X-Men Arcade - Xbox Live Arcade

Sit down and let me tell you the story of how I came to own X-Men Arcade for XBL. I remember playing X-Men Arcade as a kid so when I heard that it was going to be released on XBL I was rather excited. Not wanting to jump right in and buy it I decided to pick up the demo and play it. So I started playing the demo, it wasn't really as fun as I remember, but I was somewhat enjoying myself. That's when I got an achievement. Actually a pop up said that if I owned the game I would have gotten an achievement. It also gave me the option of buying the game by pressing A. Well I was jumping around doing kicks at the time that the message popped up... pressing A. So it took me directly to the buy page. You have two options, confirm download or cancel. I'm not sure if you can cycle through back to the top or if I just thought I hit down and didn't, but either way I ended up hitting confirm download instead of cancel.

I now owned X-Men Arcade. Oh boy.

Now I won't say that it wasn't my fault, but it seemed just a little to easy to buy the game. Whatever, I owned it now. Not much I could do about it. So I decided to put my best foot forward, not care, and just play the game.

And that's exactly what I did. I sat down and played the game. It took me twenty-seven minutes to beat it. Twenty-seven minutes from start to finish. Oh well, there was always the multiplayer.

X-Men Arcade Multiplayer allows you to play the single player game with up to six different players. Which is interesting... except that in the next hour I beat the game another three times. In less than an hour and a half I had beat the game four times.

Over the next couple days I played the multi a few more times, beating the game another five or six times. It was kind of fun just to spend twenty minutes or so beating the game, but it's not like I'm going to be playing it a ton more over the next weeks or months. It's mostly just served as a twenty minute distraction.

Here's my problem. This game costs 800 MS points, that's $10 in real life money. That's quite a lot of money for a game that can be beaten in less than a half hour on the hardest setting. Even with the multiplayer this game is worth more along the lines of 400 MS points. Also the multiplayer is kind of borked. You get six players in a game and I guarantee you're going to get some slow down. In some places it becomes downright unplayable.

This game isn't at all difficult either. You're playing the X-Men Arcade game, but with unlimited quarters. Sure you can die, but the game never ends. Even on the hardest difficulty setting this game is incredibly easy. There's almost no challenge.

So should you buy it? I would say no unless there's certain conditions: On sale or 400 MS points? Sure, it's worth $5. Huge X-Men fan? Might be worth it for you. Have massive nostalgia for X-Men Arcade? Probably worth the $10. Overall though it's just not a good enough game to be worth $10.

Squid.

Assassin's Creed - Xbox 360

Assassin's Creed was the second Xbox 360 game I ever played. I owned Assassin's Creed before I even owned a 360. I bought it to play on my brother's recently purchased 360. I remember being blown away by the graphics of the opening cinematic. It was about that point that I realized I needed my own Xbox 360. Within the week I had purchased a 360 and a spiffy new HDTV to play it on.

People have always complained about Assassin's Creed. It was repetitive, the climbing was sometimes kind of wonky, you switched between Altaïr and Desmond way too much. I didn't see this. I loved every minute of the game. Was it repetitive? Sure, but it was fun as hell so I didn't care. Was the climbing sometimes wonky? I didn't know, up until this point I had never played a game where you could climb like that. Everything was so interesting and new that I didn't care if occasionally you made a misstep and fell. And I never felt that traveling between the two time periods did anything but add to the story.

That was my first playthrough. My second playthrough I had a change of opinion.

The first thing I noticed... how repetitive it actually was. Gone were the days that I was just happy assassinating people. After about the first two assassinations all I could think was "I have to do this again?" I went from helping every person I came across, climbing every vantage point I could find, to just doing what needed to be done to get the next assassination just so I could forward the game progress. It was the same thing over and over. It became a grind.

All of the sudden every other game I had played that had a climbing mechanic felt vastly superior. It wasn't just that occasionally Altaïr would fall from a ledge. It's that occasionally Altaïr would do the exact opposite of what I had just told him to do. It was like occasionally Altaïr would get a deathwish and decide he didn't feel the need to live any longer. "Want me to jump to that ladder? Screw you, I'm jumping down three stories into a crowd of angry guards!" The climbing wasn't horrible but felt somewhat antiquated and occasionally difficult to control. It wasn't just the climbing. On more then one occasion Altaïr would draw the wrong weapon (even though I knew I picked the right one) or would just refuse to draw his sword. I have no idea what the problem was but it quickly became annoying. Also once you learned to counter fights became way too easy. I could take on a hundred guards simply by blocking and countering and eventually kill them all. What's the fun in that?

I still don't have a major problem of the switching between Altaïr and Desmond. Occasionally it did feel a little out of place, or slowed down the action, but overall I still don't see why so many people hated this aspect of the game.

The game just didn't hold the same wonder that it did the first time around. It was the same game, I was just looking at it through different eyes. Long gone was ability to overlook some of the more glaring problems this game had. Towards the end I was playing the game to beat it, not because I was necessarily enjoying myself. The repetitiveness of the game finally got to me.

So what are my second thoughts on Assassin's Creed? Well, it was good... but not great. It certainly didn't feel as fresh and entertaining the second time around. However, that doesn't make it a bad game. It still find some enjoyment in it, and assassinating people can be very entertaining. If you haven't played it before I would say that you should give it a try, but I'm not sure that it's worth a second playthrough.

Squid.

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Xbox 360

You would have a harder time getting a bad review of a Call of Duty game out of me then you would the president of Activision. Simply stated, I love the Call of Duty games. Well, the newer ones. Not that I don't enjoy the WW2 CoD games but I absolutely love the modern Call of Duty games. I still rank Call of Duty: Modern Warfare as probably one of, if not the best first person shooters of all time.

So what does Black Ops bring to the table? A lot. New environment, a much different storyline then we are used to, and a whole lot of ass kickery that makes the Call of Duty games so Goddamn great.

Sure, modern times is a great time period with a lot of awesome technology but we're seeing more and more of it now. It's in danger of becoming stale. So Black Ops is set during the beginning of the cold war area. You'll be in places from Russia to Vietnam. You'll drive boats, fly helicopters, and repel off of mountains. From blowing up bad guys, to slitting throats, to zip lining through a window to save a hostage. Call of Duty kicks up the awesomeness notch with Black Ops.

Black Ops is like the other Call of Duty games, short one player campaign but chalk full of so much damn awesome and testosterone (sadly the word "Test-awesome-rone" hasn't been picked up in the common vernacular)that you just don't care. Sure it's seven to ten hours long, but that seven to ten hours is some of the most on the edge of your seat, ass kicking time you can possibly have. It's exactly what you would expect from a Call of Duty game.

Then you have the multiplayer. Say goodbye to your wife and family because you're going to be gone for a while. Remember the multiplayer you loved in CoD 4 and Modern Warfare 2? Well it's back, and in my opinion better than ever. The game may only be seven to ten hours long, but then I played another forty hours(and still counting)of multiplayer. CoD's multiplayer is possibly the most addicting thing I've played in a long time. I don't know how many times I said I would play just one more game only to find myself still playing an hour later. It's fun, it's awesome, it's worth the price of the game alone.

Go out and buy Call of Duty: Black Ops, trust me, you won't regret it.

Squid.

The Saboteur - Xbox 360

One of the many little joys of gaming is finding a great game that you've never really heard of, or heard much about. It happened when I played Metro 2033 and it happened again when I played The Saboteur.

Up until the point that I played it I really knew very little about The Saboteur. I read its review in OXM, but I'll be damned if I can remember one thing they said about it. They only thing I remember from the review was that it was a sandbox game where you fought against the Nazis and that the areas you had liberated changed from black and white to color. I remember thinking I should play it, but I didn't really follow through by adding it to my Gamefly queue or anything. Months passed and then one day while shopping at Target I saw it on clearance for $4.75. That's a hard deal to pass up.

It took a couple of weeks after I bought it to finally get around to playing The Saboteur, but man am I glad I did. Simply put, The Saboteur is a really fun game. It may not be the most original game, but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy every bit of the thirty two hours I spent playing it.

