Gamesugar

May 24, 2010

Review – Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 4:51 pm

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
It’s difficult to say whether the release of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a response to middling reaction to 2008’s Prince of Persia, or to the imminent release of the film—the truth probably exists somewhere in between. The 2008 series entry was a confused affair; more fun to watch than it was to play, the game featured a unique art style, an intriguing universe and a couple of fun characters, but little actual game. Playing like one massive, unfolding quicktime event , little challenge was offered except to those rabid completionists looking to reach every dubiously placed orb.

The Forgotten Sands fixes many of its predecessor’s mistakes, though I wonder if it was by conscious decision, or merely adherence to the conventions of the previous Sands of Time trilogy. Fans of that trilogy will find the game extremely familiar; all the old trappings are there: the Prince once again finds himself fighting an army of sand creatures, scaling questionably constructed palaces, evading ubiquitous traps, and saving himself from embarrassing falls with the power to reverse time. As someone who loved the Sands of Time games, it was immediately satisfying to sit down with these old conventions and play what, to my mind, constituted the first “real” Prince of Persia game since 2005’s Two Thrones.

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May 13, 2010

Review – 3D Dot Game Heroes

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:21 am

3D Dot Game Heroes
The Kingdom of Dotnia was once a tourist magnet, a place where visitors flocked to following the heroics of one brave and mythical figure who overcame evil in the classical tradition society is structured by. Unfortunately for Dotnia, the tourism industry began to suffer as people became less interested in 2D heroics, forcing the King to issue a decree that would push the Kingdom into the 3D frontier.

That decision provides the space for 3D Dot Game Heroes to unleash its block based world of nostalgia on gamers, but also severely depresses the hell out of me.

Rather than a 2D game that attempts to bring audiences back to a realm abandoned by the industry more than gamers, 3D Dot Game Heroes replicates one of the most cherished 2D legends in 3D. It’s one of those ideas you’d have in the shower and chuckle about for awhile after – and then as you realized there was little else to bring to the table you’d probably drop the idea.

Bits of Dragon Warrior drip in at times, but traveling across the overworld of Dotnia to locate dungeons, defeat the boss monsters, and collect the orbs needed to prevent evil from returning is the order of the day for this blocky link to the past.

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March 19, 2010

Catching Up With Heavy Rain

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , — Rey Ortega @ 7:39 am

Heavy Rain
Let me make this clear right off the bat, Heavy Rain is a videogame. You may have heard, from other gamers or websites, or from David Cage himself, that Heavy Rain is some kind of tectonic shift in the way we think about videogames. In fact, the first trophy you receive is called “Interactive Drama – Thank you for supporting Interactive Drama”.

Heavy Rain might still be all of those things, but that isn’t for us to decide, not right now. In the future, if we see more games of this kind expanded upon, then we can talk about Heavy Rain’s place in history. For now though, and for the purpose of this post, we need to look at Heavy Rain solely as a videogame, and on that note I’m happy to report that it’s a good one.

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March 11, 2010

Review – Resident Evil 5 DLC
Lost in Nightmares & Desperate Escape

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 10:03 pm

Resident Evil 5 DLC
Resident Evil 5 left mixed reactions with me last year. If only to sound loosely scientific, the game has a 40/60 split between a meaningful co-operative experience and repetitive tricks that induce stress and leave mental scars that have yet to heal. And yet I’ve still considered replaying it several times, because my best girl is also my favorite player 2, and with so much focus on competitive multiplayer, worthy co-op titles that truly emphasis working as a team are few and far between.

Capcom’s offer to revisit the title via two smaller DLC extensions offers space for optimism, because when Resident Evil 5 finds the co-op groove, there isn’t another game that leaves us feeling like the survivors coming out the other side of a horror flick.

Taking root in the small spaces provided by Resident Evil 5’s narrative, Lost in Nightmares follows Jill and Chris’ investigation of the Spencer Estate, while Desperate Escape fills in the details on how Jill hooked up with Josh to escape the Tricell Facility before meeting up with Sheva and Chris directly following their ten rounds with Muhammad Ali Wesker.

Now that we’re up to speed on the basics, let’s do this thing.

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March 8, 2010

Review – The Challenges of the Edy Detachment

Valkyria Chronicles
The legend of Valkyria Chronicles’ sometimes crushing difficulty is a subject I’m well familiar with, but I was still surprised to take on the Shocktrooper challenge and find myself facing what seemed like the entire Imperial Army, gunning down poor Rosie before I knew what was happening.

When I first heard that this latest DLC would offer challenges from each soldier class within the game, I suppose I imagined it as a potential sampler for players who still haven’t caved to the peer pressure of the Valkyria faithful. For some reason this made me think that the game might go a bit easier on players, but rest assured that these six missions are every bit grueling enough to merit the word challenge.

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February 18, 2010

Review – Fret Nice

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:19 pm

Fret Nice
Fret Nice’s invitation to play through familiar territory with a slightly skewed set of controls is as alluring as it is frustrating at first. Short on fancier words, I’ll suggest that there are plenty of moments in this writing about games experiment where I spend days puzzling over what to make of a title, and this is no exception.

The nagging sensation biting at my neck makes it hard to simply brush the game aside as a mediocre platformer with a hook. Even without the guitar, Fret Nice would be an interesting diversion from the everyday, though a little light on content. And so here we are, with me kinda liking the game, but entirely unsure of what to do with it – of course I realize the obvious answer is to be playing it.

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January 19, 2010

Review – Dark Void

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , — Jamie Love @ 7:54 pm

Dark Void
My enthusiasm for Dark Void during the long march toward a retail release owes entirely to a conceptual proposition that represents everything I wanted from a game when I was ten. Admittedly I had no idea at that time that trying to merge two distinctly different styles of play inherently invites disaster – or at least it seems that way given how much trouble many designers have delivering on a single style successfully.

My thought at the time would have been that flying and shooting robots is cool, and running and shooting robots is cool, so that merging the two into a single title should reasonably create the greatest game of all time.

Maybe I wasn’t the brightest kid on the block, but let’s move on.

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