The roommates and Cece spend a night together in the desert in the "New Girl" season finale.

“New Girl” didn’t start out as a risky move. It was the opposite: a cashing-in on a budding, beautiful movie star’s brand of comedy. The title, the twee theme song, and the “adorkable” label were all signs of a methodical, machine-like approach to putting butts in the seats and churning out the chuckles. Then something happened. Jess became increasingly self-aware, Nick was less of a sad sack and more a sarcastic, self-loathing yet clever cynic, Winston escaped the shackles of “replacement” and gave the loft a necessary injection of responsibility and Schmidt became iconic: a sensational blend of douchey and neurotic, charming and sleazy, “that guy” and an enigma of manhood we hadn’t seen since Ron Swanson came into his own.

All the elements that had us poised to resent this show are still there, but since the pilot the evolution has been profound. Instead of a peculiar set of men with their world thrown off-kilter by an exceptionally quirky girl, they’re a exceptionally quirky bunch of roommates whose world has been thrown into a new orbit now that they have each other. It’s still a sweet tart at times, unbearably lovely, but it has had its darkness buried beneath. All four of them are hopelessly childish in the face of adulthood and their ineptitude at coping with the harshness of life is astonishing, but it’s not like we’re any better at it. They’re just a hell of a lot more lavish in their freakouts.

In the first season’s finale, we see how far the show has come in establishing the essence of New Girl. It’s Jess-ence doesn’t define it, it merely comprises a quarter of its self. What this rookie series became was an ensemble show that might blow “Friends” out of the water one day. It’s already brandishing a more sophisticated humor, as well as a patience and deliberateness for going to the “let’s have these two hookup” well. Also, lives have suffered under the burden of choice, a self-sabotage that gives it a distinctly present viewpoint.

Yes, I’m sure you fellow viewers never bought Nick was going to bolt for a new place with Caroline. It would mess too much with the success. This show would need a season or two more of praise and clout before they could tinker with the formula like that. But as “New Girl’s” prone to do, it took us on a treacherous journey before these people could know what they knew, but refused to acknowledge.

Nick sits the rest of the gang down with cookies and confidence and states, point blank, he’s moving out. Schmidt and Winston makes jokes about how they’ll spend the money which they aren’t funneling into his recoveries, whereas Jess is more distraught. I was extremely relieved this didn’t end with a kiss. I’m so grateful that the grounds for her concern were genuine, and only selfish to the degree that she needs him to be the friend he’s been through her rough patches. Again, somewhere down the line they could get it on, but not now. The timing is not on their side and gimmick is something this show needs to fully reject or it loses its appeal and becomes corporate instead of a rambunctious bunch of twenty-somethings resisting the finality of growing up.

Schmidt and Winston continue to deny their grief by interviewing a new candidate named Neil (frequently seen Thomas London) who would add a remarkable awkwardness to their dynamic, but not a welcome one. Jess tries to scare him with threats of feminist rants, but Schmidt and Winston talk her off the ledge and say they need to act like it doesn’t hurt them as much as it does to lose Nick.

Since Nick’s departure is just a smokescreen, the topsy-turvy change comes from Schmece. After a visit to a photo shoot where she rides a missile with the hunky Gino, Schmidt’s insecurities that he’d been suppressing rise again. He’s convinced he’d be holding her back asking her to stay with him, even though last week saw a huge breakthrough for their emotional intimacy.

Nick says his hurried goodbyes, and Winston and Schmidt come along for the move-in. On the way Nick’s assuredness leaves him and he turns abruptly onto the highway where he mocks his own predictability. “Nick’s having a freakout, what else is new.” After a 140-mile detour, they’re in the desert, and Nick is panicked that his loneliness has made him too hasty. Now he’s so terrified of the situation he’s locked himself into, he hurls his keys to the truck into the ravine. I thought it was a nice touch that Caroline was so understanding. Though she seemed to treat him awfully before, maybe she has changed. But the issue is Nick hasn’t, and he isn’t ready to leave his protective nest where he relishes in his fellow lost souls.

When Jess arrives to save them, she tosses her own keys dooming them to a night in the desert. Winston has a nervous breakdown, terrified by the prospect that he might be eaten because of their foolishness. The gang makes the best of it though and they tailgate the moving van and listen to Nick’s deliciously embarrassing collection of tapes from adolescence. Schmidt reads a suggestive text message from Gino that sends him into a insecurity tailspin. He confides in Jess that he wants to “White Fang” Cece. At first grossed out, thinking that was some kind of violent sex act no doubt, Schmidt clarifies he means “White Fang” the novel. He admires the main character’s sacrifice where he releases the wolf because it is wild, and to be free is what’s best for it. So when the wolf won’t go he tragically throws stones at it till it leaves. It’s a shockingly mature outlook for Schmidt, but I could tell it was rooted in his own feelings of worthlessness and not righteousness or selflessness.

There’s a silly little event that takes away from the emotional stakes by adding symbolic drama to their night in the desert. A coyote that Winston had feared would come—oh yeah, Winston is afraid of the dark and it’s somehow hilarious; and the petrified, girlish scream startled thing is a good look for him—stops Nick and Jess in their tracks. Besides Jess’ “Meep, meep” Road Runner impression that freed them, the best reveal of that segment was how Nick immediately put his hand over her mouth and pulled her in tight. It was the most genuine affection and chemistry I’d seen from them and showed an admirable amount of restraint that they didn’t go for the “big moment” kiss.

When Schmidt confronts Cece, we get the ups and downs of the character. He has his glorious moment where Cece catches him in the act of White Fanging her—its the only book on his Kindle—and he still puts on the show of trying to make her scram like a loving animal. “Go on, git” and all. Then things get heavy when he tells her why he’s pushing her away. His peeping of her phone is absolutely not okay, and Cece should be mad. But when Schmidt drops the bomb, “You slept with me, that doesn’t say much about your taste in men,” it’s a heart wrenching nose dive. I both like and am frustrated that there wasn’t more resolution. It would seem like they’re done, but she just walks away. Maybe they could play with time a bit and the premiere is months later. Because it’s also unclear if Nick and Caroline are kaput too.

Speaking of, once Jess and Nick have the critical talk about what she really wants for Nick, she’s able to endorse his move-in if it is what will truly make him happy. Nick says the poignant line, “But I think you’ll need me too much,” which sounded like, “But I need you.” Jess then comes off surprisingly clear-headed with, “I’ll be okay because I met you.” Again, control and restraint to not go for the jugular, but still cutting deep was expertly done by these writers. In the morning, we learn Jess never threw the keys and just wanted her heart-to-heart with Nick to be sure he was being thoughtful about his decision. They drop him off at the new place and Schmidt Fredo-kisses him! Such a great callback to “Injured,” a superb episode where that concept was first established—That reminds me of another callback; when Nick first left and the creepy landlord Remy appears to lament with Jess, saying he’ll miss the way Nick smelled.

Then in the final scene we see how well these characters have been defined, in their separate rooms, but we also see how it’s strange to not see them thriving together. Winston is trying to overcome his fear of the dark, Schmidt is reading his Success Weekly, and Jess is in her jammies shutting the shades when she sees the moving van parked in the street. Then Nick appears in his old room and blares his tape of “Shook Me All Night Long,” a signal that he is back. The dancing from each is wonderfully poetic as well. Jess does her adorkable thing and whips her hair while jumping on the bed, Schmidt does elegant bed acrobatics, and Winston claps for a time, then bangs on the wall annoyed. It bodes well that the show ends on this note of solidarity that also showcases their separate eccentricities.

It’s a hell of an angle for this show going into next season. Now that we have this golden gang, let’s help they grow apart now that they’ve grown together. For instance, while Winston has had his spectacular instances, he’s been stunted a bit because the rest of his roommates are so much more flamboyant with their problems. Winston still hasn’t carved a notable niche since returning from Latvia. Who will he become? Jess’ romantic life has been a bust, will she find some solace by herself or will her destructive habits continue? Schmidt and Nick grew the most, but they both sabotaged their potentially true loves out of fear. Can those couples recover or are they back to the drawing board? The answers are unimportant, I’m just glad we’ll get to see these kooky kids do it together.

“New Girl” surprised us all by becoming a hangout comedy as opposed to a cutesy fest that would give us cause to strangle ourselves. It not only developed lovable characters, but it discovered a voice richly filled with pop culture references, a cynical yet refreshing tone and an edgy wit that not many expected. From a rousing game of “True American” to the douchebag jar, it’s been a run that could have easily collapsed, but got second wind in 2012, now there’s no end in sight. Do you “Girl,” do you.

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

- Schmidt’s homage to Tyga’s “Rack City: “When Nick leaves, i’m just gonna hire a plumber and throw cash at him while he works. Fiddies, and hunnids, hunnids, hunnids.”

- “What is this a carob chip? Are you trying to buy our love with hippie chocolate, ya idiot?”

- Ah, the penis injury. Not much time spent on it, but Schmidt remarks on his bandages being removed: “The Washington Monument is ready to serve his nation. This horse is ready to become a unicorn.”

- Prospective roommate, Neil: “I had the unique experience of having to let myself go. I did not take it well.”

- Schmidt’s bandage removal doesn’t go well, so his junk gets a hard cast. Ironically, now he can’t get hard——Schmidt: “Say something hot to me.” Cece: “Fresh, pressed linens.” Schmidt: Nope, not an inch. It’s like a swaddled baby.”

- “What the hell war is this? Am I supposed to want to buy a missile? Just pounding the drum of war. Did nobody listen to Eisenhower?”

- “How’s the new apartment? Does it smell like new paint and compromise?”

- “I’m worried about Schmidt. He’s a Jew in the desert I don’t want him to wander.”

- Winston: “The werewolves come out at night, man. I don’t want booby to eat me. I hate thick thighs, and I got a fat ass.”

- “This isn’t another one of those ‘Merlot is the whore of vineyard’ talks is it?”

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

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

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

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

If you want to see a “film” –as opposed to a “movie” —make sure you check out A Separation, winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

The Iranian work depicts a husband, Nader (Peyman Moadi) and wife, Simin (Leila Hatami), who struggle with a seemingly irresolvable conflict. Nader’s father suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and needs constant care, but Simin wants to move abroad, leaving her father-in-law behind. The couple’s daughter, too, is torn by these competing desires. A separation is the only thing that can reduce the tension.

Without his wife, Nader, a well-to-do banker, must find help to take care of his father while he is at work. He hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to assist his father during the days. Pregnant, simple, and pious, she is ill-equipped to handle the senile father; she ties him to the bed one day when she has to leave the apartment. Nader returns home to discover this and summarily fires her, sparking an argument. As Nader escorts Razieh from the apartment, she slips on the stairs, causing her to miscarry. Razieh’s husband, an out of work laborer with credit problems, blames Nader. Both families suffer as court proceedings unfold and the truth comes to light.

A Separation works on many levels: thematically, stylistically, and intellectually. It’s hard to compare the narrative to anything we might experience in America because the position of women in Iran is so inferior to that of men, but there are many more separations in this film than just that of husband and wife.

Class, gender, age, religion—it seems that no one in this society can see eye to eye. Indeed, the mise en scene of A Separation is brilliantly crafted. People are always separated by doorways, windows, rooms, plexi-glass. No one can make a connection without some divide being in the way. Art film junkies might be reminded of Robert Bresson’s L’Argent (“Money”) in which the subtext is emotional and social currency, or lack thereof.

The artful use of subtext is what makes A Separation a true “film” as opposed to a “movie” – the latter of which only seeks to entertain, not to challenge. Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing like a little movie fun. But the direction of motion pictures today –at least in the Hollywood sense – seems to be driven toward concept, with flashy visuals and punchy dialogue. All too often there is little beneath the surface.

Compelling characters that manifest an internal struggle and change, as well as an overall dramatic argument, seem to be afterthoughts in many American movies.  A Separation, in contrast, is proof that “cinema” remains alive and well.

“A Separation” is now playing locally at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge and the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. Other locations and showing times are available here. 

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

Yes. Yes it can

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe it’s my love for Back to the Future, but I’ve always liked the idea of going back and changing things, or seeing a different side of the story. That’s what immediately drew me to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City; the game that puts in the middle of the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3 and gives you the chance to play them from a different perspective. Early on in the playthrough though, I only wanted to go back and change one thing — the fact that I had to play this game. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is nothing but a failure. Its mechanics are broken, it’s heartless and there are almost no redeeming qualities about it. In a case of life imitating art; Operation Raccoon City often feels like the soulless, brainless horde it pits you against.

It didn’t have to be that way though — Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is built on some truly great ideas. The game takes place during the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3, but from a completely new perspective. Your job as an agent is to expose the truth about the outbreak plaguing the city, but as an employee of the Umbrella Corporation, you’re goal is to cover up the trail that leads back to your employer, by any means necessary. It’s an interesting plot, and one that reunites you with some of the series’ biggest names, and asks you to make some pretty bold choices. At least…that’s what it should have done.

ORC is void of literally any unique plot twists or feeling in general. Here’s a game that literally had its plot written for it, and all the developers had to do was write a few twists that would resonate with their already established fanbase. Playing through ORC often feels like walking through a carnival haunted house — you know deep down that you should be feeling something, but you just can’t bring yourself to care enough. Towards the end of the game, you’ll be given a few choices as to just how the game will end, and they’re endings that have dramatic effects on how the Resident Evil series would play out, but by that point in the game I was so uninterested in what was going on that I couldn’t care less if everyone suddenly died. But hey, at least the shooting is good right? Right?!

God no.

There’s no other way to describe ORC other than calling it broken. Nearly every aspect is a mess, and doesn’t work anywhere near where it should be. Take the aiming for example; it’s either way to loose or way too slow, and you’re never really sure which one it will be. There’s also no real consistency in just what it takes to down an enemy at any given time. Took out an enemy easily in the last section? Don’t count on it in the next — hell, you may have to empty an entire clip into the same enemy type — and no, it’s not a tougher version of the same enemy, it’s just that uneven of a game.

