The Walking Dead has been a gripping and highly entertaining adventure game thus far, so now that the season finale is here we can see how every choice you made stacks up. Thankfully choices have impacted things throughout the series instead of stacking them up for the end. A few from each episode will affect this episode, but I have to say that this episode is extremely heart-wrenching and the most shocking of them all, not to mention the shortest.
Lee and your surviving gang are on their way to save Clem from a mysterious man who snatched her up. They leave their boat behind for a bit to go find her, but things go completely downhill because the zombies are in the thousands and not to mention all the shocking moments that lead up to the end. Something happens every 20 minutes or so that will make you set your controller down and take a breather and say, “How did that happen?!” That’s how great this series is. Each character is memorable and you will either love them or hate them depending on your choices. The system Telltale set up is so organic and smooth that you don’t really notice your choice caused this until you really think. That is excellent game design, but I will take some time to address issues that I have held off until now.
Firstly, the graphics are pretty dated which I mentioned in the first episode. The art style looks like the comics, but the graphics are about 7 years old. There are hitches and stuttering often which never got addressed. Each episode is extremely short, but this one clocks in at just a measly hour. Why this is a stand-alone episode is beyond me, they could have just made this series four episodes. The pacing is also all over the place. Episode 2 was probably the most disappointing of them all, and Episode 4 was lacking in the shocking moment department. There’s also no challenge in the game with this just being an interactive experience. This is one of my favorite adventure games of all time, but I would like to see some serious upgrades in Season 2.
With all that said Episode 5 ends on a cliffhanger and who knows when we will find out what’s happened next. After seeing how successful this series is I’m sure Season 2 will start pouring out through next year starting in spring. Episode 5 is very touching and after you finish the game you will realize that Season 2 will start with a whole new cast of characters. As it stands Episode 5 delivers a great ending and you really feel satisfied with your journey through Savannah and will sit back and wait for Season 2.
XCOM was a popular turn-based strategy game back in the ’90s, and everyone was surprised by how well this game turned out. Enemy Unknown keeps the series vibe and atmosphere updated to today’s standards. Enemy Unknown is one of this year’s best strategy games, but there is one reason why most people will never complete this game: It is too damn hard. Not the fun and challenging type of hard, but the kind that makes it impossible to move on no matter how well equipped your soldiers are.
The game does a very good job of introducing new things to you as you move on. The UI is very simple and uncomplicated, but pretty deep. You get to see a cut-a-way of a military base, and you can click on each department. Research is where everything starts. By gathering all intact materials from missions, you can research new things like weapons, armor, satellites, and various other things. Engineering is where it is all made and upgraded, as well as keeping track of other buildings. Workshops, laboratories, generators, hangars—all these things determine how fast you can upgrade and how you become more powerful. The barracks are where you can equip your squad’s loadout, upgrade soldiers, hire new ones, etc. Finally, there are the situation room and the command center. Here you can advance the days until you run into missions, trade alien parts on the black market, and view how in distress the world is. It is all very simple and almost revolutionary in design because most strategy games are Excel sheet-based and are pretty complicated and hard to navigate.
Once you assign things to engineers and do research, you can advance the days until you run into something, such as a UFO sighting. When this happens, you scramble your jets, and depending on how good the equipment you gave them is, they’ll take it down. Most of the time, you will run into abduction scenarios where you eliminate all hostiles or have to rescue someone. When this happens, you get a choice as to what country to help. Each one gives you a reward, such as money, scientists, engineers, or other items. Usually, you pick the one that’s in distress the most because if you don’t, they will remove themselves from the XCOM operation, and if they all withdraw, it’s game over. Once you go into battle, this is where you see how hard this game gets.
