Throughout gaming lore there have been certain games that come in and out of development and dodge deadlines to the dismay of their loyal fans. Starcraft Ghost, Half-Life 3, the mythical Duke Nukem Forever; all these titles have taken their fans heartstrings and thrown them across the room throughout development. Among these titles lies Max Payne 3. When its predecessor ended back in 2003, fans were expecting a swift turnaround for the sequel. However, problems with developer Remedy and publisher Rockstar eventually lead the two teams to split and for Max Payne 3 to be continually delayed. Thankfully, the release date was not a joke thistime around. Max Payne 3 is out and it delivers on the famed action, while providing a dark story sure to satisfy fans of the series.

The game picks up several years after the end of the last game. Max has fallen into a deep hole in his life and the only way to get out is to take on a private security job in Sao Paulo, Brazil. As one would expect, the 8-10 hour story has its share of backstabbing and vendettas, all narrated by Max himself in classic film noire fashion. While the writing is as strong as ever, the game switches between bad guys too quickly near the end of the game. By the time the person who you are really after is revealed, there isn’t that strong a connection or hatred for them considering they weren’t even important earlier in the game. Nonetheless, Max’s constant monologuing and heavy handed use of metaphors is much better penned than before, characterizing him as a much more cynical, yet likable character than in earlier games. His remarks are actually witty and longtime fans of the series are likely to chuckle when they hear Max’s comments on techno music or Facebook statuses. While the story does get needlessly complicated near the end game, Max’s reasons for mass murder are always clear and it delivers a satisfying conclusion to this new chapter in his life.

Either way, as it was in both games before hand, the meat and potatoes of the experience lies in the ridiculous gunplay. Rockstar has implemented a cover system to the game, leading to a more tactical approach than before. The patented Bullet Time system is back, allowing Max to fall into a trance where he is faster than his enemies and has the ability to dodge bullets with ease. Every bullet is individually modeled, leading to a much higher level of realism to this unrealistic mechanic. Unfortunately, the difficulty within the game cancels out some of the overpowering action many fans are used to. Enemies take cover intelligently and have deadly aim, even from long distance. Not to mention that near the end of the game most bad guys will be covering every inch of their body in body armor, turning them into frustrating bullet sponges. While bullet dodging out of cover and through a window is as awesome as it ever was, when it is over you find yourself awkwardly laying on the floor and struggling to get up with a middle aged groan as bullets smack you across the face. Throw in the fact that your health does not regenerate and you need to be in constant search for painkillers and it can seem unfair at times. It is a problem of new meets old that can hold the game back. Enemies have gotten smarter, and the reckless style of play so suited for this kind of game just does not fly anymore.

Yet, when breaking down the mechanics of the action, it is a beautifully made game. The transitions between animations are extremely smooth, such as when you are left on the ground after a bullet dodge and can rain hell on your enemies. Despite the sometimes frustrating painkiller health system, the game finds ways around it with style. If you have a painkiller on you when you are fatally shot, the game will slow down into Bullet Time and direct your aim towards the guilty goon. If you dispatch him then Max will take the painkiller and give you a second breath of health.

Max Payne 3 is powered by Rockstar’s Euphoria physics engine that mixes Havok-style physics with artificial intelligence. This makes empting a clip on someone more realistic than in any other game in recent memory. Add in the fact that bullets damage enemies without censor, making an entry wound that quickly fills with blood and stains anything it touches, and killing someone in Max Payne 3 looks alarmingly close to the real thing. While the game is not the best looking around, the small details are what sell you on the package. Painkillers will not just be littered around the level, you will have to look for them in logical places such as bathrooms and behind some depressed secretary’s desk. Even the fact that every weapon Max is carrying is shown on his person, and when you reload a side arm he will stick the two handed weapon in between his chest and arm so that it won’t fall on the ground, is enough to convince you of the attention to detail Rockstar has put into this. Cutscenes are all done on the game engine and will often lead directly into gameplay, never taking you out of the experience. Max is suffering from a heavy drug addiction and the game will use some distortion effect in the cutscenes to remind you of that. It can get old quickly, but it successfully captures just how out of whack Max’s life is.

In a first for the series, Rockstar has added a full multiplayer suite with a dozen different game modes and fully integrated character customization. Standard modes such as deathmatch and king of the hill serve their purpose but the real bones of the experience lies with the Gang Wars mode. Players are sorted into teams and dropped into scenes ripped from the single player story. The game mode is always random but it will evolve according to who won the last match, linking together each round with cutscenes and voice over. There are five rounds in each match and the variety of game modes makes this some of the most fun you can have with the game. Bullet time is integrated beautifully into the experience. When you activate it any player in your line of sight will slow down until they break that line of sight. This goes without mentioning the implementation of Bursts (read: COD perks) as little additions to your arsenal. Each burst has 3 levels that you build up the same as you would Bullet Time. If you hold off from using it, and can stay alive, long enough to reach level 3 then the payoff is more than worth the wait. Overall, the multiplayer suite is fully stocked and has just as much attention put into it as the single player story.

Blast Factor: What is probably Max Payne 3’s biggest problem is that it does not always feel like a Max Payne game. You will often be forced into cover and have to pick off enemies like in Gears of War or Uncharted. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is sure to strike a nerve for fans that have been waiting years for this sequel. Nonetheless, when it does feel and play like it should, the experience is bar none some of the best action you can find in a game this year. Throw in the fantastic multiplayer offering and the return of the high scoring arcade mode and the game comes stocked with quality features. Much like Max himself, this game can stumble out of the gate and many of its mechanics have not aged gracefully, but at the end of the night, it is one hell of a good time to hang out with.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I was a good attempt at giving players a continuation of the original Genesis titles, but its wonky physics and gimmicky stages kept it from achieving true potential. It looked like a classic 2D Sonic game, but the game lacked that special essence that made its 16-bit predecessors so much fun. Luckily, Episode II is the better of the two installments and gives fans a Sonic they’re more familiar with, even if does come with a few misses.

One of the biggest additions to Episode II is the inclusion of Tails, who now brings two-player co-op to the table. Like in the classic games, Tails can pick up and fly Sonic to places he can’t reach for a short amount of time, but players have a lot more control over him this time. By simply pressing a button, the action will pause, and Tails will teleport to where Sonic is and help him out. I found this too convenient sometimes because while it gets you out of sticky situations right away, after a while, it becomes too easy to press a button and save Sonic from a misstep. Tails and Sonic also have another combo ability that turns them into a giant ball, faster and stronger than the average spindash. The duo will always be joined by one another, so levels integrate these two abilities in unique ways that create a different experience. The game may feel like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but this is a new game, after all.

Co-op mode lets two people play together offline or online, but it does come across a few problems, one of them due to the game’s fast-paced action. If you fall behind your friend, the game will respawn you right behind him, but you’ll need to press a button to pop out of your protective “bubble” like in New Super Mario Bros. The problem here, though, is that this happens a lot when going down slopes or slides, even when you don’t intend to leave someone behind. Another thing I noticed is that the person playing as Tails will have an advantage and can easily exploit certain situations by flying; this is especially evident during boss fights. Let’s just say, playing with someone else is easier than playing solo.

Controlling Sonic and dashing through the many colorful worlds feels quite good. Episode I’s physics engine has been overhauled, and the blue hedgehog runs a bit more like he did back during his Genesis years. Sonic’s homing attack is back, but aiming feels more accurate and is easier to pull off. He is also less shiny and doesn’t look out-of-place amid his colorful backdrops, which have layered textures that often give the game a great pseudo 3D effect. Considering the game is supposed to feel like Sonic 2, it’s great that controls and graphics don’t distract you from the game’s speed, a problem that often plagued Episode I.

Stages, too, are a lot more reminiscent of the original games and are designed to keep you always in motion. While it’s a bit apparent that the themes of past stages have been recycled into “new” zones – expect to see a sky fortress and a snowy amusement park, for example – the game does have its unique charm that is complemented by its soundtrack reminiscent of Sonic’s 16-bit days. There is, however, one section of an underwater level that requires you to swim past enemies that freeze the way forward. If you’re too slow or your aiming is off, you’ll be blocked from all sides, and all you can do is wait until Sonic and Tails drown to try again. Frustrated, I tried (in vain) to find a solution, and can only wonder why the developers wouldn’t provide one that doesn’t require losing a life.

Like classic Sonic titles, Episode II is great the first time you play it, but you may question playing through it several times. To extend playtime even further, the game includes chaos emeralds and red rings to collect in each act. As expected, collecting these emeralds lets you turn into Super Sonic, but it doesn’t really affect the game’s ending that much. Also, while finding each act’s red ring is supposed to provide a challenge, they are simply in areas you’ll explore anyway, and their presence simply serves to unlock an achievement. The developers did include a score attack and time trial mode for each act, so players can at least compete with each other via the game’s leaderboards.

While I didn’t particularly enjoy Episode I that much, Episode II rewards players who played the first game and unlocks Episode I stages playable as Metal Sonic. This feels almost like an apologetic thank you to fans that played through the first game, but this expansion gives you some backstory to the character and lets you play through the first game in a whole new way. Plus, it’s great to see Sega implement a similar lock-on technology it did back when Sonic & Knuckles came out.

Episode II has some obvious gameplay issues and provides a lackluster ending, but the experience playing through each stage is very nostalgic of the fun I had playing through the Genesis games. I also appreciate the improvements the developers made to the game and that they listened to and fixed what fans disliked about the first one. At this rate, let’s hope Episode III is made and becomes something truly worth raving about.

Sniping games seem to form their own sub-genre in the crowded first person market. From the disastrous Sniper:Ghost Warrior to the original Sniper Elite, it is a genre that does not seem to have too many supporters. Nonetheless, Rebellion Software has seen it fit to revive it’s cult classic series and bring it to the next generation. Unfortunately, despite the shiny new coat of paint, the game suffers  from a major identity crisis, leading the once promising series deep into the path of mediocrity. Sniper Elite V2 acts as a sort of “revamp” for the original game.

Once again, you take control of American OSS agent Karl Fairburne who has been sent deep into war torn Berlin in 1945 to single-handedly stop the German nuclear secrets from getting into Soviet hands. Predictably, the story has you track down the most evil fictional Nazi’s ever imagined, complete with scars and ugly snarls. There are no notable secondary characters and you are literally alone during every mission. The roughly six hour story does not do enough to satisfy any narrative nerve and only drives this game deeper into the mediocrity hole. The main problem with Sniper Elite V2 is that it completely misses the point of what a sniper game should be. Instead of creating a decent stealth game with some cool sniping opportunities, the game forces you to engage all enemies in the room in order to continue.

The average level will involve some sort of artificial hallway, be it a bombed out street in Berlin or a V2 rocket facility, littered with enemies and a sniper or two perched in a building. You would think that the best approach would be  to sneak your way around the patrol, by either not being noticed or quietly picking out enemies. However, the linearity of the game prevents you from taking any other routes other than where the patrol is. You cannot traverse through broken down buildings and flank you enemy, you cannot sneak your way into a sniper’s nest, or even find any alternate routes to your objectives. Sneaking past the patrols is out of the question since the enemy snipers are guaranteed to see you  and shooting them will get the attention of every enemy in the area. There are times where background noise can be used to cover the sound of your shot, but it is few and far between. The game is built so you have to become a one man army and dispatch all of the enemies as quickly as possible.

Now, to say that a game fails at one thing does not mean that it does not succeed at another. You would think that when taking away the useless stealth, Sniper Elive V2 would be a half decent action game, but it even fails at that. Bullets are realistically impacted by gravity and wind meaning lining up a shot can be more difficult than anticipated. There is a focus system that is activated by how calm the sniper’s heartbeat is, meaning that is you were sprinting to knee high wall you are using as cover you will have to wait a minute to have a super slowdown effect. One of the few redeeming features of Sniper Elite V2 are the gruesome killcams that follow the trajectory of your bullet and show an x-ray effect as it breaks bone and  pierces internal organs. It rarely gets old and can bring about a few macabre chuckles.

Not everything in Sniper Elite V2 is horrible. There are a few cool features in place that make setting up a good shot enjoyable. If you wound an enemy they will lay on the ground screaming for help until another enemy comes by and helps them up, in which case you can finish him as well. The game encourages you to lay traps, such as using a trip mine on a door or setting a landmine on a dead body, in order to make your escape easier. However, the game will often make you escape through a different path than the one you came from, making any premeditation useless.

The amount of complaints toward this game keep stacking up. There is no Nazi swastika in the game for whatever reason, making the red and black flags in its place stand out like a sore thumb. The graphics do not fare well, with character models in the Xbox 360 version looking like Ken dolls and a horrible draw distance that makes one wonder why Rebllion used such a limited engine for a game that requires a good draw distance. To add insult to injury, the enemy AI did not graduate from kindergarten, leading them to get stuck behind walls and unable to notice you when you are right next to them. Even more annoying is the fact that they seem to have ridiculously good aim while blindly shooting a fully automatic machine gun from behind cover, hitting you in the face when you are 500 meters away in a watchtower.

To put it simply, Sniper Elite V2 is a broken game. There are cool ideas in place but the game containing them is a waste of time. The poor game design completely misses the point of a sniper game and manages to make this a painful exercise in patience.

Notch’s wacky world-building adventure has finally arrived on the Xbox 360, bringing sprawling open worlds, hissing anthropomorphic time bombs, and a menagerie of other beasts to a brand new audience with cooperative play, leaderboards, and a bevy of features that should delight fans, both new and old.

Bringing Minecraft to consoles was certainly a fantastic move — functions that may have seemed difficult to understand for new players before or gamers primarily enjoying console adventures, unfamiliar with PC controls, have been optimized and simplified for console play.

Both creating worlds and exploring them feels natural and much like the sandbox-adventure game hybrid was built for the console in the first place. Whereas Minecraft on PC was quite often an intimidating and confusing experience — asking friends for help, viewing YouTube tutorials, etc. was usually a given if you wanted to progress. The XBLA edition is a quicker, more streamlined beginning with tutorials, helpful toolbars, and plenty of assistance to get things rolling.

From there, it’s easy to predict the backlash: seasoned crafters will claim this port is simply a “watered-down” copy, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

You’re still able to choose which difficulty you’d like to submit yourself to, as well as variables that will determine the type of terrain rolled for your brand new adventure. The rules are still clear — as clear as they can be, anyway: keep safe from the various beasties that roam the landscape at night, and survive. All other rules and objectives come from you. If you wish to build an industrious empire that exists solely on a diet of pork and occasional delicacies, that’s your prerogative.  If it’s your goal in the world of Minecraft to create a gigantic slot machine powered by pigs, you can do that too.

For those with less “interesting” ambitions, living to survive is the basest of options, eventually culminating (if you choose) in a battle within the Ender to rival all previous scuffles. The world is literally yours to shape as you see fit. There’s no option now for creative mode, in which there’s no pressure to stay alive, but the main mode of play can still act as such, if difficulty is set to “peaceful.” Monsters won’t populate, and you’ll still be free to roam, build, and destroy as you see fit.

The only limits to what you can create are those you set for yourself. You can chop down trees for wood, shear sheep for their wool, mine for ore, and even reshape entire islands around your own personal whims. With the Xbox Live Arcade version, you needn’t even rely on guesswork.

Say you gather plenty of wood and cobblestone but aren’t sure of what you can do with it. An entire network of submenus is available that automatically lets you know which materials are needed for, say, a sword or a pick axe, out of the items in your inventory — even a crafting table, if you haven’t built it already, and it will be crafted for you. It’s a much simpler and less tedious process than stopping to consult a Minecraft wiki on creation and allows more time to assemble shelter and some semblance of a plan for survival. All potential options of possible equipment are laid out for you.

You know what you ned and what you want to work toward, giving you more time to explore and establish your own settlement. While it does, in essence, remove some of the trial-and-error exploration and pioneering veteran players were subjected to, in an avenue like Xbox Live Arcade where the focus has been shifted to accommodate new players and multiplayer sessions, who wouldn’t want to spend less time tooling around, confused, when they could be double-teaming creepers and Endermen?

But even still, it isn’t a perfect beast — there is still a fair amount of solo exploration and tinkering required before all the puzzle pieces start falling into place. You’ll likely still need to consult one of the many online Minecraft resources for ideas on what to try next, where to go, or how to react in certain situations. With all the assistance available, there could even stand to be more, coming from personal difficulties when getting started in the PC edition. A primer on what type of shelter best suits your needs or what certain beasts are capable of would have been welcome additions.

But the built-in toolbars and tips go a long way to make any player comfortable, and so does the interface. All, barring content (villages aren’t found in-game, as well as other Minecraftian content pieces,) is as it is in the PC version, save for some unusually sluggish rendering of blocks off in the distance. In a way, this port feels a bit more comfortable, like a modern Wolfenstein or similar game in terms of visuals. Camera work is smooth, as well placing blocks (mapped to the triggers) — it feels effortless. There’s the simple pleasure of not having to turn down the graphics to accommodate your laptop or older PC. Everything just works, and swimmingly.

So too does local cooperative and online play. It’s an absolute blast to erect new civilizations, power through stubborn rock, and team up on pesky monsters with a friend, as easy as inviting another Xbox Live user to play, or hooking up an additional controller. Local couch co-op with my father was particularly intriguing — something I hadn’t yet been able to try, and an absolute hoot. The situations that arise when tossing in another player to the equation always serve to improve the experience. You may have seen all there is to see in Minecraft before, but it’s always new again with friends involved, something this port does quite well.

This enhanced port may be devoid of some of the newer patched-in features (there’s more to come, the hints on the loading screens proclaim) and is intended to satisfy both new and old players, but it’s an excellent and full-featured version of Mojang’s smash hit that deserves all the praise its big brother gets, if not more, for bringing the phenomenon to a wider audience. Hopefully this means bigger and better things for the game in the future — and more for console players as well. Long live Minecraft!

Any PC gamer out there can tell you that multiplayer online battle arena games are taking the online gaming scene by storm. In just the past year, giants like League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients have seen favorable success with players eager to experience their fusion of RPG and competitive real time strategy mechanics. Console players, however, have yet to get a title that lets them experience what this hype is all about. That is, until now.

Despite being an obvious portmanteau, Awesomenauts is also a blend of different elements that lets it work effectively on consoles. Instead of teams of five, you get teams of three. Instead of an overhead map, you get a 2D scrolling arena. While at first glance it may seem the game is a watered down version of the other MOBA games out there, players need to realize Awesomenauts isn’t trying to emulate the big boys on the PC. It’s simply trying to give console players a taste of what a MOBA game feels like. And, boy is it tasty.

The game offers both online and split-screen matches and also lets up to three local players take on another team online. Matches consist of two teams of three trying to take down their enemy’s base while also defending theirs from attack. Each team has its own set of powerful turrets that also provide barriers for the other team, so once these turrets are down, the opposing team can easily waltz into an enemy base and take it down. Each team is also assisted by friendly bots that are constantly making their way to each turret, but without the help of the Awesomenauts, they will quickly get shot down.

A lot of the game’s charm comes from its colorful cast – the Awesomenauts themselves. While the core of the game consists of winning as many matches as you can, there isn’t much room for character development. This didn’t stop Ronimo Games from giving each Awesomenaut his own personality, clearly evident after watching the opening cutscene and listening to their witty lines of dialogue during matches. Each character even has his own unique theme song that plays when you select him, and like any MOBA title, each one has his own unique bag of tricks.

During matches, your characters can pick up in-game currency called Solar that lets them purchase power-ups and abilities. Everyone starts with the bare minimum, and as matches progress, the more Solar a character picks up, the more powerful he can become. Before a match begins, you can change the loadout of your characters, furthering creating an element of strategy to the abilities you choose to upgrade. Sheriff Lonestar, for example, has both a dynamite throw attack that does splash damage and a ramming bull attack that helps clear the area by pushing enemies away. You can choose to level up both of these to give you a well-rounded character or focus on one to prioritize your role on your team. These simple choices make each gameplay session a unique experience since players can customize their characters to their liking.

Starting a match in Awesomenauts is also a painless procedure, and the game never lets you wait to get into a match. If a match doesn’t have enough human players, the computer will control any remaining teammates and continue to search for incoming players. These bots actually do a pretty good job, and I often found myself in hot water after underestimating them. Players who start a match already in progress are given extra Solar to catch up to everyone else. While I did like the ease in starting a match, I wish there had been an option to let players wait until they had a full team of people as I often ended up in matches that were close to finishing and on teams nearing defeat.