The worst part though is easily the horrid AI throughout the entire game. Enemies will literally jump in front of your squad and move around wildly, then run in a random direction. They’ll also go out of their way to get shot by your ammo for some reason. Your squadmates aren’t much better either — they’re completely unaware of their surroundings, and will do everything from run into mines, to continuously try to run into the next room..through the wall of the room you’re in now. The first rule of a squad based shooter? You damn well better be able to tolerate the squad you’re with; but ORC often feels like a Disney movie about the world’s worst soldiers, except it’s not funny, and you’re going to have to deal with them the entire time.

The game gets a bit more enjoyable when you’re playing with real live friends, since you won’t have to deal with as bad of AI, and there’s some interesting multiplayer modes that allow you to play as some of the biggest names in the franchise, but the only real enjoyment you’ll have with ORC is when you’ve ingested a ton of alcohol with your buddies, and you Mystery Science Theatre the hell out of it.

The Blast Factor: What could have been a cool offshoot story in a long established universe is nothing more than a weak attempt to wring every last dollar out of an established franchise and its fan base. As a horror game, it’s weak. As a shooter, it’s broken — and as a Resident Evil game it’s just downright embarrassing. There’s literally no reason to play this game.

EA Sports should take it as nothing short of divine intervention that mere hours before the release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, the game’s much embattled cover boy won his first tournament in years; guaranteeing that  he, and thus the game will be on every news cast, sports show and gossip monger’s lips for weeks to come. Truth be told though, the game didn’t need the extra stroke of publicity luck; unlike Woods himself, his golf series has been a long standing benchmark not just in golf games (slim pickings there), but in sports games in general. Sure, if you’re an every year player, the changes may not seem that revolutionary, but the amount of detail and depth found in this year’s Tiger title makes this a must play — for most people.

The biggest addition to this year’s game is the new Total Swing Control system, which adds an incredible amount of depth to the game. You’ll still tee off with the right thumbstick, but now, speed, tempo and control are all taken into account, and actual talent comes into play. It took me quite a few times to adjust to the new control scheme, but after while, it becomes very natural and fluent. Total Swing allows for a lot of strategy, and perfecting is means dropping shots just where you want them, while struggling with it means hooking shots and bending a ton of clubs.

PGA Tour 13 also gives players freedom over just where they hit the ball, adding even more depth to an already stellar experience. Need some height? Aim your shot for the bottom of the ball. Need a line drive for distance? Aim for the middle. This combined with the Total Swing Control System makes for an incredibly deep, system that’s still fun to learn. One could make the case that it’s almost too deep, that it requires an abnormal amount of skill, that its akin to actually being skilled at the game, but PGA 13 does a great job easing you in to its more depth features in a way that it never seems like it’s too much at one time. Everything you’re doing feels like the next logical progression of what you did before it. Does that mean I was any good at it? As in my real golf game — god no.

On top of that, PGA Tour 13 does a great job taking control for players who aren’t quite catching on. Using the caddy system, you’re able have the game line up your shots, select your clubs and do just about everything from take the shot for you. The team at EA Sports has done a remarkable job taking a deep gameplay system and making it accessible for all types of gamers. Is this Hot Shots Golf accessible? No, but it’s still a big step and it will make the game playable by a lot more people.

The game also features full motion support for both platforms, and while Move support has been around for the last few years, this is the first time Kinect is fully supported by the title. It’s functional enough, and the first few times, it’s really cool to swing in real life, but it gets old, especially when you take into account how twitchy it can be. The voice control works well, I was able to change clubs on the fly and was able to ask my caddie for assistance — and it was very responsive. Just take one piece of advice for me — don’t try to use Kinect to navigate the game’s menu system. Tiger Woods always seemed like one of the most natural fits for the peripheral, and it’s good to see it implemented, even if it doesn’t always work as it should.

PGA Tour 13 is easily the best looking of the series thus far as everything looks phenomenal. As a yearly Madden player (go ahead — flame), I found myself getting jealous at how good some of the players looked in the game. How come Tiger Looks so much like Tiger, but we get an Aaron Rodgers that looks like a whacked out freak? That doesn’t compare to the courses though, which are filled with sweeping vistas and remarkable lighting effects.

Unfortunately, the new modes available in PGA tour 13 are less than stellar. There’s the Legacy Mode, which finds you recreating the career milestones of the game’s coverboy, and is very underwhelming and oddly uneven. Why am I sinking a putt on national TV before I even practice in my dad’s backyard? There aren’t any real “money moments” that are worth writing about, and my guess is that the legacy mode will be a last ditch effort for most of the game’s core players. The online suite also allows players to create their own country clubs, which will appeal to those who really enjoy the experience, but it will be lost on those who don’t. Plus, you can’t create Bushwood authentically — I tried.

The Blast Factor: Like any good golfer, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 capitalizes on its errors and accounts for them to create a complete game. It’s deep, yet accessible. It takes skill, but never loses it’s fun.  Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 is easily the best of a remarkable series. It may not be a hole in one, but its a solid birdey.

For over a decade, the Mario Party franchise has been delivering quintessential party games that continue its familiar twist on the traditional board game experience. Each game has given players new worlds, mini-games, and characters to choose from, but none has truly changed the way you play it – until now. Your fate might still depend on the roll of the dice, but Mario Party 9 is a refreshingly different type of party.

As always, Bowser has come up with some plan to suck up all the stars in the sky, so it’s Mario and company’s job to get them back. Instead of taking turns and individually moving across each game board, however, you and your friends will ride together on a giant vehicle along a path to the finish line. Each map has various themed challenges, spaces, and events for you to encounter. Despite traveling together, this is still a competition, and the player with the most number of mini-stars by the end of the journey wins.

This new joint travel system eliminates Mario Party’s classic items and booby traps, but it adds a new type of strategy too. Each turn lets your character be the captain of the vessel, putting him in charge of rolling the dice and letting him pick up any mini-stars scattered across the board. Of course, your turn can also lead you into danger, but various numbered dice let you sabotage your opponent’s next turn if you plan ahead and play the game wisely –that is, if you have any special dice. You can only get these items when you land on spaces randomly because, well, Mario Party still isn’t as strategic a game as it could be. As in past titles, the unpredictability and the randomness of the dice can still change the entire outcome of a game in one turn. Land on a Bowser space, and half your mini-stars can be gone in an instant. It’s not a pretty sight, but sometimes the odds won’t be in your favor.

Each game board is divided into two parts, with a mini-boss in the middle and a boss battle at the end. These battles are essentially extended mini-games, but their dramatic presentation and the classic cast of Mario bosses you’ll face add to their uniqueness. While you will always have to face a boss, actually getting to play one of the 80 new mini-games may never happen as you need to land on mini-game spaces to play them. While some of these mini-games, such as flipping cards or selecting correct fishing lines, will depend on luck, most will thankfully require skill tapping the Wii remote’s face button rather than gimmicky motion controls.

As its name suggests, Mario Party is meant to be played with a group of people, preferably, a party of four. While you can individually set your AI opponents’ difficulty and handicap, playing against a group of three computers is not as fun as playing with friends or family. In fact, if you remove other people from the experience, what you’re left with is a frustrating and seemingly unfair game that will test your patience with each roll of the dice. Plus, its lack of an online mode severely limits its replayability if you play it alone. Should you tackle Solo mode, which is essentially the game’s single player story mode, you might question your sanity every time you to don’t win.

I was pleasantly surprised Mario Party 9 does a much better job of incorporating classic Mario sounds and characters than its predecessors did. Battling Spike from Super Mario Bros. 3, for example, while listening to an arranged version of the Hammer Bros. theme song just feels good. Other nice touches involve the charming details in mini-games and in the various themed maps. Still, these graphics are mediocre at best but suit the playful nature of the series just fine. At least some of its soundtrack is catchier, albeit just as repetitive, than before.

If you do play it with a group of friends, however, Mario Party 9 is a blast. Aside from its Free Play option that lets you play any mini-game whenever you want, there is also a set of longer mini-games that are surprisingly robust. Goomba Bowling won’t put Wii Sports to shame, but it’s just as fun. The real gem, though, is an addictive two-player puzzle game that can take up to an hour to finish. Each time you finish a game board or play a mini-game, you also get special points that can be used to purchase more content such as a new map, vehicles, and music, so you have some incentive to keep at it.

The Blast Factor: You can spend a few hours playing the game by yourself and unlocking a couple of new characters, but there’s nothing else for you to do unless you have company. Another single player mode lets you play a handful of mini-games from a different camera angle, but once you finish these off, there is really no point in playing them again. Hopefully you’re buying Mario Party 9 and bringing it home to a full house. Otherwise, your fun will end when you land on a Bowser space three times in a row.

Developed by: Bioware
Published by: EA
Genre: Action/Roleplaying
Platform: Pc, Xbox 360, PS3
Play it if: You have a heartbeat
Skip it if: Don’t
4 out of 4 stars

There was a point early on in my play through of Mass Effect 3 — it couldn’t be more than an hour and a half in — that took my breath away. When it was over, I set the controller down, turned off the system and walked away. I needed time to come to grips with what just happened. That’s the first time I’ve ever been that emotionally moved by a game, and that’s when I knew that Mass Effect 3 would be even more special than I thought.

Bioware’s finale for Commander Sheppard is, in a word – -stunning. In even more words, it’s gripping, engaging, emotionally charged and painstakingly well done. The entire Mass Effect series has felt like a symphony leading up to this, the crashing crescendo that outdoes everything before it. Most importantly, Mass Effect 3 is a fitting tribute to a universe we’ve spent the last half decade caring about and will leave you thinking about it long after you’ve finished it.

Mass Effect 3 tells the final chapter in the story of Earth’s struggle for survival against the menacing Reapers — an ancient robot species that looks to eradicate all life from it’s chosen target planet. At the end of Mass Effect 2, Commander Sheppard learned of the impending invasion and thus tried to warn everyone, only to be brushed off like the town crazy. Guess what happened? ME3 opens with an amazing scene featuring the entire Alliance attempting to mobilize against the Reapers, only to fail tragically.

I’ll admit that at this point I was a bit worried — the story seems awfully familiar. The only man who warns the people of their impending doom is locked away just before it happens — it’s the plot of nearly every 50s sci-fi movie. Luckily though, Mass Effect 3’s story only gets better from there. You’re of course quickly released, and it’s off to rally any allies you can find in a frantic effort to save mankind. (note: be sure to read our interview with Mass Effect 3′s lead writer Mac Walters)

Much like earlier installments of the franchise, Mass Effect 3 is a game that believes that getting there is half the fun, and while you’ll still have the epic Buck Rodgers style planet hopping moments that the series is known for, but the real attraction here is the amount of choice you’ll have over just how you battle for the fate of the universe.  The story of ME3 is dotted with poignant, touching and sometimes even heartbreaking moments that define how strong a relationship with a series of video game characters can be. This is undoubtedly one of, if not the greatest storied ever told.

Player choice in Mass Effect 3 spreads beyond the game’s narrative, and into very structure of how the game plays, which will open up the series to a an incredibly large new audience (believe it or not, there are still people who don’t play Mass Effect). At the beginning of each game, you’ll have the choice of just what type of game you want you want, between action, which gets you straight to the robot shootin’ without any of the conversational mechanic, story; which does the exact opposite and role playing — which is a mix of the two, much like your traditional Mass Effect game.

Regardless of what you choose, Mass Effect 3 features brilliant pacing that not only pulls you through the game, but always leaves you wondering what’s going to happen next. I’ll confess that in the two previous games, there were sections, specifically some of the combat sections that seemed to go on forever, but thankfully I never felt that way throughout my time with Mass Effect 3.  The game is filled with thrilling set pieces and locations like Mars in a sandstorm that you’re going to want to explore again and again. It all culminates in a fiery conclusion that puts the entire trilogy in perspective.

What truly impressed me about these set pieces are the scale of some of the battles. I’m an admitted scale-whore, I love sections of games where I’m up against enemies that dwarf me in size, the feeling is incredibly rewarding, and it often takes a bit more strategy to bring these enemies down, and Mass Effect brings that in droves. One battle towards the later half of the game comes to mind especially, and without giving much away, it was easily one of my favorite moments in the entire series.

The truth is that the combat and AI have been greatly improved from Mass Effect 2 to 3.  Battles don’t have that ongoing feeling, and you’re going to need to have adaptable strategies to get past some of the enemies, especially at the later stages. Enemies will flank you, they’ll use grenades to get you out of cover and they’ll do pretty much anything in their power to stop you. Luckily, your squad’s AI has also been beefed up, and you rarely feel like you have to completely carry the load in a battle. In fact, there were a few times when my squadmates quickly killed off enemies I was carefully targeting with my sniper riffle.

There’s a fairly more robust strategy element to Mass Effect 3 than there were in the previous games. Leveling your character and your weapons (one of the coolest features in the game is the ability to customize every weapon in the game) up is now much more RPG-centric in a manner similar to that of the original Mass Effect. There’s also a new mode that tracks how ready you are to fight the reapers, and adds an interesting mix to just how you go about completing the game’s tasks as you’ll have to plot your course using the game’s map to see where you’re needed against the Reapers.

Mass Effect 3 marks the first time multiplayer has been introduced into the series, and it’s a surprisingly welcome addition. Galaxy at War is a Horde-esque survival type mode where you’ll start as a human character (other races open up as you play) and attempt to get through wave after wave of enemies to improve your military readiness rating. I’ll admit that I was worried that the multiplayer modes would feel tacked on, but the compliment the main campaign very well.

