Review Archives (Staff Reviews)

You are currently looking through staff reviews for games that are available on every platform the site currently covers. Below, you will find reviews written by all eligible authors 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
	Puzzler Mind Gym 3D review (3DS) Reviewed on December 19, 2011 Puzzler Mind Gym 3D is the first brain training game for the Nintendo 3DS. What sets it apart from most other brain training games is that it’s a 90-day training regimen in which all 90 days are open and available to you right from the start. You can tackle as many sets of puzzles a day as you want, in whatever order you feel comfortable with. Early days are easier and later days are more difficult.
	Assassin's Creed: Revelations review (X360) Reviewed on December 19, 2011 Combat is still solid when it's one guy fighting a handful of enemies polite enough to hang back and wait their turns. But when Ubisoft tries larger encounters, which they do frequently in Revelations, Assassin's Creed combat looks suspiciously like Dynasty Warriors. That's not something to aspire to. When a riot breaks out, it looks unintentionally hilarious, with characters shuffling and bumping uncertainly. It looks more like a high school dance.
	Fallout review (PC) Reviewed on December 17, 2011 I’ve found Fallout to be enormously irritating. It’s a grotesquely unfriendly game. Its interface is convoluted and confusing. Wandering through the desert early on will almost certainly get you killed by foes you’re totally unequipped to defeat... yet wandering through the desert is the only way to progress. You can complete some fairly menial tasks in order to become strong enough to tackle them, but - well - they’re fairly menial.
	Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening review (X360) Reviewed on December 16, 2011 Meanwhile, you'll primarily be fighting the same stuff from Origins with a handful of new foes...and they just don't have the staying power to last through Awakening. In one dungeon, my guys were hacking down the formerly-feared Revenants like they were generic front-line infantry. Near the end of the game, a High Dragon attacks. The ensuing battle was a lot like when I fought a particular one back in Origins…except this time, I was the one kicking butt instead of the other way around.
	Jurassic Park: The Game review (PC) Reviewed on December 16, 2011 Fortunately, such exploration scenes are relatively few and far-between and there are no time constraints or other pressures rushing you along, so you won't be punished for awkwardness or missteps. What you will be punished for, at least once in awhile, is blowing the QTEs. But this actually turns out to be one of the game's highlights - watching the characters die in hilariously awful ways.
	Green Day: Rock Band review (PS3) Reviewed on December 14, 2011 Some of that personality is censored, unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're of the proper mind). When Harmonix released The Beatles: Rock Band, the company had the luxury of working with musical selections that the Vatican itself has endorsed. Green Day, in contrast, is comprised of three band members who like to talk about procreation in its most vulgar terms and who frequently protest organized religion and politics.
	Mario Kart 7 review (3DS) Reviewed on December 09, 2011 Mario Kart games have been headed in a cheap direction for awhile now, but the issue has been easy enough to ignore that its impact on the overall experience remained relatively minor. This is the first time that players have been forced to face it head-on if they want to get the most out of their brand new game. Mario Kart 7 is a good purchase for action racing fans, but it could have been one of the finest in the series if the development teams would have just realized that losing to a cheating game isn’t fun.
	Dragon Age: Origins review (X360) Reviewed on December 09, 2011 Don't get me wrong — I'm not saying the Darkspawn aren't a threat because they are (just saunter unprepared into an ambush of high-ranking ones for all the proof you need of that), but at least you know what you're getting with them — brutal, unreasoning aggression. That's a lot easier to deal with than the webs of half-truths and lies spun by the average member of Ferelden nobility.
	Serious Sam: BFE review (PC) Reviewed on December 04, 2011 Serious Sam 3: BFE is Croteam's love letter to those of us who have been waiting for another glimpse at classic shoot-'em-up-ery in the vein of Doom, Quake, and even the original Duke Nukem, whose modern iteration failed to deliver. It's a machine gun-and-heavy-metal symphony that only hardcore shooter fans will want to take a stab at, and while its punishing difficulty at times may certainly be a turnoff for potential buyers, it's a satisfying throwback to a simpler time.