Every match you play through, even the ones you lose, will get you experience points that levels up your Awesomenauts account and unlocks more characters and abilities to buy during matches. The game starts you off with three characters, but three more elaborate classes such as the tank and healer get unlocked later on. I found that because of this, lower leveled teams may be at a disadvantage. Maybe this is why even a loss gets you lots of experience points. Of course, your account’s level has nothing to do with your in-game level that always resets with each match, so even if you’ve maxed out your experience points, you still need to use your plethora of abilities effectively to win.

Players can jump, shoot in eight directions, and do things you normally don’t do in other MOBA titles, so Awesomenauts may look more like a 2D platformer than a game like League of Legends, but Ronimo’s approach to creating a MOBA experience on the consoles actually works. Some matches can last up to thirty minutes, and are as engaging and addicting as those in other PC titles. The success of an online game is also measured by how big its online community is, and because the game is accessible to even the most casual of console gamers out there and because Ronimo plans to release more content and characters in the future, I’d say the fun won’t be over anytime soon.

It would have been almost too easy for Telltale’s The Walking Dead game to be a major disappointment. The zombie genre is of course overdone, and the once-proud developer has had a string of so-so releases in the past few years (I’m looking at you Jurassic Park: The Game). Yes, it would have been easy to make The Walking Dead another shoot first and ask questions later type of game, but thankfully Telltale has captured the spirit of the franchise and given us a poignant and almost touching tale of human desperation under the veil of a zombie apocalypse. It may not be perfect — in fact, there’s some very distinct problems lying here, but Telltale’s zombie soap opera is a return to form for not only the developer, but the genre as well.The Walking Dead tells the story not of the group of survivors we’ve all come to know, but of Lee Everett, a man being carted off to jail for a murder he either did or did not commit. As luck would have it, his trip to the big house is interrupted by a pesky zombie in the middle of the road, which sends the police cruiser he’s being driven in tumbling down a hill, killing the officer and thrusting him into a different kind of world than he was in just minutes ago. In the first episode, Lee discovers the walkers, meets some new survivors and adjusts to this new way of life — at least he tries to.

There are going to be plenty of people who are going to be disappointed that they’re not jumping into the boots of Sheriff Rick Grimes and unloading rounds into hordes of the undead, but perhaps that’s for the better. The Walking Dead aims to recapture the spirit of the original property and does a damn fine job of it. You’ll find yourself actually caring about the people you meet and the decisions you make. For example, when given the choice in games, I usually take the good guy approach, but with The Walking Dead, there were several moments when I was making decisions based purely on the emotion I was feeling rather than how I wanted the game to turn out.

This is thanks in large part to the fact that your decisions are all timed, and they’ll have less impact when you take longer to make them, meaning that you’re going to go on your first instinct more often than not. Compare this to a game like Mass Effect, where you have all the time in the world to sit and think about what you’re going to say to almost telegraph the game the way you want it. The result is a game that plays much more from the heart than the brain.

That’s not to say though that The Walking Dead doesn’t have it’s fair share of the undead, they’re just used more sparingly, which gives them much more of an impact. No, this isn’t Dead Rising, where you’ll be fighting your way through thousands of zombies, each encounter will actually mean something here. There’s a very important moment where one of your recently met survivors meets their untimely end and it actually holds a lot of weight. As opposed to the developer’s more recent games, The Walking Dead does a great job portraying action using context sensitive quicktime events, and the few zombie encounters found in episode one where great fun to play.

The original Trials game was an online phenomenon, occupying any decent procrastinator’s tab at work or school. A couple of years back, Trials HD brought the much adored franchise to Xbox 360 with enhanced graphics, realistic physics and a level of difficulty rarely seen in modern games. When Trials Evolution released last week, it broke XBLA records for most units sold in a single day. The demand for the game is more than present and thankfully, the addicting gameplay that made the original so memorable is back, and it is better than ever.

Simple to pick up, impossible to master is the absolute core of the Trials series. You control a motorcycle rider on a linear path. The only thing you are allowed to do is adjust the throttle and adjust your lean forwards or backwards. The physics in play here can make or break a game, with a lucky bounce pushing you in the right angle or too much weight on one side making you slam on to the pavement. Checkpoints are gracefully placed before any obstacle on the track, letting you snap back to a safe spot instantly when you tumble off your bike.

What was arguably the only problem with Trials HD were the repetitive warehouse environments. Thankfully developer Red Lynx took that to heart and made every level in Trials Evolution stand out with unique environments. Some tracks will take place on a traditional dirt bike trail, while others will take top a mountain or into a warzone, replacing small hills with walls of explosives. This makes unlocking new levels an absolute joy. The line the rider follows will also swerve every once in a while, allowing for a new mix of challenges for new players. Throw in some sweet special levels like the 15 minute marathon that is the Gigatrack and the awesome nod to Limbo and the visual variety does not disappoint.

Multiplayer has been added in both local and online game modes. Every game mode is a variation of racing and time trials with each track being played twice in a two track “championship.” Crashes will cause you to lose points while a successful finish will earn you points depending on the position. Despite some long matchmaking times, it is a fun distraction and can be even more competitive locally.

The quirky skills circus from the last game has been expanded, this time providing ridiculous challenges such as finishing a level without letting go of the throttle and replacing your motorcycle with skis.

Another nice touch is the level editor the designers used to create the game. The basic editor lets players post tracks online for others to try, but the advanced editor lets players rewrite the script of the game, allowing for different styles of genres to be explored. Bring back Marvel Madness? Create a 3D Angry Birds? The possibilities in store are ridiculous and a strong community is sure to keep the content coming.

As far as bang for your buck, you cannot go wrong with Trials Evolution. Sixty single player levels, a fully-fledged level editor and a strong multiplayer suite are more content than some retail games offer. Trying to break gold in every level is a mad man’s task, especially when you reach the devilish “Extreme” difficulty, but the sense of progression is always present, with new gear for your bike or rider being constantly unlocked. When it comes down to it, if you ever spent time on Addictinggames.com while you were supposed to be writing a ten page paper, you owe it to yourself to get Trials Evolution.

There’s a common misconception that game reviewers love to write about terrible games, that we secretly hope for the games that you’ve put your hard earned money down on will suck so bad that we’d get to mock it viciously. To that effect, I really wanted Bloodforge, the ambitious, gory and stylish new action game for Xbox Live to be great, to set a new standard for what a downloadable title could be, but when I finally got my hands on it — it was anything but.

Bloodforge feels an awful lot like the Kim Kardashian of video games. Sure, it looks great, but once you ask it to do anything worthwhile, you realize just how disappointing it is. The camera? Terrible. The combat? Slow and clunky.  Even those visuals that should sell the game are filled with an unforgivable amount of bugs that make it Bloodforge seem like a shoddy, unfinished version of all the great third-person action games you’ve played in year’s past.

BloodForge tells the story of Crom, a once great warrior that has since thrown down his weapons in favor of a family life. When those pesky gods drag him back in, they trick him into killing his family and Crom gets all pissed off and starts cutting dudes for revenge. Your goal is to slash your way through maniacs, executioners and even the gods themselves to get your vengeance.  It’s a tale seemingly ripped directly from Sony’s God of War series; an obvious inspiration for Bloodforge, but they key difference here is that you’ll find yourself not caring about the story nearly as much as you did in the tale of Kratos. The entire time I was playing Bloodforge, I kept waiting for something to happen — anything, but it never did. The game just seems like a constant stream of enemies that spawn out of nowhere.

It’s very clear early in the game that Bloodforge takes a lot of its cues from the God of War series. Even the controls feel like they were taken from the PS3 exclusive franchise and ported over to the Xbox 360; you’ve got your strong attacks and your weak attacks, and the game even keeps track of your combos in the same manner as the game. What didn’t Climax Group and Microsoft take from Sony Santa Monica? That’s easy, the quality of the combat. I consider God of War III to be one of the most satisfying games combat wise that I’ve ever played — and Bloodforge is the exact opposite. Crom moves slow and clunky, and often gets caught in cumbersome animations that result in taking an excess amount of damage from nearby enemies. Climax Group was even bold enough to take God of War III’s Rage mode and call it Berserker mode, except here it’s just a slightly slowed down version of the game, like bullet time light.

Bloodforge’s camera system doesn’t help the game’s problems at all, as it makes the combat seem even more ineffective. Most comparable to that of Ninja Gaiden III (read the review here), the camera is set too close, so you can never get a good view of the entire battlefield. Even worse, the camera tends to swing around dramatically, and always tends to place itself in a position where you can’t even see the enemies close to you. It’s most frustrating when you’re faced with bosses that charge at your from off camera, before you can fix it, draining the majority of your life meter.

So just what does Bloodforge do right? Visually, it’s an interesting game.  The use of shadows and the inclusion of only a few colors (admittedly, there’s a lot of red for blood in the game) is reminiscent of Sin City, and adds a cool touch to the game. Even the cool visuals though are flawed, as the game is filled with bugs, like the time I was in the middle of a group of enemies and started floating to the top of the screen. I would move the stick to come down, and then I would go back up.  There’s a fair amount of screen tearing throughout the game as well.

The Blast Factor:  Bloodforge had the makings of a great Xbox Live Arcade title, but sadly it’s nothing but an unfinished mess of a game that clearly needed some more time in development. While it’s easy to compare it to games like God of War, the quality in the source material is miles ahead of what Climax Group has done here. Plain and simple — don’t play Bloodforge.

Xbox Live Arcade is filled with ridiculous puzzle games trying to garner your hard earned dollars. It can be difficult to sift through the hundreds of games available to try and find one that will suit you. Luckily, The Splatters is quirky and imaginative enough that anyone who picks it up is likely to enjoy their time with it.

The premise is simple. You control these little blobs of jelly that are used to explode bombs placed across a single screen level. The challenge comes from the fact that you can only launch the blobs once (almost like Angry Birds) and they will not destroy the bombs unless they are “popped” by running into something sharp or hitting a surface with enough force that they explode. Once popped they turn into uncontrollable liquid, so you need to be careful where you are aiming. The liquid physics are really impressive and the game has a quirky art style that gives every aspect of it an undeniable character.

The real fun comes from trying to link together combos by breaking the different bombs in style. Dozens of combos are at your disposal, anything from a slide to make your goo travel faster and further to a special move called the flip that changes the direction of every object in the world. As you progress through the game, you unlock more moves such as the air bomb that allows you to change the direction of the blob in mid-air. Mastering all of the different combinations and trying to link them together can be addicting, and the online leaderboards do not help with trying to put this game down.

Unfortunately there are only about 30 levels in the game, each taking less than 5 minutes to finish, so if you pick up on the controls and ability to link combos together quickly, you can earn every star in a couple of hours. Separate scoring modes such as combo multipliers and a unique one where you have to use specified combos to beat the level are available, but it does not make the game too much longer.

Nonetheless, for only ten dollars this is a really fun downloadable title that is sure to impress anyone with a penchant for stylish physics based puzzle games.

Diabolical Pitch first made an appearance back in 2010 with only a vague trailer and project name: Codename D. Despite the lack of information, one concrete fact was obvious: it was Grasshopper Manufacture’s brainchild. This was more than enough of a reason for potential players to get excited, as the developer has a particularly impressive track record when it comes to combining style, innovative concepts, and the ever-fleeting concept of “cool.” Now that the latest and zaniest release has finally been unleashed, does it hit a home run or swing and miss?

Step up to the plate as McAllister, a former championship baseball player who finds himself stranded in an abandoned amusement park. Having suggered a debilitating injury to his arm that keeps him away from the sport he loves, this freakish amusement park is just one more stop on the road trip to hell his life seems to have started on. However, a bizarre new acquaintance was offered him the deal of a lifetime: a special cybernetic arm that could very well give him back his career. The catch? McAllister must escape the amusement park with his life intact.

Easier said than done, of course. The eerie park is crawling with demented dolls and disturbing enemies that would like nothing more than to have your head. That’s where McAllister’s former glory as a pitcher comes in. His brand new pitching arm doesn’t so much send balls whooshing past enemies’ heads, it fires them like rockets. The typical laws of gravity and physics need not apply here — and that’s the beauty of it all. Grasshopper Manufacture sprints right past the limitations of reality and adds a delectable layer of polish and style that makes Diabolical Pitch a visual and aural treat. Only when you get to the specifics of playing the game do things falter.

McAllister can fire off fastballs to the left, straight, and to the right of the screen as you mimic a real windup and pitch via Kinect. Locking onto enemies is done with your free hand, in addition to a truly malicious headshot that’s quite destructive but damagingly time-consuming. All your bases are covered, so to speak, except for accuracy. No matter the amount of space in your open area or optimal lighting conditions, the Kinect fails to detect so many proper pitches and movements that defending yourself becomes a colossal disaster.

When you’ve missed an entire swarm of enemies (though a life-saving kick to clear your area is available to you as well) failure is practically guaranteed. Timing is everything, especially when faced with completely intimidating boss encounters and the occasional quicktime event that requires swift movements and impeccable precision. The Kinect fails to deliver this, and thus transforms what is otherwise a wholly entertaining premise into a frustrating slog.

When your pitches are on point, though, it’s easy to feel as though you’re on top of the world. After dispatching a bevy of baddies, McAllister is often afforded one of the game’s titular Diabolical Pitches as a special attack. It’s prudent to use these attacks when you’re being assaulted on all sides, though the moves’ prompting do tend to impair your vision as to the enemies approaching and what’s going on in your surroundings. They are, undoubtedly, one of the most entertaining portions of the game, especially the Dragon Ball Z fusion dance-esque poses that are required to unleash them.

You’ll look and feel ridiculous, but in a great way — little else beats some of the hilariously awkward poses (especially when playing with friends) and it quickly became a personal draw to continue playing. Unlocking Pitches is as simple as earning coins and subsequently purchasing baseball cards — you can also increase your stats and toss multipliers into the mix.

Multiplayer makes the game feel like much less of a struggle against the peripheral, and it’s great fun to double up on poses for special attacks and revives, but when the game itself lasts only a couple of hours, playing with a friend only makes the time go by quicker — assuming you aren’t fighting against the motion control the entire time.

Top-notch presentation, signature Suda51 craziness, and that over-the-top style you’re likely used to if you’re at all a fan of Grasshopper Manufacture’s catalogue of releases are fantastic selling points, but the spotty motion control mars the experience entirely.

The Blast Factor: While this arcade-styled shooter doesn’t necessarily knock one out of the park, it plays a fantastic ballgame, especially on the Kinect front as a frantic, over-the-top alternative to classics such as House of the Dead. A fresh, modern spin and a rather psychotic coat of paint makes a world of difference when applied to old-school mechanics, and it really shows. It’s unfortunate, then, that the very peripheral meant to give it life is also the same reason the game misfires. The exact science and precision of a real pitch is something the Kinect simply cannot, at this point, afford, despite the fantastic foundation provided to work with.

Whenever I play an XLBA game, it’s always a different experience for me. I believe it has to do mostly with the way I used to view them; as cheap and quick ways to kill time. Now, I understand all videogames are time killers, but there was a key difference to me between a ‘mainstream’ game and an XLBA game. A game such as Mass Effect 3, I would plan a weekend around, whereas, a game such as Anomaly: Warzone Earth, is more or less a ‘I have 20 minutes to kill, let’s do this’ type of thing. So, you can imagine my surprise when I started playing, and one fresh 12 pack of Yoohoo later, I realized I had burned through 6 hours. Now, I will admit, with a little research, I would have known what I was getting into. This game already had a strong following on the PC, but I guess I wanted to surprise myself. I wanted to fully experience this game without giving other reviews the chance to skew my perception. But after playing this game and then reading the reviews for the PC version, I have to agree with them; this game is phenomenal.

So, an anomaly has landed in Baghdad and Tokyo, and your platoon, the prestigious 14 platoon, is assigned to be the first to investigate. Under the careful direction of General Jason Statham (Ok, so I know it’s not really Statham, but  with the picture the game gives, his voice, the wise cracking British jokes, and perhaps the Yoohoo messing with me, I came to believe the General was the street urchin we have all come to love in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels), you are to investigate and help wherever you can. You accomplish this with an armada of armored vehicles, and tactical diversions in which you can position in any strategical way you see fit. This game demands that you breathe and eat strategy, and I loved it. I believe they stand correct in their claim that they have created a genre; reverse tower defense mixes real time strategy, tactical, and RPG into one delicious cake.

This game reminded me a lot of a fast paced chess game. You must know your opponent, you must anticipate his moves, you must set yourself up for the best possible outcome, and you must do this all on a fly to anticipate any shift in the game. This game truly was a workout for my mind, I had never really thought tactically before, mostly because I am not a military strategist, and I have a strong desire to get laid (so competitive chess was out of the picture), however, if the chess board would have been filled with military vehicles, and invading aliens, then perhaps, I would have discovered sooner the immense satisfaction one gets from winning a tactical battle.

The game truly puts all the power in your hands; from the route you take through the city, to the kind of troops you have, to what distraction you are going to use at certain moments. Am I going to go damage heavy and hope my tactical sandstorms will save their low armor from enemy fire? Or am I going to go armor heavy, and hope that their low damage output will whittle away at the enemy fast enough for their armor to hold? The game gives you certain incentives to help with this choice. You are awarded medals (gold, silver, bronze respectively), for fulfilling certain objectives. If you go damage heavy, you might get a gold for speed, but you might lose out on ruthlessness, because you can only take a certain amount of enemies due to your low armor and limited tactical diversions.

It may seem that it is impossible to get all gold medals. I mean, you sacrifice in one area, to gain leverage in another, but, I think this is where the game truly shines. You have the ability to sell and buy different troops on the fly. This really opens a lot of doors if you are really good at situational awareness. I think the other best advantage the game gives you, is dynamic checkpoints, and dyeing.

Dyeing may not seem like an advantage, but I learned more from being decimated then I did just blowing through a level. By dyeing, I was able to see what upcoming fights looked like, I was able to learn what routes to take for maximum efficiency, and I was able to learn what troops I needed and what troops I didn’t, and with all the checkpoints, I did not run the risk of restarting the whole level. I know many games have done this in the past, but Warzone does it better than anyone else. This game promotes learning and rewards you handsomely for it, and I think more games need to take this cue.

The Blast Factor: This game is all around stellar. From art direction to game play, music to voice acting, this game excels in all fields and is well deserving of its 5/5 rating. A side effect I was not expecting from this game is that it sort of… awakened me. I use to find XLBA games, and indie games for that matter, to be passé, cheap timewasters, and something to be easily ignored. I was a ‘mainstream’ elitist, and I had been metaphorically slapping down the idea of an indie game for years. Little did I know that I had been slapping the wrong people the whole time. The problem with mainstream games is that we as an audience have confined them. We have certain expectations and preconceptions that we enforce, and expect delivered by mainstream companies. They can be creative, but only in the parameters we have determined. Indie games don’t have these oppressions. Most of these companies are no names, or companies that have flown under the radar. Without this constant pressure, creativity and innovation flourishes in all directions. This unique creativity is what is responsible for such gems as Anomaly, Bastion, Journey, Limbo, and on and on. With my new found enlightenment, it would seem I have a lot of catching up to do.

By now you’ve probably heard all about Kinect Star Wars. You’ve heard about the delays, the Rancor..the dancing. You’ve probably also heard about how nearly everyone who’s played it has been worried that it’s going to disappoint anyone with a love for one of the world’s most beloved franchises. It can’t be that bad can it?

Yes. Yes it can

The sad news is that Kinect Star Wars is just as unimpressive as you feared it would be; in fact, it’s pretty bad. There are some wonderfully entertaining moments here, but they’re far outnumbered by frustrating control issues, terrible gameplay choices and uninspiring campaign moments. Star Wars and Kinect seem made for each other, but sadly it just plain doesn’t work.

I’ll admit that when I first popped in Kinect Star Wars, I was hopeful, Terminal Reality and Lucas Arts appeared to have found a comfortable place to tell a new story, while still fitting in with the franchise’s cannon. The game opens with C-3PO and R2D2 telling the player that Luke Skywalker has charged them with reorganizing the Jedi Library, and they find the lost story of a young Jedi master and her padawan trainees. For what it’s worth, the game does a fairly decent job leading you through the tutorial levels and into the main story.

