Review: Gears of War: Judgment!

There’s a very good reason why this game isn’t called Gears of War 4. I think of the Gears series as high octane, constantly ratcheting, episodic, interactive action movies where the gritty boombox-breasted protagonists are siphoned from one horrible situation to another. Traversing broken cities and strange lands, they’ve been inside a giant bug, battled light-sensitive bats, and even dodged a downpour of broken glass. Gears of War: Judgment, on the other hand, doesn’t have any of these things. Instead we get an almost real-time tour through... a museum, a college and a courthouse? Hmmmmmm. So what DOES it have?

Find out why it still kind of works... after the jump!

Review: Halo 4! It's Kind of Boring!

Halo 4 is an extremely polished, visually stunning, sci-fi/action sequel that is not nearly as fun as it should be. Which is probably a controversial opinion to have. A glance at the Metacritic paints a different picture entirely with most major reviewers awarding high nineties to perfect hundreds, so why did I continually struggle to connect? Why do large portions of the campaign feel like a repetitive chore? Haven’t we experienced a lot of this before?

To find out what went wrong (but also what they got right)... join me after the jump!

Review: Dishonored (Xbox 360)

A mix of Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed and a little bit of Batman, Bethesda’s latest offering, Dishonored, feels instantly familiar, and yet beneath its surface lurks a surprising depth and versatility which makes its experience both personal and unique. 

Set in a plague-ridden, steampunk, dystopian England laced with strange machines and dark magic, you play the role of the Empress’ personal bodyguard, Corvo, who is “dishonored” when he is wrongfully accused of her assassination. Armed with a slew of high-tech gadgetry mixed with hand-picked supernatural abilities and a fancy mechanical mask, it’s your job to quash the conspiracy and restore child heir Emily to her rightful place on the throne. It’s up to you whether you want to do this in a noisy torrent of blood, or sweep in like a ghost, completely undetected. Plus it’s a hell of a lot of fun!

If any of that sounds good to you then join me after the jump for some jugular puncturing action!

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man Video Game (Xbox 360)

Movie tie-in video games are notoriously awful, but the persistent positive buzz around the new The Amazing Spider-Man game prompted me to give it a shot myself. Why? Because I love Spider-Man games! The last one I played was the surprisingly fun Shattered Dimensions and if this one can bring me any of that same joy I am sold!

In fact, Spider-Man may even be my favourite videogame character to play. Many characters can just run, jump and shoot, but Spider-Man has such a vast array of abilities at his disposal thanks to his increased strength, sticky limbs, and super-versatile spider-spooge. He can shoot webs, swing, climb walls, grab things from a distance, hang people from the ceiling, and jump crazy high. Plus he constantly wisecracks. So the real question is, will being attached to Marc Webb’s overwrought spider-flick hinder Spider-Man’s potential? I did like the portrayal of Spidey in that film for the most part, but could we be facing a situation here where you “press X to cry”?

Oh! And did I mention that the word on the street is that this game plays a lot like Arkham City/Asylum? Find out what I thought... after the crazy high spider-jump!

Review: Lego Batman 2 (Xbox 360)

We love Lego. And we love Batman. We even almost love Superman even though he’s kind of a dick sometimes. So when you mix together all these things that we love and turn that lusty love-cocktail into a much anticipated videogame then it should be a surefire, super-studded, bat-punch to the pleasure centre. There’s definitely fun to be had. But will you climax?

Lego Batman 2 is a fun, humourous, mostly successful action/puzzle game which is only hindered by its own ambition. With a gazillion Lego games already under the utility belt, I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure to innovate. And this game certainly is ambitious with a large host of characters and the addition of a giant sandbox to bury yourself in. But these extra features come at a cost and Lego Batman 2 is not without its compromises.

To find out what worked and what didn’t... join me after the jump!

By George It's Metal!

Is it October yet?

