How can you fairly rate a game that’s been in development for 12-years, but wasn’t forgotten once by its legions of hardcore fans? How can one be expected to cram over a decade’s worth of hype, hoopla and expecations into a single review?

Like this: Diablo III was well worth the wait.

That may seem like a bit of a rushed statement, but Blizzard’s long awaited sequel delivers in ways that not only satisfy its most hardcore fans but also manages to be remarkably accessible jumping on point for newcomers. It’s not perfect, and it’s bound to have its fair share of doubters — but Blizzard has created one of the most intense cooperative experiences that’s going to be tough to put down for quite some time — let’s just hope it’s not another twelve years.

Okay, let’s get it out of the way right off the bat — Diablo III requires a constant internet connection (yes, even during single player gaming) that all but crippled the game during its initial launch. It was immeasurably disappointing for a lot of gamers (and thus the reason this review is so late) to wait over a decade for the game to finally have it in their hands, only to be constantly stopped at the proverbial front door by the dreaded Error 37 message.

In the last week since the game’s release, Blizzard has been hard at work trying to fine tune the servers and while they’re not at 100% yet, they are notably better than what we initially saw. It’s not something that you should let stand in the way of playing Diablo III, but it is something you’re going to want to take note of before jumping in.

If you played Diablo II at all, the next chapter in the series is sure to be a familiar journey for you, as Blizzard has taken a definite “if it’s not broke — don’t fix it” stance with their long awaited title, choosing only to fine-tune select aspects of the game. For most, this is good news, as Diablo III plays, looks and sounds like a cleaned up version of what’s come before. Diablo III is a click happy dungeon crawler where you’ll spend hours on end looting, leveling and smashing stuff –and yes, it’s insanely addicting.

Still though, the improvements made by Blizzard fit in very well here. One of the biggest changes is just how streamlined the combat mechanics have become. Your primary and secondary attacks are mapped to the left and right mouse buttons respectively, and your 1-4 buttons are used for additional skills. It may seem like a small change, but it’s an increidbly accessible system, that is easy for those new to the game to jump in to. In truth, the entire Diablo III experience is streamlined to allow newer users a much easier jumping in point.

Don’t let that fool you though, Diablo III is still a very deep game. Of the five character classes (the Barbarain, the Monk. the demon hunter, the wizard and the Witch Doctor) all play uniquely and there’s a distinct learning curve to some of them — even if they often seem like rehashes of characters from previous games. Diablo III is as deep as you want it to be, as you can play through the game with little customization or dive deep in and fine tuning your character, which adds an incredible amount of depth and challenge to an already deep experience.

The main draw of Diablo III though, is just how much fun it is to log in with friends, or even complete strangers and hack and slash your way through the game. You can set your game to be public, allowing anyone to jump in or private in order to just play alone or with friends, but I was very surprised with just how much group chat was used. In almost every play session I was able to strategize and plan with fantastic players, each with different ideas on how we should be going about our quest. It was almost refreshing in a way, and gave the game a brand new feeling.

The Blast Factor: Diablo III is bound to have its doubters, and that’s to be expected after twelve years in development. Boiling the game down to its core mechanics and most basic principles though, there’s no way to deny it – -Diablo III is one hell of a good time. Not everything works, but the majority of it does — and splendidly so if you’ve got friends joining you in the process. But hey, you didn’t need any free time did you?

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.

Let’s compare the Mario Tennis series to, well, a game of tennis. While the rules are the same regardless of what match you play, you won’t always be playing on the same court or against the same opponent. Mario Power Tennis, for example, introduced gimmicky features that were more harmful than helpful, but the game’s familiar controls were still there. Going back to their roots, Camelot and Nintendo have once again joined forces to give players a great tennis title, but they might have stripped it down a little too much.

Mario Tennis Open’s new control system is perhaps the best in the series. While its predecessor emphasized the Power Shot that was flashy but often distracting, the shooting seen here is much more toned down and a lot more sophisticated. The different face buttons on the 3DS each correspond to a specific shot – slices are performed with B, topspin with A, lobs require you to press A then B, and so forth – and they also correspond to a colored panel on the touchscreen. During a match, the space where a ball is heading will sometimes flash one of these colors indicating that a Chance Shot can be performed. If you hold or tap the correct button or panel, your shot will be powered up and exaggerated, making it difficult for the opponent to predict where it’s going and also stunning him if he manages to hit the ball. You don’t always have to activate a Chance Shot or match the shot with the colored space that appears on the court, so this also adds a level of strategy to the game, letting you mix up your offense to keep your opponent guessing.

Chance Shots offer a balanced addition to the traditional game of tennis, and their presence doesn’t overpower any particular character either. You still need to rely on your own skills to win matches, but each character also has his or her own unique characteristics like in past games. Balls hit by tricky characters like Boo and Bowser Jr. will have unpredictable trajectories, and Power characters like DK and Bowser have two of the strongest serves in the game.

Your own Mii characters also can partake in matches and be dressed up in various costumes and gear that you unlock playing through the game’s Tournament mode. Each item has special properties that change your Mii’s abilities and will affect how he or she moves and shoots on the court. My main complaint is that an item’s stats are shown as a pie diagram that makes it difficult to see how much an item differs from another unless that difference is pretty significant. I could definitely sense a difference giving my Mii a different racket, but I feel like this Creation mode is mostly there for players who care more about what their Miis will look like instead of how they will play.

When not busy fidgeting with their Mii’s wardrobe, players can compete in Singles and Doubles Tournaments that each consists of eight different cups with three matches apiece. The first few matches start out ridiculously easy and take mere minutes to finish, but the final cups really do test your tennis skills. Aside from a sense of accomplishment, you don’t get much for winning every cup in the game. Characters only need to beat one cup to gain the special Star status that powers up their overall abilities and grants them access to the game’s four final cups, so the only real reason you’d replay Tournament mode is to collect the over 200 pieces of equipment the game offers.

If you don’t plan on using your Mii in a match, there’s really no reason to care about these items. Also, just because you unlock an item in Tournament mode doesn’t mean you automatically own it. Rackets cost money, and the only way to earn coins is to play through the other two modes the game offers: Exhibition and Special Games mode. Exhibition mode is essentially a free play mode that lets players decide on the difficulty of their opponents and the length of their games.

Special Games mode, however, is a lot more fun than the ones seen in past Mario Tennis titles. Games like Ring Shot test your speed and aiming skills outside a traditional game of tennis, and clearing through their four different difficulty modes unlocks hidden characters like Baby Peach and Dry Bowser – so again you may ask what the point of playing through Tournament mode was. Two of my favorites include Ink Showdown that has you returning balls and globs of ink and Galaxy Rally, a game that has you keeping a rally going while avoiding disappearing platforms on the opposite side of the court. I was also very impressed with Super Mario Tennis and how it blends tennis controls with Mario’s classic side scrolling adventure.

Likewise, there is nothing like playing an intense final match and hearing orchestrated music blaring from your speakers. It’s these added touches – even the crisp 3D graphics –that truly make the game a joy to play on the 3DS. The game also offers a Dynamic View mode that lets you tilt your handheld to give you a behind-the-shoulder camera angle with gyro controls. This optional mode also makes your character automatically head towards the ball, so it’s definitely geared towards beginners and younger players. Open also has a Street Pass feature that lets you play a game of Ring Shot or a quick match against players that you run into. More characters will also be available to download via QR code scanning, further capitalizing on all the features the 3DS has to offer.

Like its predecessors, Open is also a multiplayer game. Local matches fortunately only need one game cartridge, and give up to four players the chance to play together and select from a full roster of characters. You can also play with your Friend List buddies over Wi-Fi, or search for random players too taking advantage of the same Nintendo Network that launched with Mario Kart 7, but the lack of a Community mode makes Open’s online offerings a lot less impressive. There is a monthly leaderboard that tracks your ranking, and you get medals for every opponent you defeat. I experienced next to no lag during most of my matches, and since the game pairs you up with equally skilled opponents – I assume determined by the medals they have – in your region, lag shouldn’t be a problem most of the time. Matches are short, so the game’s online experience may be fun, but it’s also rather brief.

What you get when you combine the various characters with the game’s user-friendly controls is a very polished game, but it’s a shame there’s not enough content on the actual cartridge to make the most of all these great additions. I spent almost 15 hours completing the game, unlocking all characters, and giving most of them Star status, but I started wondering what else I could do aside from collecting shirts for my Mii. Online matches are great, but are over too quickly. Don’t get me wrong – Open is a lot of fun, but I just wish there was more to the game than just increasing your Mii’s wardrobe.

Pirates, swashbuckling, and RPGs, oh my! Aside from robots, zombies, dinosaurs, and all the other stereotypical “awesome” monsters joining forces to create the penultimate side-scrolling beat-’em-up, an open world RPG following the exploits of those who sail the high seas is one of the better ideas anyone could come up with. Enter Risen 2: Dark Waters, one of the first games of its kind since Redguard tested the waters. Piranha Bytes’ sequel to the 2009 RPG is an ambitious one, approaching a familiar genre and a road less traveled. But when you look past the tropical veneer and sea foam clouding your vision, is Risen 2: Dark Waters really the lost treasure gamers have been looking for?

There’s certainly much here to celebrate – if you picked up the first game, you’ll notice an immediate improvement in both tone and aesthetics. Right off the bat, Risen 2 is mysterious and gripping. It’s as if your secret pirate fantasies have come to life in the form of the perfect fan-servicing interactive adventure – you’ll dig where “X” marks the spot, recruit fellow pirates for your crew, Unfortunately, it’s not exactly accessible – or intuitive. There’s plenty of potential here, squandered fruitlessly on some rather bizarre design decisions that both directly and indirectly affect the player. And then thewalls come tumbling down.

A quick tutorial ensues after the scene is set at the port of Caldera. As a fellow member of the Spanish Inquisition, you’re tasked with offing a bevy of malicious sea monsters that have been threatening the safety of arriving ships. You’ve only just arrived and have been assigned a life-or-death mission to carry out. It’s too bad then, that the hero of our story is rather ill-equipped to stand up to the woes of the sea. On his search for the pirate legend Steelbeard (who may well have a way to vanquish the water-bound denizens), “Your Hero Name Here” runs into plenty of danger here and there, allies to run with, and plenty of irritating monsters that need a good felling. All good signs, and the mark of a pirate adventure that’s about to unfold in an intriguing way.

It’s after that where things slowly start to crumble. If by the first run-in with acquaintances whose painfully exaggerated gestures haven’t put you off yet (seriously, who moves around that much when speaking?), you’ll soon be puzzling over Risen 2′s core mechanics. Right off the bat you’re introduced to basic functions such as attacking, movement, and what-have-you – with more to come as you stumble along, making your way to Steelbeard and doing your best to discern what it is, exactly, you need to do in order to flesh yourself out more fully as a functioning pirate.

Earning Glory points (or experience points in pirate talk) is a bit of a process: it’s not as easy as slashing a foe to ribbons and racking up the bonuses. You need to spend it in order to up specific stats – say, you want to raise your Cunning skill. That requires strategic usage and spending of Glory points to beef up your expertise. But that’s not all. You also need gold to spend in order to attain certain skills, which isn’t always so readily available. This leads your incredibly vulnerable avatar susceptible to death by even the demonic-looking anglerfish early in the game.

It’s not that you can never level up, either, it’s just that the game makes it difficult to do. Not only do you need gold and Glory, but specific coaches (trainers) to help you attain the skills necessary to own this particular pirate quest. And when you need to choose between what’s going to make you money and what’s going to keep you safe, it’s not always easy to make the smarter decision. Therein lies a frustrating conundrum, and not one I wanted to see through to the end. When combat is mindless and repetitive as it is, you aren’t exactly compelled to press on.

It’s funny: I could do the same things in a game like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, or The Witcher 2, and have a blast. With Risen 2, I only ever felt as if I was performing a chore. A chore that required me to kill as many humongous spiders as possible while dancing the dance macabre – letting my health refill enough to tackle my next bounty, then repeating the cycle over and over again.

Failing the conventional RPG trappings that Risen 2 relies so heavily on, the narrative keeps the rest of the game afloat long enough for you to decide whether or not you want to see this pirating adventure through to the end. You do all the piratey things that’d make a landlubber blush. There’s intrigue. There’s a “sexy pirate” companion (par for the course for these kinds of games) and plenty of great scripted dialogue that furthers the illusion that you’re playing your favorite pirate movie in a neat way.

The Blast Factor: But stilted presentation, muted visuals (I refer back to awkward character gestures), muddy textures, and over-used combat dialogue combined with a combat system that just isn’t remarkable in any way, shape or form doesn’t exactly an epic pirate adventure make. There was much that could have been accomplished here, and at times you catch a small glimpse of greatness. With a bit more polish and care, Risen 2: Dark Waters could have knocked it out of the park. Opt for other RPGs that arrrrren’t as underwhelming.

Amoebas are very simple unicellular organisms that live in water and reproduce asexually via mitosis. Knowing these scientific facts is not necessary to enjoy Amoebattle, but it will make you appreciate the little details that make Grab Games’ real time strategy title such a joy to play. While the cutesy graphics might deter some players, trust me when I say this game is no walk in the primordial park.

In fact, despite being a DSiWare game, Amoebattle has enough depth and charm to make it rival several other RTS titles out there. As you progress through its twelve missions, the game gets more difficult as each one gives you more things to master. The first few levels hold your hand as they teach you how to control your amoebas, but the later missions mercilessly test your newly acquired skills.

Your guide in game is a humorous little robot named AMI that walks you through the basics and mission objectives. The colorful graphics and soothing music do a good job of welcoming you into the world of the amoebas, though the music sounds a bit distorted and too loud at times. You’ll be doing quite a lot of exploring in each level too, so I really liked how each song made me feel like I was on a mysterious scientific discovery – a fun one.

Controlling your amoebas is just a matter of tapping your screen. The game offers different ways to select your units either by double tapping them or by lassoing them with your stylus. You can also hold down the shoulder buttons to bring up a sub-menu that gives you more grouping options, such as the ability to save a selection to make switching between groups quicker.

In your searching and probing, you’ll discover that their little world is being threatened by a menacing infection turning these adorable-looking creatures hostile. Battle controls are also simple to pick up and require you to tap enemy units or swipe your stylus over them to attack.

As you progress through the game, you’ll expand your amoeba selection and gain new units that differ in abilities and weaknesses. Categorized as omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore, each amoeba has its own way of attacking and recovering health. All amoebas have a health meter that recovers over time and a food meter that, when full, lets one split into two. You can have up to 25 amoebas at your disposal, and it’s always a good idea to max this number out if you have the available resources to do so.

Once your amoebas engage in battle, things can get a bit hectic, especially when you have groups of enemies coming in from different parts of the map. The top screen’s mini map tells you where an attack is happening, so you can also swap screens to tap the mini map and fast travel to your destination. You can just move the D-pad and find it yourself on the main map too. Some of the more difficult missions require you to split your squad and travel back and forth between several different combat sites, so looking at the map helped me out a lot.

During these missions, I often found myself getting overwhelmed by enemies, and had to reevaluate my current team and divide them accordingly. Aside from having them reproduce, you can also mutate your amoebas into other varieties. Mutation costs power points, which also refill over time, but sometimes you’ll have to decide whether mutating or replicating is your best option. Power points further add to your strategic arsenal and let you deploy probes to distract your enemies or special attacks that can freeze or poison them.

Twelve missions may not seem like a lot, but after realizing each one can take as long as 40 minutes to finish, I started wishing they were shorter. Some missions also have you fending off an endless supply of enemies while defending a specific target and attacking their base. These, my friends, are the ones that will test your resolve and skills on the battlefield. Save often too, because if you die, you’ll have to start each one from scratch.

After hours of frustration, I realized I only had myself to blame for my series of defeats. Amoebattle offers a great RTS experience in a small package, but excels at all the things that make the genre so good. I only wish the game offered a skirmish mode or even online multiplayer to really take it to the next level. Despite its flaws, Amoebattle is a great game that might also make you reconsider a eukaryote’s entertainment potential.

NEW YORK – For most people I know, 8:30 on a Tuesday morning is either time to go to class or time for nothing at all; why wake up before noon if you don’t have to?

For me, however, once every six months, it means something totally different. It means I’ve made the journey to South Station and am about to catch a Greyhound to one of my favorite places in the world: New York City.

And, despite what my past behavior would seem to predict, this isn’t for a concert or a music festival or anything of the sort. No, this is my biannual trek to the sacred ground of 513 E. 54^th Street – “The Colbert Report.”

First in "line"

On this particular occasion in late April, I couldn’t have asked for better weather to stand, iced coffee in hand and with two of my friends in tow, on the streets of Manhattan for a few hours. The instructions on the ticket confirmation e-mail instructed us to show up no later than 6 p.m., so my friends and I naturally showed up to “get in line” around 2:30. To our surprise (yes, surprise – the anxiety of losing a good spot in line is not exclusive to concert-going life), we were first. Even security seemed taken aback seeing us there, asking us outright if we were actually there, so early, to get in line for the taping.

