Reviews
Posted March 7th 2010 by Frankie Aguilar.
If I had to choose one director with an truly unmistakable style, it would have to be Tim Burton. One only needs a few seconds of footage from any one of his films to know it's a Burton flick. Eye popping and often gothic visuals, mixed with quirky dark characters, and more often than not, Johnny Depp are the pillars upon which he's built his legacy. His take on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland stories fulfills all of those tenets, but lacks the charm of a Nightmare Before Christmas or Big Fish.
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Tags: alice in wonderland
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Posted March 2nd 2010 by Frankie Aguilar.
I've never put a game into the disc tray of my Xbox 360 with more preconceived notions than I did with Bayonetta. I had heard nothing but good things about it, but couldn't get past a personal stigma brought on by the overtly sexual design of the titular character. In the past, games like Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volley Ball have been made in the hopes of cashing in on the sexiness of the characters, and in doing so, forsook game play. So I chalked it up to the possibility that the young men who grew up with strange feelings brought on by cartoons like Sailor Moon might be writing these reviews, but nonetheless I fired the game up. What followed was possibly the most convoluted, ridiculous story ever told in a game juxtaposed with what might be the greatest action game mechanics in recent history. Make no mistake, when you break through all the in-your-face sex appeal of Bayonetta, you'll find that this is just a great game, plain and simple.
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Tags: bayonetta
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Posted February 19th 2010 by Frankie Aguilar.
It's not very often that a video game gives pause to people who consider themselves "intellectuals". Over the years I've heard more arguments against than for video games as an art form. The medium is cursed by its own popularity, because the games that get the most hype and attention tend to be the most violent and unsavory, which leads people to look no deeper than what's on the box cover. But every once and awhile, a developer will take a chance on a title that pushes the medium's boundaries, in an attempt to bleed into what people consider art. In 2007, 2K took one of those fated chances on a game called Bioshock and created a new standard for what a game could be. Bioshock was lauded for its story telling, pacing, and design. The dystopian, Ayn Rand-inspired underwater world of Bioshock was art in motion. Like all great art, such pinnacles are often imitated but never replicated. Loving the first Bioshock as much as I did, I was horrified to hear that a sequel was on its way.
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Tags: bioshock 2, bioshock
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Posted February 10th 2010 by Jordan Mammo.
Many of the most intense moments in Demon's Souls actually occur when I'm alone and nothing is happening. They occur while I'm ascending a long, spiraling staircase as slowly as possible, afraid that at any moment something, anything, is going to kill me in one swift move. They occur while I'm staring into a dark dungeon hallway, debating whether to lumber further into dank, disgusting cells or simply turn around and take my treasures with me.
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Tags: demon's souls
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Posted January 31st 2010 by Oliver Chen.
I clocked over 200 hours playing Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube. Despite never actually going online due to the need for a monetary subscription and the lack of a GCN Modem, I spent plenty of time plumbing the mysteries of Ragol with my friends and family. So when Sega announced Ř (or Zero, depending on how willing you are to open up Character Map) with the promise of portability and free online play through Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, I hyped myself up for the game immediately. Were my expectations met? Only partially.
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Tags: phantasy star online, phantasy star zero
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Posted January 30th 2010 by Adam Glasgow.
I really hate reality television and generally refuse to watch it, but for whatever reason, reality shows involving cakes intrigue me. Whether it's Ace of Cakes or those Food Network cake baking challenge-deals, I'm always happy to waste a few hours of my life glued to the couch excitedly watching to see what these strange, obsessive people will do with fondant (for those not in the know, fondant is a special kind of frosting that's used mostly on fancy or wacky looking cakes). I blame this cake fixation for my initial interest in Fairytale Fights. The game's cartoony landscape looks intriguingly like a delicious frosted good. Despite its generally poor reception, I decided to give in and try it out. Unfortunately my cake fetish has, for the first time in my life, betrayed me.
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Tags: fairytale fights
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Posted January 26th 2010 by Frankie Aguilar.
When I was just a little tyke, walking around aimlessly in an arcade looking for something worth spending my hard earned quarters on, I came across a machine that would be the gold standard against which I would compare every other fighter. I was 10, and the game was X-Men vs. Street Fighter. This crossover brawler brought us, for the first time, a tag-team based fighter that would inspire so many other such outing for years to come. Capcom would go on to create the SNK vs. Capcom series due in large to the success of its Marvel vs. Capcom titles. These games were huge hits in arcades and on home consoles alike, and with their huge rosters and trademark Capcom polish, were the cream of the crop for 2D fighters. It was only a matter of time before Capcom found another IP to milk for another crossover game: this time it's the 1960s Japanese Animation company, Tatsunoko.
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Tags: street fighter IV
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Posted January 25th 2010 by Will Davey.
Darksiders is a game that is, for the most part, made up of ideas from other games. This action-adventure title's overall structure is scarily similar to that of The Legend of Zelda series, and you'll see plenty of similarites to the Devil May Cry series in the combat system. However, rather than flat-out copying them, Darksiders simply embraces these mechanics and places them in an environment and setting that you've never see them in before. It's for that reason that playing something that you already have in another game isn't a bad thing, but rather a modern take on a classic idea.
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Tags: darksiders
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Posted January 8th 2010 by Brandon Schmidt.
The last thirty or so years has seen a common theme in the influence of Asian culture on children's programming and entertainment. While many of us grew up on television shows like Transformers and Voltron, and those born a generation later had live-action fare like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and its various incarnations, kids today seem to have an endless chain of brands that come and go, never leaving quite that same indelible mark. Kamen Rider is a series that's been in existence in Japan for a few decades now. Like many other imported shows, it too has seen spin-offs and re-imaginings, the latest of which is Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight which aired this past year on the CW Network. This DS game, much like its now-canceled television source material, fails to hold any traction with the audience. This leads to an experience that does a few things right, but doesn't keep you wanting to come back for more.
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Tags: kamen rider
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Posted December 29th 2009 by Frankie Aguilar.
A young, inexperienced swordsman is thrust into a huge world-threatening conspiracy when all he wants to do is save his father. This little blurb, or parts of it, describe almost all JRPGs and Nostalgia for the DS does not break from the typical mold. Brought to us by Matrix Software, the developers that headed up the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes for the DS, Nostalgia has a fresh, bright look and solid gameplay, but the level of difficulty might be to low for most RPG fans.
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Tags: nostalgia
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