The problem though is that the game does little to create an identity of its own and relies on new versions of your favorite (and not so favorite) Star Wars moments to fill its content and presents them as its own. Like the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi? It’s here…sort of. Same thing goes for the second death star attack and a few other key Star Wars moments.With all of this, you’d think Star Wars Kinect was aimed at Star Wars fans who grew up with the original trilogy, but the game is clearly made for the Clone Wars generation; awkward sounding CGI looking Yoda and all.

None of this matters though if Kinect Star Wars did what we all hoped it would, make us feel like a Jedi. You know, let us swing a lightsaber or two, force choke a few guys and perform a Jedi mind trick along the way. Instead, we get the frustration of feeling like Star Wars kid.  The vehicle sections perform well enough, but it’s the on foot sections that cause the majority of the problems. Your lightsaber is mapped to your right hand, while force powers are mapped to your right. Sounds simple enough right? Somehow Kinect Star Wars still manages to screw up your inputs all too often. Want to jump? Be prepared to dodge — right into that ditch. You may have wanted to swing your lightsaber at your opponent’s head, but the game knows that you really wanted to swing low…right where they’re blocking. Worse yet, none of the force powers feel even close to as rewarding as they should be.

What you’ll likely find most annoying about Kinect Star Wars is just how much it takes control away from the player. We’ve seen Kinect games like the Gunstringer handle on rails sections brilliantly, but Lucas Arts and Terminal Reality are insistent on not just showing the players how the game works — but taking their hand and almost walking them through it at every step. You’ll clear one section..then go through a mini movie..repeat ad nauseum and you have what the majority of the game feels like.

From a presentation standpoint, Kinect Star Wars feels incredibly unfinished more often than not. There are times when the game looks great…but there’s even more times when the characters animate funky, the frame rate drops and pieces of art just plain old disappear. We know that Kinect Star Wars was delayed more than once for polish..why didn’t they finish it?

So, let’s talk about those dancing scenes, shall we? For those who aren’t aware, the game not only features several dancing scenes, but also allows you to control some of your favorite characters, like Han Solo and Boba Fett to dance as well. Now I was ready to start out this review by completely going off about it — but you know what, they’re some of the game’s most fun moments. Yes, it’s weird to see these badass characters that I love dancing, but if you can get past that and let things go..it’s not all that bad.

The Blast Factor: It’s gotten to the point in recent years that it’s tough to take Star Wars seriously, and that actually helps Kinect Star Wars, as it’s similarly hard to take the game seriously. Yes, there are some enjoyable moments here — but they’re far outnumbered by the under-performing mechanics, shoddy presentation and missed opportunities. For all of you who have been waiting to feel like a Jedi — keep dreaming.

I had always been an advent South Park fan, and my main concern with Tenorman’s Revenge was its inability to capture the humor that makes South Park so unique. However, when the game opens with  future sea otters retelling the story of Eric’s awesomeness and his plight against his evil ginger half-brother Tenorman , I already knew my fears had been squelched.

The story is simple. Tenorman has stolen Cartman’s X-box hard drive, and as any X-box player will tell you, we are more than willing to time travel and battle ginger robots to get it back. The game says it the best: ‘Who really wants to watch all those L.A Noir cut scenes all over again?!’

As a platformer, I truly find this game to excel. I found myself… frustrated, more than once and while this may seem like a complaint about the game, it is indeed, quite the opposite.  Growing up, I loved Battle Toads and Megaman, but I use to curse up a storm playing them, (granted I was pretty young so my selection of words was limited and well out of the ear reach of my mother). There are many moments in Tenorman’s Revenge where I found myself using my mature selection of swear words frequently. This is the greatest compliment I think I could use for a platformer; Revenge challenged me, it forced me to think past the idea of button mashing, it retaught me the importance of patience, and when I succeeded, I felt empowered, as though it was my true skill that allowed me to win. Too many times are we faced with a platformer that is mundane, and blatantly points out some simple mechanic that allows us to pass a level, but Revenge, refuses to do that. It keeps it fresh, with challenging levels, unique bosses, and so many hidden gems that it taunts us to find them.

Speaking of which, the replay value of this game is quite high. The game gives you the choice to replay all of its levels using one of the four South Park boys we have come to love. This may seem like a nice, if unneeded feature, but Revenge, gives you incentive. Each boy has a unique power, and if you’re an achievement junkie, this game demands that you replay these levels. In order to collect all the time coins, you are faced with certain obstacles only certain characters can overcome. Only Cartman can burst through walls with his girth, and only Kyle can transform into ‘Kite’ to float around. If you don’t like the idea of replaying every level by yourself four times over, you are more than welcome to the games multiplayer function, rather it be online or locally. At the time of the review, I found the online multiplayer to be a bit slow and unpredictable, but I can say, having my brother join in locally was a tremendous help. I can see this being a great game to enjoy with friends, or an excuse to yell at each other for ‘nubness’ as my brother and I quickly found out.

The Blast Factor: This game truly captured what it means to be a platformer. Challenging levels, annoying enemies, and remembering what precise timing actually is. That being said, I still feel this game falls short of the 5 star mark. There are too many control issues I was running into consistently, and the humor aspect of the game did tend to lose its luster throughout the hours. There is a reason the episodes of South Park only run 30 minutes, and it is to avoid comedic stale meant as this game ran into. Still, this game is well worth the time to sink into it, and it is refreshing to see a game that remembers what it means to be a platformer.

This review is based off a copy of the game provided by the Publisher. South Park: Tenorman’s Revenge is available now for Xbox Live Arcade.

Sine Mora, roughly translated from Latin, means “without delay.” It’s a stark warning as to what you’re getting into, with this frenetic shoot-’em-up brought to us via Grasshopper Manufacture. It’s quite a departure from the developer’s typically raunchy style — Killer7, Flower, Sun, and Rain, and No More Heroes to name a few.

But its calm exterior and svelte presentation belie a particularly menacing bullet hell shooter that’s a delightful mixture of dieselpunk sensibilities, intriguing mechanics, and time. While you usually face off against psychopathic assassins, bloodthirsty demons, or zombie rockers as in the case of the upcoming Lollipop Chainsaw, time’s the enemy in Sine Mora. Each time the timer ticks down closer to zero, you’re closer to death.

Across a tale that unfolds via text and brief expository scenes, you investigate strange time abominations and other anomalies brought forth via the unauthorized manipulation of time. It’s your job to fly through several expansive areas using three ships and seven different pilots to safety, setting things right along the way.

You’ll excavate undersea caverns teeming with mutant worms, power through a town terrorized by a shape-shifting train rife with missiles, rocket launchers, and various arms, and gun down the opposition in the unfriendly azure skies. All of this is tied directly to each stage’s timer, which acts as your life gauge.

Sustaining damage subracts from the timer, and destroying enemies adds precious seconds. Should the timer hit zero, it’s game over, leaving you to replay the section from the previous checkpoint or beginning of the area. Luckily, an array of power-ups and shields are up for grabs to keep you afloat.

Red and blue shields are available that protect each ship (three ships with unique sub-weapons) from the seemingly unstoppable onslaught of bullets heading your direction. If you’ve played through Ikaruga, you should have an inkling as to how the respective shields offer protection from energy blasts of the same color.

Should things become too dire and skillful dodging is no longer an option, you may manipulate time by pulling the right trigger. A type of “bullet-time,” restricted via refillable meter, allows you to shift through a torrential downpour of blasts. Strategic usage may just save your life, and depending on the difficulty, is an invaluable power-up.

The action is sustained well and swells up fantastically during the game’s seven stages, spanning several challenging boss encounters and a ranking system that provides an addictive challenge. Story and Arcade modes are both viable options for an afternoon’s worth of bullet hell fun, and higher difficulties propel the game into infamously frustrating territory — a great option for fans of the genre.

But it’s clear to see where Sine Mora truly excels. Combining lush, gorgeous imagery with a palette that absolutely pops and a score from Akira Yamaoka that simultaneously disturbs and enthralls was a design decision I can certainly get behind, and surmise will quickly become one of the game’s biggest selling points.

Certain landscapes such as the first stage’s verdant mountaintops and dazzling seas are so visually arresting you wish there were an opportunity to explore via land rather by air. It’s clear that this was a labor of love, both in terms of aesthetic and auricular appeal, and the usage of striking crimsons and sapphires against otherwise nondescript, arid environments is a bold move.

It’s a shame that this beautifully presented shooter is such a short ride, however, and its story can be less than engaging at times. But at its best, it’s perfectly capable of securing a spot at the top of your list of addictive schmups. Akira Yamaoka and Grasshopper Manufacture are a dream team, and Sine Mora is a fantastic diversion, even if it is a fleeting one.

The Blast Factor: It’s a shame that this beautifully presented shooter is such a short ride, however, and its story can be less than engaging at times. But at its best, it’s perfectly capable of securing a spot at the top of your list of addictive schmups. Akira Yamaoka and Grasshopper Manufacture are a dream team, and Sine Mora is a fantastic diversion, even if it is a fleeting one.

I’m staring out the helicopter’s door, the wind is whistling and the snow blisters my face. The pilot gives me the heads up and I push off, free-falling in whirlwind. before I can even collect myself, my board hits the ground,as other racers begin to whizz past me and it’s on again.

This is the world of SSX, and it’s a fun world to be in. By passionately retooling a much loved franchise, EA Canada has been able to tow the line between arcade and sim, between deep and accessible and between fanboy fodder and new experience. It may have been originally announced as SSX: Deadly Descents, but it will come to be known as the SSX experience.

In the new game, Team SSX is uniting to try to take down the nine deadly descents,or the nine largest mountain ranges in the world. Then your ex-team member and all around douche bag Griff tells the world that he’ll be the first one to do it and thus your job — of course,  is to beat him to it.It’s a simple plot device (SSX never really needed a major story anyways), but it serves it’s purpose of getting you to the mountains, and that’s where SSX begins to shine.

In a word, your first few runs will be exhilarating. You’re hurtling down these gigantic courses and there’s so many obstacles and things to trick off of that you’re unlikely to even remember that more often than not you’re in a race. You’ll often wipeout, but half the fun is turning these failures into amazing tricks, like landing on your head after a huge jump, somersaulting down a bit of the slope and then somehow turning it into a sick grind on a downed tree-trunk. The best part? The game moves so fast that it’s tough to memorize each of the different paths on each course, so you’ll have a ton of fun replaying different sections of the game.

The trick system is undoubtedly at the heart of the new SSX, and it’s surprisingly deep. On consoles, you have the choice to use the traditional button layout controls of previous SSX games or the cool thumbstick controls reminiscent of EA’s own NHL series which finds you flicking each thumbstick in certain directions to pull of specific tricks. Your best bet is using a combination of the two as it’s the easiest way to string together long combos and get the most points. Get enough air on a jump and SSX even allows you to trick off the helicopter you jumped out of — and no, it never gets old.

If there was one complaint about the game’s trick system, it would be just how light your character feels at all times. The game does a decent job at straddling the line between sim and arcade, but when you’re mid-run, your character almost feels wieghtless and bouncy sometimes, causing you to mis-judge some of your distances and biff more than your fair share or jumps. Admittedly though, this is a problem that pops it’s head up mostly in the beginning of the game, and once you get the hang of each level’s pacing, you rarely run into it.

As you play through SSX, you’ll unlock new equipment, from the badass wingsuit that allows you to glide down big jumps ala batman to the less cool items like headlamps and different colored suits. The best items will help you in one of the franchise’s newest and coolest modes — the Survive it maps. Here, you’ll have a number of new obstacles, like the amount of breathable air around you and truly epic events like avalanches to block your path.

Though SSX features no real dedicated traditional multiplayer component, the game does feature Ridernet, a mode that will be familiar to anyone who has used the Autolog features of the latest Need for Speed games that lets you keep track of everything your friends are doing in the game at any given time. It’s also the center for events held by EA, which are open to the entire world — or you can set it up to be just you and your pals, so you’ll get the traditional experience anyways.
The Blast Factor: SSX being so well done is a testament the old school design choices, to not having to put out a game every year to keep an audience satisfy. Deceptively deep, yet incredibly accessible, this isn’t just a welcome back for the franchise — it’s a complete reboot of it. Grab your board and go, the slopes are waiting.

We’ve become a society where we rely on machines for a good portion of our daily lives. Think about it, they handle our money, our utilities, and sometimes even our medical procedures to name a few. In the long run though, no machine will ever feel as authentic as a human — as something with a heart. Interestingly enough, the same can be said for Sega’s new shooter Binary Domain, which puts you at the front lines of the robot apocalypse often feels robotic in its own right. It goes through the motions of a modern day shooter remarkably well, but fails when trying to step out on its own.

Taking place in Tokyo in the year 2080, Binary Domain tells the story of the Amada Corporation, the world leader in robotics. The Amada corporation has created the world’s most advanced humanoid robots and began assimilating them into everyday life. Of course if you’ve seen pretty much any modern action movie dealing with robots you’ll realize that this is an absolutely terrible idea, and it’s up to you; as Sergeant Dan Marshall and your interchangeable squad to make sure it doesn’t happen.

For the vast majority of the game, the plot is pretty predictable, and often feels like it gets in the way of what the developers wanted to do with the game. Admittedly, there are a few cool ideas introduced in the later chapters of the game, but getting to that point means wading through a ton of uninteresting plot points that you’re unlikely to care about. In the end, Binary Domain tries it’s best to tell us a cautionary tale, but the end result feels like a mixed bag of missed opportunities and what could have been.

Luckily, Binary Domain unquestionably works when taken strictly as a shooter. Binary Domain uses some pretty cool effects and animations that allow your robot attackers to be dismantled in pile of scraps — and it’s incredibly rewarding. There are several times throughout the game where you’re going to be facing down with a literal ton of pissed off robots, and standing among their sparking debris feels remarkably cool. In general, the combat in Binary Domain feels fun, frantic and fast paced. This isn’t one of the AAA shooters we’ve been waiting for — but the gameplay makes it feel like it should have been.

It’s when Binary Domain starts to branch out from these core mechanics, that it starts to fall apart. A good portion of the game features squad based controls, which works when it wants to, but seems tacked on when it doesn’t. Your squadmates have different specialities, and you’ll find plenty of times to use them, but the game also employs a relationship system, which changes how your team will relate to your commands. Lead them helplessly into firefights and they’re going to be less likely to listen to your orders, but be a disciplined and fair leader and you’ll have their unabashed support. The catch though is that your squad is very forgiving and you almost have to try to get them on your bad side.

Binary Domain borrows (read: steals) a lot from Epic Game’s Gears of War series, but at this point, a lot of these mechanics have become genre standards, so they’re not the first to do so. You’ll roadie run, grab cover and blind fire behind it. It mostly works like it should, and there are few surprises here, but a few of the cover items often feel flimsy, and you’ll even take some shots behind it. It’s that unreliability that keeps Binary Domain a good shooter — but not a great one.

Binary Domain also features a unique voice command functionality that allows you to use a headset to issue your commands. Xbox 360 owners note that there’s no Kinect support for some reason, so you’ll be going old school on this one. The voice commands are novel, but they’re not nearly as responsive as the traditional button press system, so you’ll be screaming stuff like “on me” countless times before you get a response.

The Blast Factor: Binary Domain begins to carve out it’s own identity early on in the game, but quickly succumbs to trying too hard to be like all of the popular shooters on the market. It’s fun to mow down robots, but there’s really not much else to it. In the end, Binary Domain is a fun and satisfying shooter, as long as you don’t look too far into it.

Perhaps it’s fitting that Alan Wake’s titular character is a writer because the original game often felt like it was lost in the exposition of the story. For the Xbox Live followup though, the folks at Remedy Games have gone a completely different route — and the result is Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a slightly beefed up and better paced adventure title than what came before it. It may not convince those who weren’t fans of the first game, but Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is pulp adventure at it’s finest, and worth a night with the lights off.

First things first, American Nightmare is not a sequel. This is not the Alan Wake 2 you’ve all been waiting for. It’s merely a continuation of the original story — it makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard. The story picks up after the original game and after it’s two DLC chapters with Alan Wake in the middle of the Arizona dessert trying to chase his evil doppleganger Mr. Scratch, who has been causing trouble and growing even more powerful. What does that mean for you? Well, a lot of flashlights and bullets for one.

The whole thing is presented as an episode of Night Springs, a Twilight Zone esque show, complete with Rod Sterling like narrator. This new style gives American Nightmare a cool, pulp style reminiscent of shows like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. It becomes apparent through the narrations that the developers know that while their game is full of tension, it’s also a bit silly (early on in the game, you’re chased by a diner sign possessed by a poltergeist). Alan Wake’s American Nightmare strikes the right chord in between camp and thriller that keeps it interesting throughout most of it.

American Nightmare wastes almost no time getting you into the action, a definite change from the last go-round. It won’t be long after the intro movie that you’ll be taking part in the game’s trademark mechanic — weakening enemies with your flashlight and doing away with them with your weaponry. Mechanically speaking, American Nightmare is almost identical to its predecessor, but everything feels a lot tighter and more responsive this go-round. It feels a lot smoother to do everything from switching between weapons to running through open fields in fear of your life.

All of it comes together to form a surprisingly well paced tale. It may be silly at times, but Alan Wake’s American Nightmare is not to be taken lightly. It’s one of those games that’s at its best when played with the lights off, as there are times when you’re running for dear life through an open field as enemies form out of the darkness all around you. Wake gains health when staying in well light areas, and they’re few and far between during most of the game.

One of the new mechanics in American Nightmare is the ability to rewrite events so they’re different than the way Mr. Scratch originally planned them. In theory, it’s a cool idea, but in practice, it never fully reaches it’s potential. The mechanic gives you the illusion that you’ll have some sort of control over your destiny, but in reality, you’re just going to be following along with a scripted series of events that move the story on in the only direction it can.

There are other small nitpicks through the game, like a few continuity issues that pop up throughout certain sections of the game. Take one section for instance where you find an entire ring of keys to the diner, but apparently not all of them. So you’ll only be able to get into certain rooms. There are also smaller mechanical and visual issues, but they’re few and far between.

The Blast factor:Alan Wake’s second adventure is a much more focused and action driven experience than it’s predecessor, but that doesn’t mean everything has changed. American Nightmare is still chock full of what made the original so inventive to begin with. Alan Wake fans will love American Nightmare, but much like the first game, there will be plenty who just don’t get it.

I’ve got a bit of a confession — I don’t worship at the alter of Skyrim. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the amount of work that went into it, and sheer craftsmanship that it must have taken to make the kingdom of Skyrim so realistic — I just find myself getting bored very quickly. Maybe it’s the combat, maybe it’s just my taste in games.

It’s interesting then that with Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning, it’s the exact opposite. Thanks to an impressive combat system that would be at home in any pure action game, I searched out combat and found myself caring about the progression of my character, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about the world around me. Is it big? Sure. Interesting? Not at all.

Kingdoms of Amalur starts off with an impressive enough premise — you’re dead. Well, you were dead, before a device called The Well of Souls ressurected you into a nameless, fateless being. The key here is that since you have no fate, you’re pretty much free to do whatever you want — be a hero, be a jerk, fight for justice, rob people..it’s all up to you. In essence, you’re rewriting the destiny of Amalur with your choices.

At least you should be. Reckoning puts a lot of stock in the idea of just how important your choices really are, but more often than not that’s all it is — an idea. Playing through a number of Amalur’s quests, I did see a bit of change depending on what I did, but it never seemed like the game changing, back of the box bullet point that the game made it out to be. To put it into perspective, with Skyrim, I always felt like I was a driving force in the outcome of the game’s events, but in Amalur, I merely felt like I was an active participant.

That’s not to say that EA and Big Huge Games didn’t try. There’s an impressive amount of dialogue and NPCs to be found in Amalur, and from time to time, it’s well written and interesting, but like a good majority of the game, more often than not it’s your typical RPG fodder. People in this kingdom love to talk, and I often found myself trying to get through their monologue’s as fast as possible.

Like most RPGs, the citizens of Amalur will often give you quests in exchange for goods, and from time to time you’ll get a truly epic one, but more often than not they’re incredibly underwhelming. Find this, kill that, rid this place of that heinous evil thing — it’s all stuff you’ve done in your 0ther RPGS, and it’s a bit disappointing that Reckoning doesn’t really try all that hard.

Reckoning does have a saving grace though — and boy does it save it. The combat engine of Amalur is fun, engaging and does a great deal to advance even some of the game’s worst moments. Much like the combat systems found in more traditional action games, you’ll find the action in Reckoning to be incredibly visceral and fast paced. You’ll perform combos and incredibly entertaining finishing manuever’s (I still can’t get enough of ramming my sword down a belligerent enemy’s throat). It’s incredibly rewarding to find a weapon, become proficient with it and begin to upgrade it to learn new skills and techniques with it.