I'm a boy. I like explosions. There are a lot of them in this game. Seriously, you spend a lot of your time sneaking into Nazi installations and blowing them the hell up. That is when you're not driving around in fancy cars, shooting Nazis, or climbing up buildings like Spider-Man.

Yes, you are Irish brogue Sean, a race car driver who also happens to know how to use pretty much every gun and explosive known to man as well as how to scale the sides of buildings as easily as walking up a flight of stairs. You are the Irish James Bond. So when Nazis kill you're friend you decide to wreck their shit up in Paris with the help of the resistance fighters you will meet along the way. You'll do quests for these people to help further their cause, everything from sneaking into buildings and blowing them up to assassinating Nazi higher ups.

The game gives you a fairly decent option of how to complete your missions. Feeling stealthy? You could always steal a Nazi uniform and plant explosives in key areas without them knowing... you also have the option of packing a car with explosives and driving it through the front gate. Just remember to bail out before you hit the building.

Is the story deep? No. It's your standard fare pretty much. Is it going to win any game of the year awards? Probably not. You know what though? At the end of the day if a game is fun I'll play it and enjoy it. Sometimes I don't want some intricate plot with twists and turns. Sometimes I don't want to be lead on a journey through a magical story that will change my life and blah, blah, blah. Occasionally? I just want to get in a game where I can cause a lot of destruction, drive fast cars, blow up buildings, kill Nazis and have a hell of a fun time doing it. And you know what? The Saboteur allowed me to do that and enjoy every minute of it.

Squid.

Fallout: New Vegas - Xbox 360

I rank Fallout 3 as one of my favorite games of all time. Single player wise it's probably the game that I've spent the most time on. I absolutely love it. When I heard there was a new Fallout game coming out I was excited like a fat kid in a candy store. I didn't want to wait, I wanted it now. I didn't care that it wasn't Bethesda making it, I just wanted more Fallout goodness.

Then there was what felt like an eternity of waiting. Seeing screenshots, teaser videos, magazine previews, all for a game that I wanted oh so badly. I soaked it up like a sponge, every time they gave up a morsel of information I ate it up. I don't remember the last time I remember being this excited about a game.

For some reason I had it in my head that it was coming out November 27th, I had that day mentally marked on the calendar. I was scrounging together money trying not to make my bank account weep... that's when I learned I was a week off, it was actually coming out November 19th. This is like learning as a kid that Christmas is going to be on the 18th this year. I was pumped, I was getting the game earlier then expected.

Ahhh the intro. The intro to the Fallout games are absolutely phenomenal, Ron Perlman sets the mood for the undertaking you're about to endure. If Fallout 3 was about what happens to the land after the nuclear strike, Fallout: New Vegas is about what happens to the people. You'll be constantly trying to figure out what side you're on, who you'll betray, who you'll fight for and who you will kill. Fallout New Vegas is about choices. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, and a lot of times they're ambiguous.

One of the things that surprised me the most about Fallout: New Vegas is the decisions. In almost every game I've ever played that gives you a choice you know how it will affect the outcome. The choice is between killing an orphan and her puppy or giving her a new mommy and daddy... you know which one is good, and which one is evil. You know how it will affect you. You don't expect to kill an orphan and puppy and be revered by the people. Every game I've ever played with moral decisions pretty much gives it to you in black and white. Right and wrong, good and bad. Fallout: New Vegas is all gray for the most part. Most of the decisions I made I wasn't really sure how they were going to affect me. I didn't know if I was making a right or wrong decision, but I knew I had to make some decision. Everything was in shades of gray. Sure Caesar was evil, but was the NCR good? Who could I trust? Could I trust anyone? To this day I'm not sure if I made the right decisions. My decisions ended up being good, but could they have been better? Should I have made different decisions along the way? Should I have made different allegiances?

Fallout: New Vegas feels almost exactly like Fallout 3. Same game, different setting. Sure there are definitely some differences, mostly the way certain things are handled and the tone of the game in certain parts, but for the most part it is very similar. If you liked Fallout 3, you will like Fallout: New Vegas. It pretty much feels like a 100+ hour expansion pack.

One thing I would like to talk about is the bugs. From the get go this game has been plagued with bugs... apparently. Honestly I only came across one bug the entire 102 hours I played the game. Occasionally my gun would go all wonky, thinking I was standing up when I was actually crouching, this would cause my gun to show up at the top of my screen instead of the middle. Other then that? I didn't run into one other bug. I know a lot of people did, I however did not. Just sayin'.

Did I enjoy Fallout: New Vegas as much as much as Fallout 3? No. I enjoyed it greatly but Fallout 3 I think is still the better game, from what I can tell this is not the popular opinion. A lot of people I've talked to have actually said they prefer Fallout: New Vegas to Fallout 3. Overall I'm confident that if you like one, you'll like the other.

Fallout: New Vegas is a very good game. Compared to Fallout 3 and in its own right. It kept me gripped for 102 hours and I assume that at some point in time I'll be playing it again with different choices. It is a very good game, and it's one of the first games I've played where the choices are not black and white. Go out and get Fallout: New Vegas, it's definitely worth your time and money.

Squid.

Half Life 2 - Xbox 360

How exactly do you go about reviewing one of the best reviewed games of all time? Were talking about a game that has a 96% on Metacritic. A game that currently is ranked the seventh best game of all time on Metacitic. A sequel to what is considered to be one of the best, most innovative first person shooters of all time. There's not exactly a lot I can say about this game that hasn't been said before.

The best compliment that I can think to give Half Life 2 is that it's just as fun and as good now as it was when I played it in 2004. This games held up incredibly well. Sure, some of the graphics aren't quite up to par with games released now, but at the end of the day they're still pretty damn solid.

In fact this entire game is solid. There wasn't a moment that the game dragged, there wasn't a moment that I wasn't having a great time, there wasn't a moment that I didn't think that this game deserved as much praise as it got. The game was great, and the game remains great.

I remember the first time I played the original Half Life game, I was blown away by it. The game, the story, everything about it was amazing. For the next couple years I was satisfied playing mods, Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike mostly. Then I heard rumblings about a sequel in the works. I remember being very excited, but it could go either way. It's an incredibly difficult thing to follow up a game as great as Half Life. Valve was fortunately up to the task though.

Half Life was an amazing game, but Half Life 2 upped the ante. I'm not going to say that it's better than the original, but I will say that from where I'm standing they're pretty much on equal ground.

As I said before, nothing I say about Half Life 2 is going to be something new and exciting. We're talking about a game that's several years old and in almost every top ten list. So all I can say is that it's an amazing game. It's a game that every gamer should play at least once. If you played it and enjoyed it, do yourself a favor and go play it again. I had forgotten how great a game it was. I usually name it when I'm talking about my favorite games, but up until I replayed it again I think I had forgotten why. Playing it again gives me renewed appreciation for what may be one of the best first person shooters of the decade as well as a game that really sets the bar for what first person shooters should be.

Squid.

Clive Barker's Jericho - Xbox 360

Woopsie doodle, kind of forgot to review this game when I beat it. Well, here it is:

In my last review for Red Dead Redemption I talked about what makes a good game, not wanting a game to end. Being so engrossed in the story that you just want to keep going. So what's the opposite of that? Pretty much Clive Barker's Jericho. This is a game I wanted to end. A game that I wish would end. How long is the game? I've heard anywhere from five to ten hours. How long did it feel? Like a goddamn eternity.

In case you can't read between the lines, I absolutely hated Clive Barker's Jericho. I paid $7 for it new, and frankly I wish I could have my $7 back.

I remember putting the game in and the first thing I thought was "Oh, this must have been a launch title." The graphics weren't horrible, but occasionally I noticed that the characters limbs looked like they were made out of 2x4s. They were occasionally incredibly blocky... but it's understandable, being released in 2005... wait, this game was released in late 2007? If this game had been released in 2005 I would say it had decent-ish graphic. In 2007? Some of the graphics are absolutely shittacular. Like I said, not all, but some. It's a here and there problem, not an overall problem.

The AI on the other hand? That's an overall problem. My biggest complaint about the game is probably the AI. Little back story before I get into it.

