Category Archives: Game Reviews
The Crew Beta Impressions: No Cars Go
As part of Ubisoft’s ongoing corporate strategy to introduce new franchises in new genres, they’ve decided to take on Need for Speed with their take on the street racing genre with The Crew. While it seems to borrow elements from the Need for Speed franchise, the emphasis on story missions, car customization and co-op play sets it apart from the only rival in the arcade street racing game genre.
Having spent a few days with the closed beta and a few years with Need for Speed games, can Ubisoft’s offering compete with EA’s resident racing series?
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Grid Autosport Review: Pedal to the Metal
While they started as a bit more of a racing sim company, Codemasters transition to the pseudo-sim (not a hardcore racing sim but far from a simple arcade racer) has come with massive critical acclaim. The launch of the Dirt series from the Colin McRae Rally franchise and the transition of the sim TOCA Race Driver series to Grid were met with praise from critics and gamers alike.
Then 2012 happened. Someone at Codemasters went a little crazy and decided that more arcade-style racing games were what Codies needed to get to the next level. The result was Dirt: Showdown, F1 Race Stars and Grid 2 all being released in quick succession. The pseudo-sim gameplay had been replaced with arcadey minigames, shallow gameplay, and a disregard for proper racing and the laws of physics, respectively.
While the F1 franchise motored on, the rest of Codemasters’ IP floundered without a direction. The company’s move from sim to arcade was backfiring with critics and fans. So Codies did something rare for the games industry: They listened to their fans. The gamers who were fed up with the direction of Codemasters would get their way with the latest iteration of the Grid franchise. Getting away from the arcade/floaty driving style of Grid 2, Grid Autosport would be a return to the more sim style of racing that Grid and the Race Driver franchises were known for.
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Battlefield Hardline Beta Impressions: $60 of an Expansion Pack
I know that it’s been a few weeks since the Battlefield Hardline beta has wrapped up but I think I’ve documented (either here or on The Lowdown) how busy I was during the month of June. Now that I’ve finally got a little bit of free time, I’m going to start pumping out reviews and other long-form pieces with a bit more frequency.
So let’s start with the beta for Battlefield Hardline. It was launched with great fanfare at the end of EA’s E3 keynote and was so popular that the Battlefield website crashed as people tried to get into the Beta. With all that hype, it would be hard for BF Hardline to live up to it. And, wouldn’t you know it, Hardline didn’t live up to the hype.
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Dawngate Beta Impressions: Breaking Meta But Not the Mold
I’m not so sure that it’s everyone wants to get into MOBAs but everyone feels as though they have to get into MOBAs. While Riot Games is on their own and on top of the pile, all the other big players are trying to get in with their own MOBAs. Blizzard/Activision is trying something a bit more fan service and team objective based with Heroes of the Storm. Deep Silver is doing the Dead Island zombie MOBA. WB Interactive is onboard with Infinite Crisis. And, of course, Valve has Dota 2.
Now, Electronic Arts is the last one to jump into the MOBA fray by publishing someone else’s MOBA under their banner. Dawngate might seem to have a lot more in common with League of Legends than the other competitors but it also has some unique ways to differentiate itself from the king of MOBAs. Does it find its way to a solid third in the pack?
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Trials Fusion (PC) Review: Back From the Future
As I mentioned in the last Trials game review, this is a game that’s been around since Miniclip was one of the top sites in the world for gaming. The series has evolved since the original Trials game. It’s gone from Java to a proper standalone release.
With that change, so did the tone of the series. It went from a slightly over the top recreation of professional trials competition to a cartoony extreme sports arcade game.
Trials Fusion is the first Trials game released on next-gen consoles but despite the game being set in the future and the evolution of consoles and the evolution of the game’s graphics, Red Lynx didn’t really do much to evolve the gameplay.
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FootLOL: Epic Fail League Review: This Ain’t Football
Not every football (or soccer, in North America) game is super realistic sim that allows you to take over almost every major club or player from around the world. Not every football game is even about football.
Enter the very poorly named FootLOL. FootLOL is a bit like Football Manager if Football Manager was made by someone completely out of their minds. You don’t lead your team to victory with superior tactics, player management and inspired decisions. You lead them to victory with land mines, artillery and stampeding cows.
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Goat Simulator Review: G.O.A.T.Y.
Is a comedy game that’s openly considered to be a joke by its own developer and much of the gaming press something that’s a meta joke that also happens to be a game or just a joke that isn’t worth the time and money to buy and play it?
If you’ve read other reviews of Goat Simulator, that’s what they all come down to, whether the reviewer says so or not. Should a game that the developer says is a comparative waste of money be evaluated based on the developer’s promises and description of the game or should it be evaluated against every other game on the market?
The answer has to lie somewhere in the middle ground. Can you punish a game for being a below average technical effort while being exactly what was promised by the devs and hoped for by gamers?
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Infinite Crisis Beta Impressions: The MOBA You Want, Not The MOBA You Need
I’ve never played a MOBA before but with the release of the open beta of the DC Comics MOBA, Infinite Crisis, I thought now was a good time to get into the genre. Most people are judging compared to the big MOBAs, League of Legends and DOTA 2. Without that comparison base, what would I think of my first MOBA?
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BioShock Infinite: Burial At Sea – Episode One Review: Beyond the Sea
As someone who has BioShock on their personal top ten games of all-time list and top three of 2013, I had to go back to play the DLC that marries the two worlds of Rapture and Columbia together. But is Burial at Sea capable of properly combining two memorable stories and two memorable settings into one cohesive whole or does Burial at Sea come off as nothing but BioShock fan service for the sake of nostalgia?
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Little Racers Street Review: Top-Down, Bottom-Up
If you race it, chances are that I’m going to try to review it. That includes the recent release of Little Racers Street, former an Xbox Live Indie Game that was ported over to PC on Steam. I haven’t had the best of luck with top-down racing games but maybe this will be the one to change things for me. Maybe…
et geekera 