The hours passed easily until we proudly received our blue, laminated tickets that designated the order in which we would at long last enter the studio: 1, 2, and 3.

Of course, if my previous experiences in the concert world have taught me anything, it’s that a place in line is never guaranteed – and that even if it was, that place doesn’t guarantee much within itself.

Does this mean we're tourists?

Let me explain. After you’ve lined up for a while (in our case three and a half hours, but probably less for most) the Report’s interns lead you into a holding room that might also function as an elaborate shrine to Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert DFA. A poster from 2010’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” and various incarnations of the iconic portrait that hangs over the studio’s “fireplace” adorn the walls, as well as a not-quite-life-size sticker of the man himself, posed for a photo.

As more and more fans trickle in from the outside and go through the metal detector, a highlight reel that was probably compiled in 2007 (and not altered a bit since) plays on a television in the corner of the room. You can’t exactly call anything that Stephen does “outdated”, though, and soon the entire room is laughing at some of Stephen’s best “Better Know a District” interviews to date, the introduction of the word “truthiness”, and his light saber fight with George Lucas.

Throwback poster on the walls of the holding room (Credit Rory McDonald)

Time is just starting to drag after about an hour or so when the excited interns brief everyone on conduct policy, beg the audience to laugh and clap as loud as humanly possible (something I still don’t quite understand – why would anyone need to be told to laugh at this show?) and tell everyone to keep it clean during the pre-show Q&A: “If your question has anything to do with some below the belt, above the knees action, keep it to yourself,” they’ll tell you. Then, finally, they start to let everyone inside the studio itself.

…and that’s when it happens. Out of nowhere, people emerge with tickets completely different from your own, and those people are instructed to go in first. Granted, on this particular venture I learned that some of those lucky not-so-few are military families, which the Report makes a point of ushering to the front of the line. Even two hours into our wait, I couldn’t help but feel admiration, not bitterness, when this policy was quietly announced.

After the military families, though, comes VIPs. Red tickets in hand, they are led in, and the lowly mortals who have stood in line outside can wait still a few more minutes to find their seats.

On my first visit to the Report in October, I remember finding this particularly disenchanting. For years (about six, to be precise) I’d watched the show religiously and dreamt of the day that I, too, would stand in the front row and high-five Stephen as he ran by. I remember distinctly watching the show in middle school and hoping against hope that the show would not be canceled before I turned 18, lest I lose my chance forever.  In my mind, back then, all I had to do was show up early (of course) and I was home free.

This time I remarked to one of my friends how nice it was that at least we didn’t have the expectation of getting the front row anymore. This time we could go in without a shred of disappointment and hope that wherever they stuck the three of us (they always keep parties together, to their credit) was worth those few extra hours in line. We also had the advantage of knowing that there was no such thing as a bad seat at the Report – but, I mean, can you blame us for wanting to be as close to the desk, and the man himself, as possible?

Still, when we were led in and looked up into the stands, we couldn’t help but feel a little deflated. There were unquestionably many more VIPs at this show than at the one we’d been to before: the first several rows back, in each section, were already full. We’d just said as much to one another when the security guard who’d met us before and joked about our dedication “Usually only tourists show up this early!”-  said that we seemed just crazy enough to warrant a spot in the front row.

Before we knew what was happening, my friends and I found ourselves sitting in the only three free spots in the front row, the farthest to the left in the studio. All Stephen had to do was look to his right and there we were. It was unbelievable.

I’ll digress here to talk about the studio itself for a moment, because it really does deserve a mention. The first thing of notice when attending any taping, I’ve found, is that the studio seems a lot smaller than the show would indicate. The audience itself, the only part of the studio that you don’t readily see on screen for more than a few seconds, is relatively small, too (there’s a reason my friends and I show up early.)

The inside of the studio, for those who have somehow forgotten

Stephen may run from his desk to the interview table every week, for example, but he really only needs to take three steps at most. I myself, in the front row, could’ve taken as many steps and touched the infamous desk.

All of the decorations and nods to running gags on set are permanent fixtures, stacked on the shelves behind the desk. The lights and video screens embedded in the walls and on the desk are all actually in place, none of them that I could see inserted after the fact. It was in a lot of ways like stepping directly through the TV screen and finding yourself in the middle of any given episode. As a fan, in my mind, you can’t really ask for better than that.

From that point on, everything else seemed to go unbelievably smoothly. Some kind of playlist, containing everything from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to Placebo to U2, blasted through the speakers as the audience was let in, picking up throughout the taping whenever the cameras stopped rolling. The warm-up comic, brought out some 30 minutes before the show started, alternated between picking on audience members and himself, taking particular pleasure in tormenting a self-described “analyst” who was unquestionably the best-dressed man in the audience with his suit and tie. It was also his somewhat enviable duty to get us on our feet and bring out the man of the hour with a yell into his handheld microphone: “Stephen Colbert!”

As promised, my friends and I stuck out our hands as Stephen came bounding out from backstage, making the rounds of the front row to the sound of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me”. Pausing in the center of the floor to our continuing applause, he laughed and caught his breath, smiling good-naturedly into the crowd. When he finally convinced everyone to quiet down, he broke the ice by revealing that today he had been completely unprepared for his introduction, bolting out in an instant when he heard the comic yell his name.

Still, he looked as ready and willing as ever, and started the Q&A portion that comes before every show: “Do you have any questions to humanize me in your eyes before I say these terrible things?”

I’ll admit something here: with each taping of my favorite shows that I’ve attended (two for The Daily Show and one Colbert before this occasion), I’ve always stood outside in line contemplating what brilliant, witty question I would ask either faux-pundit if given the chance. Unfortunately for yours truly, that resolve has each time evaporated once the man in question was standing mere feet in front of me, looking expectantly into the crowd. I’ll put it this way: I didn’t even try. This time, though, I knew I’d written it off for long enough, and up my hand went.

Stephen first called on a man a few rows back, who asked what was the most ridiculous or “questionably legal” thing that Stephen had done with his Super PAC funding (collected, as many of you may know, from donations from the faithful Colbert Nation). Stephen went on to recount for a few minutes the process of offering to solve the South Carolina Republicans’ financial woes by buying the naming rights to the Republican Primary there for $500,000, dubbing it the Stephen Colbert South Carolina Republican Primary.

Before all of us he began to lose himself in the tale, taking on the personages of the various characters by putting on a thick southern drawl or lazily scratching his stomach as necessary. In the end, he said, the financial struggles of the party concerned were alleviated by the government – but they didn’t write him off, either. “They didn’t need my money,” Stephen recalled, earning a disappointed groan from the audience, “…but they still wanted it!” he finished, with a mischievous grin. In the end, he said, he had all of the records of the exchange, enough to tantalize any self-respecting investigative journalist, but he wasn’t about to turn them over. He liked the guy, he said simply, with a shrug.

If anything, this seemed to answer the ever-looming, unasked question if Stephen Colbert can truly charm his way into getting anything he wants through the Report. The answer is clearly yes. Yes, he can. And he does.

Realizing this question segued perfectly into my own, my hand shot up in the air. To my surprise, Stephen pointed at me. “Yes, young lady?”, he said.

“You’ve clearly done so much crazy stuff with this show,” I said.  “Has anyone ever told you no?”

He opened his mouth for a moment, closed it again, and answered with a smile: “A lot of girls have.” And the Q&A rolled on.

Asked if he’d ever forgotten who he is, Stephen cut off the asker with an abrupt “No,” and a laugh. He had only gone home in character once, he said, after he had spent his ride home after a taping writing up notes and dialogue for the next show. He walked in the house and his wife recognized the shift immediately and told him to “get the fuck out of my house,” he recalled with a laugh. “She said ‘Why would I want to be married to this?’”

After a few more questions, the soundtrack was cranked all the way back up and Stephen was quickly prepped behind his desk. His makeup was touched up, his hair was combed back (Stephen jokingly stroked the stylist’s hair as she worked), and the cameras were rolled into place.

He grabbed a handful of his signature red WristStrong bracelets and stretched them back, shooting them into the crowd. Never one to miss out on a gag, though, after about five bracelets were sent out and the audiences’ hands remained outstretched he held up an impressive-looking dagger, poised to throw. He grinned, somewhat dangerously, before putting it away, pulling out his notes for the first segment.

The stage manager twirled a script in her hand, our signal to go nuts, and we obliged as the intro to the show started up on screens around the studio and the theme played through the building.

This episode saw the return of a long-lost segment, “Thought for Food”, as in-character-Stephen bemoaned the presence of ground-up insects in Starbucks’ Strawberry and Crème Frappuccino. He broke character a few times, collapsing in laughter onto his desk and saying “Just keep going, just keep going!”

The rest of the taping went off without a hitch, covering everything from Mitt Romney’s interview with Diane Sawyer to the much-maligned exorbitant government conference in Las Vegas that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a typical balance of skewering the political topics of the day and mocking some bizarre news story of the day – just what a fan would expect and look forward to.

Still, at every break, where commercials would normally be placed on the air, the soundtrack would come back up again and Stephen would, more often than not, start goofing off. He sang along (as did I) to the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl” and danced in his chair to a Spanish rap song that I’d never heard in my life. Like someone out of a silent slapstick movie, he pretended to scold a production team member when they seemed to have run out of things to talk about, comically wagging his finger and narrowing his eyes. The security guard was pretty much the only person in the building who did not outwardly appear to be having a good time, and even then that was probably because he’s paid to look that way.

The interview portion, featuring author Jonah Lehrer, saw Stephen in his element: a give-and-take situation, feeding off of whatever someone else gives him and spitting something back.

Seeing this particular segment live, before editing, provides the advantage of watching him work. Every pause, later edited out for time, isn’t an awkward silence but rather a few seconds during which you can really watch the man think. In the silence, one gets the impression that if your hearing was just a bit better you could hear the gears in his head turning, the ideas forming, before he produces an insightful follow-up question or a perfectly witty retort. This was no exception, producing a number of quotable off-the-cuff lines that were later quoted back to me by friends or various social media sites. As per usual, four days a week.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end  – all too quickly, it seems. In almost no time at all Stephen was back behind his desk, gave a signature bellow of “That’s it for the Report – goodnight!” and it was all over.

Still, despite its apparent brevity, I couldn’t have asked for a better “Colbert Report” experience. Even the somewhat miserable ride back to Boston on the 12:15 a.m. Greyhound couldn’t dampen my spirits, and I see no reason not to keep my resolve to see a Report taping every six months for as long as the show exists. I can dream, right?

Those interested can watch this particular episode on Colbertnation.com here. 

Peas may not be everyone’s favorite veggie, but the folks over at Gotta Pea hope to change that. Peakour stars a smooth-talking, pun-wielding pea named PeaG that also happens to be a parkour artist, or in this case, a “peakour” artist. Get it? Good because the puns don’t stop there. This iOS game may draw inspiration from the action-packed sport, but Peakour is actually a decent game that’s great for physics puzzle enthusiasts.

Each level requires you to place various items along PeaG’s path that will help him reach his target. After placing all your items, you then press the play button to let PeaG take over and start his parkour race. You can’t control him, so all you can do is watch and hope your item placement is correct and leads him on the right path to victory. If he fails, you can simply continue fiddling with your items until you get it right. An added challenge is to also collect three bottle caps per stage that unlock additional levels and the ability to create your own puzzles to share with friends.

I found the levels in Parkour to be somewhat difficult at first because you are essentially guessing where PeaG will go before you see him in action. Luckily, you can always check out his skills list to see what he will do when he runs into a wall or a slope, for example, and you can press play before setting any items to see where he will end up going. Do this enough times, and the game losses its difficulty and simply becomes a trial-and-error experience reinforced by the fact that you only lose points the longer you take to get to your target. Because your score only determines your leaderboard standings, you might end up just focusing on getting all the bottle caps and not care about your finish time.

Another thing I noticed is that the game’s controls actually make it difficult to drag items to where you need them to go. I had to tap an item several times to finally grab it, and even then I started thinking I wasn’t actually tapping its required area on the screen. Some items are quite small on the iPhone, so successfully grabbing them is quite a challenge in itself.* Also as you may have noticed earlier, the game is chock-full of pea puns that get annoying each time the loading screen tells you to “Peas Wait” or reminds you that PeaG is a trained peafessional. It’s a game about peas. We get it.

It may be marred by unnecessary jokes and sticky controls, but Peakour manages to give you a solid experience with over 100 levels to play through and the ability to create and share your own stages. It makes for a great pick-up-and play game that’s actually pretty inexpensive for the amount of content you get. Don’t judge Peakour by its looks and frivolous jokes – this smart little game is definitely not for peabrains.

*It’s worth noting that the game’s control issues only happen on the iPhone and that the developers plan to release an update soon. 

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.

King Leopold (Richard Schiff of "The West Wing") dotes on his daughter, Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin).

Is there anything freer than knowing exactly who you are? You have nothing to prove, because your expectations are much more reasonable and whenever you create, or work, or do what it is you do, you do it with a exactness that no one else could ever conceive of.

Well, “OUAT,” I believe, has found that sweet spot. They have embraced an identity, and it falls short of many great shows on television. I can provide you with 10 better written shows, and I can find you ten shows that I certainly look up to more for their innovation and artistry. Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz worked on one of those before, “LOST.” If you have read my reviews you know how much I adored, and still carry great affection for, that show. Despite it being the one show my dad and I will never watch together, and while my opinions contrasts with those who loathed the final five minutes of the series finale so severely that it ruined the entire journey before it, it is undoubtedly, one for the history books. OUAT, will never be LOST. OUAT wishes they had the privilege of “LOST’s” club of flaws. However, OUAT has a lightness to it now, as if they have dropped the burden of expectations and have decided to care less about being great, and want to a force of its own will. “Once Upon A Time” will make me groan weekly with its insisting witticisms connecting their dual realms, but beyond today I will note them no longer (but seriously, referring to a plan to expose Regina as reaching for the fruit of the poisonous tree, COME ON!) because it’s charming just how little they wish to please me. And now that they have stopped catering to some false sense of importance, it has become more enjoyable, more effortlessly engaging, and more goddamed fun.

Although tonight, my patience was tried within mere minutes of the still lame title sequence (this isn’t a haunted house show, let’s be real). Lana Parilla is a clearly attractive woman in her own right, and I’m sure come Emmy season I will be scraping my jaw off the floor after she has walked onto the red carpet, but any chemistry we had has been killed by her shrewish attitude on the show. I’m sure that is how she has been directed to be, but why couldn’t she be more seductive. Isn’t the purest evil the kind that sneaks up behind you because you trusted it would never harm you? Well, it seems the show may be in the business of granting wishes. I say this not just because “The Genie” from Aladdin lore is the subject of tonight’s fairyback, but because in said fairyback, the Queen effectively seduced me.

But not before she made my balls shrink up inside me with condescensions like, “He’ll have a cracked cranium if you aren’t careful,” or “It’s time to be responsible Ms. Swan.” These gems and more are a part of a barrage of berating remarks by Regina, aimed at Emma, after she finds her and Henry playing at a now dilapidated playground (Henry’s castle) after the storm hit it. Emma, initially, is willing to let her usual overreaching roll off. Then she hits up Granny’s. Here we find Gus (damn, still not Breaking Bad, huh), I mean Sidney Glass, editor of the Storybrooke Mirror throwing back whiskeys for breakfast. Turns out he has a grudge with Regina too. After he was humiliated at the sheriff elections he decided to expose her for the corrupt mayor she is, to no avail. She found him out and fired him. Now, Sidney’s looking to partner up with Emma to take her down through some good old dirt-digging. Emma declines, claiming she wants to take her down without getting her hands dirty, but when she sees Henry’s playground is demolished and his book (THE BOOK) missing from its hiding place, she decides all bets are off.

As mentioned, we meet Genie this week who is Sidney’s alter ego (played by the supremely talented Giancarlo Esposito, who found his career-defining role as Gus in AMC’s “Breaking Bad”). As we know from prior installments (so don’t be shocked) Sidney is the magic mirror to Regina’s Evil Queen. This sets up easily the show’s most effective twist on conventional fairy tales, The Genie becomes the mirror. And despite this nugget not being concealed, I was still enthralled by the how of it all. The genie is summoned from the lamp and appears before King Leopold, father of Snow White. Esposito’s take on Genie is refreshing, he too wishes to be broken from the shackles of his gig, but this Genie isn’t masking his longing with cheer and improvisational humor. This guy is unenthused and apathetic. He recites his spiel about his magic’s limitations sans gusto. Being a kind royal, who wants for nothing (though it’s much easier to be humble when you’re royalty though) Leopold wishes for Genie’s freedom, a gesture that delights our not-so-blue friend. With his second wish he grants that his third wish be given to the Genie to use. Genie is again grateful, but asserts he will never use it. He’s granted 1001 wishes, and all of them have had grave consequences. Without much purpose to pair with his newfound liberty, Leopold offers to make him a member of his court where he’s certain he’ll find the one wish Genie cannot grant for himself, true love.

