Archive for the 'Reviews' Category

For those who don’t already know, I absolutely adore the Half-Life universe, and I believe whole-heartedly that Half-Life 2 is the best game I’ve ever played (though titles like The Legend of Zelda, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and System Shock 2 are close runners up). You may recall that I also really liked Half-Life 2: Episode One (looking back on my review of that particular title, I can say that two of my three bad points, “Too Expensive?” and “Stuttering,” are no longer valid in my book; my judgment was clouded on the former and updates have corrected the latter). So what is it that draws me so closely to this gaming franchise? In a word: storytelling. I’ll be posting more on this particular topic soon, but suffice it to say that few games (if any) have affected me as deeply as the Half-Life series.

Episode Two is most definitely the Empire Strikes Back of this series. In my review of Episode One, I speculated that this might be the case, and it turns out that that theory was right. Be warned that this episode is very dark. It has been known since the release of Episode One that a primary character is killed through the course of events, and that is indeed the case. I’ll say no more except that the particular moment is the heaviest blow I’ve ever experienced in a game. My upcoming post on the use of storytelling will delve a little deeper into this (without spoilers, of course).

I have played through Episode Two twice, and I’m nearly halfway through my third play-through, this time with the always entertaining developer’s commentary turned on. As such, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the game, and so I present to you the following thoughts.

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I’ve played through Portal a couple of times now, and I thought I’d post my thoughts on the game. Along with Half-Life 2: Episode 2, this was one of the two items I was most looking forward to in The Orange Box. My review of Episode 2 will come later this week, as I have only played through it once, and I’d like to give it at least one more going-over (I can’t wait to write about it though; there’s so much I want to talk about). For now, let’s talk Portal.

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I’ve played through BioShock a couple of times, so I thought I’d post my thoughts on the game. There are incredibly in-depth reviews all over the web, so I’ll try to keep this as short as possible (fat chance though, right?). All of these thoughts pertain to the PC release, my gaming platform of choice.

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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is the latest Nintendo DS game that I’ve been playing over the past few weeks. I just beat it last night, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the game.

This is the first Castlevania game that I’ve ever played, though the series dates all the way back to the original NES title. For those not familiar with the series, you play as a crusader set out to destroy the evil that has taken up residence in Dracula’s castle. It’s a classic 2D side-scrolling game, and is an incredible blast to play.

Your character has two ways to attack the various monsters throughout the castle: either with a number of weapons or via special abilities which come through harvesting the monster’s souls. Each soul you collect gives you a different ability. Some abilities cost mana to use, while others act as “enchantments” and are active all the time. You can equip three souls at any time (one “bullet” soul, one “guardian” soul, and one “enchantment” soul). There are also a few ability souls collected through the game, which are always active. This specific aspect of the game is quite enjoyable. Collecting all of the souls is much more difficult than you might think. I’ve been playing off and on for several weeks and only have about 75% of the souls collected.

Interestingly enough, there are only two real “levels” to the game: Dracula’s castle and an area (presumably of Hell) called simply “The Abyss.” The castle “level” has a number of stages, and is incredibly large. It took a long time to explore the entire level, and I have undoubtedly missed some hidden rooms.

When your character dies, the game is over. There are no “extra mans” to be had, so you have to be very careful. Thankfully, you can save the game any time at a number of save points throughout the castle. Make sure to save often; I lost a number of hard to get souls last night because I got overconfident.

I highly recommend this game. I’ve had a ton of fun playing it, and I’ve already started the next game (Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin). This is excellent proof that 2D games are not dead (and shouldn’t be). My final rating: A+

A few weeks ago, I purchased a pair of Audio Technica ATH-ANC7 Noise-Cancelling Headphones. Over the July 4th holiday, my family and I went to visit my grandmother in Georgia, so I got a great chance to try them out. As the title of this post suggests, I really like them.

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The latest addition to my Nintendo DS gaming library is Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Although the name is a little hokey, the game is incredibly addictive.

Built around the Bejeweled game play premise, Puzzle Quest is a puzzle / role-playing game combination (one of the first of its kind, to my knowledge). You build a character using one of four character classes (Wizard, Knight, Druid, or Warrior), and travel around the game’s world taking on quests. The game purely makes use of the stylus, and it does a remarkable job in the process (though I might argue that the stylus controls aren’t quite as finely tuned as I would have liked).

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Several weeks ago, I purchased Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, a role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. Though I have yet to finish it, I feel like I have a good enough grasp to give a short review.

I’ve never played any of the Dragon Quest games, but the protagonist in Rocket Slime is apparently one of the characters from that series. The story line should be familiar to every gamer in the world: an evil group invades a peaceful land, captures its inhabitants, and only the brave hero can save the day and restore order. Although formulaic, the story does have some charm. The writing is witty; puns are scattered all over the place.

There are two phases to game play: dungeon crawls and tank battles. The dungeon crawls are reminiscent of the classic Zelda games: top-down affairs where you run around battling bad guys and collecting items. Tank battles are somewhat different. Each team (yours and a member of the evil Plob) has a tank with a certain amount of hit points. Both tanks have two cannons, one which shoots straight out and one that shoots in an arc. Ammunition randomly spawns at a number of spots in your tank, and you must ferry it to the cannons to be shot at the enemy. The early battles are fairly easy, but the later ones (where I’m at now in the game) are very difficult. As such, this part of the game can get a bit frustrating. Every item you find throughout the game can be used as ammunition, and each one deals a differing amount of damage. The amount of strategy to be used in the tank battles is more than meets the eye; I have yet to master this part of the game. As the game progresses, you can even direct up to three other slimes in the tank battles, assigning them to various roles.

I can only think of two down sides to the game. First, the action gets a little repetitive, especially in regards to the tank battles. Second, the music isn’t nearly as varied as it should be, nor is it as catchy as the music in similar games (such as Zelda).

I could expand further on Rocket Slime, but there are plenty of other sites out there that have done that already. Overall I’d definitely recommend this game to all Nintendo DS owners. My final rating: B+