I’m a grumpy gamer admittedly. I expect so much from my beloved hobby that it sometimes it mirrors more cynicism than well meaning criticism. To my defense, games lately have treaded more on the negative side of things rather than the sunny. I get the feeling that more positive, uplifting gaming is more akin to [...]
In just a few minutes of playing the game, I noticed that this wouldn’t be your typical survival horror. It certainly doesn’t walk the Resident Evil line as evidenced by the sheer fact that you can walk and shoot at the same time. Furthermore, instead of zombies, you are faced with regular joe types possessed by darkness and [...]
Here’s a confession: I never really liked Splinter Cell. In fact, I hated the series. I always felt Sam Fisher moved like a tank. Furthermore, the series focused so much on stealth and infiltration that, when the shit hits the fan, you’re limited combat movements and options will screw you over. Aiming was terrible and [...]
I was playing the demo of Just Cause 2 (JC2) and was pondering, “what is the selling point of this game?” Honestly, I can’t really figure out what separates JC2 from everything else. Is it the sandbox type gameplay? Maybe it’s the ability to destroy environmental set pieces and cause havoc or what the game [...]
This is the final part of my Farmville experiment. Also check out part 1 and part 2. I went into this experiment hoping to get a feel for what social networking games are and what potential they have to affect traditional video games, for good or ill. While an experimental group of one cannot and [...]
This is the second part of my Farmville experiment. You can read part 1 here. Day 1: Epic (Fail) Tutorial Starting up Farmville for the first time reminds me of the tutorial for Windows 98. There are six square plots of land on which you can sow seeds and harvest crops and the game holds [...]
It is my belief that God of War has not evolved since the first one. The formula has always been the same. Start in a war torn city. Fight your way through waves of enemies. Get to a huge boss that you have encounter along the level. Every GOW game is like this. No seriously. [...]
I’ll admit it, I’m a prejudiced gamer. While there are some genres I like and others I don’t, generally I can adopt a “to each his own” attitude about games. Similarly, I try hard to avoid the hardcore gamer geek stereotype of questioning others’ commitment to or involvement in gaming based on what they’re playing. [...]
Déjà “Mue” Yakuza 3 reminds of another particular game released by Sega back in the late 90’s called Shenmue. Shenmue was a game ahead of its time with too much riding on its shoulder. The premise was to deliver a true RPG in which you literally play the role of a character by doing even [...]
I came with tempered expectations. Understand that I place the original title on a pedestal. VERY high pedestal. I wasn’t expecting much from the sequel and maybe that’s not a bad thing. The first couple of minutes were very odd. Delta, the alpha Big Daddy, controls slightly sluggish as you’d expect any Big Daddy would. [...]