You're a member of a paranormal team in charge of keeping the firstborn in line. What's the firstborn? It's a long story. Basically the antagonist. You're team consists of six members, all who have different paranormal skills. You can switch between each of these members and use their skills to fight various bad guys.

Each one of these skills comes in handy during different battles, also despite the fact that you have enough guns to take on a small army your skills are almost always superior... and that's where the AI problems start.

A lot of times they're using their guns, even if their powers are charged. I don't know how often every single one of my teammates was going full out with their guns... that is when they weren't getting absolutely slaughtered. My teammates were essentially cannon fodder. You can revive your teammates as long as you are alive, and for the most part anytime their was a firefight I spent a good portion trying to revive most if not all of my team. They would just run towards anything shooting them. There are bad guys who blow up after they're dead, several times all of my teammates would die because they would rush these enemies. The AI was absolutely awful. I can't say that enough.

There were so many things wrong with this game. The AI, the graphics, the voice acting, and frustratingly difficult parts, the awful ending, the fact that it's billed as a horror game but really lacked on the whole "horror" part, and I could go on and on... It's just a bad game. I honestly can't think of one redeeming quality. How do you review a game like that?

At the end of the day I beat the game and thought "I hope I never have to play this game again." That's a bad sign for any video game. Clive Barker's Jericho wasn't enjoyable to me, from the start to the end felt like a chore. I don't think I ever really enjoyed it. I played it to beat it, and I didn't really have much if any fun. If they're handing this game out for free I would say skip it, it's not even worth free. Skip it.

Squid.

Red Dead Redemption - Xbox 360

You want to know the hallmark of a truly great game? You don't want it to end. That's how I felt about Red Dead Redemption. I knew the ending was coming, but I didn't want it to. I wanted more, I wanted it to continue. I wanted to keep playing.

In case you haven't already guessed, Red Dead Redemption was an amazing game. From start to finish I enjoyed every minute of it.

Much like movie westerns there haven't been a lot of good video game westerns in the past couple years. Sure, there's been several western themed games released but overall they've been somewhat mediocre. When I first heard about Red Dead Redemption I looked at the track record of western games and figured it would be one more in a line of average games. Boy did I turn out to be wrong.

Red Dead Redemption pulled me in from the very start. Rarely does a game come along that hooks me so quickly and with such ferocity. It wasn't "Oh, I should really play some Red Dead Redemption!" It was "Oh, I should really do something besides play Red Dead Redemption... I've been playing for five hours straight."

Everything about this game just struck me as great.

The story was incredibly well crafted, you felt attached to the characters, you wanted to know their stories. You wanted to learn more. All while the main storyline kept you gripped and sucked in. Everything felt like it should be there, none of the side characters had me bored or not wanting to finish their part of the story. It was one of those games that I actually wanted to achieve 100% in.

The music was phenomenal. Amazingly well done, some of the best music I've heard in a video game in a long, long time. I was amazed at how well it flowed in the game. Red Dead Redemption did something I'm not sure I've seen in a game before, some of its music actually had lyrics. It was very interesting, it was sparsely used but when it was it very much had a very movie like feel to it. It made things feel very epic. I was very impressed with the music in this game, and I don't get to say that often.

I thought the writing was done very well too. Like I said, the story kept me interested until the very end and not once did I find myself bored or thought something was tedious. Often while playing video games I watch a movie or TV, with Red Dead Redemption I tried this and couldn't. I got so sucked into the game and what everyone was saying I would just stop paying attention to everything else entirely.

At the end of the day this is pretty much Grand Theft Auto set 100 years in the past... but Red Dead Redemption pulled me in far more then probably any GTA game ever has. Everything in this game just clicked for me. I finished it and just thought "Wow!"

Sure, Red Dead Redemption had a few minor flaws here and there, but nothing major. There were so many great things about this game that a few minor things couldn't stop it from being absolutely amazing.

If you're a fan of Grand Theft Auto games, if you've just been been waiting for a great western game, or if you just want a phenomenal game, Red Dead Redemption is a game that you need to play.

Squid.

Mafia - PS2

Mafia. Ahhhh, memories.

I played Mafia on the PC when it was released back in 2002. At that time I absolutely loved it, I had a great time playing it... up until the race mission. As much as I tried I simply couldn't beat that damn mission. I must have tried thirty times to no avail. About the only advice people had was to beat it using a controller... which I didn't have. So I got stuck and finally gave up on the entire game.

When I first got my PS2 and was looking for games I noticed Mafia for $5. I immediately picked it up. I remembered how much fun I had with it on my PC and now with a controller I could finally beat that damn racetrack mission.

I was excited when I finally got around to playing it, but that excitement quickly turned to frustration several hours in.

The first thing I noticed is that this game is dark. Not since Doom3 have a played a game so hampered by it's lighting. Driving at night quickly get annoying when you slam into cars that you can barely see ten feet in front of you. Occasionally there would be a shootout and the only way I could see where the person was is by the muzzle flash. Nothing I did worked, with no in game brightness setting I had to rely on my TVs, and even then it was still too dark.

I remember the driving in Mafia being very different, you couldn't really go speeding through town, you were driving '30s era cars. So high speed anything was really out of the question. What I don't remember is the cars handling poorly. It had nothing to do with them being older cars, or them not being able to go fast. They just handled incredibly poorly. It wouldn't have been such a problem if so many of the missions hadn't involved driving.

Timed missions. I know I've talked about how much I hate timed missions before, but Mafia brought it too a whole new level. A lot of the missions are timed, drive here before this amount of time passes. Get this person to this place in this amount of time. These missions would suck on their own, but pair it with the fact that the cars handle so poorly and you have a recipe for disaster.

The AI. I'm not sure if I have the right to complain about the AI in a game that's seven years old. A lot has changed since then. The AI was utter crap though. There were a few times when I hit a person who was just standing in the middle of the road. Not walking across it, just standing in it. Usually at night when I couldn't see them until it was way too late. Cars will turn left from the far right lane, people will get out of cars and step right into oncoming traffic. I'm all for hitting people, but in this game there are ramifications for it... the only problem being is that these people seem to WANT to be hit.

Gunfights in the game were incredibly difficult as well. I turned the sensitivity all of the way down and still had problems targeting people. Up and down was okay, but side to side I would completely overshoot the target. Killing people in a game about the mafia should not be problematic.

The load times. Dear God the load times. The load times were excruciating. I actually timed some of them, and they ranged between 30 and 40 seconds. 30 seconds doesn't seem like a long time, but it is when you're chasing someone and cross a bridge and all the sudden you have to wait 30 seconds to get back to the action. I did one mission where to load the mission would take 30 seconds, you would drive down the road and hit another loading screen... another 30 seconds. Problem being I had to retry this mission six or seven times. So it was 30 seconds of loading, drive for 10 seconds, load for 30 seconds and then the mission timer would run out 3 minutes later and I would have to do it all over again. So even though the mission took three minutes I had a minute plus of loading time. Not fun.

Either I remember this game a lot differently, or the PS2 version is just horrible. I remember a very fun game, a game that I wanted to play. Instead I got a game that about halfway through was just frustrating. Too many missions I had to retry, too many time I was frustrated... too many times I just wasn't having fun. About halfway through the game I just wanted to put on God mode so I could make it through the other half.

I wanted Mafia to be the game that I remembered, unfortunately it just wasn't.

Squid.

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance - Xbox 360

So it's come to this. I always wondered what would happen if I came to a game that was just so bad, so frustrating that I couldn't finish it. So far in the twenty-three games that I've played it hasn't happened. Sure, I've come across a couple that were bad, but nothing that I just gave up on. Until now.

I was excited about DarkStar One: Broken Alliance, I really was. I remember I was mining in Mass Effect 2 and thought about an old Sega Genesis game called StarFlight. It was a space mining somewhat RPGish game that I used to love. It involved mining, space fights, traveling between galaxies, it was just a fun time. I really wanted a game like that for the Xbox360 or PS3. Oddly like three days later I read about a game called DarkStar One: Broken Alliance in OXM... and it sounded like exactly what I wanted. Space battles, upgrading your ship, it sounded like a great time... unfortunately, the game wasn't out yet. It stayed in the back of my mind though, so when it was released I knew I was going to Gamefly it.

