 2007

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Long before I owned a Playstation 3, I was excited to play Uncharted. All of the preview coverage of this game made it look beyond everything else out there. Alas, I was not about to drop upwards of $600 on a video game system at the time, especially when I had just gotten an XBOX 360. My excitement to play this series grew with the release of Uncharted 2, which many hail as the best game from 2009.

Now that I finally have a PS3 in the house, Uncharted was one of the first games I picked up. I just stopped at level 6 to write my impressions so far, which for the most part, are great.

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Mass Effect 2: Electric Bugaloo

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Hot off the heels of Mass Effect, I was quick to play the sequel. While I thought the first Mass Effect was an incredible experience, it also had some quirks to it that could really turn someone off. I haven’t been able to put down Mass Effect 2; stopping about 3/4 of the way through the game to write this down. If I didn’t feel compelled to gush about Mass Effect 2 to the world, I would just keep playing. Mass Effect 2 might possibly be the best game ever. I have played a lot of games in my life, and I’m hard pressed to think of many more examples of gaming brilliance.

All For One and One For All

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I don’t play too many games that are squad-based. Off the top of my head, the only two I can think of are the Gears of War series and the Fire Emblem series. While both of these games are great for their own reasons, the stake you as a player emotionally have for your teammates is negligible. In Gears of War, they’re essentially there to make you not feel alone, even though they won’t die and they don’t really help you, either. The back-story of your squad is practically non-existent, with only Dom having one major plot point to his name, and the others are there to shout expletive-filled one-liners. In Fire Emblem, that series does try to make you care through some back-story, endings for each character and the permanence of death, though ultimately each person feels more like a piece in your intricate game of chess more than anything.

Mass Effect has made me feel really weird about my squad in a way that other games haven’t for me. The game has so much story and so many moments where you can interact with them that you can’t help but build a weirdly fascinating connection to them.
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Go To Hell? No Thanks.

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Dante’s Inferno hits my soul in a very weird spot. I don’t even care about actually playing any of the games in the same category of Dante’s Inferno, because it’s just not my thing. From everything I’ve heard about its gameplay, it plays competently. However, I’ve been thinking about this game for quite a bit over the last year because I absolutely hate the thinking behind this game.