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Max Payne 3 Review

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After the events of the second game, Max has hit rock bottom. With nothing more than a substance addiction, and a commitment to do his job properly, he begins anew in Brazil as a bodyguard for a wealthy family. It doesn’t take long before things go south, and it’s up to Max to save the day the only way he knows how: by shooting dudes in slow motion.

Though the events of the third game take place almost immediately after the second, there’s been an almost decade-long gap between the releases. Since 2003, the franchise has changed hands from Remedy to Rockstar, and the genre has evolved quite a bit. Is Max Payne 3 a return to form? Or washed up like its protagonist at the beginning of the game?

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Out Now: Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown

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Historically, I haven’t been one to get to get much out of the 3D fighting game genre. As early as the original Virtua Fighter, it didn’t feel like my style of fighter, and I moved on. However, as I’ve grown more interested in the genre as a whole, I’ve gotten a bit more interested in giving 3D fighters a bit more of an honest try.

I’m currently eying an on sale copy and Soulcalibur V and Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, the latter of which is out now as a $15 downloadable game on XBOX Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

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Check Out My Review for Joy Ride Turbo on Splitkick.com

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Hot off the heels of Kinect Joy Ride is Joy Ride Turbo; the sequel to a motion-controlled game that ditches motion controls completely. On one hand, it’s a curious move to eschew the original’s key selling point. On the other hand, the key selling point in practice wasn’t very good.

If you’re curious about how well it turned out, head over to Splitkick.com to check out my review!

Qanba Q4 RAF Review

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Over the last few years, Mad Catz and Hori have done an excellent job of creating high-quality fightsticks. However, as officially licensed peripheral makers, neither company can provide a fightstick that supports all major platforms out of the box. It sucks to be in a situation where you’ve spent a large chunk of change on an XBOX 360 fightstick and your friends bought the latest fighting game on PlayStation 3. Or when you want to play in an XBOX 360 tournament when you only have a PlayStation 3 fightstick. To get around this, you can try your hand at modding your fightstick. Or you can try your out a sketchy adapter which could be obsolete with the next console patch. Or you could do what I’ve done to date, which is buy a high-quality fightstick for each system I play fighting games on. Regardless of the route you choose, the answer usually isn’t cheap or technically stable.

Aiming to address this need, the Qanba Q4 RAF is built to work on the XBOX 360, PlayStation 3 and PC right out of the box. For avid tournament goers or gamers who often play on different systems, having one fightstick that supports all platforms is truly a blessing. But does it work as advertised? And does the rest of this fightstick from an unknown manufacturer stack up with the best from Mad Catz and Hori?

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Unboxing the Qanba Q4 RAF Fightstick

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The Qanba Q4 RAF is one of the most sought-after fightsticks on the market for its ability to work with the XBOX 360, PlayStation 3 and PC right out of the box. If you have fighting games across multiple systems or regularly play in tournaments, then having just one fightstick that works with everything sounds a lot better buying multiple fightsticks to do the same thing. However, because of that key feature, this fightstick isn’t licensed by Sony or Microsoft, which means you’ll never be able to buy this at a regular store. Even tracking these down online isn’t necessarily an easy task, as the few online retailers that carry it are often sold out.

Luckily for me, I was able to purchase one at a tournament I was recently at. Let’s open this bad boy up together.

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Trials Evolution Review

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Trials HD took XBOX Live by storm when it first came out in 2009. Though it did not have the name recognition of the games it launched with as part of the Summer of Arcade promotion, Trials HD won gamers over in a big way thanks to its wildly addictive gameplay. To this day, Trials HD still stands as the best-selling XBOX Live Arcade game of all-time. Where was I during all of this? Not playing Trials HD. After reading the impressions and hearing people talk about it on podcasts, the game really didn’t sound like my thing. In particular, everyone focused on the game’s soul-crushing difficulty, which did not sound appealing to me at all. Instead of getting in on the action, I took in the horror stories from the community as assurance that I was doing the right thing by abstaining.

Not too long ago, Trials Evolution came out and I was originally set to ignore it just like I did its predecessor. However, after some thought, I figured that I should at least give the demo a shot, as the series has cemented itself within the current gaming zeitgeist. Instead of coming away from the demo with just a point of view, I found a new video game love.

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Now Playing: Trials Evolution

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Having never played a Trials game before, I approached this game with a great sense of fear. Though I’ve heard a ton of positive things about the series, the one point that has always deterred me from giving the series a chance is the game’s supposed difficulty. Based on how everyone talked about its difficulty, it really didn’t sound like an experience I’d be interested in.

Recently, I gave Trials Evolution a shot, just so that I could be a part of the current gaming community conversation. In hindsight, I’m kicking myself for not trying this series out sooner.

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Splitkick’s XBOX Community Playdate

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I just wrapped up taking part in a Splitkick.com Community Playdate, which was sponsored by Microsoft. Thank you to everyone from the community that came out to play with us and thanks to my new Splitkick friends for the warm welcome! I had a great time playing and chatting with everyone. In the future, I’ll promote any Splitkick events here so that you can join us for any future game nights!

Random Thoughts About the Relatively Early Days of Competitive Street Fighter X Tekken Play

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Street Fighter X Tekken is just under two months old, which is not that old in the competitive fighting game scene. I’m still very much enjoying it. Hope you’re enjoying it too if you’ve been playing this game of late. Not really sure where I want to go with this post yet, but I just had a few thoughts about the early days of Street Fighter X Tekken that I wanted to capture somewhere. I’m just going to write off the top of my head and see where this goes.

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Mass Effect 3 Single Player Review

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The Earth is screwed. At least it appears that way when you first boot up Mass Effect 3. After your Shepard thwarted the Reapers plans in Mass Effect 1 and 2, they’re bringing the pain to your home world. While the temptation is strong to stay and protect your home world, Shepard knows the only way to victory involves him recruiting all the help he can get from across the galaxy.

Are you ready to suit up in hopes of ending the Reaper threat once and for all?

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