A couple months passed and I got busy with other games, DarkStar One was on my Gamefly queue but generally other things got shipped before it. I kept it on there because I really wanted to play it.

Last week it finally shipped, so the day I got it is the day I started playing it. Let the disappointment begin.

Parts of DarkStar One were good... but those parts were quickly ruined by the other bad parts.

The space battles were fun. At least they were at the start... then I realized they're pretty much all the same. The battles all feel exactly the same, there seems to be no variations in them. You kill six space pirates who all look exactly the same and then go to the next system and kill another six space pirates who look exactly like the last ones. Occasionally there would be a cruiser, or a slightly more difficult space pirate but overall the battles felt incredibly cookie cutter. They also all take place and space, and despite the fact that there are planets, stars, and asteroids that all move around you, you feel almost stationary in your battles. You don't feel like your speeding through space fighting battles, you just feel like your on a stationary axis shooting at moving ships. So while the space battles were fun at first, after a while they just became tedious.

Let's talk about space travel. You start off with an engine that will allow you to travel three light years. So you can travel to different planets within a galaxy, but to travel to the next galaxy over you need an engine that will allow you to travel four light years. So you do missions until you can afford to buy that engine so you can travel to the next galaxy over... and to get you to the next galaxy after that you need an engine that will travel five light years, and you keep doing that over and over. That was annoying, it really was, but it gets worse. So Let's say you have to travel to a planet a couple galaxies over... you essentially have to travel to the farthest star your engine can reach and keep doing that until you reach the galaxy you want. So you jump to a planet that 1.9 light years away, then you wait for your engine to cool down so you can hyperjump to another planet 3 light years away, then you do the process all over again until you reach your destination. I read something wrong and thought I had to travel to a planet several galaxies over... it took me about a half hour to get there and back. Let me tell you how bad that sucks.

Remember how I told you about exploring galaxies? You do... but they're all practically the same. They each have a space station, they each have different spaceships flying around, some of have asteroids, some have pirates... but they're all pretty much the same. There's really no exploring though. All of the space stations look the same, you fly into them and it cuts you a static screen that just has a menu of what you can do. You want to buy ship parts? You go to dock yard in the menu which opens up another sub-menu. You never actually see or get to walk inside a space station. As far as I can tell the only time you can actually explore is when you're in your ship... and really there's no reason to. You're radar tells you everything that's in that planets orbit. So you don't explore, you just a open a menu and see if there's anything interesting, and as far as I could tell for the most part there wasn't. You could travel around a bit, but for the most part I felt no reason to. Everything just seemed the same.

DarkStar One wouldn't have been too horrible if this game had been eight to ten hours long. Sure it would have been kind of boring, but I'm sure between the story and a little exploring and some space fights it would have been an okay game. Problem being is that I spent at least fifteen hours if not more playing the game and wasn't even halfway through it. By that time not only was I incredibly bored I was getting very frustrated. I felt like I was making no headway in the game, honestly I felt like I was just going from planet to planet, occasionally shooting pirates, and very much grinding missions so I could get enough money to buy a new engine so I could get to the next galaxy in hopes that I could finally beat the game.

I realize that a game isn't fun when the only reason I'm playing it is because I want to beat it. Sure, you always want to beat the game you're playing but you also want to have fun doing it, you want it to be a good experience. With DarkStar One, all I wanted to do is beat it. I wasn't having a good time, in fact I was having a bad time. I just wanted to beat it. Video games shouldn't be like that. Video games should be enjoyable. You wouldn't watch a TV show that you absolutely hated, why should I play a video game that I don't think is fun?

I have pushed through some bad games, games that were bad but at least had some good qualities. DarkStar One had very, very few good qualities, and certainly not enough for me to keep playing. If there had been at least a few redeeming qualities I probably would have pushed through and beat the game, but at the end of the day there weren't enough to keep me playing.

I know, I'm reviewing a game I haven't beat. For all I know at the halfway point the game became much different and much better... but the first half wasn't good enough for me to make it to that point. Something tells me though if the first half was this bad, the second half wasn't magically going to get much better. You can take this review with a grain of salt. I didn't actually finish this game. Remember though, the reason I didn't finish it is because the first half was so bad that I didn't want to waste my time with the second half.

In the entire time I've had my Xbox360 there's only been two other games that I couldn't finish, out of probably forty plus games that I've beat. It's a bad sign for DarkStar One that it's now the third game on that list.

Squid.

Coming up next...

I'm going to try something a little different.

There's no real set way I choose what video game to play next. Generally I try to kind of mix up what consoles I play and try not to play two games from the same console in a row.

In the past couple weeks I've bought a ton of new games for PS2 as well as Xbox360. On top of that I have two games out from Gamefly. So for the next little bit I'm going to try and power through some games and hopefully make a dent in some of the backlog.

I had originally planned on playing Chrono Cross next but I think that's going to have to go on the back burner for a while, at least until I get through some of these other games.

Once I get some of these finished I'll go back to business as usual.

Squid.

Chrono Trigger - Review

Chrono Trigger is a hard game to review. Everything that could be said about the game has already been said, and probably a lot more eloquently then I could ever put it.

Chrono Trigger is one of those games I remember from back in the day, it's one of the true great RPGs I remember from my childhood. Chrono Trigger, Crystalis, Final Fantasy 3, and Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past are really the games I credit for getting me into the genre as a whole.

It's a funny thing though... out of those four games I've only beat half of them. I never managed to finish Crystalis or Chrono Trigger for some reason.

It seemed odd to me that here's a game that I rank as one of the better RPGs ever made and yet I hadn't even managed to finish it. I thought it was about time to remedy this.

Chrono Trigger is still a great game. As I've said in the past, RPGs from the NES/SNES/Genesis days still hold up fairly well in my eyes. I realize part of this is nostalgia, but part of it is there are just some very good games on those systems.

Chrono Trigger is one of the best. If you ask people the top five games of all time on the SNES I guarantee that Chrono Trigger is going to be near or at the top of almost everyone's list.

The soundtrack is great, there are really two soundtracks to video games that I would actually buy: Final Fantasy 3 and Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger's soundtrack fits the game perfectly, it's not just background noise it actually feels right for the game.

The story. The story for the most part is great. I will admit there's a couple places throughout the game where the story feels a tad disjointed, but overall it's a great, original story. It's something that you didn't really run into at that period of time in gaming. There were a lot of RPGs with a lot of hackney stories filled with cliches... Chrono Trigger didn't feel like that.

There were tons of different, unique characters across many different lands that all felt like they had a lot of time and thought put into them. All the character felt needed, you may not have used them in your main party, but they all felt like they were needed characters.

Chrono Trigger was also one of the first games I remember that had several endings. There might have been games out there with one or two different endings, but Chrono Trigger had I believe thirteen. Thirteen different possible endings depending on certain things you did throughout the game.

Overall the game is amazing. Like I said, there's nothing I can say about this game that hasn't been said before. It's simply just a great game. Pick it up for SNES, DS, or PSN but I highly suggest you play it.

Squid.

Chrono Trigger - Super Nintendo

What can you say about Chrono Trigger? Phenomenal game, possibly one of the best RPGs for the Super Nintendo. Great gameplay and amazing soundtrack.

Though I don't know if I ever beat it. About five years ago I broke out my Game Genie and decided to essentially give myself God mode to beat some of the games I had never gotten around to finishing. I just don't remember if I did this with Chrono Trigger. As far as I know I didn't.

Either way, it's going to be fun to finally beat this game.

Squid.

Shadow of the Colossus - Review

As I mentioned before one of the reasons I bought a Playstation 2 was to play this game. I couldn't step on to a gaming forum without people talking about how excellent this game is. Hell, even Yahtzee liked this game... and that says a lot. I knew almost nothing about it, and yet wanted to play it. When something has been built up this much you have to wonder though, can it meet those expectations?

In a simple answer: no.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Shadow of the Colossus, I really did. It was a very unique, interesting video game experience. SotC is a game like I've never played before. However, unique does not always equal good.