It’s the combat itself that expands the game’s other mechanics to become remarkablky enjoyable. Looting becomes not only impoortant, but satisfying when you’re standing over an enemy thatr you proudly eviscerated. For the first time in a long time, I actually cared about how my character was levling up in an RPG, and wanted to see myself excel in different specializations. By the end of Reckoning, I was a broad sword carrying badd ass, and I was proud of it.

Visually, Reckoning is anything but what you’d expect. If you had to compare it with another title, it would be the fable series, since the two share a very distinct cartoon style, which is interesting because the rest of the game attempts to be mostly serious. My major problem with the game’s visuals though is just how terrible the game’s lip synching is — it’s as if the developers didn’t even try.

The Blast Factor: Kingdom’s of Amalur: Reckoning never seems to fully establish an identity to call its own — it just borrows from some of gaming’s top franchise’s and fine tunes the mechanics to its own liking. Saved by the remarkable combat engine, you’ll still have a great time with Reckoning. More than anything, it feels like a great start to a new franchise, and we can’t wait for the more cleaned up inevitable sequel.

A series that has become unanimous with pop culture, the Simpsons continues to be the longest running animated series on television. Back in 1991, anyone visiting arcades may remember a video game based on the timeless series. This Konami classic provided perfectly themed brawling for up to 4 players in a variety of stages. Flash forward two decades and someone has been kind enough to us to bring this cabinet gem to the modern day arcade.

For those who missed the game on the first run, “The Simpsons Arcade” has the four main members of the family chasing Mr. Smithers and Burns in order to save Maggie. In perfect arcade harmony, there are only two buttons to press, attack and jump. Each of the members of the Simpsons family have different variations on these movements, leading each player to pick favorites depending on their play style. Gameplay rarely strays from the classic brawling we have come to expect from these games, sometimes mixing in a minigame for a good time.

The only negative to point out here is that you do not get much for the $10 entry price. Once you beat the main story either by yourself or with three other friends there is little else to do. You unlock the Japanese version of the game and there are harder difficulty levels, but it still consists of playing the same 6 levels over and over again. There is a cool feature in which the game will ask you how you want to deal with your deaths (free play or limited by quarters) adding a little hardcore arcade value for those looking for it, but in the end you can’t help but feel a little ripped off.

While the game presents some heavy nostalgia, in other ways it has you looking strangely back at your gaming habits. When I first played this as a kid I remember barely making it to the second level, even when my friends were playing with me. Now I managed to beat it in one sitting. I’m not sure if this shows how much I’ve grown as a gamer or exposes the internal flaws of arcade games being built to be a short term commitment. Nonetheless, the game features the original voice cast, has some well-done animations and it has been untouched from the original, which is precisely what anyone picking this up wants.

Blast Factor: Respecting its roots, “The Simpsons Arcade” is built to strike directly at your nostalgic bone and deliver on the classic arcade joy. However, expect to sink in more than a few quarters to relive these memories.

The Simpsons Arcade is available now for Xbox Live and PSN. A code for the Xbox 360 version of the game was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review

It’s a bit fitting perhaps that Square Enix used a time travel-centric plot for Final Fantasy XIII-2, as the developers used the continuation tale to literally go back in time and correct what’s widely considered to be one of the worst entries in the long running RPG series. The original was too linear? FFXIII-2 features an impressive amount of wide-open, explorable areas. The original was too repetitive and dull? You’ll find some of the coolest monsters the series has ever seen and beating them will test you almost each time.Yes, this is what Final Fantasy XIII-2 should have been all along, but sadly, no Delorean, Tardis or Jules Verne inspired contraption could save it from becoming just another cliched (if not polished) Japanese RPG game.

The opening moments of XIII-2 set the stage for an epic story. Lightning, the heroin from the original Final Fantasy XIII is in Valhalla, a realm that exists outside of the constraints of time — locked in battle with called Caius. The battle gets you ready for what you think will be an epic confrontation — but you don’t get it, at least not at first. You see, you’re not playing as Lightning, and your main quest is not to defeat Caius — no your quest is completely different. For the majority of the game, you’ll control Noel and Serah, the sister of Lightning on a quest to find her sister before it’s too late. This is in stark contrast to the opening events of Final Fantasy XIII proper, which took an incredibly long amount of time to get you to the main quest.

The time bending story of Final Fantasy XIII-2 serves it’s purpose, but it’s all just too convenient, and Square Enix uses the plot device very liberally whenever it wants to do away with something from the original or something that they can’t wrap up. Stuck in a plot that doesn’t make sense to the rest of the game? Oh, don’t worry — it was a merely the result of a time paradox. Continuity screwed up in between in game elements? I get it, I really do — I want to forget that a lot of FFXIII happened, but it’s a little dishearteing when you’re engaging in one of the game’s longer quests only to be told at the end of it that the events didn’t really matter. I got to the point where I stopped caring about midway through the game. Expect to do the same.

It’s also a bit disheartening that in this, the game that Square is obviously trying to reconnect the series with its roots, have chosen to stick with the nonsense stories that the majority of the later games have used. There are so many moments where you’re going to groan in agony as the game tells another long winded monologue that you’re going to feel like you’ve heard before. Growing up, Final Fantasy was the gold standard of story telling, but it’s no where close right now. To make matters worse, the story is left open intentionally. FFXIII-3 anyone?

That’s not to say that the game doesn’t do anything right — in fact, it does a lot very well. One of the biggest complaints about Final Fantasy XIII was in just how linear the game was; in fact, a lot of people compared it to being fed down a series of tubes with one ending and one entrance. Thankfully, that’s all been changed for XIII-2, as the game features an impressive amount of open and explorable worlds. This plays a part in just about every aspect of FFXIII-2. The game becomes much more open ended and user driven, as you’ll be focusing on a number of different quests at once, but you’re sure to miss a few in the process, which is going to get a lot of people to jump back into the game again once the credits have rolled. FFXIII-2 feels more like the Final Fantasy we’ve fell in love with than any games in recent memory.

I found myself both hating and loving the game’s new, faster combat system all at the same time. Bosses in FFXIII-2 are impressive in both scale and design, and some of them are downright tough. The game seems to encourage trial and error and wants you to keep trying to come back with different strategies. The new Pokemon style monster collection system, which finds you being able to capture up to three wild monsters at a time, and use them in battle is a cool new addition, that fans are sure to love.

Visually, FFXIII-2 is pretty impressive, and at times — inspiring. The series is known for open, sprawling battles and landscapes, and XII-2 is not slouch in that category, but I found myself marveling more at the detail in some of the game’s smallest details. It’s in the ruffling of the Chocobo’s feathers, in the cool effects of your magic attacks. It drips with Final Fantasy charm, and it’s good to see after all of this time. Sadly, the voice acting is pretty unimpressive, and often comes off as overdone and hammy.

The Blast factor: With Final Fantasy XIII-2, Square Enix has carefully listened to fan criticisms of the original game and addressed them; delivering a fast, fun and open adventure that better fits to the classic Final Fantasy name. The sad part though is that it’s still exactly what you’d expect from your typical JRPG, and the developers don’t take any risks — something that the genre desperately needs at this point.

In the past, THQ and Volition’s Saints Row series has been the equivalent of the Scary Movie films. They take something successful and loved, in this case the Grand Theft Auto series and mock it for all its worth. Sure, it’s passable, but it never sets its sights higher than being a goofy version of something that came before it. Until now that is.

With Saints Row: The Third, Volition has thrown caution (and pretty much everything else to the wind) and carved out a brand new identity for its goofy open world action game. Sure, you’re still going steal cars and run amok in a large virtual city, but the heart of the latest Saints Row comes with its new over-the-top action move direction that’s created some of my favorite gaming moments of this year. Perhaps it’s fitting that Saints Row’s defining moment came in its third game, just as it did for the series that it once emulated.

At the end of Saints Row 2, the Third Street Saints have defeated all of their rivals and have thus turned their once little street gang into a media empire. They’re spokesmen for Japanese Energy drinks, they’re on billboards – they’re targets.  It’s in a routine bank heist, with an actor looking to “do some research” for the upcoming Saints movie that things go awry. The bank tellers begin to fight back and it’s not long before the Saints find themselves in jail. Just when the Saints are beginning to doubt what they’ve become, an organization known as The Syndicate bribes the cops and lets the Saints out and the organization’s leader, business man Philippe Loren attempts to make a deal with the Saints; give up two thirds of their revenue and he’ll let them live. Of course, that doesn’t sit well with the our anti-heroes, who stage one of the most off the wall escapes in gaming history and Saints Row: The Third begins proper.

Well, to be honest, any Saints Row game before this one would have began there, but the moments before this scene set the stage for some of the game’s big changes. You’ll start by creating your character, and while not all of your options are open to you at first, throughout the game you’ll be able to create some truly out there characters. I started out with a well dressed and dapper Spaniard with a unibrow and several moles, but as the game worse on he became something else entirely; a cross dressing clown with pigtails and blood dripping down his face.  Saints Row: The Third truly lets players create whoever they want to be their lead character, including zombies. Yes. Zombies.

The core gameplay of Saints Row: The Third remains the same, take cars and run amok in an open world city while trying to make a name for yourself, and it’s deeply satisfying – for the most part. The new city of Steelport is a large one filled with vastly different sections of the city, like the bustling downtown filled with lights and illuminated billboards, the residential section and the industrial section. I often found myself just finding cars and driving around the city, just to see what I could find. Handling is more forgiving like Grand Theft Auto III and it’s spinoffs than the realistic Grand Theft Auto IV, so you’ll be able to have a lot more fun driving around and not have to worry quite as much about taking those turns as 90 MPH.

Where Saints Row: The Third really makes its mark though is with its new over-the-top action sequences. Finally carving out its own identity, Volition has presented a number of high octane moments that are a complete blast to play. Take for instance that scene where the Saints attempt to rob the bank, it starts off as you’d expect, going through and shooting everything in your path, but it soon turns into something that like nothing you’ve ever played before.  Before long you’re jumping from building to building Uncharted style and hanging from a safe that’s being hoisted from the building via helicopter. You’ll also parachute into a crowded party and much more. It’s almost impossible to play through these missions without a smile on your face – or much more, laughing loudly.

Perhaps that’s the real genius of Saints Row: The Third, even while creating its own identity, the game never loses sight of its roots and never takes itself too seriously, keeping its comedy fully intact. The game manages to mock not only games like Grand Theft Auto but movies, music, pop culture and even itself. Throughout the game you’ll catsit a lion, take out furries and even visit a Tron inspired world. I firmly believe that the real appeal of any open world game like this is to be the biggest douche-bag you can be, and Saints Row does that perfectly by allowing me to summon an airstrike against an entire city…while being completely naked.

It’s also remarkable how Volition has managed to integrate the music into the game’s core experience. Parachuting into a crowded party would be exciting enough with a royalty free guitar riff behind it, but when you put Kanye West’s “Power” behind it, the scene becomes something different entirely, it becomes a spectacle. The game is filled with these moments, in fact one of my favorite moments of the year comes early in the game, if you turn your car’s radio to a specific station, the characters will sing the entire song “What I got” by Sublime. When it happened, I had to stop what I was doing and just watch the game, it’s an even bigger feat when you take into account that the game allows you to choose between three different voices for your character.

Aside from the game’s main missions, there’s tons to do in Saints Row: The Third. You can commit insurance fraud, surf on jet planes and even get a sex change. The game also features a number of different modes including the aptly titled “Whored Mode” (yes, you read that right) and a pretty fun multiplayer suite.  Saints Row: The Third is an adult playground that drops you in and lets you do well….pretty much whatever you want.

The Blast Factor: In the past, it was easy to cast off Saints Row. It’s just a funny Grand Theft Auto clone. It’s uninspired. Now though, thanks to a series of improvements and most importantly the series finally carving out its own identity, it’s almost impossible to ignore Saints Row: The Third. It’s a tongue-in-cheek thrill ride that gives the player ultimate freedom. It may not be perfect but it’s easily the best game of the series.

Most racing games flaunt their cars. They flaunt the insane amount of rides, how realistic they are and what it feels like to drive them. Need For Speed: The Run is different though. The cars seem like an afterthought in favor of…the ability to get out of the car.

Yeah, you can see where this is going.

In a year with two quality Need For Speed games and a slew of other high quality racing titles, Need For Speed: The Run feels like a step back, a fraud almost. The actual racing mechanics themselves feel lackluster when compared to similar games and even the Hollywood blockbuster style storyline feels boring and uninspired. The Run could have been a quality action romp, but instead it’s one of the most disappointing games of the year.

From the get-go, The Run could have been great. The game, which finds you as a contestant in a cross country race from San Francisco to New York, is basically a rehash of the 1981 Bruce Willis movie  Cannonball  Run. In truth, there’s nothing wrong with that – the game takes you on some pretty cool trips, from the hills of San Francisco to the fields of Middle America, the tunnels of Chicago and finally the bustling streets of New York City.  The game recreates these locales in pretty impressive styles and most looks just as you’d expect it to.

To the developers credit, they manage to get some pretty varied (well, at least early in the game) missions into these locales. In some stages you’ll be pitted against a clock because you’ll need to make up time against other racers, and others you’ll have to avoid cops and gangsters in Hollywood style action sequences.  They’re really well done, but odds are you won’t notice; these sequences are presented as QuickTime events, so you’ll be more focused on pounding on the button that appears in the corner of the screen to fully enjoy what the developers have done here.

It’s a shame then that this Hollywood style treatment isn’t found throughout the entire game; namely the plot…or lack thereof.  Everything in Need For Speed: The Run feels incredibly scripted and as a result, less than thrilling. There’s no room for error in this incredibly linear tale as you’ll always need to complete each of the game’s objectives in the right order to move on or your trying again. Cops and other NPCs all behave and speak the same way, and in some sections it doesn’t matter what you do, the game shoehorns you into quicktime event action sequences.

The most disappointing aspect of The Run is just how few of options there truly are. You can’t fine tune your car or buy new parts for it; hell – customization is completely gone here. You’ll pick up new cars along the road and in gas stations, but if you don’t like them, your only option is to wait until you find a new one. This takes a lot of the replay value out of the game when compared to other Need For Speed games, and is especially apparent in the online mode. No longer are you racing against player’s own creations, you’re just racing against pre-made cars with attributes set by the computer. Where’s the fun in that?

Of course, this would all be forgivable if The Run was a great driving game, but it’s not…it’s not even a decent one. Gone are the fine tuned machines and mechanics from previous games in favor of arcade style controls that feel tacked on. Cars often feel floaty as if they don’t have any weight to them and handling can be incredibly frustrating.  It’s often that you’ll be chased by a group of pursuers, making good time, but be screwed over by one curve and have to start the whole race over again.

The Blast Factor: Need For Speed: Shift and Hot Pursuit served as rebirths for a racing franchise that had gone stale. They introduced new mechanics and were a blast to play through. In that sense The Run can only be seen as a major step back. It’s built on shoddy mechanics, goofy premises and a horribly bland story. There are plenty of great racing games on the market and this is not one of them.

Once in a while, with a batch of very sub-par games in a genre, one will shine brightly among the rest, proving that such a game genre should exist in the first place. WWE ’12 is that wrestling videogame who rescues the pack, showing the public a phenomenal title can come from such a niche.

On an apparent downward slide, the wrestling videogame industry was hurting. A cult following could only provide so much support when the franchise slowly spiraled out of control. It eventually went into a place where even the most hardcore fans wouldn’t follow (see Hulk Hogan’s Main Event… *shudder*). As of lately, it’s been hard for the wrestling industry in general. But with major changes in the industry (such as The Rock coming back! Who’s stoked?!), the whole aspect of wrestling seems to be on the upswing as it fights its way out of a very deep hole. And it’s swinging hard and fast.

A quick side note before diving deep into the vast universe of WWE ’12:  My apartment is full of diehard fans that were drooling at the sight of this game. Collectively, we’ve been playing these games together since we all met in freshman year of college. Nights have turned into mornings as we’ve created our own characters, move-sets, finishers, and story lines, challenging each other’s titles, interweaving character paths. This traditional has gone for four years and counting as our created superstars, such as Bo Wilson, the Canadian Olympian, or Bad Doktah V, the mad scientist with a hobby of creating evil monsters, have all gone through the test of time just like the real wrestlers through the decades. Just be wary of the judgments made in the review since the game was not only scrutinized by me, but also by the hardcore fan boys that I live with.

We tend to be a bit intense at times.

With that said, let’s explore WWE ’12.

The first thing you’ll notice when you pop the disk into your console is that developers took serious time and effort to make ’12 as smooth and realistic looking as possible. Superstar faces, for the most part, look like the real superstars, the voices are actually their voices, and their move sets and their entrances are exactly their real entrances. The graphics are impressive, clean and the presentation is out of this world. In games past, frame rates would get caught in the currents and freeze up, limbs would go wild into spasms during matches, and the presentation slowly decayed. No such thing exists in ’12. It took me hours of game play for me to experience my first glitch (which I expected much, much sooner considering how glitchy both Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 and 2011 were).

The superstar entrances are truly pristine. The fireworks and pyrotechnics are 99 percent accurate and the entrance videos are the real thing. The lighting is very cool and the fluidness of moves makes for a great show. Even when characters talk, their mouths are attempting to work with the words that are spoken. It’s nice to see so much time spent on even the tiniest details in a game so large.

The Rock returns and delivers a Rock Bottom to Cena.

Combat is usually where past wrestling games have been lacking. They’ve been a lot of show and no mechanics. My roommates had mixed feelings on how the game handled when in the ring (or outside of it).  Thinking since we had been playing the series of wrestling games for so long, we upped the ante and put the computer difficulty on “Legend.” This was a very poor choice, as developers have changed controls completely to make combinations and chains free-flowing. After creating my character, Flynn Withers, the crack-cowboy-hooligan, I decided to try him out against Chavo, who is a relatively low level. With him on set on “Legend,” Chavo decided to bring the pain and tossed my poor cowboy around like a rag doll, totally disregarding the fact that his level was 12 or so below mine. I swear he Gory Bombed me at least twice… If you’ve played previous wrestling games like Smackdown vs. Raw ’09, ’10 or ’11, you’re in for some abrupt changes in controls.

Countering and reversals, the most important thing in any wrestling game, is still one trigger, but a lot more difficult. One of the first things my friend yelled out as Mark Henry was beating him to a pulp was that the game was not user friendly to beginners. I would have to agree. If caught in the rampage of a chain or combination, it can be teeth-grittingly frustrating to try to reverse your way out of it. Not to mention, the signatures and finishers can be so quick to follow, at times, it seems impossible to block. It all takes time to get used to. Time and practice.

The grappling system is what took the biggest changes. Grappling is set to one button (“A” or “X” depending on your console) and then works with directional stick movement. When grabbing an opponent, you have seemingly endless options. You can hold the bumper and target a part of the body to deal a strike to, you can toss them, Irish whip them, you can signature/finish them if you have such an option cued up.  It was overwhelming at first and really confusing, considering we we’re all a bit too stubborn to check out tutorials. Taking the time to know your superstar’s move set is vital, and once you know the set it’s possible to string together some devastating combos.

Pinning has been changed as well, removing the desperate button mashing routine. Instead, there is a meter that can be compared to kicking a field goal in Madden. You’ll hold “A” and attempt to stop the meter in the blue area to kick out from a pin. Using the resiliency ability can give gamers the opportunity to temporarily enlarge their blue area for an easier kick out. The more your superstar is beaten up, the smaller the blue area is. It makes for some pretty quick matches at time and is insanely nerve racking.

Overall, the buttons have been swapped and changed around to the point where ’12 is a brand new addition to the genre. It can be difficult to get the hang of, but through the creation of a move set or playing any of the story options, it gets easier with time. A few of my friends would argue that it’s too complicated and would prefer it go back to 2010 set up. It really depends on the gamer’s preferences.

WWE ’12 has set a new bar with options for creation to the point where it’s almost too much. After pouring hours upon hours into creating a character, a move set and an entrance, I realized there was still the possibility to create a ring, a logo, and even a story with scenes and matches cued up. There are probably even more things to create that I haven’t even found yet due to the vastness of ‘12’s creation opportunities.

WWE '12's creation feature is easily the best of the series.