The Blast Factor: When you’re in the gaming industry for a bit you realize one thing very quickly; don’t believe the hype. Mass effect 3 is the exception to that rule as it doesn’t only meet it’s expectations — it blows them away. It’s an emotionally charged, and often touching tale that doesn’t skip out on the action one bit. Most importantly, it’s a fitting ending to a world and characters we’ve spent the last five years getting attached to.

This review is based on a PS3 retail copy of Mass Effect 3 provided by the publisher.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a way, you’ve got to feel sorry for Starbreeze Studios. With Syndicate, the shooter-centric re-imagining of the 1993 strategy game of the same name — there’s absolutely no way to please everyone. Fans of the original are going to scoff at how the new developer turned it into a shooter, but fans of shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield are unlikely to give it a shot. It’s a shame too, because when Syndicate works, it works very well, it’s an intelligent shooter that dares to break from the norm, but when it doesn’t work, it’s a mess. One of the most disappointing messes of recent memory.

In the world of Syndicate, Corporations rule the world, and are willing to kill for turf and resources. Each private citizen also has a chip implanted into their brain, which these corporations can access at will for advertising or even worse. Your protagonist, MIles Kilo works for Eurocorp, a company that has developed a chip so powerful it lets users slow down time and even access the data from other chips. Syndicate finds Miles struggling with his choices, and figuring out why he works for who he works for. As you probably already expected, throughout the events of the game, Milo uncovers a conspiracy..yadda…yadda..yadda..

It may not be the most original story, but it would have done Seabreeze well not to abandon it as early in the game as they did. The game takes obvious inspiration from titles like Deus Ex and Bioshock (going as far as to ripoff a few of those game’s best moments), which did their best to craft a compelling narrative, but in this aspect, Syndicate often comes off as lazy and forgetable. There comes a point early in the game where integral pieces of info are dumped into optional info boxes and the story is kicked into the background. Though Syndicate often hints at the importance of player choice, it’s incredibly linear, with one ending, no matter what you do.

It’s a shame that Syndicate’s campaign is so forgettable and lackluster, as generally speaking, the mechanics are sound, tight and fun. The guns, which range from the more traditional firepower to the more out there, all feel like appropriately weighted and its often compelling to switch them out to see just what each can do. What really sets Breach apart from other shooters though is the Breach system, which allows players to access an enemy’s dart chip for some pretty cool results. Using the breach system, you’re able to slow down an enemies response time, make him fall to the ground stunned, commit suicide, or even turn the gun on his own squad-mates.

Using the breach abilities quickly becomes a strategic element in a very trigger happy shooter. There are plenty of times where you’re going to come upon a room full of heavily armed shooters, and the decent enough AI combined with the game’s refusal to adhere to its own set of rules regarding cover makes it nearly impossible to go in guns blazing (at times), so you’ll have to strategically use your abilities to take them out. My personal favorite is causing one enemy to fall to ground, making the others go to check on him, then making one of them turn against the others, and making my work easier for me. It’s just a shame that midway through the game, Starbreeze took the easy way out and rids you of a majority of these powers.

If Syndicate has a saving grace it’s just how fun the game becomes when teaming up with another human user. Up to four players can join together in a series of standalone co-op missions that require actual communication and cooperation, leading to some impressively cool and chaotic moments. The mix of careful planning and satisfying kills often reminded me of the co-op missions of the Splinter Cell games, a favorite of mine for years. With how well done this portion of the game is, I often wondered why Starbreeze didn’t base more of the game on it.

If you’re going to play through Syndicate, you better be a fan of the color blue, as the game continually insists the future will be a blue society, and assaults your eyes with blue hue after blue hue. Besides the overuse, Syndicate looks impressive, and performs well even when the action get really hectic. I was incredibly impressed with just how well the game animated, especially when using the breach abilities.

The Blast Factor: There are moments where you’ll swear that Syndicate is one of the greatest first shooters in recent years — it’s beautiful, fun and mechanically sound, but playing deeper into the game will reveal it’s darker side. In short — Syndicate is a mess, a beautiful mess that somehow works. It may not be the shooter it could have been, but Syndicate is definitely worth a look.

True story, two years ago at E3, I was seconds away from buying a PSP. I had been watching friends play Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker all week, and we even went as far as to take a trip to a Hollywood Target. When we got there though, something stopped me — the thought that someday, something better was coming.

That day is February 22, when Sony launches it’s next handheld gaming system — the PlayStation Vita. Packed with features and a stellar launch lineup, The Vita aims to challenge the world’s notion of just what portable gaming can be, but should you jump in right away, or wait and let Sony work out the kinks?

The Hardware

There’s no debating that upon first look, The Vita looks an awful lot like the PSP, but looking closer, it’s a completely different handheld all together.

Featuring a 5′ multi-touch enabled OLED screen, two thumbsticks, two cameras (you know the drill, one front facing and one rear), a touch sensitive back panel and augmented reality capabilities, the Vita is not short of bells and whistles, but at this early stage, you’re really only going to use some of them.

The true standout of The Vita is the gorgeous OLED screen. Sony’s choice of using the OLED over the LCD works incredibly well, as it causes colors to pop and shadows to look incredibly deep. We booted up Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 when we first got our Vita, and the flashy attacks work incredibly well.

With the screens impressive size though, comes one of the devices major flaws — it’s really not all that portable. Portable gaming means something very different than it did when the PSP launched; everyone has an iPhone or tablet with them at all times, which are easy to pack with you wherever You go, the Vita seems a bit too big for that. Sure, you could make the point that the Vita can easily be stuffed into a hoodie pocket or briefcase or work bag for the morning commute, but you can’t help but feel like a good portion of potential users will want something a bit more portable.

The Vita comes with two camera, one facing the front and one facing the rear and they’re a bit underwhelming. Both cameras are capable of both stills and videos, and they’re about on par with the quality of your average smart phone, but fail in comparison to more top of the line phones, and fail even worse when compared to full fledged cameras. For example, we took two identical pictures of my desk, one with the Vita and the other with an iPhone 4. the iPhone did a great job reproducing the colors and came out pretty clear, while the Vita picture had a noticeable amount of noise and blurred edges.

So what about that trackpad like back portion of the Vita? For what it’s worth, it performs well, but it often seems like the developers squeezed the functionality into their games at the last second. One of the best examples of this is how in Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the back track pad is used to climb up ropes, it just doesn’t feel as smooth and natural as using the thumb sticks and face buttons. This as opposed to a game like Modnation Racers, which allows you to use the back trackpad to level terrain in track creation, and works extremely well.

My favorite feature of the Vita though is being able to keep up to seven screens open at a time regardless of what game card is in the system. Think about it, say you’re running to catch a flight and you’re in the middle of a game in Marvel Vs Capcom, about to win right before you have to turn it off. Since you can’t save mid fight, just minimize the screen and come back to it when you’re able to. With that though, there’s a downfall — it’ll kill your battery.

So, about that battery. It’ll last mostly between 3-4 hours of continuous playtime, which isn’t all that great, but it’s not terrible either. I can see it being a problem on long flights, but other than that, you shouldn’t have much of a problem if you just remember to charge it when you get wherever you’re going. More often than not, people are going to be using the Vita on trains, busses and in cabs in the middle of their busy commute, and the battery life of the Vita feels perfect for it.

The Games
Editor’s Note: This is section is a generalization of how the Vita works as gaming device. Watch for specific reviews throughout the week

By far though, the Vita’s biggest improvement over its predecessor is that it includes two thumb sticks, rather than the one found on the PSP. It may not seem like a major thing, but most games, especially those of major franchises are built around using both of the thumb sticks, and having a system that relies only on the one requires developers to create entire control schemes that don’t fit as well as the original, as well as requiring players to relearn almost everything they know about playing games in the modern day.

The Vita does a great job doing away with all that, and even the company’s biggest franchises feel like they should — to an extent. Uncharted Golden Abyss feels an awful lot like Uncharted, just on a smaller scale, but it’s damn impressive that they made a portable game feel like Uncharted at all.

On paper, the Vita’s launch lineup of games feels like the strongest ever, but whether it is or not is debatable. The system seller will easily be Uncharted, but there’s some strong titles that you should consider when you’re picking up your new handheld. Lumines: Electronic Symphony, the puzzle game from Q Entertainment is tough to put down, and games like Modnation Racers, Touch My Katamari and Little Deviants are fun to pick up and play with little investment.

Like most launches with new tech, a lot of the games often feel like mere tech demos. Escape Plan for instance feels like a way to show off the quality of the screen, while Little Deviants feels like a how-to for the suite of new features and Uncharted feels like Sony trying to prove that this new tech can work with its established franchises. Does it? Mostly yes, but there’s are definite kinks to work out in the process.

The Verdict: Should you buy a Vita?

It’s always risky to buy anything when it first releases as there’s bound to be issues, price drops, or in the long run, new and improved models. During my two weeks with the PlayStation Vita, I can tell you this, I haven’t used my 3DS, iPad or phone for gaming, it’s been all Sony’s new machine. The screen is amazing, the additional thumbstick does wonders for the Vita’s credibility as a gaming system and though it’s not as portable as it could be, The Vita is a great way to take your games with you.

Are there issues to work out? Of course, but like any other launch, they’ll be fixed with time as developers learn how to better harness the potential of the new hardware. If you’re a commuter or at all in need of a portable gaming system, Blast highly recommends the Vita.

The PlayStation Vita is available February 22 and comes in two different models, one with Wifi for $249.99, and another that runs on AT&T’s 3G network for $299, This review was based on a 3G model, provided by the Publisher, along with the launch lineup.

When the original Twisted Metal was released in November of 1995, I was 10, and just about to enter junior high. That whole next year, a small group of friends and I spent far too much time on the couch, chasing each other down and giggling as we took one another out with missile. Now,over sixteen years later, somethings have become very evident — I’ve grown up, but Twisted Metal has not.

But perhaps, that’s not an entirely bad thing. It may seem juvenile and a bit of the mechanics seem dated, but there’s something that’s got to be said for a game that’s as fun as ever, and refuses to change — even as the industry around it demands maturity.

A bit of a primer first for those who may have missed the franchise’s previous iterations, Twisted Metal revolves around you being placed in badass vehicles, armed with bad ass weapons and tasks you with taking them out at any cost. It’s all part of one crazy man, known as Calypso, and his deadly tournament where the winner gets any one wish granted.

This tournament is a bit different though, as unlike previous games, with a huge number of playable characters, here, we’ve only got three, Sweet Tooth, Mr. Grimm, and Doll Face. While that may seem a bit limiting, each of the three characters comes with their own gang of followers, but most importantly has the ability to drive any of the game’s vehicles. So yes, Mr. Grimm can drive Sweet tooth’s trademarked ice cream truck.

The three character campaign offers a big change to the game’s single player format. Each of the three characters gets a chapter and leads up to a boss fight (not to mention some questionable live action cut scenes) that offer a wide range of difficulty. If it sounds like the single player game is short, that’s because it is, and you’ll more than likely finish it in one sitting. One has to wonder why the developers didn’t include more characters and a longer campaign.

Does it really matter though? Who’s really buying Twisted Metal for the single player? No, you’re paying for the mutliplayer, be it online or on the couch, and I’m glad to say that Twisted Metal still feels exactly like it should, and is a blast to play with freinds. The action is frantic, the weapons are fun and there are plenty of moments where you’re going to get some serious trash talking with your pals. There’s always a mad rush to get some of each of the powerups scattered throughout the maps.

But is Twisted Metal too stuck in its ways for its own good? The game drips with 90s gaming charm — so much so that it may turn some gamers off. The controls for instance are very arcade-like and save for a few different ratings and weaponry, the cars are predominately the same. Those different weapons though are a big part of what makes Twisted Metal so much fun in the first place. Special weaponry ranges from everything from sniper riffles with long lock-ons, to exploding grannies on stretchers (no, really), and are a blast to use. Most Twisted Metal matches start off incredibly hectic, but towards the end, the novelty of this starts to wear off, and the game actually starts to rely on actual skill to win matches

Visually, Twisted Metal feels like a lot more than a cleaned up version of the classic, as the game takes on a bit of a comic book look, but the most impressive part is that even with all of the weapons going off and the buildingings crumbling, Twisted Metal holds up pretty impressively and doesn’t fall victim to some of the same slowdown issues that other games like it have. You can’t deny just how cool it looks to narrowly escape a missile as it takes out a building behind you.

The Blast Factor: It may seem a little dated, and the packaging may be a bit thin (it doesn’t hurt that you’ll get a free copy of Twisted Metal Black), but it still retains the same off the wall, in your face high octane fun that the series is known for. Fans of the franchise, and fans of fun gaming in general will want to get behind the wheel of Sweet Tooth’s truck.

I’ve always had this theory. In the beginning of every year, there’s that strange lull until we get new quality games, and perhaps it’s a bit unfair, but those games set the tone for what the rest of the year will be like. Terrible games are relaesed first? Get ready for a dissapointing year, but if we get good quality games within the first major release week, then that’s a different story.

If The Darkness 2, the new shooter from 2K games is any indication — we’re about to have a great year. Now, don’t get me wrong — it’s not perfect, but it’s fun, over the top and gory fun layered on top of quality writing and fine tuned mechanics. The Darkness 2 sets 2012 off to the right path.

The Darkness 2 is of course a direct sequel to the 2007 shooter based off of the Top Cow comic book series of the same name created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl. If you haven’t experienced either here’s a bit of a primer; the titular Darkness is an ancient mystical force that allows the one who posseses it access to a mysterious dimension and control over the darkling creatures that reside there.

The Darkness has currently chosen low life gangster and hitman Jackie Estacado as its host, and he’s parlayed that into a full takeover of his mob family — but of course things aren’t that easy. The Darkness 2 starts off with an attack on Jackie and the mob family, and a mysterious man trying to control the Darkness.