There's always the possibility that because I didn't play SotC when it was first released I just didn't get the "oomph" that the game properly deserves. I'm a generation late. I came to the party late on this one. I can admit that my gripes about the game can easily be put off because I'm playing this game a half decade after its release.

First off, I hate the horse. With a passion. If 80% of your game is going to be spent riding on one creature and be your only means of transportation besides walking I would hope that perhaps that creature would handle well. Nope. The horse may be one of the most frustrating experiences in recent memory. I don't know how many times my horse just stopped. Not be pressing something, not me doing it... just the horse deciding to stop for no apparent reason. Or run into something... I don't know how many times my controller was telling my horse to do one thing and it would do the complete opposite. If there was a tree with open space for a 100 yards on each side I guarantee my horse was running headfirst into that tree no matter what I did. There were times when the horse riding felt very normal, and there were times when the horse felt like verged on being broken. It's not a good sign when there were times I would get off the horse and just walk because I was tired of wrestling with it.

The way you find the colossi. Bear with me on this one. I know that using your sword to find the next colossi is a somewhat cool idea, but to me it seemed flawed. To me it seemed like if google maps only gave you directions as the crow flies not taking into account obstacles... also it only worked when it was light outside. Listen, I understand that it's what they were trying to do. It's not broken if it's what they were meaning to do, I said it was flawed. Essentially you're supposed explore to find the next colossi using that as a guide. Only problem is... there's no reason to explore. It doesn't matter if I take 30 minutes finding that colossi or 5, at the end of the day the outcome is the same. If I take 30 I'm not going to find some new cool armor, or some new weapon... I'm going to find the colossi. There's no carrot at the end of the stick for exploring... so why would I bother? And frankly there were times when the light was just flat out wrong. It would point me in a direction but what it didn't tell me is that there's a impassable mountain between me and that colossi, sure I can follow the light but if I do there's absolutely no way to reach the colossi. There were times when even though I had explored I still couldn't find the damn colossi because the light had put in the completely wrong area. I don't particularly enjoy being frustrated in games, but there were several times in SotC where I was.

The camera. Honestly, the camera was kind of awful in this game. There were times when I would be using L1 to follow a colossi and the game decided that the best camera angle was below my horse staring at it's junk... which isn't all that helpful when I'm trying to leap onto a fast moving flying behemoth. On the final colossi fight there was a part I had a very difficult time beating it because every time I would get to a certain point the camera angle would go wonky and give me an insiders view of the colissi's arm... when I'm trying to make a jump from three hundred feet off the ground I kind of want to be able to see what I'm doing.

Okay, those are my complaints... but I said I enjoyed the game. So that must mean that there is praise as well.

The fights with the colossi were pretty damn epic. Most games where you fight a bad guy that size you're most likely going to do it with some sort of quick time event. Here you got to feel the satisfaction of taking down a humongous bad guy with nothing but jumping, climbing, and your sword. Some of them felt pretty damn awesome to take down. I want to say that it seems like they could have used something more than weak spots and changed it up a bit, but I'm not really exactly sure how so I'll just go with the flow.

It was a unique experience... and frankly that's not something you always get in video games. When you start talking about a game and using words like "Doom Clone" or "Diablo Clone" or "Halo Clone" you know that there's not always a lot of uniqueness in the gaming industry. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "Shadow of the Colossus Clone". I applaud them for trying something different even if it may not all work out in the end.

I enjoyed Shadow of the Colossus, even if I have my gripes about it. It was a fun, unique gaming experience and maybe I just showed up a little late to truly appreciate it. If you haven't played it yet, I would honestly say to give it a shot there's really no other game you can compare it to, and that's a compliment.

Squid.

Shadow of the Colossus - Playstation 2

Up next is Shadow of the Colossus, one of the main reasons I actually bought a PS2.

I know absolutely nothing about this game. It flew completely under my radar until Roger Ebert said that video games couldn't be art. All of the sudden everyone was suggesting he play one game: Shadow of the Colossus.

Since then I've constantly heard people proclaim it to be their favorite game, or the best game ever made. It's on every list about must have games for the PS2... and yet still, I know absolutely nothing about it.

It will be interesting to play it, and see if it lives up to this hype.

Squid.

Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II - Review

I know, I know I forgot to put up what I was playing next. I kind of forgot. Sorry about that.

So since I have myself a new Playstation 2 I decided that my next game should be one of the many that came with the system. I started out playing SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals but just couldn't get into it... guess I wasn't in the right mood. So I decided to give Dark Alliance II a shot.

First off, I never played the first Dark Alliance for the PS2. So I kind of went into this game not knowing the lore, or what happened to lead up to the events of Dark Alliance II. Though with as much fun as I had with the second game, you can bet the first is going to be bought sometime soon.

Dark Alliance II is a great game. Switching from a PC gamer to a console gamer there are a couple of genres of games that are somewhat sparse. Dungeon crawling hack 'n slash games are one of those genres.

I loved Diablo II. I don't know how many hours I spent playing it. As well as Sacred, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, and Torchlight. I'm a big fan of those types of games. You don't have to really think. I swing my sword, whats in front of me dies. I pick up loot and I'm my way to the next mob of enemies. I play these kinds of games when I want to just turn off my brain and slaughter groups of enemies. And Dark Alliance II was perfect for that.

I haven't played many console hack 'n slash games but I will say that Dark Alliance is easily the best. It controls beautifully, which is usually my main problem with these types of games. It's hard to emulate the simplicity of clicking a mouse on something to kill it, but Dark Alliance II manages to do it well.

There's a whole host of treasure for you to sort through, and on top of that you can customize your armor in the workshop to tack on special powers. It really added something to the game, sadly I didn't really try it until later in the game... but once I did I saw how truly awesome it was when you're wielding two kick ass, customized swords.

The story is just long enough that you don't get bored, but short enough that you'll want to play through it again. And you can bet that at some point in the future I'll be popping this game in to beat it with another character class (there's five to choose from), or perhaps just using my kick ass barbarian on a higher difficulty level. [Note: most people say that Dark Alliance II is 8-10 hours long. I think this is based off of the in game timer which appears to run rather slow. It says I beat the game in just over 10 hours, but I would guess I played it for 15-20.]

The story... the story is the one part of the game I will admit that's somewhat weak. If you haven't played the first Dark Alliance you're going to be somewhat confused. Not enough that it ruins the game for you, but you'll be wondering what they're talking about. It seems they could have given you a better understanding of the backstory so if you hadn't played the first you wouldn't be as lost. Overall though it's not a huge deal, the story is still pretty good it just can get confusing in part. Also it ends on a somewhat cliffhanger... not a huge problem, but considering Interplay's financial problems there's a good chance we will never see Dark Alliance III.

Over all Dark Alliance II is a very good game, a very good hack 'n slash game, and probably the best hack 'n slash console game I've played. If you own a PS2 or Xbox and are a fan of the genre, do yourself a favor and pick it up.

Squid.

New Kid on the Block

An alternate post title would be "I'm never going to finish."

We have a new addition to the video game family.

If you added up all of the hours I've spent playing the Playstation 2 I would assume it's under 20 hours. Last generation I bought an Xbox... which I barely played. Certainly not enough to warrant the purchase of a PS2. Later I did buy a Gamecube but only because it was a screaming good deal and I got the Legend of Zelda Collection with it. Overall I didn't have much playtime with the PS2, my brother had one and I would occasionally play it for a couple of minutes when I went over to his house.

Recently though I've very much wanted to try out a few Playstation 2 games, Shadow of the Colossus being a one. Problem being is that I didn't really want to shell out a ton of money for one. I really figured you could pick one up for $25 or $30... boy was I wrong. Looked like the price for a used PS2 was about $50 and that didn't include any games.

I kind of looked around, occasionally checked Gamestop, Amazon, and eBay but couldn't find any really good deals.

The other day my brother sent me a local ad for someone selling a PS2 and ton of games for $50. The ad had been up for almost two weeks, but still I emailed them hoping it was still available. Luckily it was.