Luke brought up the game Bioshock: Infinite as one of the ones he was looking forward to when we were discussing the very few games that we had in our scopes for 2012. The Bioshock series has been a ton of fun for me, certainly, and I may be one of the few people who actually liked Bioshock 2 more than the first game.

Certainly, it looks by all accounts that all of us will be enjoying this newest installment in the series, come Fall, even though it has very little if nothing at all to do with Rapture. In essence, toweling off and soaring amidst the clouds looks like it might be fun.

I hope they do eventually plan to return to Rapture someday however...I don't feel that the place has had its story completely told. Something does not feel...complete.

This city in the clouds holds some promise though...I am a bit torn on this Motorized Patriot. I have not decided yet if I absolutely love it or not.




I'll let you know.

OUT.

Clone YMCA: Why Star Wars Kinect is Creatively Bankrupt.

I love Star Wars. I'm the biggest Star Wars apologist. But I cannot possibly apologise for this. New gameplay footage of next month's Star Wars Kinect is gut-wrenchingly awful. In fact, I'm sorry to say that it's probably the first Star Wars endeavour in many, many years that I've felt actively opposed to (well... this and Hyperspace Hoopla). From pretending to podrace with your arms to awkwardly mimicking clone troopers dancing and singing to YMCA, this collection of mini-games (is that what this thing is?) looks like a massive disappointment. And that sucks as fan, because there are already a million people out there lining up to take cheap shots at Star Wars and this game is bound to give them plenty of ammunition.

Watch the clip for yourself if you dare:

Video via Topless Robot.

So whose fault is it? Well Lucasarts needs to take some flak for allowing it to happen, but I can't help feeling that the real villain here is the Kinect itself.

Join me after the jump to find out how many kittens Microsoft's Kinect makes me want to shit.

Tomorrow is Four Weeks Since My XBox Live Account Was Hacked

Getting hacked is no fun, folks. What's worse is having just a miserable experience trying to fix the problem, especially with a company with as many resources as Microsoft does.

A little background: about a month ago on a Saturday morning, I randomly got some "you have purchased some Microsoft points" emails from XBox Live and from Paypal, since my accounts were linked. This was similar to the FIFA hack that's been ongoing(!) since October(!!), so I immediately changed all my passwords and got down to business with getting things righted again. I figured it would take a few days, and hey, I was going away for a few days anyway. They were fairly quick with their investigation, and got back to me rather quickly that, yeah, I had "unauthorized access," that the points would be removed, and I would be refunded "within 1 to 2 billing cycles." No definition of what a billing cycle is, and Paypal is, you know, one button. But okay, patience, young Padawan, etc.

This is where things kind of went downhill.

Call of the Mild

Miss me?

Somehow, I missed my weekly obligation. Kind of like church. Though I have been missing THAT weekly obligation since I was, I dunno, 22 or something. Well, to be honest, I haven't really been MISSING it all that much. I prefer worshiping the bone-crunching hits of the NFL every Sunday.

But that is neither here and, coincidentally, neither there.

Speaking of the NFL, did anybody actually play Madden 2012 this year? I did not. My gaming was a bit limited because of budgetary reasons. I had to pick and choose what I devoted my X-Box time to. In fact, so tight was my wallet, that I played Borderlands for the first time THIS YEAR, since it was twenty bucks. Great game. But back to Madden.

I skipped it. Why? Because Madden 2011 sucked balls. In my humble opinion. Madden 2011 offered little, if anything, over its predecessor, and so when it came time to move on to 2012, that memory, along with a CLEVELAND BROWN on the cover of the box, left me flat.

Something else really took the wind from my sails when it came to game sequels in 2011. Wanna know what it was?

Xbox 360 Dashboard Update 2011 - 5 Min Quick and Dirty Review

Yesterday (December 6) Microsoft released its newest update for the Xbox 360 dashboard which has completely shaken things up in regards to how it looks, feels, organized, and even operates. Originally slated for at 10am EST release, there were naturally some glitches that meant delays. Well, after a 14 hour delay I was able to get the download. yeah, it's pretty different

Find out more after the jump