So what does that mean for you? Mainly lots of killing, maiming and shooting — luckily it’s all done so well. You’ll start out just as you do with any other shooter, but when The Darkness starts to beg Jackie to let it out again, that’s when the game starts to retain an identity all its own. The Darkness portrays itself mostly as two giant snake like creatures that portrude from your back, and proceed to make your enemies lives a living hell. 2K and Digital Extremes has done a great job making the actual Darkness abilities make you feel like an unstoppable force, which goes a long way in making the game feel so incredibly rewarding.

Take one of the game’s earlier levels, which finds you traveling through a subway system battling a litteral army of thugs. Not only can you use your average guns to take them out, but The Darkness adds a slew of cool abilities to your repertoire. Slash at them violently, grab them, literally rip them apart, take objects as cover — you can even summon darkling creatures to attack your enemies, and apparently they speak with an English accent.

The Darkness 2 also features an RPG style leveling system which allows you to use dark essence from your downed enemies to make your Darkness abilities even more powerful. One of the first abilities you’ll unlock is key — the ability to eat the hearts of your downed enemies to regain health, but I found that if I wasn’t led to a powerup that I absolutley needed, I never really really found myself going out of my way to level up these abilities. The Darkness 2 often felt like it could be finsished without even touching some of these abilities.

Perhaps that’s the Darkness 2′s biggest downfall — there’s just not a ton of content here. The single player game can be finished in a matter of hours, and there’s not really any reason to jump back in after you’ve finished it. Strangely, the multiplayer suite from the first game has been scrapped, but there is a respectable co-op mode, still though, it could turn a lot of online gaming focused players off from an otherwise entertaining shooter.

The visuals of The Darkness 2 though are remarkably well done. Rather than go for a phot realistic look, the folks at 2K and Digital Extremes have gone a route that makes The Darkness 2 look like the living embodiment of a comic book. The environments are all created as you’d expect, and then given a cell shading-esque top layer, which works very well for a game of this style.

Blast Factor:The Darkness 2 might not be a perfect shooter, but it’s an absolute blast and a great start to 2012. It’s violent, fun and performs well in some of the most hectic situations — we just wish there was more of it. If you like shooter, pulp and gratious violence, do yourself a favor and unleash The Darkness.

Julia (Lizzy Caplan) reluctantly represents the cutesy Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel)

A show’s longevity can often be a testament to the respect for the fan base. Writers with their ear to the ground earn the privilege of long careers for being flexible, maintaining the ebb and flow between art and viewer. Nowadays, audience feedback has exponentially increased with the advent of blogs and message boards. Opinions don’t go unexpressed by the internet generation. Trends are cooked up in mere minutes and memes become notorious within just a few clicks.

So it should come as no shock that the folks at “New Girl” are privy to the cyber-rage being leveled at their leading lady. To be frank, Zooey Deschanel has done nothing to directly warrant the diss-heavy rhetoric of these incensed commentators, but the persona she embodies ruffles some feathers. She’s the eternal optimist. She’s the girl who bakes cookies and cupcakes “just ’cause.” As she confesses in tonight’s episode, “she’s probably touched glitter in the last 24 hours.” It’s sickening just how cheerful she can be and that provokes intense hatred among cynics and pragmatists the world over.

Tonight, creator Elizabeth Meriwether and writer Luvh Rahke fired back. Meta-commentary, or the act of referencing a show’s flaws/quirks/distinct qualities within the show itself, has become an integral evolution of the sitcom, especially with the new advent of the the single-camera comedy. When you can poke fun at yourself, you earn not only the respect of your detractors, but you embolden your apologists. Lizzy Caplan, introduced last week as Nick’s “we don’t like labels, but we have sex” partner, Julia, served as the mouthpiece for those disgusted by Jess’ sunny disposition. Eager to have another female in the apartment, Jess tries to befriend Julia. She asks the competent lawyer for her counsel in appealing a traffic violation. When they sit down to discuss the parameters of the incident, Julia draws first blood.

Jess recalls the incident, stating that the violation occurred when she stopped in the middle of the road to rescue an injured bird. In disbelief, Julia remarks to Jess that her “whole thing” might just help in court. Here’s a Girl-speak refresher course for you: “whole thing” is code for a defect in another’s girl personality, potentially a front for a more preferable personality type. She also adds that the big eyes resemble a “scared baby.” In laymen’s terms she passive-agressively told Jess, she thinks she’s weird. To combat her guilt, after she read Jess’ pained expression, Julia then confides in her, asking if she can share about Nick’s activity with other girls. When Jess takes the high road, deciding to not violate her trust with Nick, it begins a tale as old as time. The Girly Girl vs. The Smart Girl. Ring the bell.

Now, I too have been critical of Jess, but I never directed that frustration at Ms. Deschanel. Her charm, and magnetic screen presence should make other envious, and her sense of humor is unique and she owns it. My problem is as written she often acts so naive, she should be dead. But as this episode suggests, I believe her behavior is a lifestyle, a decision to embrace the loveliness in the mundane, to elevate the pretty to a level of equal importance with the substantial. This can be an interesting route to go comedically, because you can play with how her world affects her perception, and how she reconciles the inevitable conflicts that call her idealism into question.

Along with these ambitious efforts, there was also some silliness spread amongst out male trio. Nick was essentially entangled in the Jess/Julia standoff, but he had the privilege of backing off and letting it play out. However, he encountered some struggles of his own when Jess in a moment of atypical spite, deliberately told Nick that Julia inquired about his recent sexual activities. When he confronts Julia, they both try to maintain leverage, each one-upping the other’s claims of copious amounts of sex. By episode’s end, both have conceded they wish to be exclusive, dissolving their facades. Nick delivered many of his patented “trying too hard” non sequiturs, but he drew the most fervor from Schmidt when he admitted to using his towel unintentionally. Though he doesn’t understand the outrage. “Oh come on, I don’t wash towels, the towel washes me!” “You guys don’t share underpants either? That’s what roommates do!”

Schmidt, still my vote for new comedy MVP, launched a crusade on dampness. His theory is that with more girls in the apartment, his towel has gotten damper, and his fortress of cleanliness had been disturbed. At first, I was weary of this plot. I love me some Schmidt getting flustered, but I didn’t want this minute conflict to diminish the progress made two weeks ago where Schmidt opened up about what he really wants. Alas, my faith was rewarded, and we get a stellar scene where Schmidt in attempting to traverse the living area, sans towel, slips, exposing himself: his junk and his true feelings. In a fit of consternation, Schmidt voices his unmet expectations about living with Jess. He thought he would be having way more sex! Ha! Oh, New Girl, just when I thought Schmidt was going to level with us again, he rips a page out of Douchebag 101. I think the balance between these neurotic, douchey, and more vulnerable characteristics are superb, and should be all means be encouraged in the weeks to come.

Even Winston, gets a spotlight. I still feel as though we know far too little of who Winston is outside of a man without a country. That country used to be Latvia, where he was a humongous star with several endorsements. But now, not only is he jobless, but he must confront his insecurities. Without the glamour of his pro ball career, he has no game with the ladies. In an attempt to relive his glory days, he calls up Shelby, former booty call. In a bit of comic genius, it’s slowly revealed to us that Winston has broken all the cardinal rules of dating. First, he met up with her at HER OWN RESTAURANT, he made her get her own drink (water), and he talked about himself the whole time. Mad rusty. Shutting out any advice from Schmidt, Jess serves him some humble pie. She demands he listen to her, that he swallow his pride and realize he has no game, and admit that he was an idiot for using her before. The apprentice then shines by insisting Shelby tell him all that he has missed, and he fully claims responsibility for being a jerk in the past. The humility angle works and he scores a second date. His victory dance is so disturbing (and hilarious)that it almost alarmed her to point where she thought he might be having a seizure, but baby steps. That goes for the series too. It’s proceeding cautiously with Winston, unsure of what his identity can be apart from how he relates to his buddies and who he once was, but by humbling him, they have opened the door for post-Latvia Winston.

So who come out victorious in the showdown of frills vs. wit? Surprisingly, the winner wore a ribbon hat. Reluctantly fulfilling her obligation, Julia showed up to represent Jess, but it was during the post-trial recess where Jess began her defense. Once Julia made a smarmy remark about her “bird defense” Jess pulled no punches. Self-assured, she takes pride in her propensity for cuteness, but strikes the final blow, announcing that she hates what her pantsuit represets, Julia’s feelings of superiority. She can be just as smart, and tough and strong. If Meriwether backs up Jess’ swagger in the episodes to come, then I believe we can look forward to a whole new reservoir for material.

The only worry moving forward might be that they won’t find a better anti-Jess than Lizzy Caplan’s Julia. Of course she is Nick’s squeeze for now, but when they inevitably break up (Nick’s nowhere near secure enough in himself to have a big boy relationship) we’ll lose the springboard for many great contentions. Even when they resolve their tensions in the end, and Jess invites her to crochet, Julia becomes incensed about her imprecision with the craft. Jess’ response: “If you are making a hat for a baby, you are done!” Where else can you find that kind of chemsitry? Let’s hope the well doesn’t go dry any time soon, because top-form New Girl is a thing of equal parts beauty and whimsy. For showcasing all the roommates, approaching the ambition task of meta-humor with grace and executing with tremendous payoff for Jess the character, and maintaining a level of pound-for-pound, joke-for-joke excellence, the fresh and ever-evolving “New Girl” has nearly established itself as a prizefighter in comedy circles with the back-to-back A-.

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

- “He doesn’t believe in mail, which has to do with his views on government spending.”

- “I’m gonna smack that lawyer learning right out of her mouth.”

- “I’ll be putting my dehumidifier and my towel in my room, where nothing gets wet.”

- “Did you just hear the words ‘lesbian community’ and come rushing out of your room?”

- “I’m like a mailman. Except instead of mail, it’s hot sex I deliver.”    Wow, two mail jokes!

- ” If I acted like you at work, my students would turn in weird, really dark dioramas.”

- “I’m about to pay this $500 fine and my checks have baby farm animals on them, bitch.”

- “As a lesbian gynecologist, perhaps we should sit down and talk about our OSI….oh, our shared interests.”

My dad loves football, but he finds football video games too complicated. I can’t really blame him either; I’ve tried to get him into Madden, but when you really break the 800 LB gorilla of a gaming franchise down, it’s tough to explain; even if it is second nature when playing. That’s exactly why NFL Blitz works so well — it’s America’s favorite game (Yeah, that’s right, I said it baseball) boiled down to its most basic elements.

Now, after years of being absent, the arcade style footballer returns; in all of its glory — well, sort of. It’s still just as frantic and fun as you remember, but it also comes during a turbulent time in the NFL, once that changes the very landscape and identity of what NFL Blitz is. Still, if you have even the slightest love for NFL Football, Blitz is a blast, especially played with friends.

If you’ve never played NFL Blitz, it’s basically a suped up version of Madden. The players are bigger and ripped with muscles and the plays more explosive. The game nixes strategy and philosophy for over-the-top action and adrenaline. In Blitz, there are no penalties, teams can catch on fire and it takes 30 yards for a first down rather than the standard ten yards.

The action in Blitz is fast, fun and in-your-face. It’s not uncommon to have score upwards of 30 points in the first quarter, and you’re bound to jump off your feet at least a few times. This is where Blitz excels, there’s never really a dull moment, and it gets even better when you’re playing against friends. This is the type of game that friendships are tested on, as it’s extremely fun to play against your friends in Blitz. Think throwing the game winning hail mary in Madden is fun? Imagine the thrill of doing it in Blitz, complete with players on fire and jumping clean over their opponents.

The most impressive aspect of Blitz is how much it retains the original arcade feel. Games are quick and easy for anyone to jump in and pick up and play. Perhaps more impressive, they’re also just as easy for anyone to win. It’s this accessibility that seems to be missing from most other current gen sports games. Blitz even features the old school Midway style codes to be entered at the versus screen for effects like different stadiums, characters and effects.

This isn’t however, the NFL Blitz of old, not completely anyways. The NFL is a much different league than we saw when the last entry in the series was released and that’s something that Blitz both falls victim to and benefits from at the same time. This season, the NFL has been tougher on late hits, and as a result, you won’t be able to stop your opponent’s touchdown celebration with a late, bone jarring hit. Sure, the hits in Blitz are ferocious enough, (come on, I delivered a piledriver to a Quarterback during a sack) but the late hits were a big part of the original games.

Aside from the Play Now option, you’re bound to get the majority of playtime from the game’s Blitz Gauntlet mode. Similar to modes found in games like NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat, you’ll face off with teams in a ladder format, with bosses mixed in. These bosses range from fictional characters (zombies) to team inspired creations (my Packers for instance had to face off with guys in overalls, Packer Jerseys and cheeseheads). These boss battles also feature powerups spread throughout the field, which makes them feel different than your standard games. There’s also a trading card game similar to that found in Madden, but I didn’t like it there and I don’t here either.

Tim Kitzrow from the original Blitz and NBA Jam games makes his return, and is just as entertaining as ever. Him and his announcing partner openly mock pop culture, including games, which includes Blitz. My favorite was when the two said that next year they’re going to audition for Madden because it pays more. Visually, NFL Blitz is on par with what you’d expect, though I was a bit disappointed at the lack of detail in some of the player’s faces. Sure, sometimes Aaron Rodgers looks like himself in the game, but others he just looks like another nameless, faceless NFL Quarterback.

The Blast Factor:NFL Blitz proves that arcade style sports gaming still has a place in modern gaming. It’s a blast to play, especially with other human players, and its accessibility makes it easy for just about anyone to jump in and play. . If you’ve got even the most slightest affinity for the sport or multiplayer gaming — you owe it to yourself to check out this modern day revival.