So now I'm the proud owner of a PS2, 2 memory cards, 2 controllers, and 11 games and all for $50. So along with the huge list of games I need to play we have some new additions:

Devil May Cry, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2006 Fifa World Cup, Athens 2004, SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Dark Alliance II, Champions of Norath, Prince of Persia The Two Thrones, Grand Theft Auto III, and Grand Theft Auto Vice City.

Edit: And with a trip to FYE I added Mafia, XIII, Max Payne, Max Payne 2, Deus Ex, Rogue Galaxy and Final Fantasy X to the list.

Some of the games look good and the two Grand Theft Auto games are my favorites of the series. All and all very pleased, plus I can borrow some of my brothers games, and there will be many Gamefly games to play in the future.

I'm never going to finish beating every game I own.

Squid.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Review

I love Star Wars. LOVE Star Wars. Ever since I was a kid I've had a fascination with Star Wars and everything related to Star Wars. I have a rather large Star Wars collectibles collection, I've seen the movies countless of times, I've read some of the extended universe books, hell I loved Star Wars Galaxies. I saw the "special edition" original trilogy when it was in the theater even though it was awful. I saw The Phantom Menace opening night and seven more times while it was in the theater. What I'm getting at is that I love Star Wars. So having me review a Star Wars game reminds me kind of this Penny Arcade comic.

I greatly enjoyed The Force Unleashed. Does it have it's flaws? Yes, certainly... but other then a few minor things it is in my opinion what a Star Wars game should be. When I harness the force in a video game I want to feel powerful. I want to be able to force throw people across the screen, I want to be able force lightning stormtroopers and then throw my lightsaber at their electrocuting lifeless bodies. In The Force Unleashed, I can do that... and so much more.

This playthrough of The Force Unleashed will be my fourth, why is that? Well one because it's an awesome game and two because it's an extremely short game. Short but sweet. You're looking at about six to seven hours of gameplay. After you're done though you're most likely going to want to pick it up and beat it again. I kid you not. The first time I played it I beat it to get a certain ending, I then immediately started over and beat it for the other ending. After that? Well I turned on all of the cheats and beat it as a God. Let me tell you how awesome it is to be able to pull a TIE Fighter out of the air and throw it at someone. The best thing about that? That wasn't some cheat code I had to enter... you can do that normally in the game. That's right, you can toss a goddamn TIE fighter at someone.

The Force Unleashed is set in the time between the prequels and the original trilogy. Order 66 has been executed and you're Darth Vader's new secret Padawan, in charge of hunting down Jedi as well as a plot to kill the emperor and rule side by side with Darth Vader.

When I play almost any game that has a morality choice I almost always go with the good side. I'm not sure why, I always have. Fable? Good guy. Fallout 3? Choir boy. Star Wars Galaxies? Fighting the dirty imperials with my rebel friends. I always choose the good side. Well with The Force Unleashed I got to play from the other point of view... and let me tell you, it felt good. There's something interesting playing as a complete psychopath of a Jedi. There's something very enjoyable about force lifting a jawa to the top of the screen and just letting go, thus solving the eternal question of "Can jawas fly?" (Hint: they can't.) I couldn't get enough of throwing a stormtrooper through a spaceships window and watching as him and all of his buddies get sucked out into the vacuum of space.

As I mentioned before The Force Unleashed does have its flaws.

Like I said, it's short. If I had paid $60 for it this might have mattered, but I picked it up for $20 and have played it four times now. So even though it's a very short game it appears to have a rather high replayability factor.

Quicktime Events. If there was something I could banish from the gaming world forever it would probably be quick time events. That being said, I didn't mind them all that much in The Force Unleashed. They only appeared when you were about to kill really large enemies or bosses. Taking down a huge rancor with some awesome moves, but having to do it through a QTE? I can deal with that.

Combat can be kind of difficult at times. Occasionally my targeting was kind of wonky. Instead of using force lighting on the guy in front of you it might go just to the side of him, or a guy behind him. If you pay attention and try not to do things to quickly this usually isn't a problem, you just have to pay attention to what you're targeting. Overall it's a very small gripe about the game.

The Force Unleashed is probably one of my favorite Star Wars games. As I said, to me it's what a Star Wars game should feel like. If you're a fan of Star Wars (and how could you not be?) I would highly suggest it. Here's a tip though, if you play it through once and aren't a huge fan? Play it a second time, preferably with cheat codes. Having all of the force powers and being all powerful in this game is one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had.

Squid.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Xbox360

I'm a huge Star Wars geek, shocking I know, I love everything about Star Wars. I recently sat down and in two days watched Star Wars Episodes I through VI and loved every minute of it. I then remembered that The Force Unleashed tied the two trilogies together... but I couldn't remember how.

So now it's time to sit down and get my geek on and force push everything in my way... hopefully through windows and into outer space.

Squid.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Review

Okay, I have a geeky confession to make. I never beat Halo. I've owned it for years, and yet I've never managed to finish it. Every time I tried to I made it about halfway through and then just stopped.

You see, I didn't actually like Halo. Never really enjoyed it. I kept hearing how great it was and how it was the best first person shooter ever... and yet I just didn't like it.

I was about twenty when Halo came out. I had heard very good things about it, but at the time I didn't have an Xbox. Well that year was my grandpa's 80th birthday, and my dad and I were going to drive out to Illinois to surprise him (great idea, surprising an 80 year old man), well there's not a whole lot to do at my grandparents house so my dad said that he would buy me an Xbox to bring out and play. It was great, I would finally get to play this amazing game I had heard so much about.

We went to CompUSA and bought an Xbox, the first games I got were Halo: Combat Evolved, Silent Hill 2, and Amped. I immediately went home to play some Halo.

It was somewhat fun at first. I had a good time... it wasn't great, but it was fun. The more I played it though, the more I found it kind of mediocre.

I had one main problem... at this point in time I was still pretty much a PC gamer. The controller felt so odd, I had a very difficult time getting used to. It just felt so foreign in my hands. It was fine for other games, but I just couldn't get used to controlling an FPS without a mouse and keyboard. I think this very much effected how I felt about the game. My other problems were with how the vehicles handled and how the levels were designed.

Several times in the last couple years I've tried to make it through the game. I usually get about halfway through before getting frustrated and giving up.

Nine years later I'm now a console gamer almost exclusively. All of the sudden the game I couldn't grasp the controls of felt much, much more natural. And something else, I was enjoying it a whole lot more.

Don't get me wrong, the warthog still handles like absolute crap... I constantly feel like I'm driving on ice. It's like the warthog's driving physics were coded by someone who had never been in an actual vehicle before and doesn't know what friction is. The level design is still atrocious as well. I don't know how many times I though "Wait, am I walking in circles? This corridor looks exactly like ever other corridor." You also have to love when the level you're in now is just the same level you recently played but it's nighttime now.

Okay, those are really my only gripes. Besides the level design and the warthog the game is good. I'm not going to hop on the bandwagon and say it's the best first person shooter, however I will say that it was a very good console first person shooter... especially at the time when it was released.

I know I've said this before, but bear with me. By 2001 I had been playing Half Life, Deus Ex, Alien Vs. Predator 2, Strife, Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and to a lesser extent Doom, Doom 2, and Wolfenstein as well as a host of other PC first person shooters. The PC had tons of great first person shooters while consoles had... Goldeneye and Halo. And despite the fact that these were the best of their genre on the console, they really couldn't compare to what we had on the PC. In today's world a game is more likely to be released to a console then it is to the PC, and almost certainly if it gets a PC release it's getting a console release. Back then? That didn't happen as much. So console gamers missed out on a lot of very good games that PC players had.

I'm glad that I finally beat Halo, it was a good game that I didn't really give a fair shot. The story was good, and overall I enjoyed the game a lot despite it's flaws. I've never really wanted to play the Halo series, but now I'm looking forward to picking up Halo 2 & 3 somewhere down the line.

Is it the greatest FPS ever made? No, not in my opinion. It's a good game and a great console FPS, and we certainly have to give it a lot of thanks. Without Halo you probably wouldn't have a lot of the first person shooters being released now, and frankly without Halo you might not be playing your Xbox 360. So go ahead and give it a shot if you've never played it before, it's certainly worth a try.