Although I’m still angry for one sole reason: The point system still exists…

The point system is at the bottom of the screen when creating a character. Players are allotted only a set amount of points to dress and accessorize their superstar. These points run out extremely fast when trying to dress your character appropriately, making it difficult to really make what you want. You may like a jacket that fits with your character’s persona, but it may cost so many points that he’ll go pants-less, much like our created superstar Batty the Banker (a very formal man with a very nice green velvet jacket and no pants we loves leg drops – very professional, we thought). Since our original creations on Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, it’s been absolutely impossible to recreate our masterpieces due to the point system… We all loathe it, and you most likely will too. It’s a terrible flaw to a wonderful concept.

On the other hand, the opportunities are endless with customization. It’s easy to gut sucked in. You may plan on putting an hour aside to work on your superstar, but you’ll glance at the clock when you’re finally finished to see that five hours have gone by. It’s fair to say, even though the point system limits creativity, it makes for evolution of characters if you’re recreating on the new platform.

There are quick options too, if you’re not looking to spend ages on any one thing in particular, which is a nice touch. There are pre-set move sets from old superstars, and you can even use some older superstar move sets that just aren’t labeled in the game specifically (just poke around online and they’ll show who corresponds to each number). Same with entrances: there is a quick edit option to just use someone else’s entrance. What’s great is you can still utilize personal mp3s for entrance music, so if you’ve already uploaded music for previous wrestling games onto your console, they should be good to go.

There’s absolutely no limit to what you can make (unless, of course, it’s actually dressing your character). It’s up to you to decide how deep you want to go into customizing your wrestling world. It’s having the option that makes it so fantastic.

Road to Wrestlemania is the attempted storylines for WWE ’12. And, honestly, they weren’t as bad as I assumed them to be. Usually, the purchase of a wrestling videogame was for the sole reason of multiplayer. This mode, however, is worth one play through.

The modes are broken into three paths. It’s the standard “bad,” “neutral,” and “hero” set up. With each path obviously labeled, the game does not allow you to make your own decisions. You’ll be prompted to fight matches with certain superstars and your fate will already be decided. It probably could have been made better by giving players the option to make a choice, that way there would be some sort of replay value, but the story is already scripted and ready to roll. If you fail an objective, you’ll be forced to restart.

Even winning some matches will earn players a prompt to hit “Y” (or triangle depending on platform), which will cue a cut scene. Sometimes, after laying down the smacketh on an opponent, you’ll still lose because that’s the path of the story. This is understandable considering it’s a story, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

Of all of them, the hero path is the best (which always seems to be the case in videogames). Players will control a new wrestler with the name Jacob Cass who has just joined the WWE and is being mentored by Rey Mysterio. They’ll be prompted to either create Cass or choose someone to model Cass after.

Do not choose an already custom made superstar!

In case you couldn’t read that, I’ll put it in all caps.

DO NOT CHOOSE AN ALREADY CUSTOM MADE SUPERSTAR!

The game will make your superstar into Jacob Cass, changing the character’s build. The appearance should be fine, despite that, but if you’ve spent a long time tweaking the build of your superstar, you’ll find this immensely frustrating.

Getting past that flaw, you’ll fight against Kevin Nash and his WCW cronies as they attempt to destroy Monday Night Raw for good. It’s a story filled with betrayal and twists and, overall, it’s definitely worth the play through. There were a few dull moments of filler where you fight Vader and Animal in backstage brawls over and over again, which definitely gets old. But teaming up with some legendary superstars is pretty cool, not to mention homage is paid to old legends such as Eddie Guerrero. If you play any of the roads, it should be the “hero” path.

Universe mode is probably one of the coolest and in-depth options ’12 has to offer. You can play as any superstar, included custom ones, and work your way through a schedule of events. You’ll be matched up with and against random superstars as you fight your way to the top. You can play through every match on the calendar, but that would be outright ridiculous if you did. A simulation option is available for players to breeze through matches that don’t involve them or their allies. Again, this is a prime example of WWE ’12 giving players complete control of their game play.

Using my Flynn Withers, I inserted myself into lower matches, fighting against Otunga and Del Rio. After defeating them in the ring, cut scenes took place and one of them to a cheap shot to my crotch, causing a rivalry between them. Managers will get involved, allies will get involved, divas will get involved, there’s really no telling what will happen after each match. Tag partners will choose to not help, the Heavy Weight Champ will come in and wreck house, it all happens and without warning. I tried to make it as realistic as possible, so I worked my character into the upper ranks of Raw in order to fight my way into Smackdown. Winning matches and sustaining momentum will cause your character’s levels to rise slightly, while a defeat will crush momentum and downgrade you a little. You’ll fight Number One Contender matches to have a crack at specific belts and people can interrupt matches and alter who wins or loses. The best part is it is always changing. You’ll make shaky alliances that will flip-flop in the next match, or you’ll make the worst of rivals that will beat you down before the match even starts with a metal pipe (yes, that happened to me). Due to the unpredictable nature of the mode, it’s a lot of fun and keeps players coming back for more, even if it’s just to defend a title.

What’s nice is almost any mode in WWE ’12 can be turned into a multiplayer situation. The only exception was Road to Wrestlemania, which is primarily a single player story.

Multiplayer is much like it’s always been and probably the largest selling point for ’12. Again, developers really stress the idea of customization to gamers, and made every match option a possibility. You can have a 40-person Royal Rumble or you can fight your way to the top of a six-man ladder match (tried it, I suggest you don’t, it took over an hour).  Everything is there, from First Blood matches to Iron Man matches to Elimination Chambers.

The Back Stage Brawl matches, however, were a bit of a disappointment. There is only one stage with multiple areas, which was amazingly intriguing at first, but got old real fast. You can push someone through car windows, or smash their head with a door, but honestly, 2010 got it right. There were plenty of items to use and the item grapple option was wonderful. WWE ‘12’s brawls are far more lacking and get stale after exploring the whole area once with friend(s).

WWE ’12 does offer online play as well as online sharing that’s definitely worth checking out. People will create absolutely everything throughout the game that can be shared and downloaded by other gamers. They’re rated, and the higher the rating the more downloads you’ll probably get. Say you’ve spent considerable time on creating an arena and want to see what others think. Just upload the ring and see how it does, it’s all in good fun. It is very similar to Halo Reach’s option to create maps with an online download option. Uncovering the process was quite refreshing, showing that other people poured as much of their life into ’12 as I did.

As far as unlockables go, there’s a ton. There are old superstars to unlock, new arenas, new titles and new attires. The Road to Wrestlemania will unlock a lot of them, and so will fighting through the WWE Universe. There’s a lot to unlock, however, and it will take full exploration of the game to get everything out of it.

To put it simply – if you have the time for WWE ’12, it will reward you.

BLAST FACTOR: Among the broken remains of the wrestling videogame world, WWE ’12 shouts over Cena’s taunt of “You can’t see me!” and demands recognition. It’s smooth and looks incredible, is outrageously accurate in representation of the superstars, and has fluid combat controls. If you’re a fan of the older games, be prepared for different controls. The customization options are through the roof and unrivaled by any wrestling game thus far. Players have the ultimate control they’ve been looking for… except for that damn point system. WWE ’12 demands a lot of time be put into it and is a very simplistic equation of “work in = work out.” For those looking to really dive into the depths of a wrestling game, this is the game for you. With endless options, gamers can literally spend days creating and building their own worlds. It’s truly amazing what can be accomplished.

There is a lot there for fans to reminisce about, and tons of superstars are available for play (I’m especially glad Edge is still in the game despite his recent retirement). On the other hand, some of the game play can seem repetitive and may bore some gamers if not played with friends. The Road to Wrestlemania will briefly satisfy some, but for most it will grow stale quickly. Universe mode is a huge plus to the game and can keep the single player mode alive longer than a normal wrestling game would survive. Ultimately, ‘12 is definitely meant to be played with friends and is a multiplayer game at heart. This is a game for the fans, but maybe not for the casual player. Exploring WWE ’12 and committing time to it, however, can spark interest of the wrestling world in anyone and give gamers a new appreciation for a genre that seemed so close to a three count. Get that shoulder up, WWE ’12 is here.

For the better part of five years, I worked as  Disney cast member. I spent day after day learning the biggest secrets of a company that protects that to no end and as a result, I lost what Disney and its fan know as “the magic.” The extraordinary became mundane,  and in a weird way, I began to step away. Who knew it would take a virtual trip back to reignite my love.

In that sense, Kinect Disneyland Adventures does its job, and it does it very well; you’re constantly reminded of just what’s right about the Disney company and its brands, especially if you play with those familiar with the park. As a game though, it’s more of a mixed bag. It’s really fun and a cool demonstration of the tech behind Kinect to interact with the characters, but basic mechanics like moving around feel incredibly complicated, and will make you practically hate the experience. Still, I can’t help but recommend Kinect Disneyland Adventures for all of its charm, especially if you’re big on the park itself.

The idea behind Disneyland Adventures is simple, guide your avatar through the Disneyland park and go on adventures and quests as given to you by Disney characters. Now, this is a very idealized version of the famous theme park, there are no lines, the cast members all speak English, it’s not crowded, and you’re able to walk directly up to any of the characters at anytime. Curiously enough — there’s always a crowd around the characters, but no one — but you, ever goes up to them.  To the game’s credit, the Disneyland in the game is pretty accurate compared to the real deal; I was able to run around, without looking at the map, and get where I needed to go just based on my memory of the parks. Of course, some changes have been made for the sake of gameplay, but those are few and far between. The permanent popcorn carts and stands are even in the right place, impressive for a game that basically serves as a commercial.

The characters are also impressive in their recreations. For instance, we found Captain Hook outside of Peter Pan’s Flight in Fantasyland, and one of the options is to extend your arms in a hug motion to interact in that way with the characters, and while everyone from Mickey and Donald to Cinderella and Buzz Lightyear was happy to give a squeeze, Captain Hook (along with the rest of the Villains for that matter) were unsure of what to do and seemed very confused when we tried. Of course, this is a Disney game and every villain has a heart of gold deep down inside, so we eventually got our hug. There’s a fair number of interactions with each character, like dancing and signing autographs. The autographs are one of the game’s coolest feature, as you’ll gain points for collecting different autograph books (there’s one for heroes, one for villains, one for Princesses and so on) and getting the right characters to sign them. I was at first a bit annoyed that I had to do so much backtracking, but it became incredibly fun to dash around the parks with different books.

Each character you find will give you a different quest to go on in the park, whether it be giving something to another character, tracking something down or going to one of the attractions. The attractions are where the Kinect capabilities really come in. The rides and shows take the form of motion themed mini games, where you’ll interact with the attraction and its story. Much like The Disneyland park itself, these are idealized versions inspired by the attractions, so instead of actually going on the Matterhorn itself, you’ll be bobsledding down a hill and trying to evade the Yeti. A lot of these worlds are pretty cool, like the Haunted Mansion inspired world, which finds you hunting ghosts with a flashlight while the famous Ghost Host narrates your adventure. The worlds are given a more cell shaded look than the rest of the game, which lends a classic animation feel to them. The best part of all of this again is just how right they got everything, with the Ghost Host in the Haunted Mansion, Captain Hook and Smee in the Peter Pan levels and even the corny jokes in the Jungle Cruise section.

Now, it can be pretty hard to walk in a Disney park because of the crowds, but even though they are pretty much non existent in the game, it’s an incredibly frustrating experience just to walk. Kudos to the developers for trying to not just making it an on-rails game like most Kinect developers, but there’s simply got to be a better way. You move around the game by holding your hand up; holding it straight causes you to move forward while moving to the left or right has you moving in that direction and putting your hands to your side to stop. When it works, it’s great, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work a lot. The slightest movement will cause your character to shoot off into another direction — just hope you don’t get into a corner, as it’s going to be hell to get out of it.

Things get worse when you start unlocking different items to use like a magic wand or a megaphone. You gain these items by lifting your hand up and selecting them from a pop up wheel. While it may sound simple, the game has a hard time registering whether you’re trying to pick an item, or run forward and it’s incredibly frustrating. At one point I had the wand equipped, and saw the same teacup animate probably 20 times because the game wouldn’t register that I was just trying to put it back. On that same note, the voice controls are pretty superb. While they weren’t perfect, the game was incredibly responsive a good portion of the time.

The Blast Factor:  It may be a pain to get around, but Kinect Disneyland Adventures does its job of reminding you just why you love the  Disney parks. You’ll interact with your favorite characters, go on your favorite rides (sort of) and even find some secrets hidden around the park. The game is at its best when its played by families and kids get excited when they see their favorite characters. At the very least, it serves as a running commercial for the Parks.

A game like Skyrim poses a serious question to how game reviewers do their job. In general, we follow a pretty rigid schedule; start game, play game, finish game, write about game. But what happens when a game never ends?  The answer in short – one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with a video game.

From its gripping opening scene, to the adventures your quests will bring you, all the way to the game’s climactic finale, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is unlike any other game you’ve played before. Its level of depth, dedication to storytelling and details both big and small combine to make one hell of a package.  Say goodbye to the sun, Skyrim is here and it’s about to rule your life.

Skyrim is less of a sequel to 2006’s Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, as much as it’s a new chapter in an ever expanding book. Set 200 years after the events of the last game, tensions are high in Skyrim as civil war rages along the countryside. The game opens with your as-of-yet-unnamed character being sent to be beheaded, but then the dragon shows up. Long thought to be extinct, the slithering beast begins wrecking havoc on the town, prompting your escape. It’s here that you really start to get a feel for Skyrim, and where your quest actually starts.

It’s here, where you create your character, and here that you’ll get your first look at the depth that Skyrim packs. The character creation tool is an impressive one, giving you the freedom to choose everything from your appearance (you can get incredibly in-depth if you want to) to your race and characteristics.  You can of course, change the majority of these throughout your journey, but a few of your choices do stay with you from the beginning.

The depth of Skyrim’s character creator assures for a wide variety of characters between separate games. I myself created a battle-worn, older grunt type character, complete with war paint, hobo bears and scars who specialized in heavy weaponry and elemental energies. To me, it’s what gives me the best chance in any given fight throughout Skyrim. Of course, this is an Elder Scrolls game and the choices you make, combined with the way your game plays out with have a direct impact on your style.

Like any Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim is a game that believes that getting there is half the fun. Sure, you could escape the village where you nearly lost your life and go right on with the main quest, but you’ll be missing a good portion of what makes Skyrim such a remarkable feat. Instead, go somewhere – anywhere. Wander through the game’s vast fields and gigantic mountain ranges, see what the world Bethesda has so lovingly created has to offer you. Pick the plants, talk with the locales, find some bandit hideouts.

There’s truly so much to do within Skyrim that it’s likely you won’t take on an actual quest for quite some time.  I strongly believe that one of the most impressive moments in any open world adventure is the first time you’re given a real look at just what goes in within the game’s world, and that’s a feeling that happened countless times as I found new areas of Skyrim. What’s most impressive about the world of Skyrim is just how detailed everything really is.

There’s a strict set of rules that govern the world of Skyrim, that makes the game’s ecology work. My first few moments being let loose in Skyrim, I found, stalked and hunted a moose and it made me feel incredibly powerful. As I kept traveling, I came across other animals, like bears and wild boars, and while these fights tested my unproven warrior, it made me level up faster and become comfortable to take on the game’s main attraction, the dragons. When you do eventually defeat a dragon and stand over the beast’s defeated body, it’s extremely rewarding and feels like nothing else in gaming. Just don’t get too ahead of yourself like I did and think “I took down a Dragon, a mammoth should be no problem!” Just a word of advice, the majority of the game’s mammoth population is controlled by Skyrim’s race of giants – and you don’t want to mess with them.

As of this writing, I’m more than sixty hours into Skyrim, and I still don’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface of just what the game is and what it can do. Now, to be fair, that’s because I have been doing so much wandering and not paying a whole lot of attention to the actual events of Skyrim, but that’s still a testament to just how impressively immersive the game is.  The game’s impressive visuals serve as a testament to this – in most cases.  The sweeping vistas and lush scenery is impressive, but close-up, especially on consoles, the textures can became blurry and create some pretty strikingly ugly scenes. For the best results, play on PC with an Xbox 360 controller. Seriously, don’t laugh, give it a try.

I wonder if he's friendly...

The Blast Factor: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim continues a long standing tradition of excellence for Bethesda’s role playing series. Though it retains the depth and strategic elements of the previous games, it’s also the series most accessible title, making it a great jumping on point for fans new to the series. With all of its exploration and content, you’re going to be playing Skyrim for a long time, but that’s okay, you didn’t like sunlight anyways did you?

Hype is a funny thing. It can build anticipation for something, and it can also turn people against it. Uniquely, in the case of Modern Warfare 3, it’s done both.  The Call of Duty series is known as one of the 800 LB gorillas of the gaming universe and is guaranteed to sell a ton of copies each time a new game releases, and Modern Warfare 3 was everywhere. At the same time, its annual release frequency, combined with the soap opera like events that ousted former Infinity Ward (the studio behind the Modern Warfare games) heads Jason West and Vince Zampella have led to some calling the series stale (in not as polite words).

After all of the hype, all of the smack talk and all of bickering, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is more than worth the hype. Yes, the engine is beginning to show its age and yes – there are some hiccups; hell you can even make the argument that this has all been done before, but this is what it boils down too — Modern Warfare 3 is a mechanically sound, fun and fluid shooter that does a lot more right than it does wrong.  Detractors or not, with its much more streamlined campaign and remarkable online play, Modern Warfare 3 is the best Call of Duty yet.

For the last ten years, the world has been gripped by fear and Modern Warfare 3 is the realization of those fears. Picking up directly after the events of Modern Warfare 2, the world has erupted into full scale warfare. Captain Price and his squad are wanted men as they chase down Makarov, the man who ignited this global conflict.  It’s a campaign that will bring you from a war torn Wall Street to the streets of Paris and everywhere in between. Just like in previous games, the story shifts from character to character, location to location, even nationality to nationality, but Infinity Ward has done a great job making this a much more focused endeavor than in years past. In games like Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 it was easy to forget where you were, what you were doing and just why you were doing it, but Modern Warfare 3 rarely loses sight of its goal, and why it’s telling the story that it is, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all that interesting.

What results is a passable story that serves as a reason to visit some extremely large fire fights.  From the previously mentioned Wall Street mission to a tense mission in the London subway and even a battle aboard the Russian President’s hijacked plane, Infinity Ward and Activision know their audience.  There’s no shortage of Michael Bay style testosterone fueled moments, and they’re incredibly fun thanks to the game’s tight controls, remarkable pacing and fine tuned tweaked mechanics that feel just about as good as they ever have. I was a bit surprised at just how dumb some of the enemy AI is. I may have an unarmed vehicle firing rockets into each and every one of your fellow troops, but sure, just run on out with them, showing total disregard for your personal safety. This happens much more often than you’d think, and it seems like the developers chose this to ensure that the game keeps its high octane level throughout the experience, but it’s a highly noticeable flaw.

Regardless, Modern Warfare 3 is easily the best looking Call of Duty to date. Running at a buttery smooth 60 FPS, Modern Warfare 3 handles the majority of its frantic action and over the top spectacle with little to no damage via lag or other issues that usually effect games like this. Infinity Ward must also be commended for how they used impressive animations and these large set pieces to create a truly engaging experience.  It may not compare to the visuals produced by the Frostbite engine in Battlefield 3, but the burning buildings and full scale firefights are done well enough to keep you interested and keep move the story along.

Let’s be honest though; the good majority of you aren’t here for the single player, you’re going to get the game and dive right into the multiplayer, and thankfully, its easily the best the series has offered. Of course, the core mechanics remain the same as it has in previous games, but Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer suite is a much more streamlined and persistent experience than those that came before it.  Each of the sixteen new maps are worth checking out, and the constant progression feels immensely rewarding.

Killstreaks and perks have been reworked to be more beneficial to players of all different skill levels. Yes, you can of course still unlock rewards by racking up kills, but there are now support packages that allow those who aren’t as skilled as the others. This goes a great length in making the suite more accessible for newer users, who can then go in and get as addicted as the rest of us are. Its really a great new feature that encourages cohesive teamwork between all squad members.

Also new to the experience in Modern Warfare 3 are weapon perks. Where before you would unlock weapons by leveling up, Modern Warfare 3 adds a new level of depth to the mix with the ability to level up each weapon, adding a whole new level up depth and customization to the experience. You could change the kickback, the amount of ammo it holds or a slew of other options. This means one player using the same weapon may have a completely different strategy and experience than the next. It’s a great addition and should add tons of extra hours to an already deep experience.