Each soldier gets two moves. The area around them is blue, which means that’s one move, and yellow, which means it takes both moves to get there. Performing an action takes one move, and that is usually shooting alien scum. All soldiers start out as regulars with assault rifles until after their first mission and they rank up. The class is chosen randomly, which I really hate because you can be stuck with five snipers and just one assault guy. When you are ready to shoot, you will see how accurate your shot is. Once all turns are taken, it’s the alien’s turn. This back and forth is normal for strategy games, but the objectives you are given, or the difficulty of aliens, are absurd and completely unfair. You will shoot down some small grays and get through a few thin men. Maybe you will lose 2 or 3 guys in the process, and then four freaking Mutons will show up and wipe the rest of you out in one turn. Or don’t forget the damn spider things that can turn your squadmate into a zombie in one hit. This gets frustrating because every mission is like this. I rarely got through any unless it was on an easy-difficulty mission.
This would be ok if it were during main missions, and you could go back and grind a bit to get better equipment, but you have to do that with every single mission. You fail almost more than you succeed, such as by losing so many soldiers. Once a soldier dies, they are dead forever and won’t come back. Once you lose a fully ranked soldier, you have to start from scratch again with a new guy. It is completely unfair in a game this difficult. In most missions, you will be lucky if you get out with 2 or 3 guys, but you are probably thinking that’s because I stink at the game. I would restart and try all different strategies, and nothing would work. The whole point of the game is to take cover and never be out in the open. Once you advance and are just standing there, you’re dead. The fog of war doesn’t help when you run around the map trying to figure out where all the enemies are. Forget a rescue mission where you have to save a certain amount. Saving 5/25 people is a lot harder than it sounds. All 20 will die before you get to your third guy. This game is just a nightmare, and not in a fun way.
That doesn’t make the game bad, though. There are a lot of great research projects that have a huge impact on everything you do. You have to decide carefully about what you want, or you’re screwed. You get a very limited amount of money every month, and you have to stretch it. I found this a bit unfair as well, because there’s no compromise. Even if just one element was easier, it could make this game more tolerable. As it stands, I had this game for over a month and barely got 25% through the game before I gave up. Spending 45 minutes on a mission and then dying at the end is just ridiculous. Reloading quick saves doesn’t always work, either because you realize you forgot to equip someone with a medkit or because you need to be more accurate on certain missions and forgot to equip scopes. This game is just a pain.
The production values are at least nice, with great-looking aliens and some decent voice acting, but overall, this game requires extreme patience more than skill or brainpower. The game is well done with intense battles, but maps repeat often, the camera is screwy where it zooms out of buildings, and the graphics are a bit underwhelming. The main thing is the extreme difficulty, which practically ruins the game. I have never played such a hard strategy game before, but there’s someone out there who will like this.
Klei Entertainment has had a pretty bad reputation with the not-so-great Shank series. It is a huge surprise that Mark of the Ninja turned out so well; in fact, it is probably one of the best indie games to come out this year. Mark of the Ninja succeeds in making you feel like a true ninja with great stealth mechanics, puzzles, and skill moves. However, Klei still needs to hire a new story writer because it isn’t very interesting. You are a ninja who is going after someone, and you have tattoos that give you powers, and that’s pretty much it. You should play this for the action because that’s all you will care about anyway.
The game uses light and dark very well. The game is in 2D, so everything around you is dark. You have to avoid enemies by climbing up walls and ceilings, hiding in ducts, and even in objects. The game has a great kill mechanic where you press the kill button, but time slows so you can press a combo of a direction and the kill button that pops up on the screen. This feels very satisfying and should be incorporated into more games like this. You have some weapons in your arsenal, such as darts, that can be used to distract guards by taking out lights, luring them into traps, and many other things. You get smoke bombs, mines, and even the ability to see everything around you and teleport. That is what a ninja is really like, and I haven’t played a game yet that makes me feel like one (sorry, Ninja Gaiden).
The controls are silky smooth, if a little sticky when clinging to walls and objects. As you progress, you can level up by completing optional objectives and finding hidden scrolls throughout the levels. You can acquire new moves like killing from above, snagging enemies while hiding, etc. You can even unlock more ninja weapons and gadgets for your arsenal. The whole system works really well, and the gameplay is just so addictive. There are multiple ways to approach objectives, but you can never fight head-on. That is what I like about this game. If you are caught, you need to flee and hide until the enemies settle back down. Just a couple of shots will kill you. Thankfully, checkpoints are very fair, unlike the Shank games, and don’t set you back too far.
