I seem to have accumulated a very large list of games I want to review but don't have enough time to go through each one individually.
[Dragon Age 2 - PS3]
Source: Youtube Channel IGN
Recommended: Absolutely
Dragon Age 2 is an Action-RPG adventure with multiple builds for each class and decisions done throughout the game affects character relationships and events.
I wasn't too interested when I tried the first Dragon Age game and so I didn't pay too much attention to Dragon Age 2 when it was about to be released. But a demo was available on PC and PS3 and tried both. On PC, it was a bit difficult to target enemies efficiently when everything was moving so quickly and having to use the standstill planning pause made gameplay slow down. But it's an entirely different experience on PS3 where everything is faster and plays like a 3rd-person Action game. Combat is satisfying and exciting as well as challenging and strategical. What I really loved about the game was the writing and dialog. It was a lot of fun choosing the different types of responses and having different reactions from the characters depending on those choices. This is a game I would definitely recommend to most gamers.
[Alpha Protocol - PC]
Recommended: No
Alpha Protocol is an Action-RPG Espionage where the player can level-up skills and attain abilities while making choices throughout the game that can benefit or hurt the main protagonist.
I was very excited to finally play Alpha Protocol, but I had so many problems with it that it was difficult to enjoy. The game is not optimized well for PC and it would skip a lot when I was using my older laptop. Even at the lowest settings, it would have a problem with a steady frame rate. When I got a new computer and the graphics ran smoothly, it was the gameplay that bugged me. Combat is mediocre and stealth could have been fun if it worked correctly. Enemies sometimes would have an acute sense of your presence behind them despite sneaking and being out of their line of sight. Hacking lock picking were mini-games with frustrating floaty controls. Eventually, the game crashed on me and even after re-installation it wouldn't work. I looked up all the possible endings and thought it was interesting on how many endings were possible, but the gameplay, crashes and bugs just made this a mess of a game that I would not have anyone go through.
[Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City]
Recommended: No
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is a 4-player cooperative, Third-Person Shooter with competitive play and single-player with Computer AI.
My curious mind has, yet again, brought me to buying Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City because of the low scores it got on Metacritic. I had to find out what was so bad about the game. I imagine the game could've been mildly entertaining with 3 other friends to play with, but it's pretty much a nightmare playing with the computer AI. The computer AI isn't very smart for enemies and even less so for allies as they rush into the middle of a fire-fight. Weapons are imbalanced as shotguns are useless in damage, range, and fire rate; snipers are low in ammo capacity, aren't strong enough, and have low fire rate; while an automatic weapon is probably what you want as they have a larger ammo capacity, about the same amount of damage as the other guns, and have a higher firing rate. You could headshot an enemy with the strongest enemy and they wouldn't die. The hit-box and bullet collision with objects around the environment aren't very accurate. A lot of the class skills are pretty useless with a few of them having some nice perks. A big bosses are flawed in design. If you get hit once by the boss, you are dead as the duration of your character's animation to get up is slightly longer than the time it takes for the boss to strike again causing a stun lock that you can't get out of. In short, the game is imbalanced and broken. I have to admit it was mildly entertaining since it was a third-person shooter and I like those types of games, but this game is far too underdeveloped to be enjoyed thoroughly.
[The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D - 3DS]
Recommended: Yes, especially if you haven't played it yet.
The Legend of Zelda is an Action-Adventure game with challenging combat and light puzzles.
I never got to play the original, so I was pretty excited to play this. I was complaining the whole way through playing whenever I got lost and didn't know what to do or if I thought a boss was too tedious because it was just a lot of waiting, dodging and timing rather than fighting. But the puzzles, music, story, and whole experience truly is magical and one I finally understood why so many people loved it. The game does have some slow downs at some parts with the 3D on, but nothing too serious. The 3D effects were really good and the revamped models and textures look much better from the original. I probably wouldn't want to play the game again anytime soon as it did cause some frustration, but it's a gaming experience that I'll remember.
[Ys: The Oath in Felghana - PC]
Recommended: Yes, for the Hardcore Action-RPG fans
Ys: The Oath in Felghana is a top-down, Action-RPG, Hack-n-Slash with very challenging gameplay and boss battles. It's a re-make of Ys 3: The Wanderers from Ys which was played as a 2D side-scroll, Action-RPG.
Ys 3 for the SNES wasn't a very good game in terms of design and mechanics, but it was one that I enjoyed and liked for what it was. I played through Ys 3 last summer when I bought Ys: The Oath in Felghana so I had an idea of what they changed in the remake. All the problems that Ys 3 had was not present in Ys: The Oath in Felghana. I loved the arranged soundtrack and the story is faithful to the original. But combat is significantly better with a very fast-paced, hack-n-slash, Action-Platforming with some very light puzzles. The game isn't particularly long, but it was well worth playing through.
[Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - PC]
Recommended: Yes
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is a 4-player cooperative, Tactical Third-Person Shooter.
Unlike RE: Operation Raccoon City, the Computer AI allies are fairly smart in this game. They might even be better than human players. The game can be played with 3 other friends in campaign mode and requires a lot of team-work and coordination. The game does its best to force players not to run-n-gun and instead play smart. The game is slower than your typical military shooter made nowadays set by the standards of Call of Duty, but it does provide a different experience because of it. There are a lot more stealth missions and some of them can be frustrating when you're not allowed to raise an alarm. But for the most part, the game was exciting and challenging.
[Rage - PC]
Recommended: No
Rage is a open-world First-Person Shooter set in a post-apocalyptic world.
From the gameplay and trailers shown, the game looked exciting. But playing through the game felt like a drag. Enemies are super resilient and take quite a bit to take down. Because of the amount of enemies that show up, I spend most of the time hiding behind cover and just picking enemies off one by one as they approach. It wasn't until the last hour of the game where there are practically no cover to hide behind that the game felt a bit more exciting and hectic. To describe the game in one word: boring. At least for me, I heard some people enjoyed it.
[Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - PC]
Recommended: Maybe
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is a Tactical Military First-Person Shooter known for its Multiplayer. But seriously, single-player is worth playing!
I honestly should stop buying Call of Duty games, but I've been hooked ever since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I was especially hesitant to get Black Ops 2 as I was disappointed with Black Ops 1. For Black Ops 1, the story was really good, but the gameplay was dreadfully boring and some parts of the game's graphics weren't very good. Multiplayer was unbalanced, constantly suffered from lag, but at the very least introduced 2-player online multiplayer where you and a buddy could play online together on one system. Considering that most of my friends have become sick of CoD and the PC version was on discount, I bought it on PC instead of PS3 this time around. I was pleasantly impressed by the game's change in UI, multiplayer mechanics, lack of lag, balanced gameplay, and one heck of a single-player campaign. Multiplayer is fun, but still not as good as what I experience in Modern Warfare 2. The Single-player campaign, on the other hand, really surprised me. The narrative and plot drew me in and was enticing. The gameplay had its ups and downs for the first half of the game, but it picks up and is really amazing after the midway point. I got super emotional at one point in the game and was so shocked at my own reaction to that part of the game. I really got into some of the fire fights and especially some of the events near the end. The game also has multiple endings depending on the choices made throughout the playthrough. Call of Duty isn't for everyone and many gamers are sick of it by now, but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the game. It is a bit pricey compared to how much I spend on my other games, but I liked the experience I got out of the game.
[Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends - PS3]
Recommended: Maybe
Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends is a Tactical Hack-n-Slash that expands the content from the original game. The original is not required to play this one.
I loved Dynasty Warriors 7. It was an incredibly well developed game and one of my favorites for the PS3. So it was no surprise that I went and bought Xtreme Legends for it (but at a discount). The game had 3 new characters, some new weapons, Legends Mode, Challenge Mode, and a Remix Mode allowing the new features to be used in the original game. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have been very happy buying the game at full price ($40, I got it for ~$26). Challenge Mode isn't that attractive for me and I didn't play the new characters all too much. So I pretty much got my gameplay experience entirely from Legends mode. I was hoping for a custom officer mode to create my own characters, but it wasn't present. Xtreme Legends just allowed me to play Dynasty Warriors 7 a little longer before Dynasty Warriors 8 releases, but I can't say that it was incredibly worth it. I would have gotten Empires if it wasn't digital download only as that might have provided more gameplay content than Xtreme Legends. But for the hardcore Dynasty Warriors fan, Xtreme Legends could provide a LOT more gameplay for them.
[Bastion - PC]
Recommended: Yes
Bastion is a Top-down Action-Adventure game with some light RPG elements.
The game is aesthetically unique and pleasing with simple gameplay mechanics that is extended with the sheer amount of content it provides as an indie game. There are tons of weapons, lots of item builds, plenty of quests to fulfill, and an array of gameplay modifiers from the God Shrine to make the game even more challenging. Besides the story, music and art style, the one thing that made the game great was the narrator. It was one of the aspects in the game that really stood out. The amount of content provided allows the player to build an item and weapon set that matched the playstyle they wanted to use to get through the game. It's not too long of a game, but it does provide replay value to extend the play time.