Squid.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Xbox

Wasn't sure what I wanted to play next, then I saw Halo on the list. Figured what the hell. It also has the added bonus of seeing how well backwards compatibility works on the Xbox 360. I have a lot of Xbox games that I want to play but my Xbox is kind of on the fritz. Would be nice if I could just pop them into my 360 and play them.

I've played Halo many times before and have had my gripes about it. It will be interesting to see how I feel now that I'm more used to controllers as well as controlling FPS with controllers.

Either way a game with this many fans and followers has to be good, right?

Squid.

Borderlands - Review

When I first got Borderlands from Gamefly I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I only knew one other person who had played it and he didn't have great things to say about it. But reviews were generally favorable so I figured I'd give it a go.

I'm glad I did, let me just say that Borderlands is a hell of a fun time and a great game. Plus you get to shoot midgets in the face with a shotgun. Name me one other game where you get to do that.

Borderlands is set on Pandora, a barren wasteland of a planet with small settlements scattered around it. You can choose between four separate characters, each with a different skill set. I decided on the sniper character because that's what I usually play as... but Borderlands did something that I didn't expect but greatly appreciated.

Snipers aren't the most robust of characters. Sure we're good at long range but what happens when you have a bad guy standing right next to you? Or two or three? In borderlands you can be proficient with any weapon. As a sniper I could use machine guns or even rocket launchers. Sure I didn't get the upgrade perks that say the soldier did, but I could still use them. Trust me, when you have four huge bad guys barreling down on you the ability to switch from a sniper rife to a machine gun is greatly appreciated.

I've been sitting here staring at this screen for about an hour now. I'm not exactly sure how to review Borderlands. I could tell you that it reminds me of several other great games rolled into one. I could tell you about how quirky the humor is or how cool the art direction is... but at the end of the day I'm not sure that matters at all.

Sure it, reminds me of other really great games that I liked. It reminds me a lot of a much more linear Fallout 3... but if you didn't like Fallout 3 that doesn't really sell it for you.

I find the humor funny, but that doesn't mean you'll enjoy Scooter talking about his "mama's girly parts" as much as I did. I thought the humor in it was very funny, but that's really subjective.

The art direction is kind of fun, and has a bit of a different feel then a lot of other recent first person shooters... but it's not like it's the first time we've seen it before.

Borderlands is a really fun game, that's what I'll tell you. I enjoyed it and founds myself wanting to play it for hours at a time. I would highly suggest it to anyone who is a fan of the FPS/RPGish type genre.

Will you like it? Hard to say, as I started this review off I said that the only person who I knew that played it ended up not really enjoying it. On the other hand I had a hell of a fun time playing it and once it drops a little more in price will probably end up buying it so that I can play it again.

Sure Borderlands had some flaws, I think enemies reappeared a little too quickly and the ending was somewhat sudden, but overall Borderlands was an awesome game that you should really give a shot.

Squid.

Borderlands - Xbox360

Another Gamefly game. God I love Gamefly.

This is a game I've been waiting to get my hands on for a long time. I first remember hearing about this a while back in OXM and really wanting to play it. I love RPGish First Person Shooters, add in an apocalyptic wasteland and I'm sold.

Squid.

Tales of Symphonia - Review

Just how long is too long? That's the question that I kept asking myself while playing Tales of Symphonia. In my opinion, when I finished it with 90 hours played, Tales of Symphonia was too long. 90 hours played, and keep in mind that skipping a lot of sidequests just trying to finish the game... I imagine that if I had done all the sidequest and done more exploring I would have easily put another 10 or 20 hours into the game.

Don't get me wrong, a game doesn't have to be a set amount of time to be enjoyable. I put 125 hours into Oblivion and enjoyed every minutes. Between my two playthroughs of Fallout 3 I've put in damn near 200 hours. I don't even know how many hours I've put into Morrowind between all of my different games. I enjoyed every minute I put into those games and not once did I wish they were shorter... but they're different. Each one of those games involves a ton of exploring, it's a free and open world and you're encouraged to explore it. And because of this freedom you can spend a lot more time with these games. For those types of games, essentially the skies the limit on how long you can play them... but there's always the knowledge that if you want to finish the game, the main quest is always there to complete. But what about when there is little exploring and the main quest is 70+ hours long?

So how long is too long when it comes to RPGs? It's a hard question to answer, and certainly varies from person to person. I asked my brother that question, he thought that an RPG should be about 25 hours long. I thought that 45 was a good number... though it all depends. I'd gladly play a 60 hour game as long as I enjoy it. But to me, 35 to 45 hours with the possibility of 15+ hours of exploring is a good number.

Along comes Tales of Symphonia. A video game that can easily hit the 100 hour mark... and yet at about the 50-60 hour mark I was really wishing it would come to an end soon. Generally not a good sign.

Let me get this out of the way. I really enjoyed Tales of Symphonia, I really did. I just wish it had been about 30 hours shorter. It was just too damn long for me. Towards the end I began to feel like some of the quests were not essential and could have easily been cut or shortened and still the game would have been good. In fact, looking back at it there seems like the game could have easily been shortened without losing too much.

There seemed to be a lot of going back to places I had already been, doing quests that I didn't feel I needed to, a lot of back story that seemed like it could have been part of side quests and not as much of the main quest... there's the other problem. I'm not 100% sure what was and wasn't the main quest. As far as I know I didn't stray too far from the main quest, but on the other hand I'm really not sure. I just kind of went where I thought I should go next, or followed the synopsis that they give you in the game. All I know is that it took me 90 hours to finally beat the game.

Like I said, despite the fact that the game felt like it was dragging on in parts and was way too long, the game was fun. I had a very good time playing it as well as beating it. The combat is great, the voice acting is good, the story is good, and overall it's a great little RPG.

Like I mentioned before I originally started playing this game in about 2004 or so and it was a whole new experience. I had never played an RPG like this before. It was like a mix of Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and a hint of Street Fighter during battles. And even though since I have played games with a similar battle system or similar gameplay this game still feels fresh and new to me.

Overall this is a good game and well worth playing, just make sure you have plenty of time to do it.

Squid.

Tales of Symphonia - Nintendo Gamecube

Tales of Symphonia was one of the few Gamecube games that I bought. I remember it being like no other RPG I had ever played, the battles at least. Instead of the Final Fantasy "Choose what attack you want to do from a menu" it was more like a fighting game. It was all real time. I enjoyed this greatly.

Sadly I never beat Tales of Symphonia, I put it down for too long and when I came back I couldn't even remember what I was doing in the game so I gave up. Haven't played it since.

Later on I played Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox 360 and all I could think was "This game is great, I should really play Tales of Symphonia again." I guess now is my chance.

Squid.

Dead Space - Review

What do you get when you mix a little bit of Aliens, a little bit of Event Horizon and a whole lot of awesome? Dead Space.

Occasionally a game will come along that I hear very little about. That was pretty much Dead Space. I heard a few people talk about how awesome it was, or how scary it was but nothing really about the game. I resisted playing it because I thought it was a survival horror game, and well me and survival horror games have a love hate relationship.

Then a while back Dead Space went on sale, $15 at Best Buy. My brother asked me if I wanted to go in half on it... well, I generally don't turn down paying $7.50 for a video game so we went ahead and bought it. Seeing as I had a ton of games waiting to be played I let him have a go at it first. I would occasionally come over and see him playing it, even played it myself for about three minutes. Seemed good enough but playing it for that short period of a time wasn't really enough for me to see what the game was really about.

Fast forward to this week.

My brother was going on vacation so I'm house sitting for him. I brought along Tales of Symphonia to play, but then I remembered Dead Space. My brother was going to be gone for five days, plenty of time to beat Dead Space. So I decided to pop it in and give it a go.

I'm glad I did, because Dead Space turned out to be a great game.

Once in a while a game comes around where things just seem to click. Where everything just seems to come together perfectly. This is how I felt about Dead Space. Everything came together to create a tense, creepy experience.

