Reviews

Dance Central 2 Review

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Of all the Kinect games to have hit the market prior to the release of Dance Central 2, only its predecessor has been able to justify the existence of the peripheral to me. The implementation of real-life dancing as a gameplay mechanic was not only revolutionary from a technology perspective, but wildly fun for gamers and financially successful for Harmonix.

Though I reviewed the original Dance Central favourably for the most part when it first came out, it was not without fault. It’s biggest failings were that it didn’t make for a great multiplayer game and that its feature set was paper-thin, which is often a problem with launch games. Does the sequel build on its predecessor to provide a more complete dancing game experience?

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Batman: Arkham City Review

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With high expectations behind it, it wouldn’t be difficult for the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum to fall short. If anything, it would be easier for Rocksteady to fall short with the sequel than it would be to equal or surpass the original. Arkham Asylum was a fantastic (and arguably revolutionary) game for its time. To this day, I’ll still gush over how amazing that game was (and still is).

Now that the groundwork is set, let’s talk about what people really want to know. Riddle me this, riddle me that, is Batman: Arkham City really all that?

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NBA 2K12 for iPhone Review

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As the NBA’s billionaire owners and millionaire players continue to argue over money with no end in sight, the league’s fans are left without any professional basketball to turn to. Though it may seem like a poor consolation prize, NBA 2K12 is still coming out this year for all of the platforms you would expect. This year, 2K has taken their award-winning basketball experience on the go with an iPhone version. Will this portable solution be enough to sooth your desire for an actual NBA season?

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Scribblenauts Remix Review

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Around the time of its release on the DS, Scribblenauts was one of my most anticipated games. The core concept of a game that lets you conjure up anything you can think of in order to solve a puzzle seemed brilliant to me. Thanks to its core concept, the game and its sequel became smash hits. However, due to it being on the DS (a system I gave up on awhile ago) and due to some complaints about the game’s unwieldy controls. Despite that, I’ve always wanted to give it a shot if the platform and price were right.

To my surprise, 5th Cell recently released Scribblenauts Remix on iOS for the price of $4.99. I was all over it in a heartbeat. Did it live up to my expectations?

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Gears of War 3 Review

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Do you remember the Gears of War Mad World commercial? Up until that point, the game had been presented as a ‘dudebro’ shooter with all of the emphasis on its revolutionary cover mechanics and stop-and-pop shooting. Then the Mad World commercial hit television and it presented the game as something more emotionally charged. Unfortunately, it was all for the sake of advertising, as none of that Mad World feeling ended up making it into the game. Gears of War 2 sort of tried to capture that, but those few attempts came off as unintentionally funny.

While Marcus and company weave through bombastic firefights and kill all varieties of alien lifeforms in Gears of War 3, it actually manages to capture that Mad World feeling in a number of spots. In one particular case, it literally captures it, but that’s going way into spoiler-territory. Let’s back up and talk about this new, improved and somewhat more emotional Gears of War 3.

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Some Things I Don’t Like About Catherine

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A few days ago, I posted a pretty glowing review of Catherine for the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3. In hindsight, I’m still happy with how that game turned out and how that review was written. As much as I gushed about it before, it does have some kinks. Since I didn’t really go into them in detail in my review, I thought I’d call them out here. It’s still a fantastic game as is, and you may not agree with my list of gripes, but you’re always free to chime in with your point of view in the comments!

1. Your controls when Vincent is behind the block tower sucks

Controlling Vincent when he’s in-between the blocks and your direct line of sight is straightforward. However, in cases where you have to control Vincent behind the blocks, your controls become a complete mess. The problem is two-fold. For one, controlling movement behind a block tower isn’t consistent at all. You may hit left on your d-pad to make Vincent move right, but the next time you hit left, he’ll stay still. The controls when Vincent is trying to maneuver behind blocks constantly flip, which makes it extremely difficult to get places in this manner.

This issue could have been alleviated if the camera was able maneuver all the way around the block tower. At its best though, you’ll only have access to a 180-degree view. This makes it impossible to see how you’re maneuvering Vincent behind a tower of blocks. While you won’t be spending a lot of time maneuvering behind blocks, it sucks every time you have to do it.

2. Lack of interaction in the real world

Most of the gameplay in Catherine takes place in Vincent’s nightmares, where you maneuver through block towers. While I love playing through these towers, I really wish there was more to do in the real world. I have no problem with sitting through all of the cutscenes, as they’re really well done and they’re the main driver of the story. Where the game could have gone a bit further with are the times when you control Vincent in the bar. Why not give him more to do? Why not give him more opportunities here to impact the story beyond talking to people and answering text messages? Why not let the player visit other environments besides the bar? These suggestions would have helped make players feel a bit more involved outside of the nightmares.

The last points in this post contain SPOILERS, so please proceed at your own discretion!

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Vanquish Review

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Vanquish has the dubious distinction of being Gamespot’s 2010 Best Game No One Played. Back when it was released, I paid no mind to it, as I had no interest in a Japanese interpretation of Gears of War and Halo. However, despite my initial disinterest in the game, the general buzz about the game was that it was pretty good. With that in mind, I kept it on my list of games to pick up on the cheap. I was able to do just that a few weeks ago during the big Blockbuster closeout event in my country. Do I recommend you follow suit?

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Late to the Party: Words With Friends

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Ever since the release of the iTunes app store, I have been a devout Scrabble for iPhone fan. I took pride in having the real deal, even though there were countless other imitators that were available for free. As much as I’ve enjoyed iPhone Scrabble over the years, I’ve never had any friends to play with online. The majority of them aren’t willing to pay, mainly because they were playing Words With Friends. I’ve heard a ton about it, but my elitist ways have led me to ignore the title for years.

That is, until a few weeks ago, when I found out that a large number of my coworkers who had iPhone or Android devices had the game, and were all playing together without me. Though I may be years late to the party, I figured if there was any time to give Words With Friends a shot, it was now.

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Portal Review

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The original Portal has already cemented itself as one of the landmark games of this generation. Though it was originally positioned as an add-on to the Half-Life 2 Orange Box that could be beaten in about 3 hours, Portal has taken on a life of its own thanks to its revolutionary game design that does something truly new. Critics loved it, fans bought into it in droves and elements of the game, such as in-game lines and ‘the song’ have worked their way into popular gaming culture. While it’s sequel may not have the cultural cache as its predecessor, the game is still one of the best of the year and it sold extremely well.

Portal is without a doubt, a must-play game if there ever was one this generation. With that said, I’ve been ducking this game for years. I tried it in passing once, but I made the mistake of trying it out on my brother’s file, when he was over half way through the game. Needless to say, I was immediately overwhelmed and thought I was too stupid for Portal. Only recently did I put my initial impressions aside and try the game from scratch.

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Catherine Review

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Catherine is a really hard game to judge at face value. Unless you’ve tried the game for yourself, it’s very easy to misinterpret Catherine as some sort of perverse porno game. Even by watching the recently-released Catherine gameplay trailer, it may only confuse you further. You might then be asking yourself even more questions, such as:

“Is this a puzzle game?”
“Is this a dating simulator?”
“How does this all even work?”
“How do you play out the sex parts?”

Before I continue with this review, I’ll answer the last question for you: No, you do not play out the sex parts. This is not a porno game and the act of sex itself is not as big of a factor to the game as you may have been lead to expect. What it is though, is likely a gaming experience you’ve never had before.
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