Making a brief appearance in the real world is Mary Margaret who meets up with David for a surprise picnic at the place where they first met, the ever-romantic toll bridge. Mary Margaret, amidst a flurry of kisses, wonders if they should face the reality that he is married, but David just wants to love her guilt-free so they push worry off to tomorrow. Mary Margaret also delivers possibly the funniest line of the night, when she see Sidney and Emma sifting through public records to discover any seeds of wrongdoing: “Yeah, maybe you’re doing something wrong, but if it’s right and it’s meant to be, does that make you a bad person?” Ha! Oh, Mary Margaret, even when you’re a mistress tortured by guilt and shame, you’re cute as a button. Meanwhile, Sidney seems convinced that this $50,000 of unappropriated funds will be the Mayor’s undoing, the “crack in the mirror” (ughhhhh…but I’m letting go…). When Emma questions why Sidney ever got in her pocket in the first place he more organically alludes to the parallel story, “I used to think she was a different person.”

Here we start to feel for Evil Queen (EQ). At some festivity, we see the King waxing philosophic about his daughter’s unmatched beauty, but then he strikes at EQ’s self-esteem saying Snow is a constant reminder of his “fairest of them all” first wife, and her mother. EQ has no place in his court, or in his heart. She is trapped in an essentially loveless marriage, or at least one where she will always play second fiddle. Genie runs after her into her courtyard where the soon-to-be poisonous apple tree grows. He lifts her spirits by gifting her a mirror, so that she may see what he sees, the true “fairest of them all.”

In Storybrooke, Emma confronts Regina directly about the missing funds. Regina is quick with an alibi, saying the record of the transaction was burned in the fire that got her elected. While leaning against her desk, Emma plants a bug so she can intercept some clue of where she allocated the money. When she overhears a phone call about a roadside meeting, she and Sidney spring into action. While heading to the location, the brakes fail on Emma’s car and Sidney immediately notices they were tampered with and that Regina must have discovered the bug. Coincidentally, Mr. Gold is out by the roadside. He informs them that the mayor met with him to buy his land. He also warns about emotional entanglements, and how they can distort the truth and people will get hurt. Unconvinced, Emma heads for Regina’s office and breaks in. She gathers any files related to the land grab off her computer, but not before running into Regina herself. Emma, quick-witted, conjures up a tale about a teenage prank that Sidney had witnessed. Across town, we also get a short glimpse of Mysterious Writer/ Biker Dude who bumps into Henry who is trying to record the details of THE BOOK, in case it isn’t found. When “Oh Precocious One” grills the man with the box about why he is here, he mocks the child, “Stuff.”

The Evil Queen’s father makes a surprise visit, dropping in on Genie when he expected a rendezvous with the Queen. The King has pilfered his wife’s diary and has knowledge about a man who has stolen her heart. He recognizes that he can never love EQ like she deserves, but he’s still aghast at her betrayal. He charges Genie, whom he trusts, to sniff out this mystery man. In response, EQ’s father has come to deliver his daughter a package, a way out of this prison of a life, an escape from her own form of servitude. When she opens the box we find two Agrabah vipers. For those with a working knowledge of Disney, Agrabah is the homeland of the Genie. EQ’s plan is to kill herself with one venomous bite, but Genie stops her. Clearly enamored with her, he offers to kill the king himself by setting the vipers loose on him. In this scene in particular we see another side of Regina/EQ, one who is stricken with sadness, but oozes sensuality as she brushes against Genie’s cheek and embraces him for his selflessness: a deep contrast to the shrill, unabashedly evil Regina that has inhabited every other episode. The added dimension is well executed and goes a long way to establishing a character we can invest in instead of just emphatically opposing.

Then the entanglements Mr. Gold forewarned of begin to unravel. At a city council meeting, Emma and Syndey speak up, exposing Regina’s plans to build a second home in the woods with taxpayer money. Unphased, Regina retorts she is indeed building a house. A PLAYHOUSE. OH SNAP! She circumvented the city governance so she could get the project underway quicker, so that the town’s children would have a safe place to play. Disgraced and defeated, Emma loses not just her plot for revenge, but Henry as well. Regina blackmails Emma with evidence that she did truly break-in to her office and bans her from seeing Henry for an undetermined period of time. The one ray of hope she clings to is that Sidney is her ally now, and no longer Regina’s spy. Earlier, he had pulled out a shoebox of photos he had taken of Emma while under Regina’s employ, tracking Emma’s every move so she could prevent her from getting close to Henry.

With a powerful ally, Emma has the strength she needs to stand up to Regina when the time is right. Except, the last scene of the episode suggest differently. Sidney is seated before a mirror in Regina’s office and he reports that “she bought it,” he has earned Emma’s trust and holds a tape recordings of all their meetings. Regina is as unstoppable as ever, now she can track the sheriff’s every move and will always be one step ahead. What seemed like a foregone conclusion, Emma’s penetration of Regina’s facade, now seems improbable. With a well-established network of watchful eyes, Regina seems to have an unrelinquishing grasp on her power, and Emma. Although, mysterious writer/biker dude may be the thorn in her side. We get a quick glimpse of the all-important box, the one that last week held a typewriter. Now it holds… THE BOOK! WHAAAAATTTTT? Stay tuned, as they say.

The twist with the most payoff though, was in the fairyback. Genie sicks the vipers on his dear friend and they both dig their fangs into his neck causing an almost instant death. In his last moments though, Genie expresses his regret. He acknowledges that he’s forever indebted for the freedom the king granted him, but that he had to do the same for his queen, and break her chains as well. And as the king’s life is sucked out, he reminds Genie of another way he could have freed her. His last wish from the map. Damn. Either Genie was too gosh darn stubborn or too caught up to use it, but that would have been a more civil route to go. When he rushes to his love’s side to tell her the good news, she appears in more despair than before. The guards know the vipers are of Genie’s homeland, and that he will be executed. She offers him safe passage, but Genie is connecting the dots. Of all the snakes she could have picked, she picked those from Agrabah. She set him up. She never loved him at all, and used him to kill the king. EQ acknowledges this, and erases any possibility he could ever be in her life. But Genie has his one last trick up his lamp. He uses his last wish to grant that he will be by her side always, and that every day he will look upon her. And the magic of FTL does grant him this. He is to be stuck inside her mirror for the rest of his life. The show has introduced a litany of grim ways that magic has haunted these characters that have relied on it for solutions to their ills, but never has it been more tragic than when this man, recently freed, is once again enslaved. But this time, it was of his own will. He could not live without her, now he certainly cannot.

“7:15 A.M” delivered for me last week, but with this episode coming in consecutive weeks, I’m sure that it was no fluke. Appealing to pathos once again, the show struck a chord by sticking with the cliched but proven conceit that love can be the grandest magic in the world, but it can also inflict the greatest of pains. The fate of unrequited love has never been pretty, and I’m glad OUAT was bold enough to confront it. For the second week in a row I have reason to celebrate the achievements of a series that has labored through much of its first few months for my approval, and frankly the approval of many critics. But I’m confident that this week many others will be singing it’s praises. Surely, Regina cannot become a totally different character and will continue to thwart any of my attempts to like her or root for her success, but I can’t imagine this show is striving for that sort of moral ambiguity. At any rate, for this week I was again delighted to delve into both worlds (more so with the FTL because of the world-building and tragedy), and I’m excited for where the series can go from here in defying expectation now that they are ironically freed from its constraints. For allowing the captivating Giancarlo Esposito the space to play, for expanding our conception of the Queen’s capabilities, and for feeling like the gust of fresh air the show set out to be at its inception, OUAT repeats its success with a second straight triumph over my preconceived notions. I mean, the dialogue is still wooden; and much of my interest in the real world activity is riding on potential plot threads, my parallel investment in the FTL, and my admiration for a few performances. No buts about it though, the “fruits” of their labor have earned them a B+.

Leslie (Amy Poehler) looks to court a reluctant voter with bowling skills and "laid-back" demeanor.

When “Parks and Recreation” started out, it was “The Office” 2.0. Whether comparisons were fair or not (they did share producers/writers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur) it was a comedy founded upon the idea of hilarious interaction in the workplace. And once we came to know these characters and the dynamic they shared, the show was heralded by critics. It’s only natural then, that the TV critic community might would become weary of the potential for shaking up a successful formula. Leslie Knope is running for office, and as her adoring fans we would like to witness her triumph. But what would happen to the gang if she was a city councilwoman? For now, they are diligent phone operators and fundraisers, but how long can that last? Will it feel like the gang is playing second fiddle to the LesBen power couple?

This episode scoffs at that notion. Much of this episode’s charm was in the the B- and C-stories that showcased two of the most facially gifted, delivery-nailing comedic actors out there, Nick Offerman and Aubrey Plaza. Offerman’s Ron Swanson is not only my favorite character in current comedy, but he is a cult figure for his love of meat and breakfast food, his staunch libertarianism, and his intolerance for girlish men. Plaza’s April Ludgate has epitomized the ironic youth of today. She is the sarcastic observer who wants chaos to unfold so that she may mock its meaninglessness. Both not only execute their fan-favorite quirks with deadly accuracy this week, but they reach beyond themselves in moments of growth (eh, maybe baby steps) that provided payoff and pathos.

LesBen and the “Knope We Can” campaign kick off a series of focus groups in order to gauge Leslie’s appeal. Many seem to feel off-put by her perceived elitism. The snob in me would wish to defend Knope by pointing out that just because these folks have a fourth grade education does not make Leslie an elitist, but I will refrain from generalizations as I am above that. Damn, still pretentious. Well, at any rate, one comment particularly gets under Leslie’s skin: “She doesn’t seem like someone I would want to bowl with.” With a target in her sights, Leslie locks on Derek, or “Bowling Comment,” as her binder full of research describes. Ben, as boyfriend, teases her relentlessly about her obsessiveness. After multiple insistences that he can ask Ron how good she is at bowling he asks, “So I’m not sure I believe you’re good at bowling is there someone I could ask?” As campaign manger, he tries to reel her in. Strategically, the one vote doesn’t matter, and if she fixates on him she could lose votes instead. So, Leslie’s compromise is to sponsor a bowling night where she can schmooze with the voters and prove she is laid back (and a good bowler as Ron can attest too, apparently).

As Leslie tries to establish her public persona most of the gang is making calls to raise money. Jerry, for Twilight Zone-like reasons, has been put in charge  and April, Andy, Donna and Chris are under his leadership. To liven up the “phone party,” Jerry incentivizes the task by offering the winner two movie passes for who ever raises the most. Chris’ eternal perk and knack for flattery seem like assurances he will win, but once he begins to celebrate his lead in the standings, April resolves she must win to “make his happiness go away.” Her efforts include creating a down-home country-fried southern belle voice, and she appeals to the Latino voters with her fluent Spanish (she is Puerto-Rican) through shouts of “Mira, mira, mira!” The competition is interrupted, however ,when Jerry lets it slip that his daughter Millie will break up with Chris. The unflinching optimist is unaware, believing they are about to move in together. When Millie comes over to take Chris “for a walk” the gang who has grown to care for him, even though just a year ago he was an outsider and threat to the Parks department, tries to warn him of the impending heartbreak, but unassuming he laughs off their subtle forebodings.

Ann, Tom and Ron join LesBen at the bowling night, much to Ron’s delight. The restaurant inside the alley is his favorite in Pawnee. It serves only hot dogs and hamburgers, but Offerman’s glee shrouded in mustache suggests that is all Ron truly needs. In contrast, Tom (Aziz Ansari) arrives with pomp and circumstance. For all my cinephiles, he dons a black version of the satin scorpion jacket sported by Ryan Gosling in “Drive.” Ron continues to relish in his simple values, regardless (referring to Ann, as “Girl” was particularly authentic). Tom shakes that foundation to the core though when he bowls two-handed, “granny style,” and scores a strike. Ron is outraged that such an embarrassing display could result in success.

Despite Leslie’s spinning her inability to “let go” into a popular event, she hadn’t buried the hatchet. She sent Derek an invitation in the mail and when she spots him, she immediately swoops in to challenge him to a friendly game and a hot plate of wings (she creepily smiles at the camera saying she totally knew he’d loved them, pointing at her binder). She lets the man win, and even strokes his ego along the way, which in itself seems very anti-Leslie, but this guy really got under her skin. She outlines her issue with Ben saying that she can’t control being a woman, or being short, or blonde, but she can control her perception. She NEEDS Derek to perceive her as fun. Once Derek wins with only a mediocre score, Leslie springs on him the question about his vote. He still won’t vote for her. Leslie, then tries to earn his vote saying that if she can beat him fair and square he will guarantee his vote. Ben, during this whole fiasco, is extremely frustrated, wishing Leslie would take the opportunity to face-to-face with more people, but what makes him perfect for Leslie is he says his piece and then falls back, letting his love make her own mistakes.

Once she absolutely slays Derek in bowling she tries to be civil and say, “Hey, seriously it’s been fun, and I hope I can genuinely count on your vote.” Then, Derek replies, “Sure, I’ll write-in Bitch.” Outraged, Ben goes COMPLETELY out of character and punches the man in the face. He instantly apologizes, but Leslie is impressed! And who can blame her? Despite her feminism and opposition to violence, she found out her love can protect her and that’s not something she should regret, it’s something she should cherish. But in the public eye, it’s something she should apologize for. To avoid Derek pressing charges, she intends to save face (pun intended).

Here begins the laundry lists of reversals the episode elicits. Although, “Bowling for Votes” is brimming with jokes that hit upon specific beats as opposed to hitting on a level of general wit and charm, our quirky and even lovable friends in Pawnee don’t remain static. They learn from their mistakes, they feed off the emotions of their friends, and they realize that who they need to gratify first is themselves.

For Ron, “Bowling with two hands is embarrassing” Swanson, Tom’s inevitable victory is not an option, it is an aberration that should be ignored, but for posterity’s sake he must prevent it. He sabotages Tom by jamming his “fing-y” between two bowling balls. He suspects he won’t be able to bowl the last frame. When Tom perseveres and hits enough pins with just one hand, Ron is visibly distraught. In the very last scene, he takes his baby steps by showing up in sunglasses, marking his name as “Man” and bowling  Tom’s way. In hilarious, yet predictable manner, he bowls a perfect game. The manager asks for a photo to put up on the wall, but Ron assures that he was never there and walks off. Of course, he shouldn’t have been embarrassed for the tremendous achievement, but to acknowledge that another’s way might be better is like asking Ron to change his entire fabric of being. It’s progress Ron can’t possibly sustain, but memorable for his effort.

April, likely surprised the most when, in a moment of weakness, she offered condolences and a gift to Chris. In the aftermath of the breakup, Chris never came back to make calls and April won the movie tickets. Feeling as though he might need support, and perhaps feeling guilty that she wished for his happiness to go away, she approaches him reticently. Once at the office, he represses his pain. He tries to dip into his well of positive thinking, but comes out empty and dry. “But here’s why it may be the greatest thing that ever happened…” When he just stands there, she offers him the tickets out of pure kindness, suggesting maybe he use them to join her and Andy at the movies someday soon. Nobody with any sense of April would believe she didn’t care about at least some of these people, but to see her take a shine to her emotionally polar opposite (the man who loves all vs. The woman who is always “meh”) was quite a departure. Both Ron and April have these facades, these masks they wear for their own amusement and protection, but here the masks are removed and the likable, decent folk emerge.

Leslie’s reversal occurs to her in mid-apology. She shouldn’t apologize for something she’s  deemed awesome. She may admit too much in revealing how much they “made out after,” but the message is understood. She loves Ben, and when Ben stood up for Leslie by clocking a jerk who called her “her second least favorite word for a woman” she felt protected and honored. Turns out, the focus groups love that kind of gusto to stand up for what you believe in while risking that others may not stand behind you. This may seem like an all-to-easily-swayed voting population, but stranger and more arbitrary aspects have won a candidate elections before. Most importantly, Leslie gained a better understanding of the sort of candidate she wants to be, separate from what is “electable.”