Special Ops also makes it return and should serve as a distraction when players want a break from the online multiplayer suite. The challenges in Special Ops are interesting enough, from disarming a bomb to taking over a plane, there’s a lot of replayability here, and even more so when you add in the new survival mode. Survival doesn’t offer anything truly innovative, as it’s pretty much the zombie mode without the undead, but it does serve as a cool new way to get together with your friends, and since it can be played offline, it’s also a great way to learn the multiplayer maps.

The Blast Factor: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is an incredibly solid shooting experience. The campaign and the engine behind it may show its age at certain points in the game, but they are few and far between. The story is much more focused, the weapons have more weight and the stellar multiplayer suite has been fine tuned and tweaked. A game like Modern Warfare 3 will always have its detractors, but it’s their loss, they’re missing one hell of an experience.

When it was released alongside the Kinect last November, Kinect Sports was one of those no question purchases for a good majority of the peripheral’s early adopters. It was easy to jump in, fun for the whole family and a good display of what the camera system could do. It was also filled with flaws and glitches that affected the game’s visuals and gameplay. Now, one year later, Rare and Microsoft return with Kinect Sports: Season 2. Filled with more sports, and fine tuned Kinect functionality, this year’s game goes miles ahead of last year’s, but unfortunately, it’s still packed with many of those same flaws that ruined the previous game.

Kinect Sports: Season 2 introduces players to five new sports, baseball, football, tennis golf and downhill skiing; along with darts (note: not a sport – just sayin’). Of these six, skiing is the easiest to jump in to; simply stand like you’re skiing and move your body from side-to-side to move between your markers. From time to time you’ll have to jump for style points, and while it’s quite fun, it can be irresponsive at times. The game does a great job of adjusting the difficulty so you never really feel like you’ve lost until the end of the race – even if you’re doing terrible.

The game’s football mode is disappointing, but comes with some impressive tech. Players control either the quarterback or one of the receivers. The quarterback crouches down to hike the ball and either yells “Hike!” or moves their arms as if retrieving the ball to start the play. Your receivers icons above their heads will turn green when they’re open and you can either throw the ball to the left, right or straight ahead.  Receivers catch the ball by stretching their arms out, and then run in place to get to the end zone. The quarterback can also call an audible at the line of scrimmage if he sees a weakness in the defense, though don’t expect a Madden-like level of strategy here, calling audibles is basically a game of chance more often than not.

As basic as the football controls are, it’s easy to envision next year’s Madden, which has been confirmed to feature Kinect functionality use something similar to the system here.  Imagine walking up to the line as Aaron Rodgers in the Superbowl, looking over the defense and calling an audible using the same system the actual team does.  The ideas in Kinect Sports: Season 2’s football mode feel an awful lot like a great starting point for other things – even if they’re not all that fleshed out here.

It should come as no surprise that golf is the game’s most fun and responsive mode. The majority of the golfing mechanic is easy and responsive, and the addition of voice controls for club selection makes things seem even more fluid. Admittedly, it was a bit weird being so used to having a Wii-mote in my hands to golf, and it threw me off a bit at first, but thanks to how intuitive the game the system is, that problem didn’t last long at all. It’s important to note that it took a while to get used to putting, as the game kept hitting the ball too hard regardless of my motion, though a quick trip to the Kinect tuner seemed to rectify this.

In a similar fashion, baseball is also a mixed bag. Pitchers can throw the ball with either their left or right hand, curving the ball by curving their arm. Sounds pretty simple right? Unfortunately, the game seems to fall apart once you step into the batter’s box. As you’d expect, batting is based pretty solely on timing, but sometimes even when you get a good hit, the game sends it directly to a spot in the outfield where an opposing player is, which triggers a mini game for the outfielder. It just seems like the baseball portion of the game is built mostly on luck rather than any kind of skill.

By far, the most disappointing aspect of the game is the darts section. Put quite simply, it’s almost unplayable due to limitations in the Kinect system itself. Darts is a game of accuracy, and the Kinect seems to have no way to judge where you’re trying to send the darts you’re throwing. Quite often I would aim one for an upper portion of the board, only to see it go to the very bottom. To see just how bad the game’s recognition for darts was, I closed my eyes and made a cartoonish throwing motion and to my surprise it went almost perfect straight. Hopefully this is something an update can fix.

One of the biggest problems with the original Kinect Sports was that you had to be playing a full game either online or against a local opponent to compete with friends, but Season 2 adds a challenge mode to each sport that adds a ton of replayability to the title. Baseball for instance has the home run derby and golf has a targeting mini game.  Season 2 also introduces a much more streamlined menu process that features a responsive voice system. Want to play football? Just say it. This year’s game is much easier to navigate through.

The Blast Factor: Though it’s not a drastic change from last year’s game, the teams at Rare and Microsoft have done a nice job addressing the majority of the issues to make Kinect Sports: Season 2 a much more enjoyable experience. Not all of the sports are as enjoyable as the next, and unless you’ve got a big group looking to play, you’re likely to get tired of the game rather quick, but Kinect Sports Season 2 is a fun if not flawed party experience.

Sonic the Hedgehog’s gaming career sounds an awful lot like an episode of E! True Hollywood Story. When he debuted for the Sega Genesis in1991, he quickly rose to super stardom; spawning everything from TV shows to action figures and even breakfast cereals – but then it all went wrong.  After a steady stream of games, some of which changed the very appeal of the character, Sonic and his growing cast of supporting characters began to wear out their welcome with the gaming public. It wasn’t long before the once proud console mascot was reduced to making cameo appearances in his one time rivals games.

Of course, even the worst True Hollywood Stories have some sort of a happy ending – and Sonic Generations is just that for the Blue Blur. Of course Sega has gone back to the well and revisited Sonic’s heyday before – but never to this level.  Not since his original 16-bit debut almost twenty years ago has Sonic felt this fast, fun and imaginative. Be warned though, much like Sonic crashing in to a wall, Generations ends with a disappointing thud and reminds you why Sonic went away in the first place.

Sonic just can’t catch a break. While celebrating his birthday with his friends, the Time Eater, a n unfamiliar enemy appears and begins to send everyone into time holes, scattering them throughout different points in history. Sonic finds himself in a bland, colorless area known as White Space where he encounters a younger and more pudgier version of himself. The two blue blurs decide that their best option is to race throughout their shared history, restore order and rescue their friends.  Naturally.

What follows is both a love letter to the Sonic universe as well as an epitaph for it. The game is split in to two sections; classic Sonic races through 2D landscapes just as you remember, and its loads of fun. There’s no question that this more than anything is where Generations shines. You’ll race through re-imagined stages from the original Sonic, like the Greenhill Zone and it all feels so natural, and so pure that it’s almost impossible to resist – and this is coming from a guy who’s childhood was heavily dominated by Nintendo consoles.

Perhaps most impressive about the classic Sonic reimagining is the amount of detail and effort that the Sonic team put into its recreation. This isn’t just an HD cleanup of the original visuals; this is a whole new look inspired by the classic. Take classic Sonic himself for instance, inspired by the spirte-based design used for the original, the Sonic Generations features an almost clay-mation like appearance and it feels an awful lot like something straight out of our childhood should feel.  To that extent, the game does suffer from a noticeable amount of slowdown when the game gets up to its top speed, an issue for a game like this.

Then there’s the other half of the game; featuring the more modern sonic levels. While still built for speed, this half of the game channels the 3D versions of the franchise, also known  as where the series went downhill.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are moments (and there always have been these moments) where 3D Sonic games work incredibly well, but they lose a lot of the original charm in the translation. Whereas classic Sonic games were built more on pure speed, games like heroes and colors feel like they really heavily on thunderous velocity, which puts the emphasis more on being destructive than the originals. Also much like the originals, the 3D iteration doesn’t do speed quite as well as its counterpart, as even the slightest error (and even sometimes without an error at all) will cause Sonic to come to a screeching halt. Most disappointing though is that these modern Sonic levels outnumber the classic ones as if Sega is trying to force us to come to terms with what the icon has become.

Regardless, the dynamic between the two Sonics is interesting to say the least. The character has always been built on an in-your-face attitude, but it’s quite fun to watch the two spar. Though he seemed very edgy at the time, classic Sonic seems tame compared to the more modern version. New Sonic seems grizzled, and hardened. He’s less edgy than he is cynical and it’s fun to see how both react to situations, especially when that dynamic shifts about midway through the game.

As you play through Generations, you’re sure to want to go back and play through levels over again to unlock extra challenges or better your time, but those who are going to get the most out of the game are those who have stayed with the hedgehog throughout his entire career as there are tons of unlockables that are sure to make you make you feel all sorts of nostalgic. These won’t really entice any non fans of the series to jump in, but it’s great for those who are dedicated.

The Blast Factor: Though half of the game is a reminder of why an icon fell, you can’t dispute just how fun Sonic Generations truly is. It’s fast, fun and everything else a Sonic game should be. Most importantly, it’s proof that Sega still cares about its biggest star, and knows how to handle him. Those who grew up in the 16-bit era will love the throw back, but really everyone should check it out.

Regular readers here are no stranger to my strange obsession with Disney. Of course, we’re not talking the High School Musical Shake it Up version of Disney, but the old school, classic animation, Walt variety. I’m also a huge fan of Media Molecule’s Little Big Planet series of games, so when I first saw Disney Universe, which looked like a cross between the two properties, I was instantly excited – turns out I should have reigned that in a bit.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that Disney Universe is a bad game, it’s mix of platforming and collecting is great for its intended audience, but the game’s biggest problem is that it’s just simply too much; the game often feels like it’s too many ideas going on at once, and as a result, it feels overly hectic and poorly guided. Disney Universe is good for young gamers, but older fans will get frustrated quickly.

Disney Universe casts players in an admittedly unique story. Disney’s most famous worlds have been recreated in a virtual setting so people can experience them in real time, but as it seems happens with every “virtual world,” someone has hacked they’re way in and filled the worlds with dangerous creatures and hazards. Enter you – a weird looking non descript Sackboy-esque looking thing with a penchant for Disney cosplay. It’s your job to go in, eliminate the dangers and turn everything back to the way it was.

Disney Universe is broken up into worlds inspired by some of the company’s most well known movies and cartoons, like Pirate’s of the Caribbean, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. The majority of these worlds require little thought and are of the, run around, break stuff and collect stuff variety, but there are a few interesting twists, like the Lion King stage which has you running from left to right escaping a fire. Regardless, pretty much all of the worlds are impressive in their design, as they don’t borrow directly from the properties but are inspired by them. For instance,  I had a lot of fun in the Monstropulous section of the Monsters Inc level, which featured a somewhat new take on the classic “door hopping” scene.

Perhaps Disney Universe’s most glaring issue then is how misguided it is. More often than not your goal isn’t easily laid out in front of you, and what’s going on in the game at any given moment is so hectic that you’re bound to give up and just start smashing things until it becomes more clear. This becomes even more of a problem when using four players – though that can also be the game’s most endearing quality, playing with three other friends can lead to some hectic and fun gameplay moments.

The most endearing lasting piece of Disney Universe is unquestionably the costumes and suits of classic characters found in the game. Similar to Sackboy from the Little Big Planet series, your character can don suits from a literal who’s-who in Disney history. Everyone from the fab-5, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto to lesser known characters like the Sushi chef from Monsters Inc (no, really) are here and are a blast to collect. My only gripe was that there’s far more costumes from newer properties than the classics, which is understandable given the target audience, but do we really need characters like Angelica from the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie? Throw me some Roger Rabbit or Chernobog instead. This an issue that can easily be fixed via DLC, and I’m hoping Disney Interactive offers it.

The Blast Factor: It’s easy to see the appeal for a game like Disney Universe, it’s platforming and collecting that everyone can easily jump in on. Unfortunately though, it’s ideas never really feel feely thought out, and as a result, Disney Universe often feels like a mix of a lot of good but unfinished ideas. Still, you can’t knock it’s easily accessible gameplay, especially for the little ones.

The first time I died I was crushed to death by an ugly club-toting prison guard demon.

The second time, death came to me as I was shoved off a cliff. The third time skeleton warriors wielding cleavers overran me. The list continues: I was burnt, impaled, frozen, pummeled, squished, eaten, poisoned, slashed open, cursed, stunned, bashed, stuck full of arrows, you name it.

And it was all a painful, aggravating but ultimately rewarding learning experience.

I was being educated.

Enter Dark Souls, From Software’s follow up to Demon Souls. And I can easily say it’s the hardest game I’ve ever played.

The third person action RPG dungeon crawler Dark Souls is a fickle beast, one that doesn’t care if you’re good or not, the epitome of hardcore and the gatekeeper of victory and happiness. Its tagline, “Prepare to die,” is no joke. Even in the tutorial, you will die.

Sounds terrible, right? Wrong.  Not only is Dark Souls the hardest game I’ve ever played, but also the most unique and rewarding.

Through death, a player learns survival. This doesn’t quite make sense, I’m sure. It can be compared to touching a hot plate. With your hand burnt from the contact, you know not to touch it again or, perhaps, to hold it with a cloth to reduce the heat. It is no different when dying in Dark Souls. When an enemy parries your attack and returns it with their own instant-kill thrust, driving a large sword through your torso, you now know you should not attempt such a route when fighting said enemy. It’s all a huge lesson on versatility and thinking outside the box, a game that will keep your mind spinning and your heart pounding with every encounter.

Dark Souls furthers the intrigue by its openness and lack of direction. Once out of the Undead Asylum tutorial, the world is open for you to explore and scavenge. Players are merely told to ring bells and “something will happen.” Pretty vague, right? The story is sparse and barely described, although the opening scenes and cut scenes are beautifully done and graphically stunning. The story is weak, however, as you find yourself wandering, sometimes aimlessly, through broken down churches, dark forests, poison swamps, tombs and underground villages. But that doesn’t matter. The story is far from important. Dark Souls is just one epic and massive adventure when it comes down to it.

The game will push you in a basic direction by the difficulty of the demons you encounter. I knew immediately that going through the poisonous Blighttown before I rang the first bell was not the smartest move, mainly because I was too weak to handle the beasts within. Then again, it’s completely arguable. Some may think one section is harder than the other merely based on the fact that their stats are distributed differently. It really is open for debate.

With its refusal to hold your hand, Dark Souls makes gamers’ hearts pump faster and sweat build on their brows. As they enter a dark unknown area with no idea what is around the corner, they’ll either march proudly and arrogantly or inch their way through with their shield up and a strong paranoia sinking in. The tutorial is brief and lacking in description, forcing players to figure it out on alone. Once brought to the Firelink Shrine, the official starting place in Dark Souls after the escape from the Undead Asylum, the world completely lacks a linear path. You are given a simple objective, how you accomplish it is up to you.

This beginning is vast and intimidating. Words like “overwhelming” don’t seem to do it justice. The start of your exploration will invoke awe due to its size. As you further your escapades and plunders, however, you’ll find small shortcuts, making each area interconnected. By the time you make it halfway through, you’ll have paths to so many areas around the Dark Souls realm, it will make travel easier. The realization of shortcuts were always a huge victory when I was playing, and I found myself rejoicing each time I found my way back to the Firelink Shrine. Being a safe haven, it was always comforting to know that the Shrine wasn’t as far away as it seemed.

Again, death is stressed to be the ultimate teacher. You’ll find through error and exploration what enemies are weak against and their attack patterns. You’ll learn that some enemies are weak against fire, while others are immune. You’ll find that divine forged weapons will halt the revival of skeleton warriors, opposed to struggling as you battle the reanimating bastards over and over again for no gain. There isn’t a moment that the game isn’t teaching you something. Players must be wise enough to take note when things happen, especially in combat and death.

In no way is Dark Souls a hack ‘n slash game. Running into a crowd of undead soldiers with your sword drawn may seem like a fun idea at first, but will lead to your inevitably quick death. The game is about patience and testing your limits. With an endurance bar acting as both your defense and your strength, players must truly come to balance with their actions. Swinging a heavy weapon could use up half your endurance bar, leaving you susceptible to an onslaught. To attack or not to attack, that is the question.

But the combat system is the heart of Dark Souls and is extremely unforgiving for beginners. I think I died far more in the beginning trying to get used to the combat than later. The learning curve is brutal, and can push players into fits of anger as they attempt to figure out their hero’s limits and the attack patterns of their enemies. But as time progresses, you’ll get stronger, level up and conquer. It’s all a matter of taking risks and knowing when to pull back from a fight.

The gamble is a huge playing point in Dark Souls. To act or not to act. Play it safe and miss out, or take a chance and risk annihilation? It’s a rush every time and players are faced with it frequently.

Scenario: There is an item on top of the roof a structure. The gap between you and the structure is quite large. Falling into said gap is a most certain death. Having no idea if the item is worth the jump, do you take a chance anyway, risking all your collected souls and progress in the area?

Let’s say you jump. You don’t make the gap and plummet to your demise. “You have died” shows up on your screen and then fades to black. You respawn at the last bonfire you rested at. This sucks, but is the norm. You can, however, try try again, which eventually will lead to success, and a swelling rush of pride.

Bonfires are a player’s saving grace, their haven, the light in the pitch black. Bonfires are scattered few and far throughout Dark Souls, acting as a checkpoint where you can level up, change your spells, replenish you spell count and safely re-arrange your inventory. You’ll recover your health and refill your estus flasks – potions that heal you out in the world. But it comes with a price, as does everything in the Dark Souls universe.

By resting at a bonfire, the enemies slain have respawned (except for some of the tougher enemies like the Dark Knights or bosses). After tirelessly clearing out an area of blood-thirsty beasts, it might not be worth the risk to rest a bonfire if you don’t need to. Then again, players will learn to expect death everywhere, so it may be worth cashing in on the souls you’ve collected.

Souls act as currency. Killing an enemy will yield a specific amount of souls. These souls can be used to level up at bonfires, where players can up their stats. They are also money, in the sense that you can use them to purchase items or services from merchants and blacksmiths. There, you can forge new weapons, repair weapons and armor or enhance your belongings with materials found throughout the world. The game is especially difficult and, at points, unfair, with it’s distribution of souls through victories.

Perhaps it was the developers’ way of discouraging grinding, but it is tedious and risky to attempt it. Even some of the (respawning) toughest demons only provide a few hundred souls, making it more and more difficult to level up or ascend weapons and armor as the game progresses. There are some areas of the game that seem to be made for soul farming, but they’re spread far and thin in between.

Not only that, but weapons and armor have durability stats, meaning that you can only hack away at enemies for so long before your sword breaks. Just adding to the difficulty, Dark Souls? Yeah, I’d say so.

Be prepared to die. A LOT.

Playing Dark Souls makes you feel small and insignificant. Your hero will face creatures 1,000 times their size, with a bleak chance of survival. But yet, it’s all possible. It makes the victories a million times better. I distinctively remember standing up and dancing after I defeated the Bell Gargoyles (giant stone creates with huge lances, axe tails and breathe fire) and rang the first bell. Winning has never felt so good.

But as small as you are, you are not alone. The most genius part of Dark Souls is the online world. Playing it on a PS3, I was always connected to the Internet, which made for a fantastic gaming experience. Often, players will see ghosts of other players briefly running through an area or fighting an invisible enemy, but then they will disappear. Glowing orange markings on the ground are also left by online players, which provide hints (or sometimes trolls provide fake hints) that help your hero prepare for the worst. Although the specific player who wrote the note won’t show up in your game play, their message will, creating a strong sense of unity.

Even better is the act of summoning. White writing on the ground can give players the prompt to summon spirits to aid their adventures. These spirits will be other heroes that are online, willing to provide their services to defeat difficult bosses. Together, you’ll work silently by the side of a stranger to face nightmares you’d hopelessly be crushed by if you were by yourself. Once you defeat the creature, the summon will disappear, and you’ll most often never see them again. Whenever I utilized this option, it gave me a warm feeling that I wasn’t alone as I thought I was.

It’s a strange sense of unity that the online game play brings into Dark Souls. You’re all in this together, and you’re all just trying to survive the worst.

There is also the option to become a phantom yourself, helping out fellow heroes to take down bosses you’ve already slain. By writing on the ground with a white soapstone, you can be summoned by someone and reap the benefits of victory together.

