Review Archives (All Reviews)

You are currently looking through all reviews for games that are available on every platform the site currently covers. Below, you will find reviews written by Suskie and sorted according to date of submission, with the newest content displaying first. As many as 20 results will display per page. If you would like to try a search with different parameters, specify them below and submit a new search.

Available Reviews
	No More Heroes review (WII) Reviewed on March 21, 2009 In reviewing No More Heroes, it’s a natural instinct to compare the game to its spiritual predecessor, Killer7, but that won’t get you anywhere. The two games share a similar cel-shaded visual style and are both products of Suda 51, but that’s the extent of their similarities, save for the identical reactions they inspired from me: I don’t know what it is, but I like it.	3.5/5
	Watchmen: The End Is Nigh review (PC) Reviewed on March 21, 2009 I’ve decided that it’s pointless to judge Watchmen: The End Is Nigh as a genuine narrative addition to the Watchmen saga, because of course it fails. The graphic novel is considered the height of the medium by nearly anyone who reads it, and was penned by Alan Moore, one of the greatest writers of the last century; the game was made for no reason other than to cash in on the mainstream success that the license only just obtained a couple of weeks ago with the movie. You’ve seen thi...	2/5
	Blue Dragon Plus review (DS) Reviewed on March 16, 2009 Blue Dragon Plus is ultimately too well-designed an RTS to allow for the most basic strategies, but at the same time, it doesn’t offer the most complex, either. Simply grouping all of your units together and rushing mindlessly from one encounter to the next often won’t cut it, especially when the difficulty escalates in the latter half of the adventure. At the same time, attempting to formulate any advanced strategies, trying to really make the most of your available unis, will result in aggravation.	3/5
	Gears of War 2 review (X360) Reviewed on March 14, 2009 It took me around a week to finish the original Gears of War, while I managed to complete the sequel in less than twenty-four hours. It’s not that I was in any rush to beat Gears of War 2 (I wasn’t) or that the sequel is at all shorter than its predecessor (if anything, it’s a little longer). The game is so intense, so utterly captivating from title screen to end credits, that I had no choice but to keep playing. Its hold on me was that strong.	4.5/5
	Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon review (DS) Reviewed on March 04, 2009 Spend a few hours with any Fire Emblem game and you’ll see why the series is revered in the world of turn-based strategy games: Its emphasis on the immediate and long-term effects of death is brilliant. The knowledge that each downed soldier is down for good makes you more considerate of individual lives. Being more considerate, in turn, makes you more cautious, less reckless. You come out of a Fire Emblem game a better player than you were when you entered.	4/5
	Quest 64 review (N64) Reviewed on February 24, 2009 The Nintendo 64 has only one great RPG, and it is not Quest 64.	2/5
	Deus Ex: Invisible War review (PC) Reviewed on February 20, 2009 I suppose it’s unfair to expect anything to be as deep, involving, and utterly groundbreaking as Deus Ex, a game that is frequently imitated but seldom equaled. What’s interesting is that its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was also developed by Ion Storm, and headed by many of the same individuals (I checked), yet it still feels like the kind of pale mimicry that would come from a team alien to this sort of thing, who understand where they’re going but have no idea how to get ther...	3/5
	1080 Snowboarding review (N64) Reviewed on February 20, 2009 1080° Snowboarding is a racer and an extreme sports game, but it is never both of those things at the same time, and it doesn’t fare too well with either.	2.5/5
	Yoshi's Story review (N64) Reviewed on February 19, 2009 It says a lot when, after a few replays, I am able to beat Yoshi’s Story in under a half hour, without taking any damage whatsoever.	2.5/5
	Rocket: Robot on Wheels review (N64) Reviewed on February 18, 2009 Developing a game specifically for the N64 was a move that could be viewed as either reckless or cunning. The system’s inability to rise out the shadow of the more commercially successful PSX meant that any exclusive games would have a limited reach by default, but then a good game has a better chance of garnering attention in an altogether less eventful library. Rocket: Robot on Wheels effectively turns both of those theories upside down. It fits squarely into the platformer categ...	4.5/5
	Tonic Trouble review (N64) Reviewed on February 13, 2009 It’s rare for me to be offended by bad character design, but Tonic Trouble’s protagonist makes me want to shoot somebody.	1/5
	Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia review (DS) Reviewed on February 11, 2009 My appreciation for Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia never really hit its peak until, after beating the game twice, I went back and tried to play a game in the series that I previously loved (Dawn of Sorrow) only to find the experience hollow, simplistic, and dull. The Castlevania series has survived up to this point by sticking to a pretty routine and unchanging formula, which is fine when the formula in question works. (See also: Zelda.) This newest DS entry is probab...	4/5
	Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts review (X360) Reviewed on November 14, 2008 There was a time when Banjo and Kazooie were considered 3D platformer icons, probably in the same era when the term “3D platformer” could be uttered without inspiring snickers. A decade after the pair’s first outing, even the folks at Rare seem to be aware that the series is well past its prime. Recurring villain Gruntilda died at the end of the first game, and yet they’ve still managed to bring her back twice, first as a skeleton desperate to restore her gargantuan body mass, and now as a rathe...	4.5/5
	Fable review (XBX) Reviewed on October 20, 2008 What a fascinating failure Fable is. I don’t know exactly how long it was in development and I’m too lazy to find out, but I can tell you that I first heard about it when it was called Project Ego during the post-E3 launch craze of mid-2001, a year that inspires repeated use of the phrase “back when.” Back when Microsoft was clearly in over its head. Back when the Xbox was doomed to fade into history as another failed attempt by an inexperienced first party to dominate the console ...	2.5/5
	Manhunt review (PC) Reviewed on October 13, 2008 You’ve been following the controversy surrounding the Grand Theft Auto series for… let me start over.	2/5
	Portal review (PC) Reviewed on September 22, 2008 So get this: I’ve got a friend who has never played Portal yet can still recite the game’s maddeningly catchy end credits song, word for word, along with his two nerdy buddies – I might be one of them – who like to sing the tune in public places just to freak people out. He’s cited the mechanical GLaDOS, the closest thing Portal has to a main character, as one of his all-time favorite villains, and has even brought up HK-47 (of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic seri...	5/5
	Doom 3 review (PC) Reviewed on September 03, 2008 How scary is Doom 3? Scary enough to place you in a pitch-black room with five demons who want to maul your brains out, and scary enough to keep you from holding your gun and flashlight at the same time. Given the abundance of exploding air vents in Mars City, is there seriously no duct tape one can use to attach his flashlight to his assault rifle? Or, if nothing else, is there no way to hold the flashlight and your damn pistol at the same time? The pistol is a one-handed weapon, and I can see that my character’s left arm functions just fine, so what’s the problem? You know, the old Resident Evil games employed tank-like controls to increase the tension of enemy encounters; it was a survival horror trick. But then Capcom matured and made Resident Evil 4, which proved it’s possible to scare players without physically handicapping the main character. Doom 3 doesn’t even technically qualify as a survival horror game and it’s preoccupied with pulling rubbish like this.	1.5/5
	Far Cry review (PC) Reviewed on August 31, 2008 On this tropical paradise of a Caribbean island, the jungle is both your greatest weapon and your biggest liability. With only a handful of markers on your radar to guide you in the right direction, you’ll have to carve your own path through the nearly limitless foliage, and it’s a sure bet you’ll run into more than a few enemy soldiers on your way. How you go about dispatching them is a question of your gamer instincts, but the cold reality is that it only takes a few bullets to bring Jack Carver down. Going balls-to-the-walls is, as you might imagine, not always the most effective tactic.	4/5
	Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards review (N64) Reviewed on August 05, 2008 Kirby’s Dream Land may have been short and easy, but it was never boring, with levels often vertically oriented to take advantage of Kirby’s flight capabilities. Kirby can still fly here (though the ability is more limited), but most of these stages could be completed by any generic platformer star: Walk forward, defeat a few enemies, jump a few times, move on. And damn, is Kirby ever slow. You’ve got to double-tap a direction on the d-pad just to make him bolt at an adequate pace, and even then there’s the unwavering sense that he’s wading through invisible mashed potatoes.	3/5
	BioShock review (X360) Reviewed on August 04, 2008 The setting of Rapture is unique, which in horror-themed FPS terms means the developers were free to pull off new environmental tricks – like having water leaking in through the windows, or making the walls creak from the pressure – in addition to the usual flickering lights and distant screams. Irrational also knew how to handle irony and awkward juxtaposition, too. Watching a little girl in a pink dress who’s stabbing corpses with a giant syringe get attacked by a bunch of lunatics wielding rusty pipes is unsettling. It’s even more unsettling when it all unfolds as “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?” plays on an old turntable in the background.	4/5

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