Leslie’s arc can largely be viewed as a metaphor for the show. No one can ever accuse the ensemble of “Parks and Recreation” of being inauthentic. Some weeks Andy may seem too much of an idiot, Tom may be too showy, and Leslie can be too manic about a project (Ron could never be too much of anything, it’s all gold). And while moderation, range and/or subtlety are great practices in human behavior and in television, what make the Parks gang a fun group to be with is that they never disappoint. They are flawed, but they never fall shy of expectations in the terms of being themselves. If the campaign trail doesn’t change Leslie, than why should we worry the show’s essence will change. With no “wow” factor in terms of a slapstick tipping point, and without much of the electricity of of other recent episodes with joke frequency this might come off as an off-night. But for allowing Leslie to rediscover the personality and spunk that made that made her such an unstoppable public servant and a compelling candidate while shining the spotlight on Ron and April, two of the show’s more distinct contributions to the comedic canon, I can unapologetically  call this episode “awesome,” an A-.

L.O.L.Ls: Laugh Out Loud Lines:

- “Oh I don’t know Jerry. It’s Sunday night, I’m making phone calls to strangers and you’re in my house. My night couldn’t be worse.” —April

- “I choose to support Team Knope. Because they’re the best. Everyone’s the best. We’re all winners.” —Chris

- “When I eat, it is the food that is scared.” —Ron Swanson

- “Son, people can see you!” —Ron Swanson

- “You can’t eat the biscuits if you don’t pay for the flower!”

- Andy, in response to hearing Jerry say Millie is going to break up with Chris: “Wow, that’s gonna be super weird when they move in together.”

- “I’d like to introduce you to my good friend, anyone else.” —Ben

- “What Champion? You need to go out now? Oh, sorry he hates awkward situations.” —Andy

“Whatever” is an appropriate title for Hot Chelle Rae’s generic second album. The Nashville-based quartet’s style of dance-pop/wannabe-rock has been done before, and it certainly has been done better by more talented pop-punk acts. Each track is basically just a slight variation on the last, the lyrics are clichéd and often cringe-worthy, and the vocals are decent at best. Yet despite the fact that there is nothing particularly good or original about the album, these choruses will indubitably get stuck in your head. They are just so catchy. Ultimately though, it’s fluff — enjoyable enough for a tween party or getting down on the dance floor, but not an album that is going to have any sort of lasting influence.

Hot Chelle Rae released their debut (“Lovesick Electric”) in 2009, but it wasn’t until the obnoxious yet also strangely infectious “Tonight Tonight” off of “Whatever” started blowing up the radio airwaves this year that they really gained popularity. An actual sample of lyrics from this song: “I woke up with a strange tattoo / Not sure how I got it, not a dollar in my pocket / And it kinda looks just like you / Mixed with Zach Galifianakis / La la la, whatever, la la la.” You’ll probably be rolling your eyes at least a few times in every song, but then the hooks will start back up and suck you in again. It’s a vicious cycle.

Somehow, the band managed to win the New Artist of the Year Award at the American Music Awards last month. Snide comments about what this says about today’s music scene aside, Hot Chelle Rae is by no means the worst thing on the radio right now. The glossy pop is certainly a guilty pleasure, and perfect for those who don’t look much further than Katy Perry and Lady Gaga for their music collection. But if you’re looking for a creative and inspiring new record to listen to, “Whatever” is definitely not it.

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?

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.

I first started playing Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One late at night. Sitting in front of the big screen, the opening cinematic started — all the conditions were right for a superb Ratchet and Clank experience. Then something strange happened; I found myself not exploring the world, but lumbering around, almost falling asleep in my chair. The next morning I jumped back in to the game with a few others and had a completely different experience – this was more like the Ratchet and Clank I knew.

All 4 One is a rare change from Insomniac for one of their most well known franchises, both in terms of design and quality. It’s two different games, a bad – -almost terrible single player endeavor and a frantic and mostly fun multiplayer romp. Perhaps most dissapoitingly, with graphical hiccups and glitches, All 4 One doesn’t live up to the past pedigree of previous games with superb production values. That being said, there’s still some value in this off the wall title featuring some of gaming’s most underrated characters – especially if you’ve got the friends to fill in the ranks.

Things start off remarkably well in All 4 One. We open to Ratchet and Clank being interviewed and lamenting their adventurous lifestyle, talking about how they want to leave the heroics to a professional – Like newly elected President Captain Quark (or anyone else). Before long, Dr. Nefarious returns, but in the middle of his attempt at revenge, the four are face to face with a powerful new enemy and are transported to an alien planet, and most work together to get home. This leads to perhaps the game’s most endearing quality; there are plenty of heart-warming moments and in-jokes as the former enemies must find a way to work together. It’s hard not to crack a smile at some of the moments, especially when the voice work is done so incredibly well.

Much like previous Ratchet and Clank games, All 4 One attempts to blend a multitude of gaming mechanics and traditions to create one experience; unlike previous games, they aren’t widely successful here. The main draw of All 4 One as opposed to the previous games in the series is that here, you’ll be doing everything you normally do, from platforming to solving puzzles, but this time you’ll have up to three of your friends by your side. Right from the character select screen, I was instantly brought back to my days of bumming around in arcades playing classic coin-op coop’s like The Simpsons and X-Men. That vibe persists throughout the entire game, and the game proves to be a complete blast when it really starts to gain momentum. It becomes a fast and frantic smash and grab co-op beat ‘em up that is worth more than its fair share of beat-‘em-ups.

The downside too all of this is that some of what makes the Ratchet and Clank series so remarkable in the first place seems to have been compromised for this feeling. The previous games, especially the phenomenal  A Crack in Time weren’t exactly open world, but they did encourage exploration throughout its worlds, in that regard, All 4 One feels remarkably shoe-horned and linear. You and your motley bunch will follow very set paths as you smash through crates, and jump from platform to platform. I couldn’t help but think to myself; this is a Ratchet and Clank game, I should be able to see what’s behind that wall! It’s pretty disappointing, especially to long time fans of the series.

All 4 One also employs a pretty robust set of weapon upgrades you’ll obtain by playing through the game. Each character has their own set of weapons and each is fully upgradable by purchasing them at bolt machines scattered throughout All 4 One’s maps. It’s a lot of fun to go through and get these upgrades, but I constantly found myself pining for the system of old where you upgrade your weaponry would need to be used significantly before you could upgrade it. Sure the new way seems like a much more streamlined and easy to use, but the previous way almost demanded depth and experimentation with the game’s weaponry.

All 4 One is also missing the polish that Insomniac Games has made a staple of the Ratchet and Clank universe. There are occasional visual hiccups throughout the game, like mudded-out textures and boring color schemes (when compared to the bulk of the game), but by far the most frustrating presentation aspect is how crappy the camera system is. All 4 One employs a much more zoomed out camera to adapt to the new 4-player system, but it also locks at all the wrong times and frequently cuts off things like enemies and power-ups until everyone on the screen is ready to move on.

The Blast Factor: It’s a tough business being a console mascot; one wrong move and you’re doing starring roles on your former rival’s party games.  All 4 One may not be that wrong move (if anything, Secret Agent Clank takes that spot), but it’s still a step backward for the franchise. It can be frantic and fun when played with the right people, but just don’t let it be anyone’s introduction to the Ratchet and Clank franchise.

Hola El Presidente…you look different. Well, not all that different, like you did something with your hair different. No? New shirt? Tropico 4  is remarkably similar to its predecessor, but somehow it also feels remarkably different. Maybe it’s the new cartoon infused visual style, or maybe the more accessible arcade style gameplay. Regardless, Tropico 4 continues the series’ long running history of being a fun and addictive city simulator that you’re sure to get lost in – even if it feels like you’ve done it all before.

As in previous iterations, you start Tropico 4 by creating your character, known as El Presidente. There’s a lot of options here and it may be daunting to those who haven’t played a Tropico game before. Do you go full Fidel? Perhaps fat cat in the pocket of the small industries? Perhaps the Caribbean version of Abraham Lincoln is more to your style. During these opening moments, you’ll make a series of distinct choices that will affect how you rule your chain of islands. If nothing else, it adds to the replay factor of the title. What would happen if you made one choice differently than the others? It may sound cliché, but the possibilities are more or less endless.

Of course, your goal as El Presidente is to manage and grow Tropico, your set of islands in the Caribbean. Just how you do this is up to you, and can be a lot of fun to play around with. On my first play through of the game, I found myself playing nice – trading with other nations, building factories and hospitals and listening to my people. It was rewarding to see my set of islands flourish and my citizens live happy lives. Then it occurred to me, I could make more profit by taking the other route, so I decided to make decisions based on money and not the good of the island – sure I had to deal with a few rebellions here and there, but I was much more financially successful this time around. Each session with Tropico 4 feels much different than the last.

Those revolts play a much larger part in this game than the rest. Now, each faction has a leader with their own unique personality and demands. It’s no longer as simple as just looking up how to stop certain factions, as each time you’ll have to make decisions that will affect your nation greatly. The environmentalists for instance will want you to stop logging as much and build a wind turbine, but doing so will anger the logging companies in your area, and you’ll risk losing jobs for your citizens. It’s these types of choices that make Tropico 4 such a compelling time.

Curiously, Tropico 4 feels much more arcade at times than its predecessors. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a simulation at heart, but several key additions make Tropico 4 feel different. Key among these additions is the new disaster system that seems to happen much more often than before. It was a bit frustrating each time I would build up a certain area, only to have it constantly wiped out by a flood or some other disaster. Yeah, I know…they’re a part of the game, but the just seemed to happen a lot more here than in previous games.

It’s amazing that after three previous installments and a huge fan community, Atlus wouldn’t put multiplayer into the Tropico series. Sure, there’s Facebook and Twitter integration, along with user created scenarios to try your hand at – but the fact that Tropico still exists without a dedicated multiplayer system is nothing short of astonishing. Why can’t I take on my friends islands, and form treaties with others? Tropico seems like the perfect fit for a dedicated multiplayer suite, but for some reason we still don’t get it.

The Blast Factor: While it is true that Tropico 4 plays much like its predecessor, the changes that are here are far too heavy to merely call this Tropico 3.5. Though the lack of new features and multiplayer are a bit daunting, Tropico 4 is a game that fans of the series and those looking for a new experience are going to want to check out.

Tropico 4 is available now on the Xbox 360 and PC. A Xbox 360 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for this review

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.

Ro'ee Levi as William Scott and Stacy Fisher as Aphra Behn in "Or,"

“Or,” is good English-majory fun. With spy/author Aphra Behn, that most fascinating and mysterious figure of the English Restoration as its heroine, it’s like a feminist’s “Shakespeare in Love.”  It’s got the intrigue, the sexiness, the gender-play, and the winking parallels between history and the present.

Just like an English major, however, it often walks a fine line between cleverness and self-indulgent ostentation. Playwright Liz Duffy Adams begins with and sometimes lapses back into her imitation of period verse, and this can be cloying. The play’s preface features an overt display of anachronism to get you in the mood, and then a detailed explication of the play’s title. It’s tedious. Once you get passed this though, you get to some good stuff.

The heart of the play takes place in our heroine’s apartment, with an ex-lover and spy hiding in her wardrobe; a new lover, actress Nell Gwynne, hiding in her bedroom; and her patrons, King Charles II and theatre maven Lady Davenant, coming and going as they please. We don’t get quite as deep into farce territory as you might expect with this setup but we do get see our super spy/lover/poetess negotiate between these roles at a dizzying speed.

Stacy Fisher is up to the task. As Aphra, she finds an eye of calm in a tornado of swift, dire calculations. Each dilemma reads on her face and not a word is lost of the relentless speeches that pour from her lips as she talks herself in and out of each with barely a pause for an embrace or two. With big brown eyes and a nimble tongue she seduces every man and women in her compass.

Her equally talented co-stars, meanwhile, Hannah Husband as the women and Ro-ee Levi as the men, are a flurry of wigs, masks and accents. In a way it’s a shame to tip you off that Levi, in particular stands in for a jailor, a king and a spy, all marvelously distinct, but even if I hadn’t your playbill would have.

“Or,” is definitely the work of a romantic imagination. Its Aphra Behn is a bit too lacking in flaw for so complex a character. Its Charles II is a bit too genteel. For a man of means whose life is threatened, it’s strange that he’s never attended and never armed. And so on. There are plenty of nits but none so meddlesome that they won’t be fun to pick—in an English majory way, that is.

Directed by Daniel Gidron, “Or,” plays at the Lyric Stage Company through November 6.

I try not to be too pushy with my reviews and let you readers make up your own minds about which games you’re going to buy, but there’s really no other way to put this – you need to play NBA 2K11.  Played last year’s game? Doesn’t matter – this year’s game trumps everything that came before it. Don’t like sports games? You’ll appreciate the level of depth and production values that the development team put in the game.  Simply put, NBA 2K12 isn’t just a great sports game, with all it has going for it — it’s a great game in general.

For the second year in a row, 2K spotlights arguably the greatest player to ever grace the hardwood  — his airness Michael Jordan, but this time he’s not alone. 2K12 celebrates the complete history of the sport with players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing and Scottie Pippen all unlockable and playable.  This opens up an incredibly awesome mechanic in 2K12; the ability to match up the best young stars of today with the greatest of all time. How would Jordan’s Bulls, in their prime match up with the Lakers’ dynasty? This year’s Miami Heat? Or what about a battle of the big-men, pitting an in his prime Shaq against someone like Dwight Howard? It’s here that NBA 2K12 really begins to establish its own identity; if Madden is a sports simulation, this is an all out love letter to a sport, its history and most importantly, its fans.

Of course, NBA 2K12 does not rely on the past, as its real strength, much like in previous years, is in its core mechanics. Most of last year’s game remains intact, but the developers have included little tweaks that make the game better, including addressing the faults from last year’s game. Chief among these faults; at least for most gamers was the AI, which had a reputation for being absurdly cheap, it’s been addressed this go-round, and even though it still happens, it’s much more rare. To the developers credit, they didn’t just dumb down the AI more, instead, they gave you more control; control over your players movement and your offense, but be warned, the AI is incredibly realistic and aggressive and will pounce on any weakness you show.

NBA 2K12 comes packed with a ton of depth, and each is sure to appeal to a different type of player. I for instance am a franchise player, it’s always the first mode I go to in any sports game I play, and in NBA 2K12, it’s incredibly rewarding. Unlike other franchise modes, 2K12’s Association Mode truly puts you in control of a team – through the good times and the bad. Play as a team just coming off a losing season and you’re playing to practically empty arenas, but start winning and watch the fans start to come back in.  For example, I took the Milwaukee Bucks, who had a so-so season last year, and through a series of business decisions, free agent signings and a lot of wins, I was able to turn a good profit.  The coolest addition to this year’s Association Mode is the ability to take it online and complete a whole season.

My Player also returns to this year’s game, and though much of it remains unchanged, it’s a much more streamlined endeavor than in years past.  You’ll still create your player, but instead of dropping in to a few pickup games to prove your worth, you’ll be dropped in to one game and then go into an interview to prove your mental wits and then it’s off to the draft.  Hearing NBA Commissioner David Stern call out your name (if you’ve given him a somewhat normal name), but the real payoff comes from the amount of time and depth you’ll put in to the mode. Your long term goal is to make it to the NBA Hall of Fame, and you’ll do that by reaching goals on both the per-game and season basis.  It’s not an easy task, but a rewarding one none-the-less.

Far and away though, NBA 2K12’s most remarkable feat is in its astounding production values. Of course, there are some hiccups, like some of the lesser known players still having weird alien like faces, but the big names, the Lebrons and the Kobes have all received a face lift and look much more like their real life counterparts.  Even the crowd, an aspect most sports developers have had a hard time with looks remarkably lifelike. The players, and arenas are impressively detailed and everything feels crisp. NBA 2K12 also features what could be the most lifelike commentary of any sports game, as while there is a bit of repetition, still feels remarkably fresh even after countless games.

 The Blast Factor: NBA 2K12 isn’t just a great basketball sim, with all of its depth and superb presentation; it’s a phenomenal game in general.  The perfect combination of accessibility and realism, NBA 2K12 tops every basketball game before it – becoming one hell of an experience in the long run. Simply put – it doesn’t get much better than this.

Before starting this game up, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. The cover suggests playing a fantasy hero who feels compelled to slaughter orcs for various,story-driven reasons. Apparently I was over-analyzing this. The game is about one thing: killing orcs. OK, so there is a little more to it than that, but essentially, they must die. It’s basically a Tower-Defense game… in the third person. So, instead of a top-down, overall view of the map, you play as a silly man who makes off-handed comments to himself about the situation, not unlike my buddy Drake from Uncharted. There is a story in this game, somewhere. But your main concern? Just kill those darn orcs.

Each level begins with some down time where you get to select the kinds of weapons/ traps you will be using this level and then laying them out. Once you hit select, you “unleash the horde.” They come in waves, and as the levels progress, there are different kinds of orcs making each level harder and harder. Not to mention, the maps get more complicated. For the most part, it’s just you defending the castle, so you do a lot of running. The thing I loved about this game was how it plays like a Tower-Defense, but there are times where you have to get out a melee weapon and start hacking and slashing. The animation on the characters is excellent and the comments from our hero and the orcs are hysterical. Each level is different enough to make it challenging and keep it interesting.

