syberia review

I just finished playing Syberia and I can honestly say it's been awhile since I've had the pleasure of playing through a game that was so enjoyable and challenging throughout! Syberia is a true classic point-and-click adventure game and I constantly found myself comparing it to what I consider the pinnacle of adventure gaming, the Gabriel Knight series.

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mlb 2010: the show

The latest installation of the Playstation-exclusive baseball franchise, MLB 2010: The Show dropped this week and while it is still the same great game that baseball fans flock to, it also introduces a couple of new features and different gameplay elements.

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heavy rain WAS effing awesome!

Haha. It's sad that it's been long enough since I last posted that I am able to respond to my last post from like 3 weeks ago. Oh well, being busy sucks. Anyway, we got Heavy Rain like the day it came out from GameFly and I have to say it was pretty much as impressive and awesome as everyone has been saying.

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heavy rain sounds effing awesome

Wow, this game is just looking cooler and cooler the more I read about it. Heavy Rain, by French game developer Quantic Dream, is due out later this month but has been generating buzz for quite awhile.

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no wii HD on the horizon

Those of us out there that try to defend the Wii as a valid gaming console have less hope for near-future advancements now that Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has denied any rumors of an HD Wii in development. In his mind, the addition of high definition graphics capability would not be enough to make a new Wii console stand out and sell successfully.

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dragon age: origins

The boyfriend just finished his first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, the latest party-based RPG from developer Bioware, and it was a pretty epic game. This fantasy RPG is a pretty awesome, full game that certainly is reminiscent of Bioware's Star Wars RPG Knights of the Old Republic, and this first playthrough at least took over 70 hours. Considering there are six different character class origins to start with, each with a unique storyline, I think this speaks highly for the replay value of this game. If you liked KOTOR or Mass Effect in recent years, Dragon Age: Origins may be up your alley. The combat is pretty typical if you've played Bioware games before. The characters are very cool and despite the game's similarities to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, they are more deeply developed and offer more of an emotional distinction from character to character. One big issue I have to take with this game is its graphics and presentation. While it runs smoothly, it looks like crap and seems like not much of an engine upgrade from KOTOR - I would believe it if I read that it was the same game engine at work here. Considering the leaps and bounds taken by other current-generation games with regards to animation, this game seriously disappoints in that realm. Luckily it is pretty much the only area in which this game suffers, so as long as you are not too much of a graphics snob (and are planning on playing it on an Xbox 360 - can't speak for how much worse it might look on a PS3) you will most likely still get some serious enjoyment out of this game. Looking forward to experiencing different characters and plot elements in the second (and other future) playthroughs!

mario is timeless

Video game characters come and go; some are universally loved, others hated, and other still manage to be remembered for cheesy lines, awesome weaponry and crazy special moves. Yet no video game character is (or really, will ever be) as pervasive as everyone's favorite Italian plumber Mario! Whether you grew up with Mario in the 80's, originally meeting him as "Jumpman" in the Donkey Kong arcade game, or you met him as a youngster in Super Smash Bros. or any of the other more recent Mario franchises, one thing is for sure: the world cannot get enough of Mario. He is tenacious, cute, exciting and brave. He always manages to save Princess Peach, no matter what kind of crazy situation with Bowser she's got herself into now. This summer he and Luigi even ventured into Bowser a la Innerspace in Bowser's Inside Story, and now a whole new generation of gamers will get to experience classic side-scrolling fun in New Super Mario Bros., which dropped this past weekend. So whether Mario is a favorite of yours or you have minimal experience with the short, scrappy plumber, rest assured knowing that Mario is here to stay.

Nintendo's Mario Endures Even As Games Come and Go

has uncharted 2 made all other games obsolete?

Personally, I don't think so. But apparently some people do, as the follow-up to one of the best PS3 games, Uncharted, has set new precedents for awesomeness in gaming after its release last week. Uncharted 2 brings the badass-ness in its action-adventure elements, its environmental puzzles, its totally awesome graphics/animation, its well-acted and professionally-voiced characters, and, well, a lot of other supercool aspects of the game. Plus it has an addictively challenging and fun multiplayer mode, adding more substance to the Playstation Network's online community. So I can understand why some people feel that Uncharted 2's developer Naughty Dog has brought the gaming industry to a standstill when it comes to innovative and new gaming territory.

GamesOnSmash: How Naughty Dog Killed the Gaming Industry...

uncharted 2 is awesome

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves came out for the Playstation 3 this week and it is really living up to the glowing reviews it's been receiving for weeks now. The graphics are truly beautiful and the game moves along quickly with slick controls and an engrossing plot. The sequel to one of the Playstation 3's best exclusive titles, Uncharted 2 brings the action suspense in a way that few games achieve. The pacing gets your heart going and sometimes the timing is so close that you can't believe you made it through whatever adrenaline-inducing scenario the game has thrown at you. The character acting is great and the voicing is well done. All in all, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a great new title out for anyone with a PS3. Definitely worth trading in some boring old games to pick this one up!