I've often said that in both video games and horror movies, ambiance is the key factor. You have to create a creepy atmosphere before something can be truly scary. Sometimes something not happening is scarier then it actually happening. When there's a monster around every corner you lose something, you come to expect it... but when you hear that monster, but can't find it... when it stalking you and you're waiting for it to pounce on you at every turn... that's where the real tension comes in. That's how Dead Space it. You're kept in almost a constant state of fear about what's going to happen next, what's going to sneak up behind you, what that noise is and where it's coming from. You're constantly on the edge of your seat.

Dead Space performs flawlessly at getting you, and keeping you, on the edge of your seat. You almost never know what's coming next. The next room you go into could be full of monsters or it could be empty. Either way you get the feeling that you don't want to go in there.

The story is great, the atmosphere is great, the game is great. Seriously, you can pick it up for $20 on Xbox360, PS3, or PC... there's no reason not to play this great game. Do yourself the favor.

Squid.

Dead Space - Xbox360

I'm at my brothers house sitting, so my video game vault is fairly small. I had brought over Tales of Symphonia when I remembered he had Dead Space. Sure I could borrow it at some point in time, but why not instead just play it now while I have the chance?

I know absolutely nothing about this game, which is kind of odd. I haven't read anything about it, haven't heard anything about it, don't even really know the plot of it to be honest. Other then hearing people being pretty excited about them announcing the second one, I really don't know much about this game. Should be interesting to see it through my own eyes before hearing about it.

The one thing I have heard is that it's scary, which should be pretty awesome... at night... alone... in a big empty house.

Squid.

Golden Axe Warrior - Review

Legend of Golden Axe... err... Golden Axe Zelda... umm... Golden Axe Warrior. That's what I played. Sorry, I got confused. Let me get this out straight off the bat: I'm not really sure how Sega didn't get sued for this one. This is about the closest you can get to playing Legend of Zelda on the NES without actually playing Legend of Zelda.

Golden Axe Warrior is hard. Very hard. Like if you started off Legend of Zelda with one heart instead of three kind of hard. There's two ways to regain health in Golden Axe Warrior, staying at inns or the occasional dropped food from monsters. Let me tell you, the first three or so hours seemed like all I was doing was clearing a screen and then running to the nearest inn only to do this over and over again. When you have three hearts and have to kill five to six enemies who can take off a third of your health just by touching you... not easy.

After beating the first few dungeons you'll get more hearts, making the game a little bit easier. Don't get me wrong, the game is never a cakewalk but with equipment and health the game does become a tad easier.

Once I got past the first few hours the game really picked up. Golden Axe Warrior is fun. Is it as fun as Legend of Zelda? No, probably not, but I would say that it's certainly in the running. At the end of the day though I had a good time beating it, even if there were some moments of frustration. It's just unfortunate that it's so difficult to distance it from Legend of Zelda, the games share a lot of similarities. Even so, Golden Axe Warrior is a fun game.

Here's the deal, if you played Legend of Zelda and enjoyed it you will most likely enjoy Golden Axe Warrior. Sure it's a little bit more difficult but it's bigger and also has a few interesting things that Legend of Zelda didn't. Golden Axe Warrior is essentially what Legend of Zelda would have been if it had been released four years later. Why not give it a shot?

Squid.

Golden Axe Warrior - Sega Master System

Another game off of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. Seriously if you don't own it go out and spend the $20 and get this awesome collection for the Xbox360 or PS3. It's well worth it.

Golden Axe Warrior. Honestly up until today I had never even heard of it. I saw that it was in this collection but assumed it was like all the other Golden Axe games. Hack n' Slash that I can beat in a half hour or so, then I saw a screenshot of it, noticed it looked more like the original Legend of Zelda game. Color me intrigued. Not sure if it's good or bad, haven't really read anything about it... guess I'll find out.

Squid.

Mission Impossible - Review

I promised you a story of how I came to own Mission Impossible, so here it is.

I rented Mission Impossible on Nintendo 64 from Blockbuster probably back in 1998 or so and had a good time playing it. I very distinctly remember the Embassy mission, actually that mission and the mission in the terminal room with the lasers were the only missions I really remember. But I remember having a good time with the game. Well, except for the terminal laser room. I remember that being frustrating and never being able to get past it.

Either way, one day I was browsing eBay for old video games trying to find some good cheap games when I ran across Mission Impossible for Nintendo 64 for $4 buy now, shipped free. Well I remembered it being good, and hell, it was only $4 so I bought it. I waited patiently and about a week later I received it, I opened it up only to find... Mission Impossible for the NES. I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get the N64 version, but on the other hand I the NES version pretty much new in box, seriously the thing is nearly mint. So I went and checked the ad, maybe I had read it wrong and it was for the NES version, but after re-reading the ad it was definitely for the N64.

I chalked it up to a mistake on their part, it was $4 and I still got a game. I didn't really care.

So I went back to eBay and found another copy of Mission Impossible 64. This time it was $5 buy now, shipped free. Different seller, checked to make sure it was the N64 version, purchased.

About a week later I got it in the mail. Opened it and found... the NES version.

So now I had TWO sellers who sent me the NES version when they were clearly advertising the N64 version. Either these two sellers are really stupid or it's a very, very odd coincidence. Either way, I was out $5. I figured return shipping and the hassle was worth less than that.

So I proceeded to check Amazon. Found it used for $4.50 shipped prime. So two days later I had Mission Impossible, for Nintendo 64 this time, in my hands. Success!

So that's my tale of how I came to own Mission Impossible for N64 as well as two copies of Mission Impossible for NES.

On to the review!

Oh I'm about to get guffawed at! I enjoyed Mission Impossible more than I enjoyed Goldeneye. That's right, I said it. Whatcha gonna do about it? I'll even go as far to say that Mission Impossible held up better than Goldeneye, and that if you put the two single player modes against each other, Mission Impossible is the better game. Oh, I'm sure the nerdrage is on now.

Mission Impossible is a game based on a movie based on a TV show. It follows the movie starring Tom Cruise... kind of. There's two missions that bookened the other missions that have absolutely nothing to do with the movie. Even still, while the plots are similar to the movie they're far from identical. More just kind of based off of them.

Mission Impossible is semi-stealth/action/third person shooter. Frankly the third person shooter aspect is probably why I enjoyed it more than Goldeneye. Let's be frank, 3D games from this era look horrible. They don't even kind of hold up well. Most N64/Saturn/PS1 games look like crap. Sure, there are a few that still look decent, but for the most part they're awful. You almost had to go with a cartoony look for it to work well. The Legend of Zelda games and Mario 64 games still look decent-ish. Any games that tries to give you real looking graphics... well you end up with this:

The part of Sean Bean will be played by Kryten.

Playable? Yeah, though it is a detriment. Ugly as sin? Oh God yes. Because first person shooters put you right into that action with the whole screen filling up your view, you tend to notice it more. Over the shoulder third person? Not as much.

Enough with the Goldeneye bashing though, back to Mission Impossible.

Mission Impossible is fun. It's just stealthy enough to give you a taste of that, but there's also enough action that you're not just sneaking around everywhere, hiding in the shadows. There's also some levels with very interesting gameplay. In one level you stop playing as Ethan Hunt and play as two snipers covering him, switching back and forth between the two snipers and shooting people who come out of the shadows to attack Ethan. I have to admit, it was fun... and I don't really remember seeing something like that before.

There's a certain amount of thinking that goes into this game. Because for the most part you have to be somewhat stealthy you have to decide the best place to ambush people, plant traps, change identities, etc. It's not your standard "shoot everything that moves" kind of game. Sure, it's no Splinter Cell, but it it's certainly what I would consider a predecessor.

Overall Mission Impossible is fun, sure it has it's flaws. Sometimes the controls are sometimes sluggish, there's escort missions, timed missions, and civilians and your crew are bullet magnets, but overall I enjoyed it. The few hours it took to beat were a pretty good time.

Does that mean you should rush out and buy it? Probably not. Look, unless you played it in the past or have some sort of weird affection for Nintendo 64 games you'll probably think it's an okay game, but nothing spectacular. On the other hand it cost me $4.50 so maybe at the end of the day maybe it's worth it. Your choice.

Squid.