That said, the game is not without flaws. Each level you beat unlocks new traps, but you really don’t get a lot of new weapons (ranged or melee). Which is a big part of the game since it’s played in third-person. I get the feeling that the developers underestimated the ability of the player in combat. There is plenty of room for strategy where you can just sit back and watch the blood spill, but sometimes it’s fun to jump into the fray as well. There is also a system to purchase upgrades, but it’s a bit too hard to accrue the currency required to purchase upgrades for traps. Also, there aren’t enough options to upgrade your handheld weapons, another disappointment.

The Blast Factor: When it’s all said and done, though, it’s a really entertaining game. I loved the challenges on each map (some are really tough). The game wasn’t too easy, but it wasn’t impossible either. Not to mention, when you beat a map, our hero does a little jig, which brings me a silly amount of satisfaction. For 1200 Microsoft Points, I would say it’s worth it for seasoned Tower-Defense players and casual ones alike

Aged over a decade since its releases in arcades as well as on the Sega Saturn, Radiant Silvergun’s high definition re-release on Xbox Live Arcade still yields as a frustrating and impossible, yet addicting and challenging “shoot em up” game.

Admittedly, I had never played Radiant Silvergun until trying the re-release on the Xbox Live Arcade, so I had no idea what to expect. I assumed it to be something like an amped up version of Galaga, but I was severely wrong.

The game is definitely not for everyone, and that’s made evidently clear right off the bat.

Starting with weapons that you will stick with throughout the duration of their gaming experience, Silvergun’s story mode drops your ship off in the middle of battle. Enemies all shapes and sizes start flying in weaves and circles, shooting various artillery, hoping to blow you to smithereens. There is no training, and players hit the ground running, scrabbling with the multiple weapons they are equipped with.

The player’s ship is small, but stacked with a healthy variety of goodies to destroy enemies, regardless of their sometimes goliath size. The idea is that each weapon should be used to strategically dispose of specific enemies, and when it comes to boss battles, specific parts of your enemies. The more pieces of bosses you destroy, the larger the bonus is at the end of each stage.

Equipped with a Vulcan gun, as well as a homing laser, a lock-on scanner, diagonal missiles, and a sword, players need to utilize each in different scenarios. Knowing which weapons will be the most useful against which enemies is the goal. Sometimes the homing laser may not be able to hit weak spots on a boss’s body, so the side missiles that leave behind explosions are the route to go. Sometimes a player’s Vulcan gun may be so overpowering all they need to do is just hold down the “A” button and lay waste to everything that crosses through their barrage of death. Each plays a special role in surviving the chaos that ensues through the duration of every stage.

To be completely honest, the word “chaos” may be an understatement.

One hit from any of the enemies’ projectiles will end a player’s life, reducing the life count in the upper left corner of the screen.

And this will happen. A lot.

Ten minutes in I wanted to throw my controller through the television and call it a day due to the massive frustration and tediousness of the levels. But sticking with Silvergun is where the rewards come in. As aggravating as it is to lose all of your ships in just the first phases of level one, the arsenal you use upgrades as you play and, in story mode, continues to level up regardless of death and continues. Your Vulcan gun may be at level five when you run out of lives, but when you save and continue (and begrudgingly start on the very first stage again), the Vulcan gun will still be level five, making play-through more manageable each time. With no power ups or helpful add-ons, players must truly rely on their skills and persistence to level up each weapon. The downside is eventually the first stage becomes a chore as players eagerly (or angrily) grind to pick up where they left off with stronger weapons than before. The repetition can be a bit much. I always found myself yearning for a save function, but only the progress of your weapon upgrades are noted.

Radiant Silvergun is for the determined and strong-willed. Instant gratification gamers need not play, because they will find none here. Only the most patient players will be able to muster through the chaos of weapons that, on occasion, will cover the entire playable screen. And sometimes that won’t even be enough. You’ll grit your teeth. You’ll yell. You’ll probably even contemplate destroying your Xbox. Persistence is the only way to method getting through the story mode, as boss battle after boss battle continuously attempts to beat down players (both in the game and emotionally).

Memorization is key. Players will begin to learn stages due to the amount of times they must be replayed. Silvergun forces players back to stage one with every “game over,” which can leave people zoned out and mindless in front of their televisions for hours just in attempts to get back to where they were prior.

The game offers two modes that players can pick from, “Arcade” and “Story.” Personally, the story mode is a lot more fun, despite the attempt at a story. The arcade mode has different options, however, where players may skip to different stages after they get through stage one. There is no choice in “Story” mode.

The story itself is translated into English subtitles, but still wildly confusing and overall pointless. Subtitles come onto the screen during game play, which makes it impossible to read in attempts to survive the onslaught of enemy fire. In the end, it just becomes annoying. I disregarded trying to understand the reason I was blowing up enemy ships and just went with it, mowing down anything in my path.

Radiant Silvergun offers a multiplayer option as well, which I found, if anything, incredibly amusing. Playing with a friend, we suffered the wrath of Silvergun together, dying left and right, yelling and laughing all the way. Eventually we became numb to defeat and kept plugging away. Playing with a friend definitely eases the pain and aggravation, that’s for sure. Eventually, we got in sync with one another and began covering specific sides of the screen, knowing what to expect and leveling up our weapons, making the game that much better.

It’s clear this is a videogame from a different time, which may say something about present day gaming altogether. It brings up the issue that some games are just too sugarcoated, holding gamers’ hands too long, leading them through things they are perfectly capable of doing on their own. It was a cruel awakening that Silvergun gave me, but I found I quite enjoyed the challenge. Some games are just too easy. Radiant Silvergun loudly boasts back that it refuses to be lumped into such a category. There’s a fine line between challenging and impossible, and Silvergun rides that line perfectly. After my initial shock, my comprehension of this fact led to addiction.

Yes, I still have trouble with the game even on the “very easy” setting (the “very hard” setting is really just another way of saying “yeah, right”), but that’s the point. Silvergun is a game for those who can grind and persevere. I’m a gamer that refuses to back down and this is a game that refuses to give in. I’m sure the game is beatable, but I don’t know if I will ever get to that point. We’ll just have to see as my Vulcan gun and homing lasers get stronger and stronger with each attempt.

The Blast Factor: Radiant Silvergun has shattered my hopes and dreams over and over, but for some reason, I keep coming back for more. And it may be twisted, but I kind of like the close-to-impossible challenge. It’s one of the best arcade shooters of its kind, pushing players to really “want it,” so to speak. The re-release got a nice makeover in HD, making the madness on screen look even better. The multiplayer is just an extra treat so friends can suffer along with you. The grinding can get tedious, however, and one mistake can set players back, which can be too much on occasion. If players truly want to test their ambition and persistence, Radiant Silvergun is worth purchasing off of Xbox Live Arcade. If you’re a gamer that needs instant success, then you may want to drop some quarters at the arcade on it instead of making the long-term buy.

I’ve had a plethora of cases for my iPhone 4. Along with snap-on cases, I have also owned slide-on cases, silicone cases, and everything in-between. With all of these cases, none has been as fun as the Gameboy iPhone 4 case from iCovers4U.

Simply put, this case is really cool. Both the original Gameboy and the iPhone are seen as iconic symbols in the world of technology, and bringing those two icons together has never looked so good. The iCovers4U Gameboy case comes in some bold colors; made for the iPhone
that’s looking to stand out in the crowd.

The case is your basic silicone iPhone case. It’s easy to put on and just as easy to remove. The one thing that is different with this case over other silicone cases I have used is that, instead of the usual “sticky” feel,it  has a smooth powdery finish that leaves it not only pleasant to the eyes, but also to the touch. The iCovers4U Gameboy case is great for the nostalgic gamer or even just the iPhone 4 owner that loves to have a conversation piece by their side. I have definitely gotten some double-takes of my phone while having this case on.It’s not all for amusement though, it also provides a lot of shock absorbency against hits and drops.

Blast Factor: iCovers4U has made a case that I literally have no complaints about. If you’re not a fan of silicone, this amazing looking case is most likely not for you. With it being unusually powdery soft to the touch, this case may convert some silicone-case-haters. Most importantly — It looks like a classic Gameboy! Need I say more?

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.

When the original Resistance was released alongside the PlayStation 3’s launch, it felt very much like a launch title. It was a good lucking, entertaining shooter, but certainly didn’t scream next-gen power. Full of linear paths, indestructible walls, and wide-open spaces purely used as massive arena battles, it served mostly to provide a pre-requisite sci-fi shooter and show off how many creatures the PS3 could shove on the screen at once.

Frankly, not a lot’s changed. The sequel was improved, but still suffered from a by-the-numbers design philosophy and felt like an endless string of gigantic set pieces, absurdly crowded battles, and gauntlet runs. With Resistance 3, Insomniac Games gotten off the leash just a little and while it would be easy to say the formula is fundamentally unchanged, the results are stunningly improved.

The third chapter picks up several years after the oppressively downbeat ending of Resistance 2. Players take the role of Joseph Capelli, the angry grunt from the second game whose actions lead to his dishonorable discharge. Joe has settled down, gotten married, and had a son.

Joe helps protect one of the rare “safe” towns with his family in Oklahoma, and the game does an amazing job of detailing just how dire the situation is for humanity. The chimera has overrun the United States and stopped capturing humans to replace their vast numbers. Now, they just kill any humans they find. To make matters worse, they’ve started reproducing in the wild somehow, leading to a feral breed of chimera that attack anything.

Through the game, Joseph will bear witness to all manner of horrors and wonder on this trip through the darklands of Americana. Vast wild herds of gigantic widow makers, hordes of zombie-like grims, and variations on other old favorites scour the landscape. The levels take you from Oklahoma to the Mississippi river, and through Pennsylvania, in order to reach the ultimate goal of destroying the worm hole generator in the heart of New York City.

To that end, Joe will fight through small towns, mine shafts, and burned out urban landscapes. He’ll defend a moving train and run rampant through a super max prison. Every environment feels new and different in comparison to the last, and the game’s oppressive portrait of a destroyed America makes the action feel all the more intense. Joseph, like Hale before him, isn’t a particularly personable protagonist, but the cinematic sequences and overall story do a good job of presenting him as the country’s last hope.

Resistance 3 throws in some surprisingly retro mechanics that actually make the game feel more innovative. The tired two-gun limit has been thrown out the window, allowing Insomniac to flex their creative penchant for destruction learned from Ratchet & Clank. Players now have access to all available guns all the time—provided they have ammo.

While old standbys like the shotgun, assault and sniper rifle, bullseye, auger, and magnum are all here, many of the new guns are ingenious. There’s a freeze gun, viral mutator, and lightning gun, all of which have very specific and entertaining uses. The secondary fire options are especially well-done. The mutator is a charge shot that can infect most enemies with a mutated chimera virus, leading to a truly awful death. The secondary fire, however, disperses a cloud of the virus to infect a group.

The magnum uses explosive shots that can be detonated at any time with the secondary fire. The lightning gun uses chain lightning normally, but also shoots a sucking vortex of death. The fights tend to be so overwhelming that using all the guns and constantly running low on ammo is common place.

The other change is Joe doesn’t regenerate, nor does he have a shield. Instead, he must find good ol’ health power-ups, which greatly changes up the tactics that most shooters have been relying on since the original Halo. It is somewhat annoying that Joe can’t actually hold med kits in his inventory, leading to somewhat unnecessary frustration during the harder battles.

Resistance 3 still relies heavily on a linear approach to design focusing on huge set pieces and vastly outnumbered battles. During some of these sequences, Joe has some minor help from AI allies, but mostly it’s just him against an army. The battles are well-paced, intense, and mostly incredibly entertaining.

Yet, there are times when it just feels canned. Why, for instance, would a lone human join a battle of militant chimera against a giant, feral widow maker instead of just sneaking around them? Another oddity is the final act, which bizarrely loses steam right when the game should be gearing up for a grand finale.

Just the same, Resistance 3 delivers an insane amount of over-the-top shooting carnage in an environment that feels amazingly compelling. Flaws be damned, this is a great single-player shooter. Multiplayer-centric players can opt to play cooperatively with a second player, or just battle each other with a solid array of online game modes. Some features are tweaked or missing from the earlier games and the multiplayer sessions have been downgraded (again) to 16 players, but it’s still an excellent example of online battling.

The Blast Factor: Add in excellent 3D and Move support, and Resistance 3 marks another great and much improved sequel exclusive to Sony. Insomniac has relaxed enough to tell a familiar story their way instead of simply making PlayStation alternative to Halo, and it shows.

Anyone who has ever played Warhammer 40,000 has dreamed of strapping on the Space Marine Armor and digging into a horde of Orks. To command a squad into battle, to rev up the chainsaw sword. THQ and Relic understand this and thus created Warhammer: 40,000: Space Marine; the most intimate and gritty look at the longstanding universe.  Space Marines isn’t perfect or innovative, but it is a fun and deeply satisfying new way to look at world that so many have been in for so long.

You are Captain Titus, leader of the Ultra Marines; a squad featuring the best of the best of the Space Marines. You and your small contingent are sent to eliminate an overwhelming presence or Orks from a hostile planet. It’s not the most interesting or original story, but it does feature enough twists and turns to keep even those unfamiliar with the universe interested throughout. What it does do however is give one of the most intimate and gritty looks at the franchise yet. Warhammer has always been more of a passive experience – you command your  table-top troops from a distance above, in Space Marines however, you are the Commander, and you’re right in the mix of the battle with your fellow soldiers – and it’s just as satisfying as you would imagine.

You and the Space Marines are armed with a few weapons at the outset of your quest, and chief among them is your chainsword. The first time you equip it and walk right into a swarm of Ork soldiers, sword swinging, the weapons feel extremely weighted and satisfying. Space Marines is a bloody and violent game, and it’s not afraid to show it; it’s a regular occurrence to be up against a ton of enemies one minute, only to be lost in a sea of blood the next.  As you progress through the game you’ll unlock new weapons and abilities to tailor the commander to your play style.

The gameplay in Space Marines isn’t anything revolutionary, but it is built on strong gameplay elements that make Warhammer entertaining throughout.  The majority of the game is a mix of melee combat and gunplay, and to be successful you’re going to have to switch between the two pretty regularly.  The game has frequent supply drop boxes where you can switch out weapons, spread throughout the game, a nice tough given the fact that you’ll often go into a battle unknowingly with the wrong weapons for the job.  These supply boxes allow you to try again – from a different route.

For all that it does right; Space Marines has a nasty habit of stopping its own momentum. The game’s story isn’t anything to write home about, but Relic seems intent on making it work via a series of incredibly intrusive cut scenes. It’s often that you’ll clear one section, trigger a cut scene and then walk five feet to trigger another one. These cut scenes take you out of the game in a major way. There’s also an issue with Relic being obsessed with its own game’s beauty, as there are a number of sections where you’ll be walking down long corridors without any enemies to fight, and it seems like it always happens when the game’s environments are at their best.

Warhammer’s campaign isn’t obtrusively long, but it’s not incredibly short either. That being said, the game’s legacy will be made through its online suite. The game modes aren’t that surprising,  but adding in real players to the game’s frantic mix does wonders for the formula. In the week since the game’s release, the servers have been very busy and with any hope a solid community will spring up around the game.

The Blast Factor: Space Marine could have been a mess of a genre transition, but Relic and THQ have done a great job in giving you a different and much more intimate look at a long established franchise. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but Warhammer is a game that’s built on solid mechanics and thought out progression. Perhaps the most important aspect, it feels like the start of a brand new franchise.

Dead Island is a classic example of art imitating life. By the very definition of the term, Dead Island can easily be considered to be a bit of a  zombie itself. Originally scheduled for release in 2008, the game was repeatedly delayed and assumed killed off until a new emotional trailer featuring a family fighting for their lives against a horde of undead invaders hit the web and instantly went viral. Back from the proverbial dead, Dead Island was set to be an emotional and gripping take on the zombie formula.

Or at least it was supposed to be.

Half a year and a ton of hype later, Dead Island’s final product isn’t what you thought it would be – and that’s not an incredibly terrible thing. With its interesting twist on the growingly stale zombie apocalypse genre, Dead Island has some great ideas, they just don’t feel as well thought out as they could be. At its best moments, it’s a thrilling horror survival game, but at its worst – it’s a dated, limited, lethargic and confusing experience.

The clear strength of Dead Island lies within its setting. The isle of Banoi is lush, tropical and offers picturesque views, an significantly different world than most games dealing with the zombie apocalypse.  The change in setting works wonders for the game’s survival horror feeling as you’re not (well, at least for most of the game) looking around the same corners as you would in most games as the tourist resort is full of small twists and turns that you’re not going to expect. Some of the best moments of the game involve walking past an area dense with hills and trees and you’re suddenly startled by the scream of the undead when you have absolutely no idea where it’s coming from.