Again, this wouldn’t be Dark Souls if there was not a yang to the ying. With online game play enabled, it gives gamers the option to invade other worlds. Being completely honest, invasions are terrible. Players will invade other’s games with the one purpose of massacring the other player. At one point, I was invaded four times within an hour, hopelessly fighting off much stronger foes, and dying with each invasion. It was probably the most frustrating thing I experienced.

But this leads to the idea of covenants, a brilliant side quest-like option in Dark Souls. Players will meet NPCs throughout game play, and can be offered to join different covenants. Each have their perks and their specific purposes. One secret covenant has the single mission of invading players who invade players. Every time a person chooses to invade another’s game, they are sinning. These sins are recorded in a Book of the Guilty by Dark Souls. It was quite the cool experience.

Dark Souls is truly a massive game that gamers can pour their heart (and many, many hours) into. It’s something I’ve never quite experienced in a videogame. Some of the battles gave me a sense of Shadow of the Colossus, where the enemies were just so massive success seemed out of the question. The victories were made so much sweeter because of it.

Graphically, Dark Souls has an incredible way to pull the gamer into the mood it’s conveying. There are moments where players will have a chance to gaze at a beautiful landscape and truly appreciate the texture and time put into their surroundings. Other times, players will be begging to see grass again as they crawl through the Depths filled with giant undead rats and cursed demon frogs. The game’s environment finds a way to dig under your skin and give you a feeling of loneliness, claustrophobia, fear, or, at times, comfort. Just another genius aspect, I suppose.

Not everything about Dark Souls is innovative and wonderful though. As said before, the learning curve is outrageous. The first 10 hours or so of game play is so harsh, it could make even the most hardcore gamer quit. Leveling up is especially difficult because there isn’t a marker telling you how many souls it will take to improve your stats. It’s impossible to know when you have enough, you can only estimate. Some of the scenarios breach the intense difficulty to the “completely unfair” zone too. Many times Dark Souls was turned off from my television in a flurry of cuss words and rage. Luckily, my controller is still intact, although it did fly across the room once or twice.

It’s a give and take kind of game that really is not for everyone. Those who expect a linear, baby-steps, simple game need not apply. It takes grit, patience and time to make it anywhere in Dark Souls. Not every gamer prefers that, and that’s fine, but for those up to the challenge, it’s beyond worth it. The adventure is epic and far too hard to turn down.

BLAST FACTOR: Dark Souls is only for the select few that want to put the time into it. It’s harsh on all levels and extremely difficult in the beginning especially. Getting past the amount of times death overtakes games is where players will find solace. It’s a genius learning game, forcing you to think outside the box. It defies the new wave of gaming that is all quick time events and only 12 hours of game play. Dark Souls is visually beautiful, terrifying and will completely take over your emotions. It’s an epic journey where only the bravest and wisest succeed. It would be a shame to pass up such an experience, but with its insane difficulty level it’s completely understandable. Dark Souls has breached my favorite game titles and definitely made it into my top five. I wouldn’t pass it up.

Perhaps the most telling tale of Battlefield 3’s complicated existence comes before the game even enters your system. Certain versions of the game come in multiple discs, one for the game’s multiplayer suite, which comes first – and the other for the single player. After more than a decade,  EA and DICE  surely know their audience and have justly put the majority of their time and development into the game’s online gameplay, but as a result, the single player suffers and you’re left with a mixed and uneven shooter that fails to deliver on all of the hype it’s generated since being announced. No, Battlefield 3 is not a bad game – it’s just not as good as it could be.

Before you go any further you should know something about me — I’m a single player campaign first kind of guy. Before I even touch the online multiplayer I want a game to tell me a story, I want the game to take me places, to make me care. Quite simply, Battlefield 3 failed to do that for me.  That’s not to say that there aren’t any edge-of-your-seat moments; when Battlefield 3 fires on all cylinders, it’s great action, just not great drama. Take for example on sequence early on in the game where you’re asked to take out an enemy held up in a hotel balcony. It was thrilling to run up to the top of the building and strategize with my squad-mates as to how to take them out; but for the life of me, I can’t tell you just why we were doing it.  The uninspired story of Battlefield 3 feels less like a fleshed out plot, and more like a device to move you from set piece to set piece, and they’re just not all thrilling enough to make you care. You can only take so much military jargon before you just find yourself just pointing at something and shooting.

It’s almost impossible to write this review without mentioning the 800 LB gorilla in the room – the rivalry that’s played out between Battlefield and Call of Duty over the last year. In the midst of the verbal sparring; a strange thing has happened, Battlefield has become everything they’ve spoken out against. Modes from previous Battlefield games have been removed (where’s my commander mode EA?), and the team at DICE seems insistent on making this feel like a Modern Warfare game. All of the plot points are here, the stolen nukes, the gruff commanders and the stereotypically evil Russians; hell there’s even a few missions that feel like they were lifted directly from previous editions of the rival series.  What’s most disappointing about the campaign experience is when it’s clear that they didn’t do the necessary research. In fear of spoiling some key moments, I won’t get into much detail, but there are some moments that defy military law that are sure to take you completely out of the game.

That being said, I can’t deny the sheer enjoyment I had when the campaign worked. When Battlefield 3 fires on all cylinders and gives you frantic action, it’s hard to argue that it delivers.  Lessons are learned quick in the world of Battlefield 3, like the time I was facing down a sniper and mistakenly got up from my cover in an effort to get a better vantage point, only to be instantly shot down. It’s moments like these that make Battlefield enjoyable, where you’re forced to make split second decisions in the face of a coming onslaught. These edge of your seat moments don’t come often in Battlefield 3, but when they do, they’re more than worth it.

Let’s be honest though, myself aside, the majority of gamers are going to jump in to Battlefield 3 for its online play – and this is where the game undoubtedly shines. On the PC version up to 64 players (24 on console versions) can load out in nine different maps which vary from industrial to urban and even some jungle locations. What makes these maps so interesting is not their size (though, they are quite large), but how varied in scope they are.  One map for example had me dodging sniper shots from multiple roofs, while the other had me scurrying between tunnels to try to get an advantage. Of course, this is a Battlefield game, and that means you’ll have access to plenty of vehicles, which can be a great addition to the game, but can also be a pain in the ass. Getting a vehicle, like a tank or a helicopter can turn a battle around completely, but they’re so powerful that each game becomes a mad dash to occupy each vehicle, and if you you’re not the lucky one, you better turn around and run. We also experienced a slew of issues with the EA servers while playing Battlefield online. These issues mostly cropped up with the console versions, and they’re likely to be fixed via a patch, but it was incredibly frustrating to not be able to get in to a game on launch week.

The entire Battlefield package comes together with the new Frostbite 2 engine. There’s no denying that the game is nothing short of gorgeous; from the detail on characters and buildings, to the views of the city around you. Most impressive perhaps is the level of detail Frostbite allows for in its destruction. Remember that scene early on I was talking about? The one where you’re trying to take out the enemy in the hotel? It’s extremely satisfying to watch as the entire building rumbles, smoke starts to billow out and pieces start to fall off. At times its almost impossible to not marvel at how well it all comes together. It’s not all perfect though, as we did notice a few oddly muddy textures and a bit of slowdown – especially in the console versions.

The Blast Factor: Battlefield 3 may be the toughest game I’ve yet to review; it’s majorly flawed, but at the same time, it does so much right that it’s almost impossible not to at least enjoy your time with it. After all the hype and the name calling, Battlefield 3 is here. Was it worth the wait? The easy answer is an emphatic yes; it may not be the end-all-be-all first person shooter you’re looking for, but it is a remarkable one, that you’re going to want to play – especially if you’re into multiplayer.

Battlefield 3 is available now for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 from EA and DICE. The Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game were used for this review and provided by the publisher.

I still remember the moment I fell in love with Batman: Arkham Asylum. No surprise, it was pretty early in the game, I entered a warehouse type room filled with the Joker’s henchmen, but rather than merely having me go rough ‘em up, I was challenged to find a new way around them, to think in essence, like The Batman. I used my surroundings, I stalked my prey, I turned their own fear against them. It was after this section that I realized that developer Rocksteady wasn’t just giving me the opportunity to play as The Batman; they were giving me a chance to feel what it would be like to be the Dark Knight.

With the sequel, Arkham City, a lot could have gone wrong. We all know most sequels suck and what are the odds of two Batman games in a row being exceptional right? Turns out pretty good. Everything you loved about Asylum returns, but only now they’re tweaked and reconfigured almost to a point of perfection.  Arkham City is a sprawling and gorgeously detailed environment, and Bat-fans are sure to enjoy the little nods to the caped crusader’s past. It may not be perfect, as some of the flaws that hindered the last game are still naggingly present, but Batman’s latest adventure is still a damn good one.

Arkham City picks up mere months after the end of the last game; the asylum’s former warden Quincy Sharp is now Gotham’s mayor and has had the wonderfully smart idea to move all of the city’s most dangerous criminals out of Arkham and into a walled off area in the center of the city. Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne isn’t a fan of the idea and stages a press conference outside of the newly named Arkham City to oppose it, but it’s not long before he’s arrested under strange circumstances and thrown in himself.  This begins Arkham City proper – and it’s one of the most dynamic openings in recent memory.  From the moment you enter the prison, and an inmate yells “Welcome to hell,” you can’t help but be amazed by the scale of it all, and how theatrical the presentation is this go-around.

THUNK!

These superb presentation levels extend themselves throughout most of the entire game. Arkham City is a decaying mecca in the heart of downtown Gotham City; and it feels like it.  There’s plenty of back alleys and side streets to get lost down if you’re the gutsy exploring type, and the whole thing is done in striking light balance and detail. It’s almost awe-inspiring in certain moments when you’re on top of a building high above Arkham city taking in the scope and detail of the world around you. Of course, it still does suffer from occasional graphical pop-ins, and that damn camera that always seems to turn at just the wrong moment – but more on that later.

Much like the original game, Arkham City will have you ting out thugs and henchmen en-route to taking on Batman’s rouges gallery in an effort to uncover the conspiracy at hand, and that’s one area that this game does a ton better than its predecessor. Batman has perhaps the most well known villains in pop culture, and the first game had a few of them, but they pale in comparison to what Arkham City is packing. Throughout your journey you’ll take on The Joker, Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, the Riddler and a number of surprise guests from Batman’s past that are too cool to spoil here. Interestingly enough, the actual boss fights with the legendary characters aren’t that memorable and can be passed quite easily, but it’s the way Rocksteady built up these events with fantastic pacing that truly make them memorable.

Undoubtedly the game is at its best when it does what the previous one did so well, make you feel like the world’s greatest detective. It’s not uncommon to walk in to a room of ten or more thugs and still feel like you’ve got the upper hand. Though this go-round did feel a bit more linear than the previous game, just how many ways you can go about taking out your enemies is pretty impressive.  You could go in and let your fists do the talking or you could go the route I did and use your wits and gadgets to take them out strategically.  Disappointingly, it’s these large fights that also disappoint most in Arkham City as just like in before the game’s camera system can be incredibly frustrating. I remember one boss fight in particular where I kept having to run away just so I could get enough distance between myself and them to center the camera.

The level of detail throughout Arkham City is impressive.

After you’ve completed the campaign (which you can jump back in to with all of your upgrades thanks to a new game plus mode), Arkham City still offers a ton of content for your money. Challenge maps are back, and much more plentiful, as are the Riddler’s trophy challenges, but what you’re really going to want to check out is the Catwoman mission pack. A code for these missions is included in each new copy (you’ll have to buy one if you’re buying it preowned), and they add a ton of backstory to the game’s main campaign and are best experienced when played in the context of the game itself. I was also surprised at just how much I enjoyed playing as Catwoman; she’s a lot quicker than Batman and is a lot of fun to decimate baddies with.

Rocksteady also must be commended for their remarkable job in delivering fan service to the legions of Batman fans with Arkham City. Exlploring those back alleyways and side streets will prove to be a fruitful endeavor as there are plenty of references and nods to Batman’s impressive history in pop culture.  We’re still finding secrets in Arkham Asylum  to this day; meaning there’s plenty to be found in the game as well.

The Blast Factor: Any game that can make you feel like The Batman is doing something right – -and Arkham City does that very well.  Rocksteady has taken everything from Arkham Asylum and tweaked it enough to create one hell of a love letter to DC’s Dark Knight.  It’s a great licensed game, but perhaps most importantly, it’s a fantastic game in general.

Batman Arkham City is available now for the PS3 and Xbox 360 from Warner Bros Games and Rocksteady Studios. It will be available this November for the PC. A Xbox 360 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for this review.

You’ve got to feel bad for poor ole’ Chucky Green. This time last year, the former professional dirt bike rider was the star of his own blockbuster video game. Fast forward a few years and he’s sharing the spotlight with former protagonist Frank West, who as we all know has covered wars you know  (Okay, that’s the only time I’m going to do that I swear). Then it happened, with Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, Green’s role had been completely recast by the man he once replaced.

It would be easy to throw Dead Rising 2: Off the Record away as a mere cash grab by Capcom – but the truth is, it’s not. Sure, it’s basically the same game you’ve played before – same location, same weapons, same story, just with someone else in the lead role, but the new features it does pack are more than worth a look. It may not be the most original game, but Dead Rising 2: off the Record feels an awful lot like coming home, like the sequel we should have gotten in the first place.

The last few years have not been kind to journalist and zombie basher Frank West. After uncovering a breaking the scoop on the outbreak at the Williamette Mall in the original Dead Rising, Frank shot to unheard of levels of fame, but he also learned that fame soon fades. In an effort to recapture that fading glory, Frank travels Fortune City, Nevada, where he hears word of a new outbreak.  What results is your basic “What if” storyline – what if Frank West was the main character in Dead Rising 2. There are a few twists thrown in, but you’ll be talking with the same people, treading the same ground and bashing the same zombies as before – only as someone new…or old…whatever.

I couldn’t help but feel that the game would be served better not as a “what if” type story, but rather an alternate take on what was going while Chuck was trying to clear his name.  There are plenty of story points in the original Dead Rising 2 that Capcom could have introduced Frank West to expand on the story, not just re-hash it.  Things get really weird when Chuck actually shows up in the game; complete with his Terror is Reality bike and daughter from Dead Rising 2 proper; so in the context of the game, certain parts of the story had to happen to Chuck.  The only real explanation is that Dead Rising 2: Off the Record occurs in some sort of weird Paradox where both Chuck and Frank’s versions of the stories are going on but never really intersecting. Mind blown.

Core mechanic wise, Off the Record plays just as you’d expect it to; run around, pick stuff up, smash zombies with it and repeat. There are a few new weapons, and a few new combo weapons that you can craft together in Fortune City’s workbench areas, and there are also a few new psychopath boss characters as well as a new area –The Uranus Zone. All that aside, Off the Record does tend to feel very familiar; and just how big a fan you are of the franchise will determine whether or not that’s enough.

Of course, with the return of Frank West comes the return of his trusty camera. Now digital (yep, no more searching for film), the camera mechanic adds a lot to the game, and I found myself using it even more than I did in the original Dead Rising game. Even in the face of imminent danger, I found myself reaching for the camera to take shots. One of my favorites was in the utility corridors of Fortune City, with a slew of zombies barreling down the steel steps at me. I brought out the camera and got a horror rating for the growling undead and a humor rating…for the ones falling down the stairs. Taking great pictures awards you more prestige points, which in turn allows you more health and the ability to carry more weapons.

By far though, the most exciting addition Off the Record brings is the fan demanded sandbox mode. Free of time, ringing cell phones and expiring missions, sandbox mode allows players to run around the majority of the game’s map and simply have fun bashing zombies. There are challenges spread throughout the map, but they’re completely optional.  I’ve always described Dead Rising to people as an interactive playground with zombies, and sandbox mode makes the game truly live up to this title. Perhaps the best thing about sandbox mode is that it allows the game to truly embrace its goofiness. In the mode Frank’s portrayed not as a guy looking for his next big break, but rather as a guy who simply loves bashin’ him some zombies.

The Blast Factor: In the last year, Capcom has kind of gone Dead Rising crazy, releasing no less than four different titles in the series. Off the Record could have easily been the entry that jumped the shark, the one that fans realized they just didn’t care anymore – but it’s not. Sure, it’s not completely original, but thanks to a few tweaks and new modes, this is the definitive Dead Rising experience and a great starting point for those who have yet to experience it.

As a kid I wanted nothing more than to be Hulk Hogan, in fact there are probably more pictures in the family album of me wearing a Hulkamania shirt than anything else –  and why not? He was the guy who made a room pop when he entered, he stood up against the bad guys for what was right, he showed no fear in the face of adversity. He trained, he prayed and he ate his vitamins.

Fast forward a few decades and much has changed. Hogan is arguably no longer the immortal icon he was before, he’s a failed reality star, slinging everything from energy drinks to grills and what’s worse – he seems to be clinging to fading glory. It wasn’t until this week that I felt his legend had hit rock bottom.

Enter Hulk Hogan’s Main Event, the Kinect based wrestling title (for lack of a better word) that makes you the protégé to the biggest name in the history of sport’s entertainment.  Long story short – it’s as bad as it sounds, in fact, it’s worse, much worse. Utterly broken and uninspired in every way, Main Event easily takes the championship as Kinect’s worst game, and that’s saying something.

The problems with Main Event start before you even pop the disc in. The game brands itself as a wrestling title, but it’s far from it. There’s no mat work, no ring psychology; no, this game is all about the entertainment aspect of the “sport.” You’ll create your superstar, who will oddly enough be noticed by the Hulkster at a backyard wrestling event, and from there you’ll work on showmanship, personality and eventually throw a few punches. This might be acceptable if you were allowed to show any spark of creativity when creating your wrestler – the entire creation suite is severely lacking; there’s no even an option for long hair. How the hell am I supposed to tease my hair ala Rick Rude to make the ladies in the crowd swoon?

The story mode in Main Event finds you attempting to climb up the ranks of a wrestling organization but being held down by an unfair booker, who is named….booker (no, really). This is told to you through a series of comic book panel like cut scenes, complete with speech bubbles. Why they didn’t just have Hogan record the lines is beyond me, but perhaps they realized how annoying the majority of the lines he did record can become. During any match, Hogan will randomly yell “inspirational” phrases your way like “You’ve got to believe in yourself” and “Nice finisher brother!” It’s important to note that Hogan seemed to yell that last one regardless of what move I was doing or what portion of the match I was in.  Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is training to climb the giant mountain and his trainer just stands behind him and yells promotional slogans? To the Max! Push it! Yeah, it’s kind of like that, just not nearly as funny.

Yup, that's a winner.

So here’s how your typical match in Main Event goes; Your character is introduced and from there your goal is get the biggest reaction out of the crowd by posing how the Hulkster tells you to. Now don’t get too excited, this isn’t a free-for-all, you won’t be making your own poses, that’s what you have Hulk Hogan for, and you’ll be doing such thrilling maneuvers as raising your right arm (ohhh) and puffing out your chest (double ohhh!). From there, you’ll enter into a food dodging mini-game and yes, you read that right. The crowd seems insistent on pelting you with their nachos and beverages, which would make sense if you’re  a bad guy that’s getting over, but it happens every time. Every…single…time.

The game’s in-ring action finds you doing a lot of punching and kicking while throwing in a few actual wrestling maneuvers (if you count clothes lines and simple throws) for good measure. Your basic goal is to repeat your moves until your opponent is finally on the ground and ready for the pin, upon which you’ll have to do the strangest motion for a pin – moving side to side wildly. The most infuriating part of all of this is that your opponent’s health bar is constantly regenerating, so if one of your moves gets blocked, it’s back to square one.

It could be easy to forgive Hulk Hogan’s main event if the damn thing worked at all. The game is a perfect example of how not to make a motion game. Less than half of your moves are actually registered by the game, but it’s not like you really have to try, the game doesn’t really require you to do any certain moves. Oh, it tries to tell you that it does, but at certain parts I got so frustrated with the game that I began to wildly flail my arms around, and the game picked it up as whatever it wanted me to do. Air guitar? That’s a punch. Moving around like an airplane…that’s a punch too.

The Blast Factor: It’s tough to say just who Hulk Hogan’s main event is marketed to; it’s not really a wrestling game, nor is it a good Kinect game. Hell, it’s not even a good game at all. It’s broken, uninspired and cheap. They say you should never meet your heroes, apparently you should never play their games either.