Tagging alongside the massive undertaking by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, “The Adventures of Tintin: The Game” attempts to capitalize on the undeniable hype surrounding the blockbuster film. It may be easy to categorize this game in the same spectrum as the unavoidable horrible movie tie-ins that come with nearly any marketable film. However, by shrinking its audience down to the younger fans of the film, Ubisoft has produced a not so terrible game tie in that may just please some of the more devoted fans of the Belgian journalist.

As is the case with many of these games, the story mimics that of the movie it is based on. There is no deviation from the plot and no interesting spin offs in order to show any further development of the characters. Worse, the game actually expects you to have seen the film before playing it, skipping over some not- so-important plot points in order to get you back in the action. It can feel heavily rushed at times.

Nonetheless, where the story fails to develop past the established base, the gameplay takes in interesting twist on how it captures the events of the film. The bulk of the game places Tintin in a 2D plane where he is able to ascend and descend levels at designated areas in order to avoid enemies. When they do spot you he combat is moronic at best, with the majority of enemies being taken down by a simple shake of the Wiimote. Certain bad guys will be more heavily armored and will require the use of projectile items to defeat them. When everything is working it plays like a simplified Metroid with some Metal Gear Solid elements, yet fails to craft the same level of challenge as those games. Bringing in another partner for co-op only makes the experience easier.

At about half way through the game, vehicles start coming more into play, with extended segments placing you behind the wheel of a biplane, motorcycle, and human torpedo. Unfortunately, the vehicles control like a blind whale with horrible turn angles and unnatural handling. The small joy you feel when the game sends other biplanes at you for some dogfighting action is quickly subdued as you have to fight with the plane you are controlling more than the actual enemy.

There is some rudimentary puzzle solving included as well as small segments where you play as Tintin’s trusty dog, Snowy. While entertaining, they wear thin by the end of the game and fail to add any more replay value to the already short adventure (clocking in at about 4 hours).
Another method of breaking up the action is by means of a flashback sequence in which you play as the Captain of the doomed Unicorn. In it you have a rudimentary, on rails swordfight against some pirates. Here is where some Wii Motion Plus action comes into play as the sword you are holding is highly responsive. It is a shame, then, that you can easily beat most bad guys by shaking it frantically. However, if you are willing to take it seriously, it can be a bit of fun.
In the end, after setting aside all the negative praise, you find yourself with a rather charming little game. It is functional, and the animations are pretty to look at. There seems to have been some genuine effort put behind this project, unlike most movie tie-ins. When it comes down to the grind, this is not worth forty dollars, but any kid who loved the movie will find certain enjoyment out of this title.

Blast Factor: Despite its unavoidable flaws, “The Adventures of Tintin” for the Wii is a functional game. The gameplay is enjoyable and varied and the environments have some charm. It is not made for the average gamer, with the challenge present being minimal for anyone who has played a game in the past ten years. However, it is sure to please any young Tintin fans as they find it wrapped at the foot of the Christmas tree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, you can see where this is going.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone’s heard the old adage “if you want something done right, you better do it yourself.” Nintendo, running out of options for its embattled 3DS system as the Holiday season quickly approaches, seems to finally have understood that as Super Mario 3D Land is not only the most impressive game on the handheld, but it could spark a revival for it. Aspiring 3DS developers take note — this is how you truly take advantage of the console’s power.

Of course, Super Mario 3D Land starts off like almost every Mario game before it; Princess Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser and its up to Mario to save her. The key here is that when she got kidnapped, she was checking on a special tree in the castle courtyard which contained the leaves that give Mario the Tanooki suit. It’s a simple story really, one that you’d expect from the franchise but it’s told via charming cut-scenes that really take advantage of the system’s 3D capabilities. In between worlds, Mario will receive photos from the Princess, detailing her predicament. These letters could be the most impressive use of the 3DS screen yet; they pop with color and vibrance.

From a gameplay standpoint, 3D Land is everything you’d expect from a Mario game — but it’s also so much more. Interestingly, it’s tough to figure just what Mario game it borrows from the most. It feels an awful lot like Super Mario 64 or Sunshine, but it also borrows a lot from NES classic Super Mario 3. Super Mario 3D Land feels like Nintendo picked the best pieces of the entire Mario history and blended them together seamlessly.  The level design is incredible and perhaps most interestingly encourages users to experiment and explore. Take one of the castles found early in the game, there’s an unassuming torch that most will just run past, but interacting with it will prove valuable in your quest. Sure you could just go from one end of the level to the other, but you’ll be missing a good portion of the experience.

On that same note though, that sense of exploration could annoy some. The goal of most Mario games has always been get from point A to point B, and for the first few worlds I did just that. Sure, I would get the occasional star coin on my way, but I was never too concerned with getting them. It was quite a shock then when later in the game I found that I needed fifty of those coins to even advance through the game. As a result, I went through the game…each level and collected the coins. While this backtracking may seem a bit annoying to some, it was here, with all of the “Aha moments” that I truly fell in love with Mario’s latest adventure. By going off the beaten path you truly get an appreciation for the amount of work Nintendo put into the game.

To be honest, for a game in such an established franchise, Super Mario 3D Land is quite the deceiving experience. It’s easiest to think of it this way; this is a game with two different sides. The first is world 1-8, almost laughably easy, you’ll get a lot of extra 1-ups (by world two I had 60 or so without even really trying) and move fast, but then after world 8 (yeah, there’s more than eight worlds), things change drastically. The platforming is tougher and you’re going to have to have to be incredibly precise in your jumps and timing. Telling you about these worlds would be a major spoiler, so you’re going to want to experience them yourself, but just be ready for the swift shift in gameplay.

Super Mario 3D is a game that is meant to be played using the system’s 3D capabilities, in fact you could go as far as to say that this is the first game for the handheld that truly takes advantage of the 3D, without it getting in the way. Using the 3D effects, you’ll be able to experience Mario’s world in a way you’ve never done. Here, it’s easier to judge the distance between blocks, jumps and it even helps get a better feel for the level design. There are certain sections (mostly near the end) that are nearly impossible to pass without using the 3D, but what’s great is that not only can you adjust the game’s 3D using the slider on the system, but during certain sections a simple press of the d-pad will adjust the d-pad even further. There is one portion of the game where the 3D does seem to get in the way though — in each world, there are binoculars somewhere and looking through them will enable you to survey the map using the 3DS’ gyroscope and if you’re one of those that gets headaches when not staring at the 3D dead on be warned, you’re going to want to turn it off before using them.

What would a Mario game be without power-ups? In Super Mario 3D Land, you’ll of course have the standard mushrooms, power stars and fire flowers, but the game introduces a few new(ish) items to the game as well.  The most prevalent of course is the returning Tanooki tail, which allows Mario to flutter and float in the air (no, it doesn’t do everything it did in Mario 3). There’s also a new boomerang suit, which allows Mario to toss a boomerang at his enemies. While it was helpful, I found myself shying away from the boomerang suit when I could in exchange for the fireflower, which itself is improved and can take out multiple enemies at once.

For a 3DS game, Super Mario 3D Land is easily the best looking on the system. Everything from the shading to the wonderful animations and crisp textures makes for an incredible sense of production. The world of Super Mario 3D Land is a bright and colorful one filled with breathtaking visuals and they all fit in the palm of your hand. The sound is just as charming as you’d expect from a Mario game, and the soundtrack is a mix of classic tunes and new mixes that are so catchy it’s damn near impossible to get them out of your head.

Most charming about the game though is the sheer level of fan service it packs. The game is full of references to previous Mario games, from the Toad House from Super Mario 3 to having to cross a bridge and jump on a switch to defeat Bowser and send him to a fiery pit below.  It’s not just Mario games that get nods here; there’s a much talked about Zelda inspired world early on in the game, and there’s  even a few instances where standing on a certain spot in a hidden room makes the Zelda discovery noise. Perhaps most impressive is just how all of this, the fan service, the excellent production values, and the fun gameplay work together to create one impressive and unforgettable experience.

The Blast Factor: Super Mario 3D Land illustrates a very important point — never count Nintendo out. After nearly ten months, a ton of disappointing games and a massive price drop, the 3DS not only has it’s first must have game, but it has one that defines the system and what it can do. Super Mario 3D Land may not be perfect, but it is the most impressive 3DS game to date, and one of the best Mario games in a long time.

I’m what you call a wallflower. Born with two left feet, it’s a hazard to many when I’m dragged on to the dance floor. Let me let you in on a little secret though; when the curtains are drawn, and mood is right — I’ve been known to cut a mean rug in front of games like Dance Central with the family. You’ll probably never see it, but it’s quite the strange site to see a grown 240 lb man shaking it to Poker Face. Dance Central and its sequel are easily the standard in the newly forming dancing genre, but Sony’s new entry Everybody Dance is a more than capable challenger to the throne. With a slick presentation and a few new bells and whistles, it could be the most surprisingly fun guilty pleasure you’ll have this year — be warned though, the more you play, the more you’ll start to pick apart its flaws.

By now you know Everybody Dance’s deal, hold the PlayStation Move controller, and shake it to a bunch of awesome music while diagrams on the screen show you what your next move will be. It’s a simple formula, but Everybody Dance may have found an incredibly simple way to improve upon it. The upper left hand corner of the screen features the song’s music video, and while it may sound distracting for the dance steps, it serves quite a useful purpose. Odds are that the majority of the people playing games like this and Dance Central aren’t the best dancers, but are looking to have a fun time. Adding in the music video seems to make those apprehensive to join in the fun a bit more since not everyone’s attention is focused directly on them. In general though, the presentation in Everybody Dance is top notch. The on-screen display is crisp and unlike games like Just Dance, they’re quite easy to follow.

Of course, any dancing game is built on just how good its track listing is, and Everybody Dance delivers here too. While other games in the genre clearly focus on one genre while throwing occasional love to others, Everybody Dance’s track list is an eclectic one to say the least. At one point you’re jamming to Rihanna, then the next you’re getting nostalgic with New Kids on the Block or even a bit romantic with Barry White.  Personally, I really enjoyed my time with Elton John’s “I’m still standing” and The Chemical Brothers, “Hey Boy, Hey Girl.”

In Everybody Dance, you can dance alone, compete against a friend or alongside them in co-op, but where the game really takes off is with its dance creator mode. Here, you can skip the game’s choreography for the game and record your own, then challenge others to dance it. This is extremely fun and novel in a number of different ways — first, people like me can record the strangest dances in the world and laugh as friends try to copy them, but it’s also great for those who can actually dance and want to show the world their choreography skills. If Everybody Dance has legs, it’ll be here.

Really, the only thing that bugged me with Everybody Dance isn’t an issue with the game itself, but the platform it’s on and its limitations. The PlayStation Move requires the controller and the Eye camera, so it begs the question — if I’m doing all of this work, trying to match up with the choreography perfectly, is it just monitoring the controller itself? Could I get by with just moving the controller somewhat similarly to the way the dancers are? Yes…and no. Most songs don’t allow you to cheat, but there were a few times when it felt like I was just able to take the easy way out. Take for instance a few cases where I was given good scores after I know I screwed up the majority of my body.

The Blast Factor: Everybody Dance is the perfect game to bring out at parties. Everyone is bound to have a good time since they’re not paying that close attention to the game’s mechanics. It’s bright, loud and so incredibly fun that even wallflowers like me are going to find it hard to resist. It may not be perfect, but Everybody Dance could be one of the biggest surprises of this holiday season.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the coming weeks and months, you’re bound to hear a lot about the big things that make Uncharted 3 so special. You’re going to hear about the thrilling set pieces, the over the top action and the multiplayer. While these things are impressive and go a very long way in making the game what it is, they’re not what makes the game truly great. What separates Nathan Drake’s latest adventure from other action adventure games is the little touches. It’s in the way that Naughty Dog made the worlds and characters so believable, how through a combination of wonderful music, writing, pacing and gameplay, you’re going to care more about these characters than most.  

Simply put, Uncharted 3 is one of the best games I’ve ever played.

Once again you’re dumped in to a globetrotting adventure with Nathan Drake, Sully and the rest of his pals. Trying not to give away much, you’re on a quest that deals with Drake’s ancestor; Sir Francis Drake. While this may seem like business as usual for the franchise, it’s truly anything but. For the first time in franchise history, things aren’t as black and white as “we’re going here to look for treasure,” sure those moments are here, but the story is built around developing the believable relationships between characters like Drake and Sully or even the game’s new villain Katherine Marlowe. Key here is that for the first time ever, we’re actually doubting Drake’s intentions, and each of the game’s characters instantly feels much more real, and watching that story play out is incredibly interesting.

Perhaps what makes the game so incredibly riveting to watch is just how well every part of the game works in unison. The story features absolutely brilliant pacing that rivals that of Hollywood movies, and the top notch voice acting combined with the stunning score and remarkable visuals makes for a great experience. With Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog has cemented their reputation as one of the best storytellers in not just the industry, but all of popular culture.  It’s seen in the relationship reveals, the stunning plot twists that make you rethink the entire strategy, and perhaps most importantly, the game’s feeling of resonance players are sure to have each time they step away.

Gameplay wise, Uncharted 3 takes a lot from its most recent predecessor, but here, things have been fine tuned. You’ll still jump from ledge to ledge, shimmy across pipes and escape from certain death at the last minute, but somehow – it still feels fresh and new. Perhaps it’s because the game at times challenges what you think you know from the series. Take one of the game’s early stages where I was trying to follow the game’s villain, Katherine Marlowe. To get a better vantage point, I jumped on to a pole protruding from the side of the building, but before I knew it, it snapped in half, sending me to my death. It’s moments like these that caused me to stop and rethink my choices for most of the game.