Perhaps that’s the genius of Dead Island, rather than focusing on merely wailing on zombies at every turn, the focus is clearly on survival. You’re rarely ever going to run into a horde of undead and have to fight your way through (though, fear not, it does happen), rather the game throws a few zombies at you, but places them in all of the right places. It’s an extremely cool feeling to round a corner and see a ton of bodies, and one of them slowly gets up, looks at you and begins to charge.  It’s a frequent occurrence to hear a growling undead from somewhere and then have to quickly adapt your strategy.

It may have the walking dead featured prominently, but Dead Island feels like no zombie game before it. It’s probably easiest to describe the game as Fallout meets the zombie apocalypse. You choose your character based on skill specialty (one for example is more proficient than the other in throwing weapons, while the other’s specialty is brute weapons) and level up as you progress through the game’s sidequests and finding items. As you level up, you’ll gain access to new weapons and the ability to combine these weapons at workbenches found throughout the island.  While this may sound great, it’s also where the game begins to fall apart. The game puts absurd restrictions on the weapons you can use depending on what level you are. Like an old wrench for example.. You mean I can’t just pick up a rusty wrench from the ground and start wailing on zombies? Nope. You’ll have to unlock certain levels first. I get it, I really do; it’s a way to progress through the game, but it’s a little frustrating when you’re searching for weapons as you’re being chased down by zombies and the only thing you can find is something you’re not able to use.

In games like Dead Rising and its sequel, you were similarly asked to look throughout the environment for weapons and items to help fight off the undead horde. In those games, the question instantly became “Can I do this?” and the answer was mostly yes, but in Dead Island, it’s a frequent no. See that surf board leaning up against the lifeguard tower? Wouldn’t it be swell to take that and beat the hell out of a few zombies? Well…you can’t. That’s just a piece of the scenery, have this canoe oar instead.  Oh, that pool umbrella over there? The one with the pointed end that could impale a zombie? You can’t use that either, can I interest you in this canoe oar instead (yeah, there’s a lot of those in the game).

It all plays a part in just how dated Dead Island feels. A good majority of the weapons feels remarkably the same, and you’ll end up grinding your way through a good portion of the game.  A lot of my play time went like this: grab weapon, swing wildly, clear area, repeat. You can make the point that this is the point of a game like this, but here, it all feels so uninspired.  On the same note, the island and its sweeping vistas may look impressive, but the characters and their animations look like they’re straight out of the early days of this console generation.  The voice acting is rather well done though.

My final complaint about Dead Island may be a small one, but it’s just as important. Now, I’m the guy who when given the choice, will normally choose the “good guy” route in most games, but even though I wasn’t given the choice in Dead Island, I felt like a douche the entire time. Regardless of what character you choose, you wake up in your hotel room unsure of what’s going on, you know nothing about the undead roaming around; all you really know is that something is going on and it’s probably a good idea to get up. That doesn’t stop you from digging through people’s bags and luggage to find supplies and money, oh, and deodorant. Lots of deodorant.

The Blast Factor: Dead Island is like no other zombie game you’ve played, and that’s both a good thing and a terrible thing. At its best, it’s a zombified take on Fallout, but at its worst – it’s a dated and uninspired action title with little to offer in the end. Regardless, if you’re a fan of zombies or action games, you should at least check out Dead Island, even if it is disappointing.

Based on the Comedy Central animated series created by Devin Clark, Ugly Americans Apocolypsegeddon is a multiplayer twin-stick  shooter, allowing up to four people to tangle with the hordes of the undead and demonic that are attempting to bring about the end of the world. Players can choose one of four protagonists from the show, Mark (the human), Leonard (a drunk wizard), Callie (a demon girl), or Grimes (a cop). Each character has their own special abilities, and can level up a list of attributes and gain access to thirty different weapons.

The end of days is coming to New York City and its up to you to put a stop to it… again. Ugly Americans progresses smoothly from an opening cutscene to set the mood, straight into the first chapter of your journey.The flow of the game works relatively well, setting the chapter up, playing through a level and ending with a boss fight. Each boss fight demands that the player figure out the bosses patterns and attacks, but most of the fights can be won by simply circling around the level and shooting. With a top-down viewpoint, gamers move their way through a variety of levels ranging from a side-scrolling cityscape to a enclosed club setting with a giant cross-dressing demon named Bethany charging after you and blasting your characters with techno music.

The gameplay itself is pretty standard; move your character with the left analog stick, shoot with the right, release a special attack with the right bumper. The game is easy to learn and quick to master, but unfortunately, the easy to learn, repetitive style of play is also easy to get bored with, even with the shifting levels and interesting looking bosses to contend with. Each of the playable characters all eventually end up feeling the same, and with the exception of their special attack essentially don’t differentiate from one another. The attributes and stats that come with leveling up are also pretty standard (strength, health points, agility, etc). Throughout the levels, players can also pick up items to help boost these stats such as Demon Babies that give you a permanent buff while you’re carrying them. The weapons, while very intriguing and humorous, are all very similar. High fire rate weapons equal less damage, while slow firing weapons do more, so essentially the only weapons that need to be used are the heavy hitters, as the majority of the fights in the game consist of players trying to knock down a giant health bar while circling the enemy.

The Blast Factor: Ugly Americans is a game that clearly caters to fans of the show. With a script written by the creator, the game falls a little flat on those looking for an interesting twin-stick shooter to have fun with. The linear feel of the levels leading up to the eventuality of a boss fight, players might very well feel a sense of disappointment or perhaps even boredom as they progress through the game. The multiplayer aspect is one of the redeeming qualities of the game, but it is difficult to actually get a four player matchup as so few people are playing it.

Okay, stick with me here – in Driver: San Francisco, John Tanner, undercover cop and everyman has the ability to shift from one person to another and take over their body as they drive around the streets of San Francisco. For now, let’s ignore the immediate questions that spring up at this idea (Only in cars? What happens to his own body when he does this?) and the fact that it sounds like the premise for a cheesy Sci-Fi channel movie and focus one thing; somehow – the shifting mechanic works..and it works very well. The latest Driver installment is a wildly fun and over the top summer movie of a driving game that throws realism to the wind and allows you to enjoy the fun of car crashes, tight turns and yes – even shifting.

In all fairness, the story makes sense when you look at it in context. Tanner’s long time rival Jericho has broken out of jail again and sends our protagonist into a coma very early in the game. The rest of the events, shifting and all, take place in the comatose mind of Tanner, so it’s a bit more believable in that sense. Regardless, it works well within the world of Driver: San Francisco. The majority of the game’s missions require you to either chase, follow or beat someone to a location, and the shifting mechanic allows you to never really feel out of the mission until the very end. Take one of the missions where I was asked to take out another car before it gets to a meeting point on the other side of the city.  The game’s arcade controls aren’t very tight and as such, I plowed right into the wall. In most games, this would be the time to curse the game out and restart the mission, but using the shift mechanic, I was able to pull up a map that goes far above the city and pick a car close to the target vehicle and continue the mission.

Scoff if you want at how easy this all sounds, but it’s not without its fair share of issues. It takes about a second and a half to shift into any vehicle, so you’ll have to be very strategic about which vehicle you’ll choose. Is it going the right way? How close is it to the target vehicle? How fast is it? Picking the wrong vehicle can make for some frustrating moments, but it can also make for some awesomely surprising ones as well.  There were more than a few times when I chose what I thought was the right car, but it ended up just crashing into cars coming behind me, which caused the target car to wreck.  Well, that works…

Driver: San Francisco is not a racing game and it’s at its best when it clearly knows this.  The best moments are found when the game embraces its quirky nature and goes completely over the top, but when the game introduces the racing missions, things slow down tremendously.  The game also loses steam near the game’s third act, as the missions start to blend together and become very repetitive. It’s a bit disappointing to get two acts of amazing fun, and then the third is such a screaming halt.

Luckily then, Driver’s San Francisco is a large one that’s great fun to explore.  If you’ve ever been to the city, San Francisco is a spread out and bustling metropolis with a small town vibe you can’t find anywhere else, complete with landmarks and tourist attractions, even areas filled with small mom and pop shops. The city may not be recreated exactly within the game, but the key points are there, and of course, the hills make for some awesome chase moments. I often found myself ditching missions just to look around the city of San Francisco, which by the way is rendered at a beautiful 60 frames per second.

Perhaps most surprising about Driver: San Francisco is just how fun the game’s multiplayer suite is.  The shift system works amazingly well in this realm as it gives even the most novice players a chance to stay in the game for longer. The multiplayer missions also tend to get away from the typical race and wreck type of missions that multiplayer racers like this usually use in favor of some lesser used types. One game mode for example finds you having to trail behind a target car to get points while another has you playing a game of tag with an ever changing target core to earn points.

Blast Factor: It may not be the most realistic racer on the market, but Driver: San Francisco is a wonderfully fun arcade style driving game that shouldn’t be missed. The San Francisco setting makes for a virtual playground of vehicular enjoyment, and the shifting mechanic works surprisingly well. If you’re looking for a fast paced and fun action car title – you really can’t go wrong here. Welcome back Driver, we’ve missed you.

With a name like Hole in the Wall, it’s easy to get the wrong idea. It’s probably not a phrase you’d want to Google at work, for instance. As it turns out, this downloadable Kinect title is a mostly innocent and goofy full-body motion game based off of a Japanese game show. So, expect weirdness to abound.

The basic premise is that a wall is coming toward you, with a shaped hole in it that you must fit through. Most of these shapes are poses—some standing, some sitting, kneeling, or even laying down—and a timer is running, so you have to be quick and flexible. If you don’t fill the hole within the time period, your avatar is shoved into a pool of water.

Hole in the Wall is pretty weird, but not entirely original even for American audiences. Nintendo released the far more bizarre Muscle March on the Wii’s online store a while ago, which was basically the same concept. Also, iPhone/iPad users might recognize all this wackiness from Tic Toc Body Pop, where you move a mannequin around to match the hole in the wall.

The first concern with any Kinect game is how accurately it uses the camera. From that perspective, Hole in the Wall is good with a few quirks. The game actually uses your avatar as the on-screen character, which mimics your body movements amazingly well. You’ll have to move all over the playing area to position your avatar in line with the hole, then adjust your limbs, head, and height accordingly.

There are occasions when you’d swear you were in the right place, but the game still doesn’t register success. There are more times when you’re barely in the spot and the score meter starts to rise. At first, it’s easy to assume the game only notices when you’re simply standing in the right spot, as that’s generally when the score meter starts moving. In reality, the game fills the score meter faster based on how much of the hole you’ve filled and if your various limbs are in basically the right spot.

When it all works right—which is most of the time—it’s bizarrely entertaining. This is especially true in the multiplayer mode, which dangerously supports two teams of two. While the teams do take turns, striking poses with your teammate at the same time will likely end up creating some hilarious, yet possibly tragic new Youtube videos. After all, isn’t that where all motion gameplay mishaps end up?

Packaged around a game-show theme, the main portion of Hole in the Wall contains ten different multi- stage rounds. Each round has a theme (sports, winter, etc…), but the gameplay seldom varies in the slightest. The final stage of each round throws in a quirk—the first, for instance, turns off the stage lights, while others just speed up the pace of the wall entirely. There’s also a survival mode, where the object is to pass through as many holes as possible without fail. Unfortunately, this mode rampantly reuses the same poses over and over.

The Blast Factor: Much like the show it’s based on, Hole in the Wall is entirely hinged on a single gimmick. In short doses, the game is entertaining for a cheap thrill and certain to elicit laughter from bystanders. Whether this limited amount of value is worth 800 points is a personal decision, but for what it is, Hole in the Wall is an odd, amusing diversion from the norm.

They say that football is a game of inches. That it’s won and lost in the trenches, and not by the flashy plays that make the highlight reels. The same could be said then for Madden. The long running football series is built year after year by small improvements, rather than game changing new features (I’m looking at you quarterback vision cone).  This year’s game is no different, new features like Dynamic Player Performance are a welcome addition, and it’s still a satisfying game of pigskin, but there isn’t much new here to separate it from last year’s offering. Though it may be more Kerry Collins and less Peyton Manning, Madden NFL 12 is still a great time for fans of the sport.

The biggest addition to this year’s game is unquestionably the Dynamic Player Progression system. Essentially, it helps players act more like their real life counterparts. Player’s ratings are now effected by everything from the hits they take, to the flow of the game and even how they’ve been playing in the last few games, meaning you won’t be able to constantly rely on the same plays to the same players all season long. For instance, if Green Bay Packer tight end Jermichael Finley is on a cold streak and has been dropping open passes lately, I may want to look elsewhere when driving down the field for that come from behind drive. These ratings are pretty true to life, as players like Manning, Rodgers and Brady have remarkable poise in tense situations, yet rookies and those known for being rattled easy like Jay Cutler will begin making dumb mistakes if you don’t change your game plan up quick.

Dynamic Player Progression is a big part of this year’s Madden feeling much more realistic than previous editions ; as does the presentation – mostly. This year, EA has put an obvious emphasis on recreating the same camera angles and production aspects you’d see on TV and in stadiums around the league. The first few times you see these new angles, you’ll be impressed, but when they happen every single game, they get old rather quickly. The stadium specific introductions are well done, though shortened; really, teams only introduce two to three starters per game.

The biggest question though? Why stop there? Being the only licensed NFL game on the market and the only game that can use the ESPN license could be a huge deal, but the Madden series continuously throws the opportunity away. Where are the ESPN video packages? ESPN branding is almost nonexistent in this year’s game.  On top of that, why not take advantage of being the only actual NFL game on the market? Why not use the ESPN logos, tickers and graphics for games? I understand it would be hard to get the licenses for packages for each of the networks that carry NFL games, but how hard could it be to give me actual ESPN Monday Night Football presentation to make these games feel that much better. Hell, why not show me NFL network video packages?

Another disappointing aspect of the presentation of this year’s game is undoubtedly the commentary. Last year I applauded the addition of Gus Johnson, but somehow this year it just feels like it’s too much. Yes, it’s great when a remarkable, game changing play takes place and he shows true emotion, but Mr. Johnson is very excitable and makes every play, even short five yard passes seem like the best thing to ever happen to the game. Oh, and Chris Collinsworth? You may want to look into why they’re turning you into the game’s comedic value – I’ve had to listen on multiple occasions how you told me how great Greg Jennings’ arm strength is, and how he can riffle passes into tough spots. Yeah, Jennings is a receiver. I’m calling it – next year I want Joe Buck.

All of that aside, Madden’s core football gameplay is incredibly satisfying. Perhaps that’s as a result of the game’s hardest difficulty being ramped up to include smarter AI and better play recognition. The defense will pick up on tendencies and exploit them, and you better have a good adjustment plan.  New defensive animations and tackling systems makes that side of the ball a ton more satisfying to play. I honestly couldn’t get enough of wrecking guys with guys like Clay Matthews and BJ Raji.  With all of its downfalls, you can take solace in the fact that yes, Madden NFL 12 is still great fun to play.

Blast Factor: Madden NFL 12 may not be the best of the series, but it is a satisfying and fun football experience. The dynamic player performance system is an interesting addition the established formula, and should change how you at least play franchise mode. If Madden NFL 12 were an NFL team, they’d be the team that misses the playoffs, but only slightly.

We live in a society obsessed with perfecting the human image. These shoes will make you run faster, this drink gives you more stamina and this surgery will irresistible to the opposite sex. The world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a futuristic look at where that society is headed, and it’s a grim one.  Competing biotech corporations are augmenting people with new limbs and new senses, but a secret war for these technologies is brewing and innocent lives are being put at risk for this war.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the latest chapter in the long running, critic and cult favorite series casts players in the middle of this war and gives them the freedom to decide just how it pans out. Your choices have a tremendous amount of weight and as such, the replay factor is through the roof. Deus Ex is not just a tremendous action game, it’s a gripping and satisfying tale that hits all (well, most) of the right notes to leave you on the edge of your seat.

Human Revolution casts you in the role of Adam Jensen, chief security officer for Sarif Industries, one of the leading Biotechnology companies on the planet. Sarif is on the verge of a major breakthrough, and could unlock the full potential of the human body, but they have their detractors. Not only are their rival companies attempting to steal their information and ideas by any means necessary, they also have a number of “purists” who believe that their work is wrong. On a routine mission, Jensen is attacked and left for dead, leading him to augmented with the company’s own technology.  What results is your quest  to unravel a global conspiracy and find your attackers.

Human Revolution is so gripping because it deals with issues that though they may be a ways off, are very possible in today’s society, but just how deep you dive into the mythos of the game is completely up to you – and that’s where the game truly begins to shine.   A lot of games can claim to give you choices, but very few give you the freedom that Deus Ex offers. Each mission gives you a few basic choices, for instance if you want a weapon to take out enemies from a distance or close-up, but you never feel like the game is guiding you in a certain direction. You’re merely dropped into a mission and asked to complete it in whichever way you prefer. Go through and take out

Deus Ex allows players to take on missions anyway they want.