demon's souls on ps3

We are very excited for Uncharted 2 which debuts next week, but until then our latest PS3 acquisition has been getting a lot of play: Sony exclusive title Demon's Souls. An RPG with as much customization as you could ask for, Demon's Souls is a dark fantasy-themed game involving a land corrupted by demons and beasts that you of course need to save. The graphics are very nice to look at and the online integration is cool and innovative. You can leave notes along the way that others connected to the Playstation Network can view and rate as helpful or not. If the note is found to be unhelpful it disappears, but if your note gets voted as helpful then you even get a health bonus in your own game! Cool stuff. There is a lot to look forward to on the newly-cheaper PS3 and Demon's Souls is definitely one to try if you like RPGs with a lot of good fighting in them. Most reviews I've read have been very positive, like this one from PSXextreme that goes into quite a lot of detail. IGN even gave it a 9.4 "Outstanding"!

cursed mountain

I got a chance to play through a bit of Cursed Mountain, a 2009 survival-horror Wii title by developer Deep Silver and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised! The reviews that were out for this game were mostly of the "meh" variety, citing a cool story but shoddy motion controls and outdated gameplay. I love games with a good story and this one definitely has a cool one, supported by findable notes full of useful information about your goal and the setting around your character. The animation is also very cool to see on the Wii and shows that the Wii is a lot more flexible with realistic (but not ultra-realistic) graphics than some developers seem to think. I only played for a few hours but found the controls pretty intuitive, fairly tight and not annoying. The fighting system is kinda cool and involves a variety of strategies to beat the ghost enemies that haunt the mountain village where your journey begins, and of course the cursed mountain itself. If you're a fan of scary-supernatural plots in games then this may be one to try out.

katamari forever review

I love love LOVE the Katamari series so it's no surprise that I am having a blast playing the latest release in the franchise, Katamari Forever on the Playstation 3. The game hit stores this Tuesday and I personally think it is a great followup to the Xbox 360 game Beautiful Katamari. If you've played the series before then picking up Katamari Forever is totally simple and intuitive, and if you've never tried rolling the katamari before, it's easy to get into it quickly. The gameplay mechanics are more of the same rolling and bouncing but now with an added "Prince hop" using the six-axis PS3 controls. There are also two new bonus items that can be found in most levels that give you fleeting magnetic power, sucking all available objects nearby right to your katamari. The music is the familiar J-Pop-y sound from the other games and while I do love it for the most part, I did worry about going insane a few times after my tenth or eleventh try through some of the longer, more challenging levels. The animation is one of the real high points of this new game: first, it is rendered in full 1080p so if you've got the HD setup already then it is gorgeous to behold. The game also has a cell-shaded "hand-drawn" look to it that makes it distinct from Beautiful Katamari, and there are also different filters you can apply to change the way each level is animated, which I think is a great customization option. There are some levels that will be familiar to you if you've played Beautiful Katamari but the challenges are new and there are also many new and innovative levels and challenges. The plot of the game is just as weird as ever and now includes two series of short movies that occur after beating certain levels. The wacky dialogue paired with Namco-Bandai translation makes for one hell of a weird gaming experience but I am totally smitten. If you've got a PS3, pick this game up for sure - it's even $10 less than most PS3 titles!

cursed mountain is out

I haven't had all that much time lately to spend playing video games (horrors, I know!) but one that I really am anxious to try out for sure is Cursed Mountain, which came out on the Nintendo Wii this week. Cursed Mountain is a survival horror game that follows a mountaineer searching for his brother who disappeared on his way to a monastery in the mountains. The animation looks gorgeous for a Wii game and the M-for-mature rating makes me want to support it just to get more games like it into development. There are only a few reviews up so far and the game seems to be scoring around a 7 out of 10 for the most part. From what I have read it sounds like the game suffers from the typical Wii issues of wacky motion controls that sometimes feel tacked on, but otherwise the game seems like a really interesting adventure title. I love games with well-developed stories and plot progressions and it seems like Cursed Mountain is a winner there. Anyone out there tried this one yet?

batman: arkham asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum hit store shelves today and thus far is getting some pretty awesome reviews. Game Informer gave it a 9.5 and called it their Game of the Month, and now IGN has rewarded it with a pretty amazing 9.3 "Outstanding". It sounds like despite the franchise having enormous shoes to fill with a video game, London-based developer Rocksteady Studios managed to do justice to the Caped Crusader and the many psycho villains inhabiting Arkham Asylum. Also, some of the voice acting is done by original actors from Batman: The Animated Series, including Mark Hamill as the Joker! The game apparently pushes the limits of its T-for-teen rating with scantily-clad bad girls and some colorful language, but good for them for keeping it under the dreaded M-rating that would mean teenagers couldn't go buy this game without parental permission. I definitely want to give this one a try sometime - it sounds like the styling of the setting and the characters is really atmospheric and spot-on for the mood they were trying to achieve. If you've got a PS3, you can even access the exclusive "play as the Joker" level, and preorders from GameStop include a Scarecrow challenge map level featuring some crazy skeleton enemies.

siren: blood curse on psn

We downloaded an awesome game from the Playstation Network this weekend called Siren: Blood Curse and have been really loving it so far. Siren: Blood Curse is a Playstation 3 game based on the PS2 title Siren and its sequel Forbidden Siren 2. For U.S. consumption the game is packaged in 12 episodes that can be bought and downloaded individually or as a whole. The game plays almost like an interactive movie as you control several characters exploring and fighting ghost-like bad guys called “shibito”. The graphics are lifelike and beautiful to look at and the music and ambient noise is creepy and haunting. One interesting gameplay aspect is Sight-Jacking Mode, in which your character can take on the perspective of other characters and also of the shibito, letting you anticipate their actions with more inside knowledge. If you’re a PS3 owner and a fan of survival horror, especially with a Japanese flair, Siren: Blood Curse is definitely a must-have.

katamari on the iphone!

