Blog Archives
Mass Effect 3 Review: All’s Well that Ends Well
The summer vacation (though I’m not actually on summer vacation) series of game reviews ends with Mass Effect 3. Going into this game four years ago, my expectations were sky-high. I absolutely loved the first two-thirds of the trilogy and there could be no way that BioWare would screw it up, right? Oh, how naive I was. I’m sure we all know about the controversies about Mass Effect 3 by now. The ending did take away from the game but not as much as some would have you believe.
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Mass Effect 2 Review: ME2: Modern Warfare
Three years after the launch of Mass Effect on Xbox 360, the team at BioWare certainly underwent some changes. As Mass Effect was released, Electronic Arts finalized its purchase of BioWare. Coinciding with BioWare’s move from being an independent studio to a branch of EA was a decided change in the design philosophy of Mass Effect 2. While there certainly was far more money put into the game’s production values with vastly improved visuals, the introduction of more orchestral music and a number of big name actors added to the voice cast, the gameplay philosophy was overhauled to make the game less of a classic BioWare RPG and more of a standard third-person shooter.
While Mass Effect 2 was a near complete overhaul of what we played in the original Mass Effect, that doesn’t change the game entirely. It was still Mass Effect but it had a really nice new coat of paint.
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Mass Effect Review: Close Encounters of the Trilogy Kind
If there’s one topic that that comes up on this blog at every available opportunity, it’s Mass Effect. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If I didn’t discover this game after university, I probably wouldn’t still be a gamer today. For some, that would be a good thing since I wouldn’t be pontificating on modern gaming, the business of video games and the quality of games journalism.
Out of university, I played Mass Effect 1 on my laptop and immediately carried straight into Mass Effect 2. I loved this game so much that I played through each game three times for well over 200 hours in total before I started Mass Effect 3. That might even be on the low-end for people who love this franchise. What made me love this game so much that I devoted literally hundred of hours of my life to playing and writing about the franchise. Well, let’s start with the first one. Read the rest of this entry
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FTL: Faster Than Light Review: Second Star to the Right and Straight on ‘Til Morning
In the Inside review, I mentioned the 2009/10 rise of indie gaming that really kicked off thanks to Xbox’s Summer of Arcade that put those games front and center. That bled into the Kickstarter boom earlier this decade. One of those games that was funded in part by Kickstarter was FTL: Faster Than Light which showed that not only are people willing to pay for games that they want but that they can also be commercially and critically successful.
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Inside Review: Still Alive
I’ve never played it but Limbo is considered one of the biggest games in indie gaming. It released in 2010 to critical acclaim for its atmosphere and art style and was part of the rise of indie gaming that saw the likes of Minecraft, Braid, Bastion, Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, among others, become critical and commercial hits.
It’s taken six years for developer Playdead to produce their second game, Inside. The spiritual successor to Limbo seems to be worth the wait as critics have universally lauded the game, even in comparison to Playdead’s previous effort. However, I don’t think it’s the 10/10 effort that most critics say that it is.
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Battlefield Hardline Review: SWAT and Robbers
Battlefield Hardline came out only 15 months ago and yet I was able to buy a copy from EA’s own Origin store for only $5 just a few weeks ago. It’s amazing that a spin-off of one of EA’s flagship franchise could be discounted to basically free in just over a year from its release. It’s as if EA admitted that they missed the mark with their take on cops & robbers. The question is if the deserves its apparent lack commercial support is because gamers are burnt out in Battlefield or if Battlefield just doesn’t make for a good law enforcement game.
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Ducati – 90th Anniversary Review: Mid-Pack
What Ferrari is to cars, Ducati is to motorcycles. The legendary Italian motorcycle manufacturer celebrates its 90th anniversary of its founding this year. To celebrate, the Italian marque joined forces with Italian racing game developer Milestone to produce a motorcycle racing game that explores the history of Ducati through some of it famous models through the years.
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Trials of the Blood Dragon Review: Crossed-Up Crossover
Not everything from E3 that was given to the public to play was a demo. During their press conference, Ubisoft not only announced but launched the surprise Trials of the Blood Dragon game. The game promised to be a crossover of the crazy action of the Trials series with the setting and motif of Far Cry: Blood Dragon. As much as critics and gamers love each of those games individually, when you combine the two franchises, the result is the exact of what you would expect from either franchise.
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E3 2016: PC Gaming Show Trailers Roundup
So the PC Gaming Show was back for the second straight year though if you confused the Microsoft press briefing for it, I could understand. I’m not sure how many people were paying attention to this year’s PC Gaming Show because they put it up against Ubisoft’s presser, even if we would have been mostly better off for skipping Ubi’s show. This year’s PC Gaming Show had trailers for 19 games and we have them all for you right now.
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The Walking Dead: Michonne – Episode Three Review: We Deserve Better
After a short couple of months, Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Michonne miniseries reaches its conclusion with Episode Three: What We Deserve. If you’ve read reviews of or played the first two episodes, you would know that Telltale is really struggling to capture the essence of one of The Walking Dead’s trademark characters. That’s still apparent in the final third of TWD: Michonne. To use an in-universe metaphor: It’s stumbling home like it’s a walker.
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