I often found myself going the other route; sneaking around missions and avoiding enemy contact whenever possible. This is where Deus Ex is at its most gripping, enemy AI is astoundingly good, responding to everything from noise to suspicious activity and yes, even unconscious bodies if you don’t hide them well enough. You’ll genuinely have to plan a strategy and think about how you’re going to do things before leaping right in, as getting caught often leads to having to think on the fly, and adopt a new strategy.  The way you play not only has an effect on the game’s missions, but the way the game itself plays out, as certain actions will open up new interactions and side missions that further delve deep into the world of Deus Ex.

There is something to say though for how satisfying and remarkably realistic the game’s gunplay is. Throughout the game (especially if you choose to shoot first and ask questions later), you’ll gain access to a lot of different weapons, and each feels like its weighted right and fun to shoot. It’s incredibly rewarding to take out a room of baddies with a high powered weapon, and the game’s well done cover system adds to it by leaps and bounds.

As you play through Deus Ex, you’ll earn Praxis points, the game’s currency system that you’ll use to level up and earn new abilities. These too have a profound effect on just how you’ll experience the game. I found myself investing them in the blades on my arms, as I found it incredibly rewarding to sneak up on an enemy and take them out this way, but you’re able to distribute them to literally any aspect of your character in an effort to max out your play style of choice. A tip though – no matter how you choose to play, give a significant amount of your points to hacking, as it makes the entire game easier, and opens up a lot of new choices.

For all that it does right; Deus Ex has an unfortunate habit of stopping its own momentum. While the majority of the game is choice driven, there’s a few moments where the game feels remarkably linear, and you can’t help but feel like the game is pushing you in certain directions. A good example of these moments are the game’s boss fights. In a normal game, they’d be sufficient, but when a game is as well done as Deus Ex, they seem out of place and counterproductive to what the game truly wants to do.

Though it’s marred by dated facial animations, the majority of Deus Ex: Human Revolution looks like an art-school dystopia. Heavy on blacks and grays, the game plays the troubled future motif well, and not as predictable as some other games that explore the same theme.  There were multiple times I just found myself staring out a window at the wonderfully rendered cityscape. Human Revolution is one of most unique and cool looking games of this generation.

The Blast Factor: Barring a few missteps, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a gripping and unique thrill ride that everyone should play. It’s faith in its mechanics, and play style allows the player an ultimate sense of freedom and the result is a game that you’re not going to want to just experience, but play through again and again. It may not be perfect, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a great action romp.

Fruit Ninja is a game that, by all reasonable standards, has no right to be so idiotically entertaining. A sensation on the mobile scene to rival Angry Birds, the game’s absurdly simple concept of just slicing fruit works brilliantly with the Xbox 360’s Kinect. In fact, it works so well, Fruit Ninja may well be the best game yet to use Microsoft’s super camera.

The big screen version of Fruit Ninja is largely identical to the one on your phone. The interface has switched from your finger to your hand (or, really, your whole body), but otherwise this is exactly the same fruit-slashing action millions have come to know and love. Also, at 800 points (or about $10), it’s certainly more expensive than the mobile version. The reward for that extra cash is a game that’s as hilarious to watch as it is to play.

For the few who haven’t experienced the wonder that is Fruit Ninja, the concept is as simple as it gets. Fruit flies up onto the screen, and you swipe at it to cut it in half. If there’s a group of fruit, you’ll get bonus points for cutting multiple fruit in half at once. In the main game, bombs will fly up as well, and slashing them will end the game. Missing too many fruit also ends the game.

There’s the zen mode as well, for those that want to leisurely cut fruit for a minute or two. The Kinect version adds a party mode that allows two players to slash fruit together, although the potential for personal injury and the slapping of each other instead of fruit looms large. Achievements and high scores unlock new blades and dojos, which essentially means different colored slash marks against different backgrounds.

While the game itself is the same, the motion controls turn Fruit Ninja into an original experience. The game helps players relate to the screen by superimposing a ninja-like shadow image on the screen. This shadow figure mimics the player’s moves exactly, and helps immensely with creating a sense of connection to the screen. Admittedly, the shadow becomes background noise and there are some spots on the screen that are consistently hard to cover.

The lower corners of the screen are especially hard to reach no matter how the Kinect is set up, so expect some fast moves and kicks to catch all the fruit. As expected, how well Fruit Ninja functions depends on how well the Kinect works. The game is definitely one of the most user-friendly and responsive Kinect games available, but don’t expect miracles if the Kinect normally has issues with its location.

Blast Factor: Fruit Ninja isn’t deep or complex, but for a shallow good time, there are few games that virtually everyone—no matter their age or gaming prowess—can just start playing and have fun. The move to the Kinect is a natural one and the game is simply one of the best uses yet for the camera. Fruit Ninja is a cheap good time, and one that will likely burn a surprising amount of calories to boot.

You really can’t say Sega and Next Level games didn’t try. For Captain America: Super Soldier, the game loosely based on this summer’s big
budget adaptation of Marvel’s long running comic series, they took obvious inspiration from Batman: Akrham Asylum; widely regarded as
the best comic book video game of all time.  Unfortunately, they only borrowed the game’s ideas, and failed to capture what made the caped crusader’s latest adventure so memorable. That being said, it’s not all bad, and it may not be saying much, but Captain America: Super Soldier reaches heights that other Marvel games could only dream of.

Much like most video games based on comics book movies, the adventure in Captain America: Super Soldier takes place within the universe of the movie but doesn’t follow the events precisely.  This isn’t an origin story so you won’t have to take Steve Rogers from scrawny Brooklyn kid to National Hero, instead much like Arkham Asylum, the entirety of the game takes place in one location, a castle high in the Bavarian mountains.  It’s a sprawling complex, and it’s also home to scientist Armin Zola and his ruthless creations. Your job of course is to go in to the castle, stop Zola and destroy pretty much everything in the process.

What separates a game like Captain America from one like Arkham Asylum is simply how engrossing it is, and this is the game’s first misstep; as much of the game’s six hour campaign is incredibly dull and forgettable. Go into an area, punch a bunch of guys in their face, whip out the shield and move on. Of course, there are some moments that break up this monotony, but they’re few and far between.  Of course, the combat is not only responsive, but surprisingly rewarding, but even it’s not enough to break up Captain America’s monotony of bleak browns and grays.

That lack of detail also spills out into just how the game is designed. While playing the game, you feel the sprawling castle should be explored, but thanks to the tedious and dull level design it’s never quite as satisfying as it should be. It’s almost as if the developers realized this halfway through as they included a sewer system that goes underneath pretty much the entire castle to streamline travel and give you an option other than retracing your steps constantly through the castle. For what it’s worth, there’s a ton of collectibles you can find throughout Captain America, but none of them are things you’ll want. Beer steins? Whatever. Why not give me collectible comic book covers I can view, or movie art, or something other than random crap?

Captain America does its best to imitate a free-roam game, but is really a linear experience in every sense of the term. There are platforming sections that give the illusion that you’re free to explore and free to go about the game your own way, but in reality you’re still just moving from narrow corridor to narrow corridor. This has a definite effect on just how you’ll play through the game as you’re bound to get frustrated as you feel like you should get to that item, but it’s always just out of reach.

Captain America did nail one of the aspects from Batman: Arkham Asylum, the fact that you’ll never really get a quality boss fight with the one you’ve been waiting to take out for the entire game. Oh, there are some pretty frequent boss fights with some of Cap’s most famous recurring enemies like Iron Cross and Madame Viper, but you’ll never get that face with Red Skull you’ve been waiting the whole game for. You play through the entire game, slogging through tedious boss fight after tedious boss fight, waiting to get to the epic battle, but it never comes – it’s really all quite cheap.

There’s also something to be said for just how clean Captain America really is. Strangely, you’re playing as the same character who punched Adolf Hitler in the face on the cover of one the comics, but there’s absolutely no mention of Hitler, the Third Reich or the Nazi party. Instead, the soldiers with the goofy German accent are Hydra soldiers. I understand that putting such touchy topics in a game that kids will undoubtedly play, but these same topics are discussed in the movie, why hide it? Why make the game so squeaky clean?

The Blast Factor: Clocking in at just about 5-6 hours with no multiplayer, Captain America is slim on content and features, but that doesn’t mean it should be avoided at all costs. At the very least, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of Thor, Iron Man and other Marvel movie tie ins and that came before it, even if that’s not saying much. Still though, one of Marvel’s biggest names deserves better; there’s always The Avengers.

“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.”

After reflecting on my time with Runespell: Overture, I can’t help but think back to this quote from A Bronx Tale. At the core of Runespell is an enjoyable –and often, challenging- battle system that shows plenty of promise. Unfortunately, while Runespell can be very fun at times, the experience is marred by repetitive encounters, a half-baked story with terrible writing, and a curious lack of multiplayer.

Developer Mythic Box describes Runespell: Overture as “a unique RPG that combines Poker and Collectable Card mechanics.” That may sound a bit confusing –I didn’t quite get it until I sat down to play- but it really is the best way to describe the game.

What passes for a story in Runespell goes something like this; The player character, a generic-looking cloaked figure known as the Changeling, wakes up with no memories in the middle of a massive blizzard in an alternate history England. After some existential pondering, the Changeling sets off in search of answers and eventually joins in a quest to gain entrance to a fortress, Skullgrim, which is said to contain great power. However similar the plots may sound, the Dark Tower series this is not.

There are some feeble attempts at character development but the writing in Runespell is so bad that it’s almost funny. Even after realizing how awful the dialogue was, I found myself reading every single line similar to the way that some people can’t look away from a bad car accident. Also, any player that needs their stories to be fully explained and tied up with a neat little bow will come away unhappy. A spoiler warning would normally be warranted when discussing the ending of a game but in this case there’s nothing to spoil as the credits roll before the dust has even settled on the final battle. What is actually in Skullgrim? What becomes of the Changeling and his merry band of adventurers? I presume these concerns will be addressed in a sequel but pardon me if I’m not holding my breath to wait for the answers.

While Runespell’s story is woeful, the card battle system offers gameplay that is generally quite good. Combat plays out between the Changeling and an opponent using a setup that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has played Solitaire. However, in Runespell, the player must create five-card poker hands in each available slot. Completing a poker combination allows the Changeling to attack resulting in damage that corresponds to the quality of the hand. So, playing a pair will deliver a minor scrape while unleashing a royal flush causes massive damage. The player can either move around his own cards to create combinations or steal cards from his opponent that have yet to be stacked.

In addition to creating poker hands, the player must also manage his set of special-ability-granting collectible cards. The collectible cards offer a variety of enhancements such as element-based magic attacks and protection spells, melee attack buffs, and my personal favorite, lockouts, which prevent an opponent from using an ability card for a short period of time. Using a collectible card requires Rage Points which are generated by completing melee attacks with the poker hands.

Being successful in Runespell combat requires the player to manage a cycle of generating poker hands to build Rage Points and then unleashing special abilities at the proper time for maximum effect all while attempting to undermine the efforts of each opponent. The battles are fun to play and require thinking ahead in order to successfully execute a combat strategy. Fights are often extremely close and even those against lesser opponents can prove to be a harrowing experience.

Although the combat can be very entertaining, I did note several issues with it. Encounters can become repetitive, largely due to the nature of the collectible card system. I found that there was not enough variety among the abilities, particularly the magic attacks, to warrant trying radically different strategies. The limited options also cause most opponents to have a similar card setup which further leads to a feeling of taking part in the same fight over and over. I was also bothered by the fact that the HUD does not indicate how many rounds are left on status effects and by the random ambushing –which gives the opponent the first move- that happens with greater frequency against more difficult enemies late in the game.

The last major problem I had with Runespell is the absence of multiplayer. It seems to me that this type of combat system would thrive upon the cunning between two human players. Not including multiplayer support for a competitive card game is a baffling decision.

Beyond the fun to be had with the battle system, there are several other positives in Runespell. The game is very appealing visually, particularly for a card game. The menus and HUD are all well designed and look great. Characters are decently animated in a style that apes World of Warcraft and there is a bit of special effects flair when abilities are used. One particularly nice graphical touch is the painted world map. However, the map looks so good that it creates an awkward contrast with the lame Changeling icon that gets moved around on it. The music in Runespell, although not ample in selection, does an effective job of conveying the excitement of combat throughout the game.

Blast Factor: Runespell is a curious mix of cards and fantasy elements that will likely appeal to a very narrow audience. The battle system is creative and can be quite a lot of fun to play. However, the larger issues with the game, such as the uninspired story and lack of multiplayer, make it hard to recommend for everyone, even at the $10 price point.

Want to know a secret? I’ve never seen a single moment of a Harry Potter movie, nor have I read a page of any of the books. Nothing against the franchise, I just never did. In fact, the only real concrete memory I have of the series is the god awful first Deathly Hallows game.  Is this really what people wait in line for?

The good news is that pretty much everything has been refined from The Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the bad news? It’s still pretty bad. Though there’s been obvious effort to tweak and tune the mechanics from the last game, they still don’t work and can be incredibly frustrating. With painfully bad voiceovers and a dull, short campaign, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II is not a good gaming send off for a franchise that defined a generation.

Much like its predecessor Deathly Hallows: part II plays like Gears of War in a Harry Potter mask. If that sounds weird…well that’s because it is. You’ll take cover and use your wand as your main weapon.  Different spells have different effects and can be used to take on different tasks – when they arise. That last part is key as the majority of the game is an incredibly repetitive affair.  Walk in to an area, cast a few spells, defeat bad guys and repeat until the game is over.  From time to time you’ll get new spells that will make the game feel a bit different (especially towards the end of the game), but for the bulk of the game, it all feels the same.

The most disappointing part of the game happens when you figure out just how paint by numbers the game is. Take the cover system for example; in a game like Gears of War, there’s multiple options for cover in an effort to be strategic, but in Deathly Hallows, it’s obvious that the developers put the cover points in where you’re supposed to take cover.  It gets to the point where you’ll see cover and instinctively know that death eaters are going to pop up right in front of it. This type of handholding becomes a bit more accepting when you take into account the game’s target audience; but it’s no excuse for the lazy level design.

One of the game's many different spells

For what it’s worth though, the game is full of great ideas – they’re just not implemented well. When you learn new spells, it’s a great deal of fun to experiment with them, but that feeling goes away when you realize that they all pretty much have the same effect. There’s a cool spell towards the end of the game that allows you to teleport between cover points, but it comes so late in the game that you never get the chance to truly explore what it can do. Perhaps Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II is most disappointing because it could have been much, much better.

The voice work in the game is done by impersonators, rather than the actual actors, and a few of them, like Harry, are rather impressive, but others are laughably bad. Characters like Voldermort come off as mere cartoon caricatures of their on screen personas. Visually, the game is a mixed bag. The screen is presented sans hub, which offers a nice and clean presentation, but the environments are so diluted and animations are so stiff that it doesn’t really matter. The first game had an embarrassing number of glitches that made the title’s faults stick out that much more, though most of those glitches are now gone, the graphical issues somehow still stick out.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II will only take most gamers about 3-5 hours to complete, which is incredibly short when you take into account the game’s $50 price tag.  There’s no extra modes, no multiplayer and thus no real reason to go back through a second time. With this being the last game of the series, why not offer collectibles or hidden nods to past stories for the fans? Sadly, Deathly Hallows: Part II is as bare bones as a game can get.

The Blast Factor: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II is miles ahead of the first game, but sadly, that’s not saying much. It’s a bare bones, flawed and unimaginative title that sadly never delivers on its novel ideas. So long Mr. Potter, sorry you never got a decent gaming experience.

You’ve probably already made up your mind about motion gaming. Chances are you’ve already cast it off. You don’t waggle, you prefer your sports with a controller and you definitely don’t dance. Child of Eden is here to challenge that idea. It’s an artful experimentation that not only assaults your ears and eyes, but uses the technology to tell an engaging story. Like nothing you’ve ever played before, Child of Eden is not only a great game, but could change your mind on Kinect and motion gaming altogether.

Part musical sequencer and part art project, It’s difficult to explain just what Child of Eden really is. The story revolves around trying to stop a virus from attacking Project Lumi, which would reproduce a human personality in exchange for an artificial one. You progress through the game by “purifying” items in each archive (or level). This works essentially like shooting would in any on rails shooter. You’ll take out or purify these enemies in two main ways, rapid fire shots or a lock on type gun. You’ll also have access to euphoria bombs, a powerful explosive that clears enemies.

