Review: Spelunker HD

The brave spelunker, the Red Guy, descends into the bowels of the deep seeking adventure and fortune. He leaps from the lift and plummets about six feet to his death.

The brave spelunker, the Red Guy, descends into the bowels of the deep seeking adventure and fortune. He brings the lift lower this time and leaps to the nearby ledge, where treasures await. He narrowly dodges the jets of flame firing from the ceiling of the tunnel, sets a bomb to clear a rock blocking his path, steps back several feet and still dies in the blast, flesh singed from his bones (even though he was clearly outside of the bomb’s visible blast radius).

Review: Sideway: NY

Sideway: New York has style. That much is obvious from the moment you start up the first level and grasp the premise of this game, that you’re a graffiti-man running and hopping across flat surfaces — walls, billboards and rooftops — using paint both as a weapon and as a means of conveyance. Sideway has style — a lot of style… maybe a little too much.

Review: Okabu

I’m sad. There are few worse tasks as a critic than to write a negative review of something I want to like. From when I first set sight on Okabu, Hand Circus’ precious adventure-puzzler, I wanted to love it. A cel-shaded, Miyazaki-meets-Lego art style; a hopping, alternative world-beats soundtrack; the cutest cast of characters I’ve seen since The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I mean, you control two whales made from clouds on a quest to clean the world of pollution. Sounds like a winning recipe to me.

Why I Quit Winter Voices Avalanche

I’m coming up on the end of Winter Voices: Avalanche, but I’ve decided that I’m done. I’m just done. “There is victory in defeat,” reads the only victory condition in this battle against my own grief — an obscure objective, but so cleverly simple in its true meaning: lose. Lose the fight to win. Easier said than done, or should I say, easier said than tolerated.

Review: X-Men: Arcade at Digital Hippos

Here’s a link to my review for X-Men: Arcade, for XBLA, over at Digital Hippos: 
http://www.digitalhippos.com/gaming-reviews/56-xbox-360/585-review-x-men-arcade

Fable III review

My review of Fable III has been posted at Gaming Evolution.  See it here.

In summary, I had a lot of disappointments with Fable III.  What they all added up to was a lack of emotional resonance.  This is in stark contrast to Fable II, which is one of the most emotionally fulfilling games I’ve ever played.  All-in-all, Fable III is still solid, but manages to be one of the bigger disappointments I’ve felt as far as games are concerned.

Arc Rise Fantasia (Review)

Arc Rise Fantasia opens on a fleet of airships effortlessly cutting through skies, high above the moonlit earth below. Knights clad in heavy, full armor patrol the decks, watching for signs of danger.

Suddenly, a horde of dragons burst through the distant, dark clouds on the horizon. The vigilant knights draw their massive blades, jostling as they anxiously await the impending attack.

A lone teenager confidently strides from the cabin of one ship. He effortlessly wields a sword almost as big as his own frame. Unlike the knights, he wears no armor; all he wears is a modern get-up that looks suspiciously like a skiing outfit, adorned with superfluous accessories (mostly belts).

One of the dragons swoops down for an attack. The teenager confronts the beast alone, completely sure of his own abilities. After a brief fight that ends in inevitable (scripted) victory, the young man is caught off-guard by one of the many other dragons flying about, and sent plummeting from the sky boat.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (Review)

I don’t play competitive multiplayer games. I especially don’t play them online with random strangers eager to steamroll the “n00b.” I double-especially don’t play multiplayer Starcraft; a game that pits you against literal professionals in the business of, well, playing Starcraft. Though I’ve revisited the 12-year old original several times, it has always been to replay the campaign. Yes, I play Starcraft for the story and, originally, I intended to only play Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty for its story. What do you say about a game that completely changes who you are as a player?

Alpha Protocol (Mass Effect 1-2)

Alpha Protocol is Mass Effect 2.  No, not that Mass Effect 2; Alpha Protocol is the other Mass Effect 2.  The one that we all expected after the original Mass Effect, before BioWare took a sledgehammer to genre conventions and broke all the rules of what an RPG “should” be.  Or should I say, schooled us all on what and RPG “should” be?  Either way, Alpha Protocol is Mass Effect 1-2.  Depending on your perspective, Alpha Protocol is either an artifact of the past or a fondly imagined vision of where the sure-to-be influential road paved by Mass Effect 2 could have taken us.

Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim

2000′s Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, developed by Cyberlore Studios and published by MicroProse, was a unique entry in the RTS genre. While the game achieved a small cult-hit status, its sequel was only briefly in development before getting the axe. I guess publisher Paradox Interactive and developer 1C:Ino-Co were fans, because they picked up the dead franchise to deliver the long-awaited sequel. While Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim continues to run with the original’s concept, it’s marred by some debilitating AI issues and a downright unfair difficulty curve.