There are a lot of ways you could describe Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport 4. It’s a racing game, it’s a driving simulator, but the easiest way – it’s simply pure unadulterated car porn.  Gorgeous and deep, the latest in the long running Xbox racing series feels like the genre perfected and while it may not change the way those who don’t like driving games feel about the genre, it’s impossible not to appreciate the level of detail and depth put on display.  Forza 4 is quite simply a car lover’s virtual dream.

The Forza series has always been a visual treat, but nothing that came before it compares to what Forza 4 is packing, and it’s all thanks to the game’s new image-based lighting model.  The locations you’ll be racing in come alive with picturesque scenic vistas and stunning backdrops, and they’re made all the better by the superb lighting model which causes shadows to stretch out to just the right points and interact in just the right ways.  You want a show piece for your new HDTV? Pop-in Forza 4 and show someone its visuals.

Of course, all of this works together to make the game’s main attraction; the cars look downright stunning.  Turn 10 has poured a ton of work into ensuring that each car is perfect down to the smallest detail.  Going through and inspecting the models, especially some of the more exotic and vintage car proves to be an impressive endeavor (especially if you’re able to do so with Kinect). The cars look great in motion as well, as they’re incredibly smooth and weighted just right as they roll down the game’s multitude of tracks.

For true car lovers though, Forza 4’s sweet spot has to be its audio presentation. The game features a wide variety of cars, from classics, to exotic models and each of them sounds incredibly authentic when punching the engine.  Want to get to the heart of a car junkie? Turn the volume up real loud and crank a few engines, it’s stellar, strangely rewarding and almost impossible to resist.

Of course, much like any good car, the true heart of Forza isn’t in its looks, but under its hood, and Turn 10 delivers here as well. Genetically speaking, Forza 4 shares a lot of its core with that of its predecessor Forza 3, but thanks to a generous amount of tweaks and new additions, this is now slight upgrade.  The most noticeable of these updates is how smooth the games monstrous suite of cars handle. Each of the cars handle remarkably true to their real life counterpart, now I may have never driven a Ferrari, but the ones in Forza 4 feel an awful lot like what I’ve always dreamed they would. One of the things I really found myself enjoying about Forza 4 is trying out different cars, how they feel, how they sound – and I’m not even a huge car guy.

One of the most notable features of Forza 4 is just how accessible it can be when compared to other hardcore driving simulators. Sure, the focus here is on sheer driving and skill, but Forza also features a slew of driving aids and tweaks that will allow even the worst driver to enjoy their time with the game. Perhaps that’s the mark of what makes Forza so enjoyable, it’s perfectly fine being one of the most deep racing sims on the market, but it’s also not afraid to turn things down a bit to encourage others to play.

Turn 10 has also made other changes to the Forza formula to better accommodate novice players, but they haven’t necessarily made the game easier, just easier to jump in to. At the easier settings, AI controlled drivers aren’t dumbed down so they’re worse drivers, they’re just not as confident as those found on the higher difficulties. These inexperienced drivers will brake more often and be cautious going in to turns, allowing newer users the ability to learn the finer points of the game, and not just scale by on the easier difficulties.

In previous Forza games, you would only be able to level up cars until they reach level 5, leading to a lot of replayability being lost. That’s fixed in Forza 4 as the game introduces manufacturer specific levels called affinity levels which can be attributed to any vehicle; as long as it’s in the same manufacturer family. In essence, what these levels do is allow players to continue using a car they really like no matter how fine tuned it is while still earning XP and credits you’re able to use throughout the game and adds a ton of replayability.

As robust as the single player experience is, Forza 4 also packs a rather impressive multiplayer suite. The best mode of this suite is easily the rivals mode, which allows you to play against your friends whether they’re online or not thanks to a ghost system. Perhaps most impressive about the multiplayer suite isn’t how robust it is, but how everything works together. Playing online will also give you XP and credits to use throughout the game. In short, that means ultimate bragging rights.

Forza 4 could also be the first game baring the “better with Kinect” branding that I actually believe, as Microsoft’s motion sensing camera actually adds to the experience quite a bit. Using Kinect will allow you to use the cool steering wheel controller as well as the ability to look to your left and right while driving, by simply doing so in real life.  The true allure of Kinect is when you use it to oogle the cars in the auto vista mode…hands off of course.

The Blast Factor: I may never own an Italian sports car or high performance muscle car (unless Guilfoil ups my salary), but thanks to Forza 4, I can know what it’s like. It’s the most detailed, fun and rewarding driving simulator I’ve ever played. Car junkies are going to love that Turn 10 gets it, and even those who don’t get hot under the collar at an engine will love the jaw dropping presentation values. Forza 4 is simply an accomplishment in every sense of the word.

The apocalypse fascinates us. Tales of a grim future of desert wastelands, horrible mutations, and rampant violence have long proven to be a successful formula for movies, novels, and, especially, games. Id Software’s long-awaited Rage certainly seems to have been crafted with an exacting eye for wasteland standards. It’s a game that definitely succeeds on a technical level, but from a design and gameplay perspective might require players to lower their expectations.

Rage opens in a familiar manner. Just before a giant meteor strikes Earth, a select few are given a reprieve in the form of cryogenic status chambers in protective “Arks”. Fast forward a hundred years, and it’s clear this plan wasn’t bullet proof. The player awakes from cold storage to find themselves the only survivor of their ark, and is immediately thrust into a violent world of dusty landscapes, burned out structures, and well-armed buggies.

Comparisons between Rage and other wasteland games like Borderlands and Fallout 3 are inevitable. How Rage distinguishes itself however, is that it is undoubtedly an Id-made game. There are no role-playing elements here and no greater strategy beyond kill-or-be-killed.Anyone expecting another Fallout will be disappointed by the sheer shallowness of the gameplay.

Rage also lacks the deeper cooperative play experience of Borderlands and the sense of humor of either game. It seems to be a game that takes itself too seriously, even though players will be hard pressed to discern why. There’s no cliché left unturned and despite the initial appearance of an open world, even this is merely an illusion.

Players have no control over even the basics of character development. You can’t change the look, gender, or any physical aspect of the ark survivor, and the only real commodities in the game are money and race tickets. Both of these currencies are used to buy weapons, equipment, ammo, and vehicle parts.

Rage is divided between two distinct play styles. The standard first-person shooting elements will make veteran gamers feel right at home. The indoor levels have a distinct Doom feel to them, with tight corridors and much the same imagery and design techniques used in the developer’s past games. Even the horror elements are cribbed from so many other sci-fi horror games. Despite the apocalyptic mutant theme, the game throws in the whole growing biomass cliché that makes little sense in such an environment.
The driving portions will delight fans of arcade-style combat racing. The physics are over-the-top with an eye for fast action not realism. So, you can still steer in the air, for instance, and there’s a decided focus on making crazy jumps. There’s plenty of opportunity for extra points by destroying objects in mid-air and skillfully dispatching foes.

So long as you understand exactly what kind of game Rage is, however, there’s no denying that it’s fun to play. The whole game is just one errand run after another. Talking to the various non-combative denizens of the wasteland frequently leads to a new task (usually either a fetchin’ or killin’ mission), which you just go and do. It’s not deep, creative, or complex, but this formula provides plenty of action, which has always been Id’s design focus.

Enemies have decent AI and tactics, with excellent movement abilities. Bandits and mutants will use free-running skills to leap over things, run along walls, and be generally hard to hit—frequently too hard to hit, since the game’s auto-assist is suspect. There’s a wide array of bad things to shoot, including some impressively large boss creatures.  Bandits are divided into themed tribes. There are redneck cannibals, technologically-advanced soldiers, and British punk-rocker wannabes. Ultimately, their specific look and dialogue is irrelevant, since outside of the few “safe” towns, everyone is merely fodder for your guns.

Beyond bandits, there’s the so-called “authority” that make life in the wasteland a nightmare for anyone who crosses them. To go along with these tyrannical would-be rulers, there’s also the pre-requisite resistance for the player to join. The story is just there to service the shoot ‘em gameplay though, and it’s clear that the minimum amount of effort was put into the writing and non-shooting and driving mechanics.
Thankfully, as expected, the shooting and driving is satisfyingly entertaining. There are enough missions to occupy hours of violence and, for action lovers, that’s a fine reason to enjoy this romp through the wasteland. The other major draw is the multiplayer, which brings multiplayer car combat front and center.

Id definitely has a handle on great death matching and Rage’s vehicle-centric online play is terrific. Totally ignoring the first-person shooter elements, the competitive play is fast-paced and well-designed. There are a handful of entertaining game modes fought in superb and spacious arenas. The downside of the multiplayer is the four-player limit, which is too small given the expansive scope of the maps. There are also two-player cooperative “legend” missions, which are fun, if shallow, but not really a replacement being able to play the main single-player game with a friend.

Id Software has always been known for their technology, and the latest iteration of their graphics engine takes the core visual style of Doom 3 and expands it to vast open spaces. Despite some graphic glitches on the console versions, Rage is a beautiful game with a solid frame rate and nice variety of indoor levels. The audio is also superb, with powerful surround effects, solid voice acting, and a decent musical score.

Blast Factor: Ultimately, the best way to sum up Rage is shallow, but fun. There’s virtually nothing here that hasn’t been seen before with more depth. Even when the game threatens to evolve beyond its own shallowness, it just can’t make it. Taken as a straight-forward, mission-based shooter, there’s plenty to like. Yet, after so long in development, the game has an almost half-baked feel. The presentation, the environment, the combat… almost all the parts are in place to make Rage an epic post-apocalypse adventure, but the sum total is ultimately less than these pieces.

I’ve always felt a weird connection to the Gears of War franchise. Maybe it’s because both of the first games were released on my birthday and it became a ritual to check out Delta Squad’s latest mission as I got older – but I always felt like Gears of War 3 was somehow my game.  So please, forgive me if I gush a bit.

With Gears of War 3, Epic Games has taken the formula set by the first two games and tweaked it ever so much to create the perfect finale for their long running series. Everything you love is here, the chainsaw lancers, the grubs, the brumaks, but there’s also so much more.  The characters are deeper, the story is more engaging and the entire experience is deeply satisfying. Gears of War 3 is undoubtedly Microsoft’s biggest release of the year, and it’s also the best; one that if you own an Xbox – you simply have to experience.

It’s been eighteen months since the end of Gears of War 2, where Jacinto, the last human city was sunk in an effort to flood out the locust horde. As a result, the remaining survivors have setup camp throughout the world and must ban together to survive – food and weapons are scarce, and hope is bleak. To make matters worse, the high levels of imulsion left in the world (a luminescent, highly volatile, low-viscosity fluid) have turned some of the locust into glowing, mutating monsters.  Marcus Fenix, the leader of Delta Squad gets a message that his father is alive and being held captive. Your job is simple – return order to the world and find Adam Fenix.

The story in Gears of War 3 is easily the most well paced and thought out of the entire series. For the first time ever, Marcus and the rest of Delta Squad aren’t fighting the Locust because they’re soldiers; they’re doing it for their survival. Throughout the game, there are several emotional moments that for the first time ever, really let us see emotion from the members of Delta Squad.  One of these moments happens early in the game, where Cole returns to his former hometown, ravaged by Locust and Lambent in search of supplies and see’s statues and images of his former career as a thrashball superstar. Staring at a cardboard cutout of himself; Cole remarks to his squadmates about seeing his own death.  It’s a bit humbling for these characters, who have previously only been seen as muscle-bound brutes to show real emotion for the first time.

Of course, at its core, Gears of War 3 is built on its action – and it does not disappoint.  Sequences in the third game are incredibly large compared to those of previous games with huge badass monsters to take on, and are anything but easy. The Lambent, which sprout up from stalks from underground offer a change to the formula the franchise has setup for the last two games; as they’re mutating abilities will usually allow them to reach behind your cover to attack you, or worse – smash right through it. This of course forces you to adapt your strategy since you won’t be able to stay behind one source of cover for an entire battle.  The Lambent will explode when you defeat them, so it’s best to keep your distance less you want to take an excessive amount of damage even when succeeding. It’s these elements that make Gears of War 3 feel like a true evolution of the formula.

The lambent's explosions make for great visuals.

What surprised me most about the campaign in Gears of War 3 was just how much room it left for creativity and error. The first two Gears games were strictly linear affairs, but here, there’s a bit of user choice. Of course, you won’t be able to navigate the battlefield as you choose, but take for instance one section early on in the game where you try to sneak into a Locust stronghold without sounding the alarm. Your obvious route is to sneak around and pick off guards with the sniper rifles conveniently strewn about the battlefield (you’d think they wouldn’t want to leave them around like that), but letting one of the guards get to the alarm doesn’t necessarily mean you fail, as you’ll just have to take on the remaining horde head on. Interestingly, I also tried sounding the alarm myself, which proved to be the hard, but most fun route.It’s when you’re fighting the non-infected Locust though that the game truly feels like a Gears of War title. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the challenge of the Lambent, but you can’t do a lot of the things that make Gears unique. It’s with the Locust that you can do the game’s signature executions (there are a number of new ones here, including some really badass ones with the trusty chainsaw lancer), and it’s the Locust that feature the superb AI that the series is known for.  There are of course several new Locust types, including the Savage Grenadier and the Digger Boomer. Trust me; you’re going to hate the damn Digger Boomer.

With these new Locust types comes new weapons, and they too deliver. Killing the Digger Boomer gives you the digger gun, which sends missiles that burrow under the ground and the ground and come up rip the target to shreds. The most prominent new weapon though is the retro lancer, which replaces the chainsaw on the lancer you know with a musket like blade. At first, I hated it, but the more and more I used it, I preferred to always have one in my inventory. Rather than revving up a chainsaw to melee attack an opponent, you’ll hold down the b-button to charge and impale them. It’s deeply satisfying, perhaps even more so than the traditional lancer.

Apart from the campaign, the game features an impressive online suite. There are of course the competitive modes, which are powered by dedicated servers and features new game modes, and some awesome maps (I’m partial to the checkout map, which puts you in an abandoned grocery store and thrashball, which puts you in an old stadium –complete with falling jumbo-tron). For the first time ever, Gears of War 3 features full four player co-op throughout the entire campaign.

Horde returns in a more strategic form.

Horde mode also returns in the form of Horde 2.0, a new and more strategic way to play the survival mode. At first, I wasn’t sure about the new changes, as you and your squadmates buy barriers and bases to keep out the Locust and the Lambent, but it started to grow on me rather quickly. It forces players to work together, rather than camping out in certain areas. Also new to Gears 3 is Beast Mode, which is like Horde, but lets you play as the Locust Horde and target humans.  You start with simple tickers and soldiers, but as you progress you unlock new Locust types – it starts slow, but it’s a ton of fun, especially if you’re able to get a group of dedicated friends together to play the mode.

The Blast Factor: Gears of War 3 is easily the best game in the franchise, and it makes its case for best Xbox 360 game period. It’s a deeply satisfying and at times touching game that takes the formula set forth by the previous iterations and tweaks it in just the right places to make an incredible gaming experience. Simply put – if you own an Xbox 360, your library is not complete until it includes Gears of War 3.

Gears of War 3 releases worldwide for the Xbox 360 on September 20, 2011. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for this review.

Get ready to punch, kick, sweat, and have a good time, because a new breed of videogame has arrived and it’s here to stay. You get the freedom of designing your own personal workout while giving you access to elite martial art trainers such as Mark DellaGrotte, Greg Jackson, and Javier Mendez all at your convenience? Of course, there are a few kinks and technical difficulties that come both on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 alike, that can slow down your workout. However, I promise that you will be out of breath and sweaty if you give it a chance; this is definitely not a game that you can sit down and relax while playing though.

The UFC Personal Trainer is fun, organized and extremely detailed, as it puts you into actual exercises that have been approved by the NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine). If you’re ready to get fit and not afraid to move around, then this game is a must to have. Each workout is divided into several different sets with a warm-up and cool-down period, to ensure your muscles are loose and to prevent injury. Whether you’re looking to lose a few pounds or bulk up, they’ll have a workout for your goals and lifestyle, guaranteed! The only down side to this is the fact that some of the exercises and body reaction times come through as kind of sluggish or delayed. This causes your workout to move slower, so make sure you have some patience. Another awesome feature that this game has is the ability to save any designed, personal workouts so they can be easily accessed the next time you want to train like a pro.

There are also modes that appeal to the serious gamer type who want to feel accomplished and conquer objectives. The main activity for this style of play is Hit the Mitts. You will have to carefully follow arrows and successfully engage in kicks, punches, etc. Immediately, you start moving and sweating while also being given feedback and the ability to gain points in the process. People who are die hard and extremely motivated can put themselves through the 30 or 60 day programs that allows you to track yourself, which can be time consuming and feel more like a job than fun; remember, this is a videogame after all. I also found some of the commentary to be a little annoying because the dialogue script does not get changed up enough. Either turn down the volume with your remote or grit your teeth during the workout; your choice.

For those of you out there that have the Kinect, make sure to be in front of your sensor when doing your workout. Most movements are easily picked up, but some movements are a little tricky and may be difficult for Kinect to pick up if you are not right in front of the sensor. An added benefit to the game is you will have the luxury of the Kinect keeping tabs on the amount of reps that you do while also tracking the calories that you burn. I know most of you might not view this as a huge benefit, but it is much easier to keep track of your overall progress.

Blast Factor: UFC Personal Trainer is a very good game that promotes working out and gives you the motivation to better your body and endurance. It is very hands on friendly and gives you the tools to inspire a healthy lifestyle. Yes, there are some cheesy repetitive words of encouragement and technical issues that can hamper game play every now and again, but overall, a good buy for fitness gamers. This could be the beginning of the end for couch potato games, as it encourages a more healthy and active lifestyle. It might at least encourage you to stand up every once in a while; it’s your choice.

Codemasters has been pumping out rally racers for years, first under the Colin McRae name and more recently the Dirt series. The original Dirt was a superb rally racer. Dirt 2 superseded the original in every way and was easily one of the best racers of the year. Dirt 3, however, builds on those successes and provides one of the finest and most entertaining racing games of the year.

Rally racing focuses largely on off-road competition that varies between standard racing against other cars and traditional rallies, where each driver takes a turn trying to make the best time on a given track. Dirt 3 expands well beyond these two styles of racing and provides an insane variety of challenges across an impressive amount of tracks and locales. The game is one of the most complete racing games on the market—providing an engaging and intense racing experience both on and offline for all skill levels.

Dirt 3 is an incredibly customizable racing. While even hardcore racers like Shift 2 and Gran Turismo offer scaling difficulty levels to accommodate varying skill levels, even on the easier levels they still feel less than welcoming to casual drivers and newcomers. Dirt 3 provides as much assistance as you need, or as little, making the gameplay fun for anyone, without sacrificing the gritty feel of the racing.

The career mode is the main meat of the game, and serves up over 100 different events to conquer. Dirt 3 offers a great array of locations to blast through, providing extremes at every turn. Races take place everywhere from African deserts and snowy roads in Aspen to LA and all over Europe. Some tracks are lap-based circuits, while others are just long stretches of road. Brand new to the series is the gymkhana mode. This is a trick-focused event where players are tasked with stringing together slick driving moves to earn big points.

The gymkhana mode is strangely reminiscent of skate boarding games like Tony Hawk, and adds a great new dimension to the otherwise more straight-laced racing action. More importantly, conquering this mode ensures that you’ll have the driving skills to ace any other track. No matter what type of event you’re racing, the controls are always spot on and, as with Dirt 2, if you really get into trouble, you can rewind time and try again without having to start the whole race over.

Perform well enough and you’ll earn new sponsors, which unlocks new vehicles and greater challenge. Of course, even a great single-player game can only get you so far, and Dirt 3 has pumped up its multiplayer game immensely. Beyond multiplayer versions of the various single-player modes, the game throws out some crazy game styles usually seen in first-person shooters. The Outbreak mode, for instance, is a game of vehicular tag where one player is “infected” and must spread the disease to the other cars. Transporter is a capture the flag-style game and Invasion focuses on smashing through alien robot cutouts while trying not to cause collateral damage to the movie-set-like buildings.

Dirt 3 brings all its racing greatness together thanks to a gorgeous presentation. The visuals are stunning, and easily on par with the competition. Cars are detailed with full damage modeling. The tracks and backdrops are varied, sharp, and realistic as well. The soundtrack is powerful, with great sound effects and voice work.

There’s very little to complain about in Dirt 3. For racing fans, this is a no-brainer. This is a great sequel, which improves on the previous game in every direction. The career mode is massive and the multiplayer is terrific. When it comes to rally racing, this series has always been the leader of the pack, and Dirt 3 is the best yet.