March 19, 2010 by Paul Eastwood
If you didn't already know, Kingdom Hearts is a crossover series between Square Enix and Disney. As unlikely as that seems, the games have been quite popular. Two Playstation 2 games, a GameBoy Advance game that was later ported to the PS2 (I know) and a PSP game have come out of this union.March 17, 2010 by Steve
Here we have Mirror's Edge, a first-person platformer of sorts, released in late 2008/early 2009 by DICE/EA. I've been interested in the game for a while, starting from its strong marketing campaign, so I jumped on the chance to play it recently.
It can be briefly summarized that in Mirror's Edge, you are a runner, tasked to transfer information between groups looking to avoid the surveillance of an overbearing government and its allies. As escaping capture is of utmost importance, runners do most of their travel on free outdoor environments, especially rooftops. Thus the gameplay is largely parkour-based, emphasizing proper use of momentum, speed and techniques to accomplish goals. At its best, this leads to a smooth, sublime experience, reminiscent of games like Jet Set Radio, Shadow of the Colossus, NiGHTS, and the original Prince of Persia. Mirror's Edge takes the player further into that experience, locking you to a first-person view with constant reminders of your physical struggles with and against the forces of gravity and objects in your world.
Read moreMarch 15, 2010 by Greg Noe
Another year, another sports game. Gamers hear this every few months when the newest Madden is coming out, or the next iteration in a 2K series, or even for the Tiger Woods series. Sure, you updated the roster, but what did you really spend the last 12 months on? That is the eternal question for series with annual updates, and it's always one someone is forced to answer.
For 2K Sports' MLB series, 2009 was a rough year. The series was switching developers and reactions from the fanbase was generally bad. With Sony's rival series, The Show, growing stronger and stronger with every iteration, it was not a good year to take two steps back. 2K and Visual Concepts desperately needed to show that they still worth the MLB license they paid for: 2K10 needed to be the Comeback Player of the Year. If you believe Metacritic, they have definitely improved. 2K9 has a metascore of 64 with a user score of only 5.2, whereas 2K10 has a metascore of 76 but even more importantly, a user score of 8.0. The MLB 2K series seems to be back on the right track.
But I never played a previous iteration of the series, let alone 2K9, so I'm coming into this season as a rookie. I'm still expecting a lot though, my favorite baseball games are more arcadey, like Base Wars or the Ken Griffey Jr. series. Those games were just pure fun and the gameplay was great not because it was great baseball, but because it was a great video game. MLB 2K10, however, is realistic and trying to not let you realize that it is a video game. Quite a bit different than what I'm used to.
So here's my full review of MLB 2K10, this was a review copy provided to me by 2K Games. You can see read my "first hour review" of the game that actually follows me through about the first 10 hours of the game.
March 12, 2010 by Greg Noe
I will readily admit that Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time. I love the game to its full extent and no other game has really ever even come close to unseating it over the last 15 years. That's over half of my life, and considering the hundreds of games I've played, I think it is an awesome accomplishment that one has reigned for so long. I currently own three copies of the game, one for the Super Nintendo, one for the Super Famicon, and finally the re-release on the Nintendo DS. They each have their unique story that I will tell. I have chosen never to buy the PSX version for a few reasons.March 10, 2010 by Paul Eastwood
"Comic book video game." Maybe not the most successful four-word combination in the history of the world. But you can't blame them for trying, right? What could be cooler than playing as your favorite super-hero? The premise of Ultimate Destruction is that you play as the Hulk, and the Hulk smashes things. And although there's more to the game than that, smashing things is the basis of the gameplay, and guess what. It's fun.March 08, 2010 by Greg Noe
March 05, 2010 by Greg Noe
Five full days of first hour gaming have been completed, and talk about a blockbuster 24 hours! We played Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, and BioShock 2 for fans of the latest and greatest, and tried out The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story to see how Nintendo's latest portable offerings fared. In November, we featured a licensed games month, and played a bunch of first hours of a wide variety of games including Beetle Adventure Racing and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai.
We also introduced a new feature called Half-Hour handheld, for those portable games where playing for an hour is just too long. TouchMaster 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized have been played so far, with more to come in the future. I decided not to include them in the recap because introducing half-hour increments might get a tad messy.
March 04, 2010 by Paul Eastwood
Alas, episode four was never meant to be. Technical difficulties marred our first recording of it, and we just didn't have our heart in subsequent recordings. We have decided to leave the episode as the mess it was and move on to a fresh episode five.
Read moreMarch 03, 2010 by Michael T
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is the latest installment in the crossover series developed by Eighting and published by Capcom. Originally released in Japan more than a year ago (Dec 11, 2008), Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is finally making it's stateside debut January 26th, 2010.
You may be asking yourself, "Who the heck are these Tatsunoko characters?". I myself am asking this same question as I venture into this unknown universe. To my current knowledge, it is basically one of the grandfather anime production studios that really took off in the 80s and early 90s in Japan. Most of their work made it overseas with the likes of Samarai Pizza Cats, G-Force, and Robotech. If you grew up with cartoons in the 90s, there is a chance you will run across some familiar faces here (though you may have forgotten their names).
Capcom took a huge gamble bringing such an unknown universe stateside. To put the odds in their favor, the game has gained a few critical changes. First off, online match making has been included. Secondly, at the cost of losing one character from the original Japanese game due to licensing issues (see Hakushon Daimaō), Capcom has graciously added five new playable characters to the international version of the game.
This game was never originally planned to make it over here. I was able to play the title while I was over in Japan a year ago and was super excited to hear Capcom was putting so much effort into bringing it overseas. The game definitely warrants a purchase and fills the empty void of 2D fighters (with online) on the Wii. Hopefully word gets out about this game because I have a feeling it's going to be an uphill battle. I've lived in Japan for two years and I still don't know who half these Tatsunoko characters are.
March 01, 2010 by Steve