	Beyblade: Metal Masters review (DS) Reviewed on December 02, 2011 The combat itself is barebones. Much of it is based on typical fighting convention stuff: position, sequence and timing. It’s all very basic. What’s important is to launch well and to use special attacks frequently. Each Beyblade has an associated power animal which factors into some combos and can be called upon for a seven-second cutscene in battle. There’s no option to turn these off (or even an options menu at all) and they’re never very good. They don’t even show the animal attack; allies just arrive and the screen goes white.
	Anno 2070 review (PC) Reviewed on December 02, 2011 The campaign, which has no time limits and almost no fail states, is just a primer. The core of Anno 2070 is the continuous scenario, which you can set up to be as competitive, goal-oriented, and punishing as you want, or as peaceful, open-ended, and forgiving as you want. This is the epitome of the sandbox game. Just start it up and build your little heart out. And the longer it goes, the longer you'll want it to go.
	Tales of the Abyss review (PS2) Reviewed on December 02, 2011 As you play, though, you'll notice a dark side to the powers that be relying on The Score as their be-all, end-all source of guidance; especially when it's made clear than a number of huge tragedies were caused by man solely to keep things in line with The Score.
	GET TO THA CHOPPA TWOOO!!2 review (X360) Reviewed on November 29, 2011 Get to tha Choppa Two‘s most remarkable aspect is how it takes a foundation, then, rather than build upon it, arms itself with a shovel and digs deeper into the muck.
	Pokémon Rumble Blast review (3DS) Reviewed on November 28, 2011 And so, the game keeps going. You work your way through a corridor-shaped level, such as a lake shore or a forest (the various settings differ only cosmetically and by the types of Pokémon you encounter), fighting mobs of Pokémon that go down in one hit. At the end of the level, you fight a boss. Bosses are just larger versions of regular Pokémon with more health.
	The King of Fighters XIII review (X360) Reviewed on November 28, 2011 There are slow and powerful bruisers, tiny and agile schoolgirl types and everything in between. If you decide to spend the time that is required to master even a small portion of the more than 30 fighters, you’ll be busy for many hours. Some characters are less obviously gifted than others, but none of them seem to be useless. Even the diminutive Chin Gentsai, who employs the drunken master fighting style, is deceptively powerful once you learn how to put his hypnotic movements to use.
	The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim review (X360) Reviewed on November 27, 2011 This is when Skyrim will reward you most richly. Not when you're trying to win, or beat it, or get to the end, or level up, or earn the achievements. Not when you're playing it like a stat-based RPG, or a single-player MMO, or a challenge. Skyrim is putatively a game. More accurately, it's a narrative loom.
	Otomedius Excellent review (X360) Reviewed on November 26, 2011 Environments include vast and empty space (aside from enemy ships, of course), futuristic and very gray cities built on the side of cliffs overlooking waterfalls, the heart of a volcano and eventually caverns and a fleet of battleships. Settings are rendered competently but only occasionally with any originality. If you were to strip away the scantily-clad girls, Otomedius Excellent would be nearly indistinguishable from almost any generic horizontal shooter you might care to name.
	Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection review (PS3) Reviewed on November 25, 2011 It was only a matter of time before Konami jumped on the HD remaster bandwagon started this generation by Sony with God of War Collection, and Konami picked the best candidate to go first. Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is a compilation no Metal Gear Solid fan should miss.
	Alone in the Dark 3 review (PC) Reviewed on November 24, 2011 Alone 3 tries to blend the first game’s unparalleled approach to otherworldly detective work, with the second game’s more lighthearted but equally smart MacGyver-esque sleuthing (and jacked-up combat), in order to arrive at a happy medium. To the credit of the developers, the mixture does reach a medium, but it’s not happy.
	The War of the Worlds review (X360) Reviewed on November 23, 2011 WotW isn't exactly unplayable; the tense narrative and bleak, nearly monochromatic presentation does much to convey the hopelessness of the human plight in London in the face of merciless invaders.

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