Purifying enemies and finishing levels is incredibly rewarding, especially when using Kinect. There’s something remarkably satisfying about flicking your wrist and throwing your palm up to take out a group of enemies, but it sometimes doesn’t work out as easy as it should. A good portion of Child of Eden requires you to switch up the use of both of your hands, and the game seems to have an issue distinguishing which hand you’re using and as a result will misinterpret exactly what you want to do.

Undoubtedly the most impressive aspect of Child of Eden is how impressively the visuals work with each other aspect of the game to create a better game.  Take the level progression for instance, each of the game’s five levels (or archives as Child of Eden refers to them as) is broken up into specific aspects of life.  The Earth level for instance is made up of earthy tones and trees while the evolution level features animals transforming into other animals.  These level themes play into not only how the game looks, but how the game plays as well.

Child of Eden's visual style in like nothing you've seen before

The most impressive aspect by far is how well the music fits in with the Child of Eden experience. Starting off as rocking guitar riff and eventually rolling in to the techno style that fans of creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi have come to know. It’s also the music that keeps you in the game, as paying attention to the rhythm will allow you to time and plan your shots better.

Of course, with everything going on, you can make the comment that too much is going on with Child of Eden and it’s easy to get lost in the game’s assault on your senses. The key is to keep yourself in a rhythm to not succumb to this. Playing through Child of Eden opens up both a hard mode and a mode called “feeling eden” which enables you to play without fear of dying – it’s a great way to experience the game.

The Blast Factor: Child of Eden isn’t like anything you’ve ever played before. It’s part motion game, part shooter, part music game and all gorgeous. It’s a game that serves as a experiment of art in games, but most importantly it’s an engaging and truly unforgettable experience. Playing Child of Eden is not only the best game to feature motion control yet, it’s also a great game period.

In the last few years, comic book fans have been spoiled by games like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. So it’s logical to hope that Thor: God Of Thunder, the video game tie in for the Summer movie will follow the trend  and not be just another crummy movie tie in. You hoped wrong.  Thor: God of Thunder is less Batman: Arkham Asylum and more Iron Man, it’s just what you hoped it wouldn’t be; another subpar movie tie in that doesn’t seem interested in doing enough to stand out.  Sure, it does some things great, but even those elements can be found done even better in other games.

Much like other movie tie-ins, Thor doesn’t follow the story of its big celluloid brother, rather it features its own unique story written by comics scribe Matt Fraction (who also wrote the Iron Man 2 game).  It’s a shame then that the game’s story which finds Loki tricking Thor into causing destruction on other planets, and as a result going back to have to fix things seems so uninspired. You see, rather than really fixing things in Thor, like the game tells you you’ll be doing, you’ll constantly find yourself going through area after area just smashing anyone and anything you can get your hands on. See that crate? Smash it! See that building? Smash it! Yes, you’ve saved this planet!

Most of the game is held down by this repetitiveness as well. Much of the game finds Thor running from one room to another, getting locked in said room and then moving on and repeating. Luckily, the game’s mechanics save it from being a complete bore, at least at first. It’s easiest to compare Thor’s third person action mechanics to that of Sony’s God of War series; mashing on the attack button unleashes a fury of attacks on your opponents, and redirecting the thumbstick in any direction will cause Thor to attack in that direction. It’s a simple and intuitive formula that works well here until you start to realize that it’s the same set of moves repeating again and again.

You do get a break from the monotony of the button mashing though, in the form of the game’s surprisingly well done boss fights. The majority of these bosses are much larger than anything in the game, and as an admitted scale whore, I really enjoyed each of them. While they do of course feature the same basic mechanics, the elements of timing and strategy found in the boss fights makes it feel much different than the other areas of the game.

Playing through Thor, you’ll gain experience points, which in turn will give you tokens. These tokens can be used to upgrade Thor’s abilities, unlock new attacks or health. Exploring in certain areas will result in finding more tokens for these upgrades, but the game is so linear that there’s not really much to explore. In fact, you’ll notice that going pretty much anywhere off the beaten path will result in getting more of these tokens.

Visually, Thor: God of Thunder is a mixed bag, while environments like Asgard and several cityscapes look impressive, the majority of the game looks like it’s straight out of the last console generation. Characters look awkward and move even worse, and some of the environments and objects tend to get pixilated and blocky often. One bright spot in the game is the voiceovers, which are impressive, especially for a licensed game.

Blast Factor: Thor: God of Thunder isn’t a terrible game, it just doesn’t do much to break out of the monotony that hold so many licensed games. It’s a paint by numbers third person action game that if it didn’t have the likeness of Marvel’s Thunder God, wouldn’t even be noticeable. If you’re a huge fan of the character, you may want to check out Thor, otherwise – there’s always Captain America (fingers crossed).

It would seem that Square Enix no longer has the lock on tactical, on-the-go battles. While Japanesetitles like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre have long been fan favorites for turn-based, tacticalcombat, Ubisoft brings the strategy into the near future with the surprisingly good revamp of TomClancy’s Ghost Recon franchise. Shadow Wars could have easily been a slap-dash release to cash in onthe dearth of Nintendo 3DS games, but is instead one of the best tactical combat games we’ve seen in awhile.

The storyline is a by-the-numbers affair about fighting militant terrorist factions, mostly in former USSRrepublics like the Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Your squad isn’t much more than stereotypicalarchetypes that you’ll get to know purely for their classification as sniper, recon, medic, engineer,gunner, and commando. Shadow Wars really spends too much time on its story, breaking up missionsfrequently with talking head interludes.

Even the graphics are a bit cheesy looking, as if Ubisoft intentionally made the overhead viewpointhigh enough to ensure a lack of detail in the various characters on the screen. On the other hand,the environments are actually quite attractive, and the use of 3D is some of the best we’ve seen onthe system. Since the maps are viewed from above, and the gameplay takes landscape elevation intoaccount, the added sense of depth is used to great effect.

Shadow Wars is a game of surprising tactical depth. Every aspect of the battlefield has some meaninghere. Obstacles, range, contours of the landscape, enemy and weapon types, line of sight, and a hordeof other elements combine to form a superb strategy game. Better yet, the gameplay is remarkablyaccessible thanks to an intelligent learning curve and plenty of in-game tutorials.

That said, you can still screw up an entire mission with one wrong move. Thankfully, Shadow Warsallows you to save at any time, which is a huge advantage when missions can take almost an hourto complete. The touch screen is used to display tactical information on your troops, their skills, andweapons. The D-pad is used to move a cursor around on the game screen, allowing you to select yoursoldier, which grid square to move them too, and what actions to perform. The analog stick moves thecamera around.

The interface is solid overall, although the game is crying out for a platform that is entirely touch-screenbased. The main single-player campaign is amazingly lengthy as well, so gamers can expect over 20hours of combat. In addition, there are unlockable, standalone skirmish missions. Finally, there’s alsomultiplayer, which only supports two players by having them takes turns on the same 3DS.

Blast Factor: Despite the disappointing multiplayer, the rest of Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is an exemplary exampleof turn-based, tactical gameplay. There are hours of gameplay here, and a tactical system that is bothsurprisingly deep and accessible. The 3D effect is also used impressively, making this one of the best and most distinctive games for the 3DS’s launch.

With the launch of the Nintendo DS, Nintendo raised the ante for innovation thanks to the inclusionof both dual screens and a touch screen. Now, the company has created the first mainstream use ofglasses-free stereoscopic 3D. The question, of course, is does 3D actually enhance the experience ofplaying games on the go.

For gamers who appreciate what 3D offers, Nintendo has released an impressive piece of technologyin a tiny package. The handheld sports a 200 MHz GPU, which in comparison to the iPhone or averageAndroid-based device seems positively anemic. The 3D-capable top screen measures 3.53 inch andsupports a widescreen resolution of 800×240 pixels. The touch screen is 3 inches and sports a lowerresolution. Unlike the DS, that’s a wide difference between the two screens, so games that utilize bothscreens for gameplay (like Contra 4) seem unlikely.

Regardless, the main screen certainly produces excellent visuals. Without a doubt, Nintendo’stechnology works. The 3D effect is superb when used well. The 3DS can clearly provide images withan amazing sense of depth and dimension. The graphics are crisp and colorful, and on par with theGamecube and even the Wii. The 3D effect is a bit finicky though. You have to stare at the screenstraight on, and hold it still, or else the picture breaks up into a ghosted double image. There’s a handyslider bar to the right of the screen for adjusting the intensity of the 3D effect, or just turning it off.

The entire unit is actually smaller than the DSi, so it’s easy to slip into your pocket and take on the go.The 3DS supports 802.11 Wi-Fi and relies on its wireless abilities more than any other Nintendo gamesystem—even the Wii. Between the potential online gaming abilities, more streamlined friend codesystem, the new Streetpass mode, and, of course, the upcoming 3DS store, the 3DS should prove to be avery connected handheld.

Granted, the DSi had most of these features and could play games online, but it lacked a convenientway to create a friends list—the archaic friend code system Nintendo insists on using was actually gamespecific on the DS. The 3DS uses a system-specific code, so you only have to give your buddies a singlecode to connect with them.
The store, ability to browse the web, and the much-anticipated option to finally transfer DSi storepurchases to your 3DS will supposedly all be available in May. Right now, the online abilities of thesystem are nearly non-existent. Few of the launch games even support online play, but it’s clear that the3DS, once updated, will offer a level connectivity hitherto unseen from Nintendo.

The biggest feature of the 3DS next to actually being 3D is the Streetpass mode, though how useful thiswill be in actuality is up to speculation. When the system is in sleep mode, it can detect other sleeping3DS systems and connect to them. For games that utilize this functionality, this leads to data and bonusexchanges. In Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, for example, teams of character figurines you collect will actually fight AI battles with other 3DS teams. The winner will open their 3DS to reveal newly earnedbonuses, coins, and other goodies.

Streetpass is an intriguing attempt at essentially anonymous social gaming, and Nintendo at leastdeserves props for devising a creatively cool feature. How much use developers make of this abilityremains to be seen.
The inclusion of an analog nub is another improvement over the old DS. It’s a comfortable stick thatallows for more advanced controls, since movement is no longer confined to the D-pad. Other thanthat, the layout is identical to the DSi. The Wii-like graphic user interface is further refined as well. Thescrolling, icon-based menus are easy to navigate, although a few of the system options are somewhatburied.

The 3DS also sports an in-depth Mii creation system, just like the Wii. It can even create a Mii based on a head shot, which makes creating the little figures quick and easy. Wii owners will instantly recognize theMii Plaza as well for showing off collected Miis, though their use is still mostly a gimmick. The onboardcamera can take 2D or 3D shots, and, just like the DSi, has front- and back-facing cameras.

While the ability to take 3D photos is great, the resolution is painfully low, so you’ll likely only be viewingthem on the 3DS. The cameras are also used for Augmented Reality (AR) applications. The 3DS comesstandard with Face Raiders, a fun first-person shooter that creates floating heads based on photos, andthen requires players to move around the room while staring at the screen to find and shoot the heads.

The 3DS also includes a set of AR cards in the box. These cards mostly just create a 3D image of popularNintendo characters overlaid against your environment, though one of the cards also offers a few simpleAR games. It’s all a gimmick, but still amusing—especially for kids.

As great as the overall hardware is, there is one major flaw—the battery life. DS owners have long cometo expect insanely good battery life out of their systems. With the 3D and Wi-Fi on, the 3DS can maybeaverage four or five hours on a charge. To help minimize this inconvenience, a charger dock comesstandard.

The line-up of launch titles hasn’t exactly been met with unbridled enthusiasm. While the 3DS’sofferings aren’t terrible for the most part, they’re also not great. Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV 3DEdition is probably the all-around champ. It offers terrific graphics and gameplay, online multiplayer, andStreetpass support.

Namco’s Ridge Racer 3D and Asphalt 3D are both surprisingly good, if old school racers, and Nintendo’sPilot Wings Resort is a fun, if shallow casual flying experience. It’s just a shame that Nintendo didn’thave anything in the way of what players really want at launch. The 3D release of the N64 classic,Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is due this summer, but there’s no Mario, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, orMetroid. Worse, none of these beloved franchises are likely to appear any time soon.

As it is, early adopters will have to satisfy themselves with ports of Super Monkey Ball, Bust-a-Move,Nintendogs, and a few other popular regulars. Nintendo claims to have had the most successful hardware launch ever with the 3DS, but whether that will translate into improved support fromdevelopers remains to be seen. If developer are willing to invest in the potential of the 3DS over thesecurity and cheaper development costs of a regular DS game, future releases might just live up to thehardware’s bright potential.

I’m a wrestling fan, but comparatively I despise sports entertainment. I long for the days of Gorilla Monsoon calling epic confrontations of warriors, immortals and immovable objects.  The days of Kayfabe. When the spectacle was the athleticism of off the top rope elbow drops, and not gimmicks. Back when the McMahon family wasn’t afraid of a panda.

It’s for those reasons that I thought I would love WWE Allstars, THQ’s over the top arcade style wrestling game that pits the top stars of yesterday against the new generation, but instead, after playing though the game, I felt unfulfilled and disappointed.  While the game can be fun when played with a number of people, it gets old incredibly quick and leaves a lot to be desired.

Unlike the WWE Smackdown VS Raw series which comes off as more of a simulation, All Stars presents the WWE stars as if they were action figures, and finds even the biggest competitors doing over the top, flashy maneuvers that send them flying into the air. The roster is full of legends like Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, Andre the Giant and Randy “it’s about fucking time” Savage along with some of today’s biggest names like John Cena, the Miz and HHH. Oh, and they brought Kofi Kingston with them as well. The legends thing has been done before, like in the majority of the recent Smackdown VS Raw games and the Legends of Wrestlemania game that hit a few years ago.

Sounds great right? Strip away all of the WWE flash, all of the legends, all of the memories and you’re left with a rather thin package. Think about it, if the exact game was available, minus the license, how would you feel? All of the match types you’d expect are here, from single to tag team, extreme rules and steel cage match, but they all come off playing out remotely the same. The roster is broken down in to four categories, brawlers, big men, acrobats and grapplers, but there’s very little strategy since most of the roster plays exactly the same.  This goes a long way in ruining what is the biggest draw of the game, playing as your favorite stars of generations past. What’s the point in being excite to play as Jake the Snake Roberts if he plays exactly the same as say Bret Hart or Mr. Perfect?

To its credit, WWE All Stars is easy to pick up and play, at first. It employs basically the same control scheme as the excellent n64 WWE grappler No Mercy, with buttons for strikes and grapples, but then throws in a few odd additions. One button runs at the ropes, but you’ll have to switch over to another button to get out of the ring? There’s a different button to reverse grapples than there are strikes? Really? Finishers are another issue, as once your meter fills, you hit a button to activate an animation that sets you up for a your specific move. Here’s the problem with this though, your enemy can attack you while you’re doing the taunt that sets up your finisher, and if that happens, you lose the finisher. Oh, and AI opponents are constantly no-selling finishers.

Pow, right in the kisser.

The game’s best mode is easily the fantasy warfare, which pits a superstar from today against one from yesterday for a specific title. For instance, Andre the Giant VS The Big Show is for best big man, while pitting the straight edge superstar CM Punk VS the beer guzzling Stone Cold Steve Austin is to determine the better lifestyle choice. Each bout is presented via a click intro that chronicles both superstars careers featuring actual video footage. The matches are fun, and are no different than if you were to do them in exhibition, but they’re fun none the less. It would have been nice though to have the results of matches online so we can see who is really winning these fantasy warfare matches rather than just who is winning them on our consoles.

It’s a shame that the rest of the game doesn’t feature the fantasy warfare mode’s slick presentation values. In fact, the game feels like a missed opportunity in that aspect. Sure, the Path of Champions mode has animated and fully voiced scenes depending on which path you choose, but that’s just your opponent cutting a promo looking at the camera. Also, the choices of Path of Champions seem a bit off. You choose whether you want to try to fight Randy Orton at WrestleMania, The Undertaker at Summerslam or DX. Since when is The Undertaker associated with Summerslam? Wouldn’t it be cooler to try to snap the dead man’s undefeated streak at Wrestlemania?

There are also no Path of Champions modes for the newer guys to take on the legends. Why not build up to facing Hogan at Wrestlemania? The game seems void of any real sense of WWE history, when I pit Hogan against Savage, I want to see a video package chronicling the Mega Powers and their rivalry throughout the years. The Legends of Wrestling game from a few years ago did a great job celebrating the history of the company and the sport, WWE All Stars merely using it as an accessory. Oh, and the commentary of JR and The King is just and random and annoying as ever.

The Blast Factor: WWE Allstars is at it’s best when playing with a group of friends, but even then it feels like a thin, wasted opportunity. As a full $60 game, it’s tough to recommend, perhaps if it were a  digital download title for half the price it would be the other way around. WWE All Stars seems like a forced attempt to win over the market from yesterday, but still cram the stars of today down our throats.