The majority of Uncharted 3’s campaign is centered around gigantic, over-the-top action movie style set pieces that even outdo those of the previous game. Whether it’s clinging for dear life to a chain on the outside of an old tower or escaping a burning chateau in France, Uncharted 3 is full of moments that are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.  What makes these moments so memorable is just how human Drake feels during them. Now, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about how Drake feels less human this go-round, how he can seemingly survive anything, but do you really want the opposite? Do you want to have to start over after every gunshot, every grenade toss. Drake is remarkably human and relatable because after these events, he’s huffing and puffing, trying to catch his breath; amazed at what just happened.  He shows true emotion. He seems to be just as surprised at what just happened as I did. If you ask me, that’s much more human than most action games, which feature heroes who don’t even flinch in the face of danger.

I may be in the minority here, but I actually loved the melee combat in Uncharted 2, so I was a bit apprehensive when I learned they were changing it for the new game, but after only a few minutes, I found myself enjoying myself every bit as much as in the previous game. There’s now a dedicated reversal system, which goes a long way in helping change the rhythm of a fight, along with a context sensitive grab mechanic. Say you’re standing by a window, you can grab a guy and toss him out of it, or slide him down a bar you’re next to. If I had to compare it to another game, it would be that of the recently released Arkham City, which also had a stellar melee system.

Uncharted 3 is at its best when it’s doing two things, keeping me on the edge of my seat and making me care about what’s happening to its characters. The game succeeds most in both ways about midway through the game, when (hoping to avoid giving too much away) Drake is alone in the desert and you feel like you’re right alongside him. Naughty Dog does this by using a number of camera and control tricks that bring the player even more in to the game.  Go into a cave with tight passageways and the camera zooms in and stays tight on Drake, so you feel like you’re there.  Another great example is in the opening bar scene where Drake rests against the bar for a second, it’s an extremely believable animation, and doesn’t progress until the character allows it to. Nathan Drake feels less like a character, and more like a believable person.

 The Blast Factor: I play most games in a predictable fashion. I sit down, play for a few hours and then I walk away. I do anything else. I let the game brew in my head. With Uncharted 3, I couldn’t do that, every time I tried to walk away, I was pulled back. I needed to know what happens next; and that my friends is the mark of a truly excellent game. Uncharted 3 is sure to wow you with its fantastic presentation, thrilling gameplay and all around complete package. This is a game that I can’t recommend enough, and your PS3 library is not complete without it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yup, that's a winner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In their second installment of the series, Signal Studios made their best attempt at successfully translating a popular online game genre into the console business. If you’re a fan of “defend the castle” gaming genres and you are looking for a few hours of entertainment then this game could be for you. If you are looking for a game you could play repeatedly both by yourself and with friends until your thumbs blister, then steer clear.

The short campaign, which roughly took 5 hours to complete, is repetitive and rather boring. The poor attempt at a storyline is based off the cold war between Russia and the United States, taking a fictional approach to the physical combat that could have been. The storyline is virtually non-existent and you don’t even follow a unit or soldier through the campaign.  Besides the short briefings before each level, which in many instances is shown too quickly to actually read in their entirety, there is little continuity in the game. While the game focuses primarily on a single player option, a multi-player option is also available, although not developed anywhere near its’ full potential.

Like every other of its kind, as you successfully progress through the levels, both the computers and your own units increase in strength, although the layouts of the levels remain relatively unchanged. The overall game experience doesn’t change much other than the upgrade in units you achieve. There is the occasional boss but they don’t offer much of a challenge or any inventive twist.  They have a big gun or two and spout troops like they would if you weren’t playing a boss.

The graphics are acceptable, but nothing to rave about. The levels themselves are relatively small when compared to games like Halo wars and Civilizations for xbox 360, but they fit the necessary size for the game style. They could have been bigger in order to give you more turrets and the computer more insertion points. This could provide the need to be more strategic and increase difficulty or fun. While they do incorporate some physical items, such as other dolls and children’s toys to make it feel like you are playing in toy world, the overall experience differs only slightly from a traditional cartoon-like battle game. When the units are destroyed, they break apart into plastic pieces with no blood, which along with the toy theme makes this war game a little more kid friendly.

There are a few positives to this game. Unlike its online counterparts, you are able to control the turrets individually and vehicles such as tanks, helicopters, and a fighter jet. This allows you to make the difference in battle instead of depending on the AI to fight your battle. Since the AI is only a moderate help, it is necessary for you to assist in the victory.  This feature is one of the few saving graces of the game, but again a flaw arises as vehicles run out of power, limiting your ability to use them successfully for the duration of each round of attacks. The turret control is quite an entertaining feature.  Mortars and artillery can be pretty difficult to control due to terrible view options, but the rest of the turrets can actually be pretty fun.  Another non-unique feature are the bonus kill streak awards.  These involve bomber runs, nuclear missiles, and a special forces GI (which dominates all). These are both useful and rather entertaining when you are able to achieve them.

Aside from the main campaign, you can also sharpen skills and spend a little time playing mini games.  These also leave something to be desired. Though it is fun to have unlimited ammo and countless enemies to shoot at, without the worry of your base getting destroyed, the short time limit of 30-60 seconds fails to give you enough time to really enjoy it.  The Survival mode can provide at least 20 – 30 minutes of fun, although with the same premise as the main campaign, can lose its’ entertainment factor quickly.

Blast Factor: At $10, I don’t consider Toy Soldiers to be a waste of money; however, buyers beware, you are getting a game worth $10 and not much more.  I do consider it to be a great way to pass a snowed-in winter afternoon, without having to dish out $60 for many other mainstream games.  Although this genre can be found scattered through the virtual bins of Internet free gaming websites, the Xbox controls and mediocre graphics add a little something extra that cannot be obtained in the PC realm. The fun wore off too quick to even spend the $10, but the hours playing Toy Soldiers can serve as an excellent placeholder waiting for the newest release of your favorite game. My advice is to spend $1 on a bin of toy soldiers, gather up some of your friends and host your own Cold War fictional combat reenactment.

Every year, I have a very distinct way that I play the NCAA Football series. At any time I have no less than two different dynasties going. I always start with the Wisconsin Badgers and continue my home state’s yearly dominance over winning countless national titles, but the other is a bit more interesting. I take a random small school and through recruiting and old fashioned coaching slowly turn them into a national powerhouse; then after a few years I change schools to see if I can do it again.  This usually means giving up my numbers and record and starting over, but thanks to the coaching carousel, a new feature in this year’s game, I’m able to play in one continuous game that allows me to think and more importantly react as an actual NCAA coach.

The coaching carousel mode is just one of many additions that makes NCAA Football one of the series premiere titles. Though it has its fair share of flaws and the majority of the gameplay hasn’t been changed much, there’s still much to like here.  From a slew of new presentation improvements to a notable amount of customization options, NCAA Football  2012 finally steps out from the shadow of its big brother, the Madden NFL series and it does so by celebrating the spectacle of college football and not just the product.

The addition of the coaching carousel to the Dynasty Mode is an interesting one. You start by creating your coach from style to alma matter and of course look (admittedly though there are some curious absences here. You mean I can make my coach wear a 3 piece suit but can’t give him a 60’s era hat?) and then you pick your first coaching job. Where you go and what role you take will have a massive impact on your experience: pick an offensive or defensive coordinator and you’ll only have control over that side of the ball; but if you pick a head coach you’ll have control over the entire team. At the beginning of each season you’re given a set of goals and these are how you’re judged at the end of the season. Once your contract runs out you’ll have the option to stay with your current team (if they don’t fire you) or testing the waters otherwise.  It’s an interesting twist and a brand new way to look at a mode that had become somewhat stale in recent years.

The mode isn’t without its flaws though. Key among them is the fact that regardless of what position you choose, you’re going to be responsible for the entire team’s recruitment process, thus giving you pretty much the same responsibilities and making the feat of getting a head coaching job seem that much more trivial. What’s more, it’s entirely too easy to pull of the game’s biggest feat – landing your “dream job.” Simply create your coach and set his alma matter to whatever team you want, then make him the head coach of that school, and you’re in (interestingly enough it’s also a way to get a 30 point achievement on the Xbox 360).

Coaching carousel isn’t the only notable addition to Dynasty mode as for the first time ever you’ll be able to change around divisions and NCAA rules to your liking. The impressive customization suite was included as an answer to last year’s talk of super conferences and a dramatic realigning and is a college football fans dream. Want Norte Dame to play in the Big Ten? Go for it. Want to move a small southern team into the SEC to play with the big boys? It’s all up to you.  What’s more, you can even change bowl bids and where the bowl games happen. For instance, you can make the winner of the SEC and the winner of the Big Ten play each other in the Orange Bowl if you’d like.

Another mode that’s grown stale in recent years but given an overhaul in the 2012 game is the Road to Glory mode.  The mode, which puts you in control of one single created player now starts you back at the beginning of your senior year of high school (teams are either automatically created or you can import them using the impressive team builder). Once you choose which school you’ll be playing for, the game becomes almost more like an RPG as you’ll earn experience points to level up your player through in game play and mini games like practice performance. While you’ll start as a simple backup, you’ll eventually work your way up to becoming a trusted starter that can call his own plays and audibles at the line.

As you’d probably expect, save for a few new animations and tweaks, not much of the game’s core gameplay has been changed from last year’s installment. Unfortunately, this includes a few key elements that desperately needed tweaking. Some of the game’s physics are still a bit strange (there were several times where the ball went directly through my receiver), and the AI still has a tendency to become unbelievably good towards the end of the game especially when trailing. Come on, it’s a bit strange when you’re dominating for three and a half quarters only to have the other team suddenly become experts at interceptions and sacks.

Not all of the game’s tweaks are of the gameplay variety though, as the game features an updated presentation aspect this year.  Key among the updates is the stadium specific introductions. While not all teams have big introductions, the key ones are here like Florida State’s Chief Osceola and Renegade running on to the field and the LSU Tiger. They’re great to watch the first few times, but what about the rest of the game? If you’re going to capture the true spirit of college football, why not do something special for the end of the game?  Why does it feel the same when I beat a no name opponent as it does when I upset a top ranked team? Also notable is the fact that the game’s crowd noise has been improved dramatically and you no longer get the feeling like you’re listening to 50 fans amplified to sound like 100,000 fans; you’re actually listening to the right amount.

Much like the gameplay however, the game still suffers from some of the same visual flaws that have haunted the series for years. At random times half of players will vanish and the ball will completely go through whole objects. The new presentation aspects are great, but I almost would have rather had them wait on those until they fixed these lingering problems.

Blast Factor: Though it has its fair share of flaws, NCAA Football 2012 is easily one of the best of the franchise. With its new customization suite and revamped modes, college football fans are sure to find enough to enjoy for some time to come – or at least until next year’s game releases.

California-based rapper/producer DJ Quik just released “The Book Of David,” his eighth album. The title comes from his real name, David Blake. As such, there is a personal concept through the album.

The album kicks off with an elegant intro track “Fire and Brimstone,” backed by jazz piano melody lines. Therhythmic track “Do Today” sounds dreamy and sharp simultaneously since funk music really helps the rap be outstanding and vivid. “Killer Dope” has the same effect, the combination of hip hop, funk, and sort of jazz is the huge factor.

As one of the guest singers, Jon B. does an excellent job in the album. He participates in several tracks, particularly “Real Women,” the second single from the album, which significantly highlights his soulfu

l vocals. As he beautifully hits the high notes along with solid rhythm, the track gives the listeners a sense of excitement.

A fun tune “Hydromatic” combines effective dynamics throughout the track; its dramatic and entertaining.

With straightforward strong lyrics, “So Compton” definitely has a similar vibe to 90’s Hip Hop.

“Time Stands Still” completely changes the entire mood with its romantic mellow love song featuring Dwele’s sweet vocals. This sexy tune makes female listeners fall in love with how DJ Quik is telling the romantic story here.

The last track, “The End” is extremely groovy with Garry Shider’s guitar. The tune is somewhat reminiscent of  Sly and the Family Stone. The first part consists mainly of a bunch of vocals, then DJ Quik is gradually dominating the tune with his powerful rap.

The creative album gives listeners a new perception of West coast rap by serving hip hop as its main dish with a lot of other music condiments to taste each track. It definitely has something unique.

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*Track list*

1. Fire and Brimstone

2. Do Today (featuring Jon B. & BlaKKazz K.K.)

3. Ghetto Rendezvous

4. Luv of My Life (featuring Gift Reynolds)

5. Babylon (featuring BlaKKazz K.K. & Bizzy Bone)

6. Killer Dope

7. Real Women (featuring Jon B.)

8. Poppin’ (featuring BlaKKazz K.K.)

9. Hydromatic (featuring Gift Reynolds & Jon B.)

10. Across The Map (featuring Bizzy Bone & Bun B)

11. Nobody (featuring Suga Free)

12. Boogie Till You Conk Out (featuring Ice Cube)

13. Flow for Sale (featuring Kurupt)

14. So Compton (featuring BlaKKazz K.K.)

15. Time Stands Still (featuring Dwele)

16. The End (featuring Garry Shider)

The Blast TV Renewal/Scorecard has been updated to reflect these ratings.

What happened to people watching television on Sundays? Once anchored by “Survivor” and the mighty “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” it’s now just headlined by reality television, aging CBS dramas, and the seventh season of “Desperate Housewives,” which hit a 7-year low last night with a 2.7 in the demo, and 8.8 million viewers. That’s way down from its season one days when it hit 15.0′s in the demo, and drew nearly 30 million viewers.

“Brothers and Sisters” made its case for why this will be the final season (according to Blast’s own TV Renewal/Cancellation Scorecard), drawing a series low 1.7 in the demo and just a hair more than 6 million viewers. The five-year old drama was last in its timeslot.

“Celebrity Apprentice” did well for NBC, averaging a 2.5 in the demo over two hours, one of the nets best performances of the week and top for the 10 pm hour.

“Family Guy” was strong, hitting a 3.0 for a new episode, while “The Cleveland Show” drew just a 2.3. Like most of Fox’s Sunday lineup, it’s been renewed next year. But the whole slate has been down, further raising the question, what happened to watching network television on Sunday?