[Ether Vapor Remaster - PC]
Recommended: No
Ether Vapor Remaster is a 2.75D shoot-em-up.
Ether Vapor Remaster looks cool and has some good music playing, but it doesn't have good design choices. I don't mind a game being difficult and actually am attracted to challenging shoot-em-ups; however, when the difficulty is because of poor design choices, it's just frustrating. Enemy bullets in the game are fairly long in length and the screen size isn't very big, so avoiding them is a bit more difficult. What makes it broken is that enemy bullets blend in too easily with the player's own bullets and can't be easily seen. When 5-10 enemies are shooting at once, it gets really messy and in turn causes the player to die quite often. Other times, bullets are unexpected and come at the player very quickly without warning. Another mechanic is the player has a very limited amount of shield and continues. Getting a game over meant having to start the entire game over again. As the player plays longer and dies more often, they more shield charges and continues. But having to do this while dealing with bullets blending in the background or your own bullets and dying every other turn makes it into a frustrating experience rather than a challenging one. The game plays as a horizontal shooter, vertical shooter, 3D shooter, and 2.5D shooter depending on the scene. I tried enjoying the game, but the frustration I got out of it wasn't worth it.
[Soul Calibur 5 - PS3]
Recommended: Yes
Soul Calibur 5 is a 3D-Fighting game.
I didn't like how a lot of the characters looked alike in Soul Calibur 4 due to the custom character creation engine they used. They look a lot better now. A lot of people complained about how stats on items in character customization in SC4 restrained them from aesthetics in order to have optimal fighting abilities. That has been taken out. There wasn't much of a special mode for SC4, so they had a story that focused on the children of Sophitia. In short, the developers tried their best to fix what was perceived as broken from SC4. For the most part, I think SC5 is a solid fighting game. Story mode was very short, but I liked it. The character creation tool is pretty intuitive and a lot of fun to mess around with. The introduction of the super was a bit surprising, but it does add a new element to the game. I also got the game new for an extremely cheap price just after a mere year from its release. I missed out on SC3 and wasn't entirely happy with SC4, so SC5 is one I'm satisfied with.
[Shank 2 - PC]
Recommended: Maybe
Shank 2 is a 2D Action game.
Visually, Shank 2 looks a lot better than Shank 1. In terms of gameplay, I really didn't like how Shank 2 was designed. Rather than being able to switch between weapons to accommodate for each situation, the player can only bring one of each type (sidearm, range, and throwable) which didn't even matter since sidearms are pretty useless and throwables have such a limited capacity. Instead of carefully setting a well designed scenario for each section of the game, I felt like each section of the game in Shank 2 had one of every enemy which rendered the player useless in every situation. Grabbing a lesser enemy opened up to larger enemies ramming into the player. Fighting a larger enemy opened up to ranged enemies. Fighting the enemies flipping and dropping kicking the player opened up to enemies that throw molotovs everywhere. The most effective strategy I had to use throughout the game to get through ridiculous situations like those was using throwing knives and zone every enemy out with them which was long, tedious, and extremely boring. Having to utilize regular attacks, side arms, items in the environment, throws and throwable items gave Shank 1 variety and strategy to work with. But doing anything other than throwable items and ranged weapons would generally get the player killed because every type of enemy was present on the screen. It's a mess of a single-player campaign and didn't have a good of a story as the first one. The one thing that was significantly better than the first game was multiplayer. In Shank 2, there is an assortment of characters of choose from and play with a friend online or locally in a survival match against waves of enemies. Multiplayer Survival made up for not having a co-op campaign. So if anything, I would recommend getting the game mainly for multiplayer.
[Super Meat Boy - PC]
Recommended: Absolutely, but mainly for Hardcore gamers
Super Meat Boy is an extremely challenging Platformer.
It took me a while to finally sit down and play through the rest of the game, but I finally got through the game and beat Dr. Fetus...at least in the light world. I actually did a review for it before back when it was released in 2010 (wow, it really took me that long to complete it?) and the only change in stance I have about the game is that I said the music isn't very "memorable" when it totally is now after playing for the past 2.5 years. It doesn't catch on right away, but it has a very distinct melody for each of the tracks and is a whole lot of fun to listen to even out of the game. I think it's even more worth it to get it now than it was before as new levels were introduced and Super Meat World was added in which players can make and share their own level creations with the rest of the community. Despite being incredibly difficult, each level takes less than a minutes or two to complete. So failing is only a short drawback. This is a game I would definitely recommend to gamers, but it's not for everyone because of how difficult it can get.
Whew, that is it for now. It's good to unload this heavy list and get on to the other games.
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