I’ve been sweating an iPhone for months now and finally decided to suck it up and take the plunge and now am set up with a lovely white 16GB iPhone 3GS. I thought I had collected all the possible gaming consoles one could own but of course the iPhone has a whole community of app games for download that use the innovative tilt control as well as the iPhone’s touch-screen controls. You can even get Mass Effect on the iPhone (it’s called Mass Effect: Galaxy)! I am doing my best not to collect too many silly mobile games but I had to pick up I Love Katamari, a handheld version of my latest favorite franchise involving rolling stuff up into balls/katamaris. The tilt control provides a whole new level of challenge in this game but I think once I get used to it it will provide excellent entertainment on the go. The graphics look great and the sound quality is nice as well, plus it drains the battery far less than I would have imagined. Good stuff!

fight night round 4 review

Sports games represent a large percentage of the big release video game titles of 2009 and Fight Night Round 4 has proven to be one of the bigger ones. The follow-up to EA Sports' 2006 title Fight Night Round 3, Round 4 introduces fancy next-generation realistic graphics as well as some new gameplay mechanics that bring a bit more realism to the fighting game. Despite some controversy over control schemes (analog stick vs. buttons for punching) the game has gotten solid reviews and sounds like a fun pickup for any sports video game fan and especially those already into boxing who will appreciate the realistic detail of the game's character rendering. It's always nice to hear about a game with an enjoyable soundtrack and it sounds like Round 4 has a great one full of hip-hop. Probably worth a try if you're into this sort of game!

Video Game Review: Fight Night Round 4: Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali Return to the Ring

tiger woods hearts his video game

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 has been out for almost a month now and reviews have generally been very positive. I am not a huge sports fan but I do think it's cool when athletes decide to take a positive attitude towards the growth of video game interest and their own digitized counterparts appearing in games. Tiger Woods apparently is a huge fan of video games in general (he makes not one but two Atari model shoutouts) and also of his own game, which he posits is getting closer and closer to true-life realism with the latest title. With more accurate swings, exact-replica courses (Woods claims that he actually familiarizes himself with courses using the game) and a new dynamic weather system, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 is one of the better experience-simulation sports games available out there.

Woods wants his digital golf game to be fun, of course, but what drives him is a desire to make it as true as possible to the experience of being "inside the ropes"--the ropes separating fans and players in a tournament. "In terms of innovation, our specific area is realism," he says. "Having spectators moving and talking, the roar of the gallery from another green, the changing leader board. They're all distractions, which we see and hear, and you have to focus quickly and try and execute. We've incorporated these things into the game."

Tiger Woods on Video Game Realism and Knowing Your Customers

beautiful katamari

I mentioned previously that I picked up Beautiful Katamari, the Xbox360 title from the Katamari series originally on the Playstation and now I have become addicted to this strange and wonderful game! If you've never played before, a katamari is a ball that can roll stuff up into it. Any stuff, and lots of it. Why roll stuff up, you may ask? Because the King hit a wicked tennis lob and it tore a hole in the cosmos and created a black hole, and now you as the tiny Prince need to replace all the planets with new stars made from katamaris and ultimately plug up the black hole. Weird, yes, very Japanese, absolutely, but this game has truly warmed my heart. It is adorable, funny, kooky and really addicting, and actually pretty challenging compared to a lot of similarly simplistic puzzle games like it. The game is simple to beat but has a lot of collection achievements and it is pretty fun finding all the adorable cousins who can be swapped out for the Prince for katamari rolling duty. The animation style doesn't demand too much detail and thus everything looks like beautifully rendered lego toys. For fans of the series, there is a new title slated for release on the PS3 in September called Katamari Forever, which will actually feature a few changes in gameplay from the previous titles. If you're looking for a fun and different game on the 360 (which I always am!) definitely track down and try out Beautiful Katamari.

call of juarez: bound in blood review

Anyone who reads here can probably tell I'm not a huge fan of the shooter genre of games but I try to at least stay on top of what's good, what's selling, that kind of thing and shooters certainly are one of the more popular and wider-selling game genres out there. This week will see the release of Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, the followup to the Western-themed FPS from a couple of years ago. As I said I'm not a fan of shooters but I am a fan of Westerns so I've been enjoying watching the development of this game as it gets closer to market. The animation style looks beautiful and from initial reviews it's sounding like it could be pretty cool. This review calls it "a thrilling, wild ride down a road that remains surprisingly less traveled". Could be a fun one to try out sometime.