Hey, follow me on Twitter. You’ll get news breaks, ratings commentary, and my opinion on who should win the midwest regional adults 18-49 ballroom competition this season.

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7 pm

America’s Funniest Home Videos: 1.6 demo, 6.5 million viewers

60 Minutes: 1.3 demo, 10.6 million viewers

*The Cleveland Show: 1.0 demo, 2.4 million viewers

Dateline: 0.9 demo, 4.6 million viewers

7:30

*American Dad: 1.1 demo, 2.7 million viewers

8 pm

Amazing Race: 2.3 demo, 8.7 million viewers

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: 1.9 demo, 7.5 million viewers

*The Simpsons: 1.7 demo, 4.1 million viewers

America’s Next Great Restaurant: 1.2 demo, 3.7 million viewers

8:30 pm

American Dad: 2.2 demo, 4.7 million viewers

9 pm

Family Guy: 3.0 demo, 6 million viewers

Desperate Housewives: 2.7 demo, 8.8 million viewers

Celebrity Apprentice (9-11): 2.5 demo, 7.5 million viewers

Undercover Boss: 1.9 dem0, 8.6 million viewers

9:30 pm

Cleveland Show: 2.3 demo, 4.7 million viewers

10 pm

CSI: Miami: 2.2 demo, 9.8 million viewers

Brothers and Sisters: 1.7 demo, 6.3 million viewers

In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu rose to claim the title of Shogun in Japan after leading his clan to victory in the Battle of Sekigahara. That battle was the culmination of the Sengoku period, a time when the clans of Japan grappled for supremacy and the power to rule over the entire nation. Total War: Shogun 2 recreates the Sengoku period by providing control of a single clan in an attempt to rewrite history by unifying all Japanese territories and claiming power. It succeeds resoundingly in its goal to recreate the experience of a daimyo’s rise to Shogun by delivering a fun and historically accurate war game.

What has separated the Total War series from other strategy games since the original Shogun: Total War was released almost 11 years ago is the unique blend of turn-based and real-time strategy elements. The campaigns are played out in a fashion similar to those of theCivilization series with territories and armies being managed in a turn-based system. However, in a significant departure from the detached battles of other turn-based games, Shogun 2 provides the opportunity to resolve each confrontation in real-time which functions as a game within the game.

The campaign begins by selecting one of nine different clans. Each of the clans comes with different special abilities, such as bonuses to a specific unit type, and a unique starting location that determines how difficult the early stages of the game will be. The game uses real clan names, symbols, unit art, and city locations which provide an authenticity that resonates throughout and is evidence of the attention to detail used by The Creative Assembly in development. A thoroughly encompassing in-game encyclopedia that provides information on every unit, person, and location in the game also speaks to this.

Gameplay focuses on becoming Shogun by acquiring and controlling various provinces of Japan and, ultimately, Kyoto where the Emperor keeps his home. To accomplish this task requires turn-based management of the clan, armies, and occupied territories.

Each province has a central city which is where buildings for production are constructed and military units are recruited. Capturing foreign provinces requires military force to besiege a city so the core emphasis of the game is on building an effective army. A wide variety of units are at your disposable including samurai, archers, cavalry, naval ships, and many more. Agents like the ninja and metsuke can also be recruited and used to assassinate enemy leaders or to bribe armies. Both agents and Generals gain experience which lets you tailor their skills to your preference.

There are a number of other tasks that require attention such as leveraging diplomacy, stimulating economic growth, and religious direction. Diplomacy has some particularly nice new touches beyond the usual treaties and trade agreements such as the ability to arrange marriages or provide children as hostages. More depth and noncombat victory conditions would have been welcome but the turn-based systems as they stand provide a fun, alternative strategy aspect beyond army building.

Commanding the real-time battles is a pulse-pounding experience due to the frantic action that comes from managing hundreds-to-thousands of warriors. Despite the massive quantity of soldiers taking part in each conflict, combat is manageable because of the elegant unit system and user interface. A unit of samurai warriors may contain 50-150 soldiers but are manipulated as a single entity by clicking on their banner.

Battles can get a bit hectic when managing 10-20 large units but the interface helps streamline the process. Multiple units can be grouped together with a single keystroke, hot groups can be assigned, and formations can be established that work to the strengths of the group makeup. Also, control of the game speed is thankfully provided which allows for pausing, slowing down, or speeding up the action. Pausing the game to issue orders is a great way to handle situations that have become too frantic.

One drawback to the large real-time battles is that it can sometimes be hard to accurately order melee units when more than two or three are clashing. The banners have small, similar icons that can be tough to distinguish and they also have a tendency to overlap in heated skirmishes. This can cause it to be difficult to order a unit to attack a specific enemy and often requires camera manipulation for a better view. The battle camera has been improved with WASD-style controls but these moments can still be rough.

Shogun 2 sports land, naval, and siege battles. Battlefields reflect not only the current season but also the terrain on the campaign map where the armies meet. This presents opportunities to use the land as an advantage or to surprise enemies. Naval battles make their return from Empire: Total War with slight tweaks to combat due to the different style of ships used. Most of the Japanese ships are oar-propelled making them easier to maneuver. Naval combat features new options such as laying mines but is primarily a mixture of ranged combat and boarding enemy ships and is generally a lot of fun. Sieges, which take place when either attacking or defending a city, are particularly thrilling. The greatest sense of fulfillment in the game –other than becoming Shogun, of course—comes from holding out in a siege against a force that largely outnumbers your troops.

While the conflicts in Shogun 2 are superb, the greatest strength of the campaign is the way in which it effectively portrays the balanced responsibilities a daimyo had. The game works to recreate the harrowing experience of a ruler solely responsible for all decisions affecting his clan and territories. Constructing massive cities and conquering armies is gratifying but the more subtle emotions that the game evokes make it shine. There is fear for your daimyo and his heirs as the threat of assassination from lowly ninjas is constantly present. Sadness when a General that has served long and well falls in battle. There are also moments of shock such as the appearance of pirates raiding trade lines or a tsunami striking a province; the latter is especially poignant in light of the previous week’s real world events. Political intrigue is a constant source of anxiety as allied clans may declare war at a moments notice and Generals can defect if their loyalty falls.

The Creative Assembly is able to pull off this experience with help from consistently outstanding game presentation. Nice artistic touches include the campaign map which appears hand drawn until fog of war is revealed, rice paper texturing on all interface menus, and unit cards done in the cartoonish feudal Japanese character style. The tech tree in the game is divided into bushido (warfare) and chi (growth). Even the loading menus contribute with painted Japanese scenes and quotes from classic texts such as The Five Rings and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

Total War games have always been impressive in their ability to render thousands of units in combat and Shogun 2 ups the ante with even more unit and terrain detail. Visuals look very good even at the ‘Medium’ setting and are stunningly beautiful on a machine powerful enough to run everything maxed out. One particular graphical highlight is the water rendering which is by far the most realistic looking I’ve seen in a game. The campaign map visuals have been improved by utilizing a combination of 2D and 3D which causes the terrain and units to stand out. Less impressive are the daimyo and advisor models whose low quality makes them come off as an afterthought. Also, some texture and geometry popping is noticeable in close-up shots such as during Generals’ pre-battle speeches but the issues are not show stopping.

The sound design conveys everything in Shogun 2 as expected but is not outstanding in any one sense. However, the music is quite good with appreciable variation. Drums pound during intense phases of battle and beautiful flowing samisen pieces provide a mellow background for more peaceful times.

One of the biggest new features in Shogun 2 is the online Avatar Conquest mode which lets players create a character to take part in conquering a persistent online game world. The avatar is fully customizable and can gain experience and bonuses as online battles are completed. Avatar Conquest mode interacts with the single player campaign in two innovative ways. First, there are a large number of achievements that are shared between on and offline play. Completed achievements provide a piece of armor and when a full set of armor is acquired a new bonus that the avatar can use is unlocked. This provides a tangible asset for achievement completion beyond pride which is a welcome gaming advancement.

The other intriguing multiplayer inclusion is drop-in battles. Players choosing to take part in drop-in battles will be matched with someone starting a battle in their single player campaign and then take the place of the enemies that would normally be AI-controlled. Drop-in battles should keep single player campaigns fresh for even the most seasoned Shogun 2 players.

Multiplayer campaigns can be completed either competing against or cooperating with a second player. It would be nice if more players could be incorporated into the online campaigns but the limitation is reasonable due to the turn-based gameplay. Rounding out the online features are team battles, clan implementation, leader boards, and custom battles while a lengthy tutorial, custom AI battles, and historical battles complement the single player campaign.

With the lone campaign map of Japan, one concern is that Shogun 2 might get old sooner than games which can randomly generate new maps like Civilization. However, with a good selection of clans to experiment with, a nice set of single and multiplayer modes to keep things fresh, and the unique new Avatar Conquest, there is plenty to keep busy with for a long time.

Blast Factor: Shogun 2 delivers on its goal of providing players the chance to experience life as a daimyo in pursuit of total power. The turn-based gameplay may not be as deep as other genre stalwarts but it is quite fun and more than made up for with superior real-time battles that are a blast to play. Anyone who enjoys strategy games should give Shogun 2 a look and players that have even a passing interesting in feudal Japan or samurai culture should pick up the game immediately.

The past few years have seen a resurfacing of the entertainment industry’s love and fascination of aliens and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Aliens have been popping up in kid’s movies, television shows, revisited franchises, and even in an Oscar-nominated film just last year. And it doesn’t seem like they’ll be fading from the spotlight anytime soon – on the horizon are Mars Needs Moms (opening this week), Cowboys vs. Aliens, Paul, Transformers: The Dark of the Moon, Prometheus, and the TV show Falling Skies hits this summer. With such an E.T. overload, these new movies and shows better bring their A games or suffer the consequences of simply blending in with the rest of the alien pack. Unfortunately for Battle: Los Angeles, it does nothing to set itself apart from its predecessors. The film has enough gunfire, explosions, and mass destruction to make Michael Bay pee himself, but don’t expect much more. The action is fast-paced and intense, but in the end Battle: Los Angeles leaves you wishing there was something else to it.

The movie begins just as you’d expect – 24 hours before the invasion, the residents of LA are going about their daily lives without any premonition of the chaos to come. The main character, Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), is on the cusp of retiring from the Marines. We catch a glimpse of the supporting ensemble’s lives: a man kisses his pregnant wife goodbye in the morning, another soldier shops for flowers for his upcoming wedding. All is well until an initially normal report of a meteor shower escalates into worldwide confusion and chaos. When the meteors turn out to actually be hostile extraterrestrials, the Marines are activated and Nantz’s retirement is cut short. His new assignment is to lead a team of soldiers into the war zone and rescue a group of civilians before the air force carpet bombs the area in an attempt to wipe out the aliens. The bombs are set to drop in three hours, and if Nantz’s team and the rescued civilians aren’t out safely by then, they won’t be spared.

What ensues is an intense two hours of firefights, alien encounters, heavy casualties, and of course countless explosions. There is very little time to take a break from the visual and audio onslaught, as any period of silence is sure to be quickly followed by deafening blasts, crumbling buildings, and the distraught screams of wounded soldiers. Battle: Los Angeles is sure to satisfy adrenaline-junkies looking for awesome special effects and edge-of-your-seat action from start to finish.

Sadly, the film has little to offer besides it’s sensory-overload of whizzing bullets and mass destruction. The number of clichés in this film is utterly amazing and makes so much of it downright laughable. Everything we see has been done before. The aliens are invading because they want Earth’s water supply. Nantz has a checkered military history that makes the soldiers under his command doubt his ability to lead them. But after the difficult loss of a comrade, Nantz gives a heartfelt speech and wins the trust of the group. Almost every soldier is a stereotypical character we see in films depicting military personnel: the scared young kid, the foreign bad-ass, the strong woman who can hold her own, the Southern boy. And some of the one-liners are so bad that you might actually laugh out loud.

These things would be forgivable if Battle: Los Angeles was going for an Independence Day sort of vibe, but it clearly isn’t. Besides the upfront absurdity of invading aliens, the movie wants to be taken seriously. The characters share many moments that are obviously meant to be emotional, but these scenes just don’t work. Maybe it’s because you don’t care much about the characters or maybe it’s because the ridiculous amount of clichés throughout the movie make it impossible to connect to them. Whatever the case, the subplots and characters fall flat and are bound to have you rolling your eyes.

The bottom line for Battle: Los Angeles is that, if all you’re seeking is intense action and an onslaught to your senses, you’ve come to the right place. But if you’re hoping for a feature that somehow differs from the typical invasion movie, you’ll probably leave the theater disappointed. Unless you’re ready to drop ten bucks on explosions and gunfire alone, I’d say wait to see this one on DVD.

Several people asked me over the past few weeks what “The Adjustment Bureau”, the Matt Damon vehicle directed by “Bourne Ultimatum” director George Nolfi, is supposed to be about. Sadly, the best way to describe it so everyone could understand was to tell them, “You know, it’s a little ‘Inception’-y.”

“The Adjustment Bureau”, with its morose grey tones, quick-paced chase scenes and pseudo-spiritual focus, is doomed to be compared with “Inception”, though the plot actually has little in common with last year’s Christopher Nolan extravaganza. Instead of pudgy, defeated Leo DiCaprio, we have Matt Damon as David, a chipper, up-and-coming politician, who stumbles onto the knowledge that his entire life has been engineered by a group of men who claim to work for someone called “The Chairman”. They alert him that his “Plan” entails that he not hook up with a feisty ballerina (the wonderful Emily Blunt) which would derail him from his career.

From the get-go, it’s made clear who/what The Chairman is, as well as his workers. These are bureaucrats from the Other Side, who fascinatingly seem to have the same type of business hierarchy as a large government office and are very fond of snappy fedora hats. It’s a strange, slightly silly conceit, but perhaps that’s what makes it brilliant. (It also gives an excuse to quote perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious line of the year: “The most important thing to remember is that everyone wearing a hat is a threat.”)

