To this day, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is considered by many as one of the greatest video games of all-time. I definitely side with that mentality. I even gushed about it before on this very blog. With that said, the Nintendo 64 original and Gamecube port don’t look so hot by today’s standards. The textures are a blurry mess, everything is overly blocky and they both only run in 480i resolution. It would have been a shame if this classic got lost in time. Thankfully, Nintendo is breathing new life into it with a 3DS iteration that’s a bit more than a port.
review
DC Comics Deck-Building Game Review
Steff and I’s entry into the tabletop gaming scene was Dominion. We were quickly captivated by its deck-building mechanics and it’s been the feature game among us and our tabletop gaming night friends ever since. As much as we’ve tried to introduce others to it, the learning curve for it can be steep for players without experience in more advanced tabletop games.
While we were looking to purchase the latest Dominion expansion from the Snakes and Lattes booth at Fan Expo, the knowledgeable staff recommended we try out DC Comics Deck-Building Game. Besides being similar in nature to a game that we adore, they also billed it as being easier to learn. In hopes of using it as a gateway drug to Dominion for our friends while having a great time, we decided to give it a shot.
Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess Review
Having gone to two Video Games Live shows to date, I figured that my experience with The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess would be very similar to that. Despite both being orchestral shows, they’re very different in feel. In the case of the latter, having a narrower scope to work with definitely worked in its favour.
The Unfinished Swan Review
My track record with art house games is not good. Last time I stuck my neck out there for a game like this, I skewered Journey for being a pretty hiking simulator. While I love how these games approach graphics and sound in a daring manner, I generally find them to be lacking in the gameplay department. For instance, I thought Journey was nothing more than running and jumping in a world devoid of anything other than some scarf pieces and “point B”.
Based on what I’ve seen of the marketing for The Unfinished Swan, I had my concerns that the end result would be the same. Here’s a game that looks gorgeous, appears to have only one gameplay mechanic and involves a lot of walking. Did this one end up missing the mark for me as well?
Divekick Review
The divekick maneuver is one of the most powerful in all of fighting games. Hurtling down from the skies at a sharp angle, most characters don’t have any sort of tools to deal with them. As such, those with divekicks tend to be some of the strongest. Whether it’s Kung Lao from Mortal Kombat, Cammy from Street Fighter IV, Dr. Doom from Marvel vs. Capcom 3 or Black Adam from Injustice: Gods Among Us, there’s no shortage of tangible evidence throughout the annals of fighting game history.
This insight is the driving force behind Divekick; a one-move fighting game parody that’s toys with the idea of being accessible to the masses. I’ve been excited to play this game since it’s initial trailer over a year ago and bought it as soon as I could. Having played through it, is the joke actually on me?
Continue reading
Saints Row: The Third Review
Saints Row: The Third did not win me over right away. Having only played the demo of the first game before and hating it, this from a gameplay mechanics perspective felt as derivative and janky as its predecessor. Having said that, it becomes readily apparent that gameplay is not the focus here. Instead, this is all about playing a Grand Theft Auto-like experience with the humor and ridiculousness pushed to extremes. Once the game heats up, it manages to dress up relatively unremarkable mechanics and turn them into a title that’s arguably more fun than it should be.
Continue reading
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon Single Player Review
A lot of people forget that the original Luigi’s Mansion on Gamecube wasn’t heralded as a premiere Nintendo experience when it first came out. Many knocked it for being too short and repetitive, which caused me to avoid it completely. Despite that, the game’s legacy grew with time to the point where we now have Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS more than a decade later. Was it worth the wait?
Tomb Raider Review
The Tomb Raider franchise means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some associate her with their original love of PlayStation. Others adore her for being a pioneer of girl power in video games. There might be one or two people for whom Lara was their first crush on a video game character. For me, she didn’t mean much. As a diehard Nintendo fanboy during her heyday, I wanted nothing to do with that series. Nor did I feel I was missing much, as the series never won me over during the few times I actually played a Tomb Raider title. This reboot may have rubbed some purists the wrong way, but this is definitely more up my alley.
The Walking Dead: 400 Days Review
It’s been a few months since the final episode of The Walking Dead left me in tears. While Telltale Games isn’t quite ready to roll out the next full season, they’ve provided us with a special episode to bridge the gap between the two. Though The Walking Dead: 400 Days as an experience is rather short, it’s an interesting tease for what’s to come.
The Last Of Us Single Player Review
Much of my time with The Last of Us wasn’t pleasant. Granted, some of that unpleasantness is by design, since this is a survival horror game in many ways. However, some of the displeasure I felt playing the game wasn’t intentional. After starting things off with a bang, the pace drags to a crawl as it establishes its core gameplay. Worse yet for me, that gameplay is primarily stealth-based, which generally isn’t my cup of tea. On top of that, I had a hard time investing into the moment-to-moment action when the gameplay and context balance just felt off during its first half.
Having said all that, it eventually hits its stride to provide one heck of a closing act.
In Third Person 