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November 8, 2012

Demo Report – Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 11:11 pm

Demo Report Disney Epic Mickey Power of Illusion
With Disney now offering up a demo for Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, we all have an equal opportunity to finally sample the 3DS title, which has held my curiosity since the company revealed that the game serves as a sequel to the fondly remembered Castle of Illusion that hit the Sega Genesis way, way back in 1990.

And while on one hand it’s surprising that Disney would commission a 2D sidescroller in the here and now, the 2D elements of their Epic Mickey series make it a tad less so. It’s certainly far less surprising that the game ties into Epic Mickey at least, and this short taste offers players a chance to see how the relationship bleeds into the 3DS outing.

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Review – Zone of the Enders: HD Collection

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:55 am

Review Zone of the Enders HD Collection
Animation studio Sunrise lends some love to see this HD revisit for Zone of the Enders open with a fresh and lengthy montage for the robotic space opera. Stirring early anime memories is a sweet touch here, since Zone of the Enders aimed to create a videogame channeling that spirit when it first released for the PlayStation 2 back in 2001.

The added attention is also a promising touch, considering Konami hasn’t been entirely on the ball when it comes to HD revisits, contributing to an environment that leaves me hesitant to review any of them without the time and means to stress test and analyze the effort frame by frame.

But if the Silent Hill HD Collection left a bad taste in your mouth – and it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t – there’s relief to be had in the revelation that Zone of the Enders hasn’t aged all that badly considering that videogames age approximately ten times faster than most domesticated dogs, which perhaps aided the effort here.

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November 6, 2012

Review – Assassin’s Creed III

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 9:58 am

Assassins Creed III
After five entries I imagine it’s easy to overlook the level of craft in the Assassin’s Creed series. Meticulously rendered locations and historical accuracy is par for the course at this point, but thankfully Assassin’s Creed III brings these elements back to the forefront by leveraging the most interesting setting, backstory, and secondary characters in the entire series.

The American Revolution is explored with a balanced perspective, and historical information is poured on in such a way that even the most oblivious player will be compelled to think critically about the stage and the motivations of the actors.

This is not Assassin’s Creed: SUPER PATRIOT EDITION. Bad people and bad choices are everywhere; compromise is ubiquitous. The game begs you to look deeper into the conflict, and it works. That most players will have a stronger working knowledge of the history here than in previous entries is a massive boon to the story being told; it’s easier to grasp opposing viewpoints when the nature of the disagreement is easily understood, allowing the game to more deftly elaborate on the moral struggles the series has always tried to illuminate.

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November 5, 2012

Demo Report – Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 10:39 pm

Demo Report Metal Gear Rising Revegeance
The Zone of the Enders HD Collection hit retail shelves last week, harkening back to the golden days of the PlayStation 2 – all the more so for the demo disc it includes with a fresh look at Platinum Games’ spin-off from the Metal Gear franchise.

The short demo offers a different trip from the one appearing at E3 earlier this year, beginning with a new optional VR tutorial, which attempts to ensure players get familiar with the game’s blade mode before stepping into the game proper.

Holding down the left trigger on the 360 controller, the right analog stick can be rotated to see the angle of a potential slice, engaged by letting go of the analog stick for a precise single strike. This proves useful for slicing cardboard enemies in training, but in the field, getting Zen with hitting the analog stick repeatedly to unleash a fury of slices comes in handy for quickly dispatching the Gekko’s that appear.

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November 3, 2012

Review – Halo 4

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 8:32 pm

Review Halo 4
Soldiers scramble past fleeing scientists as Covenant troops fill the tight corridors of the Ivanoff space station. Emergency lights flicker over broken instruments as communications crackle and the battle consistently threatens to create hull breaches. And as the Master Chief charges forward, his faithful AI companion raises added cause for concern as her program continues to degrade and Cortana essentially thinks herself to death.

343 Industries returns the franchise to the opening tension of 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved along with a sense of horror – an action game where players discovered fresh threats in that empty space where no one can hear you scream. Having fully taken the reins from developer Bungie, 343i doesn’t simply mimic the flow of the story that started the franchise however, waging a war of their own to bring a deeper theme of sci-fi horror alongside the grand operatic leanings of the series.

That doesn’t mean that 343i reinvents the wheel, rather, that they take the opportunity presented by a new trilogy in the franchise to refine the ride – often with layers of attention that, either owning to a fear of breaking the formula or the idea that “if it ain’t broke you don’t fix it”, were very much overdue.

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November 2, 2012

Review – Wreck-It Ralph

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:51 am

Review Wreck It Ralph
As glorious as working in the videogame industry is said to be, the titular character of Disney’s latest animation feature is suffering from an extreme case of low job satisfaction.

From the glow of an arcade screen, Wreck-it-Ralph spends his days smashing up an apartment complex like a human Donkey Kong, all so that players can trade a quarter for the chance to fill the shoes of Fix-It Felix Jr., repairing the damage with his magic hammer while scaling to the top of the building, leaving Ralph tossed off the side and laying in the mud below.

When the arcade closes each night, Ralph is also left to watch Felix celebrated as a hero while living the solitary life of a videogame villain.

As with Pixar’s Toy Story series, Wreck-it-Ralph creates a world where familiar characters come to life when no one is watching. Here however, they are free to leave their arcade cabinets and socialize with one another, traveling via the electrical cord of their machines to a central hub, the power bar connecting all these games and characters.

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October 30, 2012

Review – The Unfinished Swan

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 4:08 pm

Review The Unfinished Swan
A storybook framework introduces players to Monroe, a young boy left alone, with only a single unfinished painting to remember his mother by – the unfinished swan that serves both as the game’s title, and as the breadcrumbs soon leading players through the looking glass, or canvas in this case, as the swan wanders off into the unseen space of the painting one fateful night.

As emotional charged as the premise sounds, explaining the digital offering is a challenge – another one of those Move titles you’d be better served by picking up and experiencing firsthand rather than reading my scribbles on the subject.

Though I’m obviously going to scribble about it anyway.

The game offers no tutorials or guidance to start the exploration either, which is confusing for all of two seconds as players find themselves holding the Move controller and staring into a blank white space.

At least, it should only take a second or two before you press the button that causes Monroe to use his brush, tossing a gob of paint into the void to find it quickly splatter against the environment that secretly surrounds you.

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