Nolfi is smart not pretending that his story isn’t a little silly, and a little on-the-nose. Rather he embraces it, so the chase scenes with Damon being followed by ten men in $600 suits and fedoras duels between being charming and actually a little frightening. Nolfi isn’t afraid of fun- something Christopher Nolan could maybe take a lesson from.

Damon and Blunt display some of the best chemistry on-screen that I have seen in a long time. Though their relationship is based on only three chance meetings, their slow-burning yet jovial banter makes it seems credible that they would be willing to take on God to keep it intact. John Slattery (who for the rest of my life I will always call Roger Sterling) is also terrific as a cosmic middle manager. And as David’s “case worker”, Anthony Mackie takes what could be a small, exposition-heavy character, and turns him into a melancholy, disillusioned soul with every turn of phrase.

Nolfi may not be afraid of fun, but he seems terrified of his audience not getting his concept. His script explains far too much. He doesn’t trust his cast members, many of whom are excellent non-verbal actors, to tell the story for him. More insultingly, he doesn’t trust his audience to “get” who The Chairman is, and why The Plan is so important. And worst of all, the focus group-approved ending kills the lovely spontaneous and slightly madcap quality of the rest of the movie. It’s only good sense, or sheer luck, that gave him a cast that work their butts off to elevate the average writing.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that “The Adjustment Bureau” has much more in common with the “Bourne” films than “Inception”. The movies are about Matt Damon being chased- The Chairman is just the guy who’s chasing him. It’s silly and over-the-top- and altogether not a bad way to spend the weekend.

Stacking is the latest game from the minds of industry veteran Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions. It is the second downloadable title released by Double Fine inside of six months following their new business model of developing smaller, creative games. Stackinglegitimizes the viability of this strategy as a unique and fresh puzzle adventure game that provides plenty of enjoyment for a reduced price.

The world of Stacking is one where all of the characters are wooden Russian nesting dolls called matryoshkas. The story follows Charlie Blackmore, whose family of chimney sweeps is kidnapped and forced into labor by the evil Baron. The runt of the family, Charlie is left behind by the Baron’s henchmen along with his mother because he is deemed incapable of labor. Charlie sets off at once on an adventure to free his siblings and father in a straightforward tale of the underdog against an evil tyrant. There is little in the way of character development however the underlying issue of child labor lends the narrative some gravity despite the humorous tone.

Gameplay in Stacking is a nice blend of puzzle and adventure elements where the player must guide Charlie through each location besting various challenges to rescue the members of his family. As a matryoshka doll, Charlie is capable of stacking into larger dolls that populate the world. The stacking can be repeated multiple times into increasingly bigger dolls with the sole restriction that Charlie can only stack into a doll that is the next largest size.

Each puzzle in the game is solved by stacking into other dolls and using their special abilities which is an ingenious mechanic that puts a welcome twist on traditional adventure gaming. Stacking is at its best in puzzles that require using a combination of doll abilities but, unfortunately, these don’t occur until late in the game and are the exception, not the norm.

The highlight of Stacking is the well-designed challenges that are entertaining to solve and feature multiple ways to go about them. Unlike other puzzle adventure games that force a player to discern the exact solution the developers intended, Stacking provides several different possibilities for tackling each problem; this helps avoid the frustration of getting stuck. Players can advance after discovering a single solution which keeps the game moving. Most of the solutions are not difficult to discover but do require some clever thinking. There seems to be at least one blatantly obvious way to handle each puzzle although hints are available if needed.

In addition to solving challenges, there are numerous Hi-Jinks to complete and a collection of unique dolls and sets to find in Stacking’s four locations. Hi-Jinks are smaller side tasks that can be completed independent from the story progression such as using a purse-swinging doll to whack five mimes.

Stacking does not take much time to finish –it can be breezed through in about two hours by finding just a single solution to each challenge. As such, it feels a bit short even for a $15 downloadable game. However, much of the fun of Stacking is in discovering the various ways to hilariously solve each puzzle so working out all of the techniques is encouraged. Finding all of the solutions and going for total completion pushes the length to around five or six hours which is more reasonable for the price point.

Handling a group of nested dolls with different abilities may sound like a difficult task to manage but the elegant control scheme makes it simple to execute all actions. One button stacks a doll, another unstacks, a third uses a doll’s special ability, and the final face button talks to other dolls. There is also an objective locator that is taken straight out of Dead Space making it easy to navigate from puzzle to puzzle.

Interacting with the other characters in Stacking is not only useful for finding clues but also provides a lot of the game’s entertainment. Each character will offer several responses that change depending on what doll is currently being used. The dialogue can sometimes be lowbrow –as can the game, what with farting and vomiting dolls—but generally displays the witty writing that is to be expected of a Tim Schafer creation. In addition to the humorous dialogue and cutscenes, some of the dolls’ actions are quite funny such as the geriatric man who falls asleep as he begins to tell a story.

Stacking won’t win any awards for its graphics but uses blurring and edge filters to good effect to create a stylized presentation. Many of the areas are wide open and colorful but often feel a bit too sparse. The artwork for each doll shows a better attention to detail and does well to bring the characters to life which is no small accomplishment considering they are essentially painted wooden cylinders.

An impressive musical score does a wonderful job at highlighting the action throughout the game. This is particularly important as all of the dialogue is text. The symphonic pieces, heavy on the piano and strings, work well to convey the mood in the cutscenes that have a 1920’s silent film style.

The Blast Factor: Perhaps the greatest strength of Stacking is its near-universal appeal. From children, who will enjoy the colorful worlds and silly antics, to grizzled adventure veterans, who should appreciate the fresh take on puzzle solving, there is something for everyone to like. The story, graphics, and length have room for improvement but this is such a fun game that those criticisms seem like quibbling in the end. Stacking may not be the greatest downloadable game ever created but its combination of inventive gameplay and great sense of humor make it one that everyone should play; at only $15 it is hard to find a worthwhile reason not to.

Some things just seem to be made for each other; peanut butter and jelly, popcorn and movies, Marvel and Capcom. Yes, for the last 13 years (15 if you count the very first coin-up  Japanese release of X-men VS Street Fighter) the unlikely series pitting characters from Marvel’s comic book universe and Capcom’s lineup of games has kept fighting fans up at night and arcade stinks clanging. Now, the highly anticipated third game in the series is finally hitting retail, was it worth the wait?

Hell yes. It may be missing a few fighters compared to the last game, and the online is surprisingly lacking, but Marvel VS Capcom 3 is the ambitious and fun fighting experience that gamers have been waiting for. If you have even a passing interest in the worlds of Marvel, Capcom or fighting games in general, you can’t pass up Marvel VS Capcom 3.

Marvel baddie Dr. Doom has assembled his world’s most dangerous villains and formed an alliance with Resident Evil’s Albert Wesker in an effort to control both universes.  Sounds like a great plan right? Except for the fact that doing so has awakened an ancient evil that could potentially destroy each world. Of course, it’s up to both the Capcom and Marvel heroes to stop it from happening. Okay, so it’s not the most original story but it’s unlikely you’re going to pay much attention to it anyways. Of course, the core of the game is the fighting mechanic, and it’s sure to not disappoint.

The first thing you’re going to notice when popping in Marvel VS Capcom 3 is the eye-popping sensational visuals . Borrowing much from Capcom’s Street Fighter IV, the game features a dynamic cell shaded visual style that balances well with the 3D fighting on a 2D plane, and just wait until you see the vibrant and dynamic super moves. Much of the same love has been given to the game’s sound, all of the one liners and music from the past of both universes is well represented.

Let’s not waste any time and get to the elephant in the room right away, Marvel VS Capcom 3 only features a total of 36 characters, a far departure from 56 in the second game. It may seem like a big deal, but each of the characters in Marvel VS Capcom 3 is genuinely fun to play and unique. It’s also the most diverse of the rosters yet, with Capcom including less Street Fighters and more oddball characters like M.O.D.O.K., Deadpool (the cool comic book version, not the lame Ryan Reynolds movie one) and even Arthur from Ghosts and Goblins who fights in his trademark heart skivvies.  Of course, your favorites are still here, like Wolverine, Ryu, Captain America and the Hulk. With the promise of upcoming DLC, the strength of the roster will only get stronger.

As much as the Marvel VS Capcom series has been popular, it’s also been one of the most difficult series in recent memory.  That core experience is still here for veteran players, but Marvel VS Capcom 3 is unquestionably the most accessible of the series thanks to an intuitive training experience. You’ll start at the most basic step, having each of the attacks mapped to one button and working up to taking off the training wheels with the game’s more robust and difficult features. The game is enjoyable with a controller, but it’s downright heavenly with an arcade stick.

Much of the framework for Marvel VS Capcom 3 was borrowed from Street Fighter IV, or more specifically, Super Street Fighter IV, it’s just a wonder why they didn’t bring over the robust online engine from the game as well. As it stands, the game features only ranked and player matches, plus custom lobbies to recreate the arcade experience.

The Blast Factor: To put it plain and simple, Marvel VS Capcom 3 was more than worth the wait that the franchises dedicated fan base has suffered through since its announcement. Retaining much of the formula from the original and adding a slew of new characters and visuals – it’s the next logical step in the evolution of the franchise. Even more, Marvel VS Capcom 3 is simply the best we’ve seen of the series yet.

Channing Tatum’s stock has certainly been on the rise in the last two years, with a major blockbuster (“G.I. Joe”), a romantic drama (“Dear John”), and a comedy (“The Dilemma”). So naturally, all that’s left to do is the period epic.

Unfortunately for him, this won’t be a great addition to that budding resume. While Tatum and co-star Jamie Bell deliver solid, if unspectacular, performances, neither one is able to stop the film from collapsing around itself.

Tatum is the Roman centurion Marcus Aquila, stationed at the end of the Roman empire in 140 AD — Britain. Twenty years before the film, the Ninth Legion, under his father’s command, disappeared in Northern Britain past the reaches of the Empire. In his disappearance he shamed the family name by losing a prized Roman totem — the eagle. Aquila sets out to find the eagle and reclaim his family’s honor, along with his inexplicably obtained slave Esca, who harbors a dark past related to Aquilas.

The film suffers from a convoluted and poorly executed plot, and a weakly drawn script giving way to dialogue. Kevin MacDonald, who previously directed Forest Whitaker in the Oscar-winning “Last King of Scottland,” delivers the same washed out colors and imperialistic tone, but can’t seem to sustain an engaging plot or a cohesive direction for very long.

The film’s only redemption comes from sporadically entertaining fight scenes, as Tatum and Bell kill just about anything in their way in their quest. The chemistry between the two main characters is also somewhat redemptive, but still suffers from the sorely lacking script, making it difficult to truly care about their relationship.

Ultimately, there is entertainment value in “The Eagle,” and one can sit through it without too many boring periods. If you’re looking for some sword-and-sandle period-flick action, this is a mildly entertaining film with a miniscule budget that shows. If you have the time and the desire, check it out; I’d recommend Netflix though, which this film should be arriving on fairly soon.

At the end of every year, we in the video game journalism world have a habit of making lists. We write about the bestgames, the best console, and yes – we also write about the worst games of the year. Mark my words, in December of this year we’ll be talking about Mindjack, the new futuristic third person shooter for worst game of the year.

It didn’t start that way though; in fact Mindjack started as an impressive idea. Built on the framework of modern day third person shooters, Mindjackallows players to leave the bodies of their character, and take control of an enemy. It’s not the most unique idea (last generation we saw it in Battlefield 2), but we don’t see it much in this genre so it still feels a bit fresh.

In the year 2031, government as we know it has all but dissolved, and in its place stands resource controlling corporations. Throughout most of the game you take control of Special Agent Jim (no, seriously. The dude’s name is just Jim) as he and his partner Rebecca as you try to infiltrate the compound of the NERKAS corporation for some reason. The whole thing plays out like a really bad Sy-Fy channel weekend movie. Plot points are introduced, but never wrapped up, characters come in, but are never seen again, and worst of all, the game never takes the time to fully explain just what’s going on. It’s like we’re just supposed to accept that the technology to jump into someone else’s mind is now possible.

Much like Vanquish before it, the gameplay of Mindjack could best be described as an eastern take on the Gears of War formula. Hell, if you’re playing on the Xbox 360, the controllers are mapped to the exact same buttons; you shoot with the right trigger, aim with the left and roadie run by holding down A. The only difference, while in Epic’s flagship shooter they worked – here, they’re unquestionably broken. The biggest problem is that even the most civilian actions like moving to cover, reloading and shooting, come off as cumbersome and incredibly slow. Even the “Mindjacking” itself comes off as slow. Combine that with the fact that your enemies seem to be on a permanent caffeine binge and jump around incredibly fast and you begin to get an idea of just how frustrating of an experienceMindjack can be.

One of, if not the most memorable aspects of Gears of War and its sequel is just how memorable and satisfying the action is, yet another feature this game is missing. Take for instance the seemingly simple act of snapping to cover and firing at an enemy. Somehow, even if you line up the reticule exactly on your target, more often than not you’re going to end up shooting slightly off where you wanted. It’s incredibly frustrating and defies the basic principles of shooters. What’s more, there’s pretty much no logic to any of Mindjack‘s action (seriously, if you just ignore a boss for long enough, it seemingly defeats itself).

There’s a decently enjoyable multiplayer suite that essentially turns the entire single player campaign into one large death match, but it too suffers from the same problems as the main game. To be honest, with games like Bulletstorm, Dead Space 2 and Killzone 3 on the horizon, there’s pretty much no reason to play Mindjack. Flawed in nearly every way, Mindjack is the definition of a frustrating gaming experience.