Puzzles are pretty fun in this game because they require reflexes more than anything. Hitting tripwires may send arrows flying at you, but there’s a crank that pulls a box up along a wall to block them. Cranking it up as you climb the wall is the way to go, but some get really tricky but are fun to solve. This game is just pure fun, and I felt like a ninja the whole way through. No guns, no super-fast martial arts, just stealth, sneaking, and being a part of the shadows.
The graphics are beautiful and are actually part of the gameplay. Everything seems dark and shadowed, but when things are in the light, they are fully revealed. The only thing visible to you in the shadows are your glowing red tattoos, which are really neat. My only complaints are the story and the fact that there really isn’t enough variety in enemies. I wanted to see more, and the overall game just gets repetitive towards the end, but if the story were better, you wouldn’t feel that way.
With great ninja gameplay, smooth controls, fun stealth mechanics, and interesting puzzles, Mark of the Ninja proves to be one of the best indie/arcade games this year. For the low price, you have nothing to lose except a few hours of having a lot of fun.
Serious Sam is one of the original old-school shooters where you just shot everything on sight. Forget about the story, gameplay, cinematic events, or anything else. Serious Sam is one of the less popular FPS series that is shadowed by Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem. BFE doesn’t really do anything new or add anything new except a spiffy new engine, which is seriously wasted. The game is repetitive, lacks any awesome guns (except a couple), and has the same handful of enemies thousands of times over. BFE is mainly for newcomers because only the super-hardcore fans will truly enjoy this (if that).
The story is paper-thin, with Sam trying to stop an alien invasion. That’s it. This is the prequel to First Encounter, but who really cares? The game tries to be a bit different by starting off slow with a sledgehammer and introducing awesome melee attacks to show off the new engine. You acquire a pistol, then a shotgun, and then more guns as the game goes on. There are dozens of secret areas everywhere (I couldn’t find a single one for some reason). You shoot thousands of enemies throughout the game, but in extremely difficult waves that can be in the hundreds.
I honestly felt that my arsenal was underwhelmed by the vast amounts of enemies the game throws at you. The most effective weapons were the cannon, C4, and Devastator, but the ammo for those is pretty rare (except C4). All the rest were pretty useless except the minigun, which was good at reducing crowds in a wide area but ate up ammo quick. I can’t tell you how boring the game got by the end, and it will really test your endurance. I played on the easy setting and still got my ass kicked sometimes. For the hell of it, I tried it on the hardest difficulty, and it was impossible. I couldn’t get past the third level; it was that hard. By the last level, you are thrown probably a few thousand enemies with wave after wave that takes you about 45 minutes to chew through. The waves get so big that I backpedaled half the level to get some breathing room in some areas.
When it comes to looks, BFE is impressive for a DirectX 9 game. This is the most customizable PC game ever made when it comes to graphics options. There are options here I have never even heard of! There are about 45 options, but when you max the game out, it looks amazing, but it is sadly wasted on a bland and boring art style. Everything is brown and dead, with nothing interesting to look at. Halfway through the game, I couldn’t take it anymore but finished it anyway. I do have to say that I am disappointed that Sam’s macho quips aren’t as funny this time around as in previous games. They just seem stale and are pretty mellow. Oh well.
Multiplayer is where BFE shines, but no one is playing online. During my entire week of playing the campaign, I logged in at different times of the day and night and maybe got 1 or 2 people playing if I was lucky. The server list is almost always empty, which is sad. This is a game that you will have to get buddies to go LAN on. When I did get a tiny game going, it was addictive and felt very old-school with fast movement, lots of jumping, and twitch reaction shooting. There are some neat modes, but I never got to play most of them because this game is nearly abandoned despite Croteam releasing a patch about 2 weeks ago.
I can only recommend this to hardcore FPS fans and hardcore fans of past Sam games. The campaign is nothing special and gets incredibly boring and monotonous halfway through, not to mention freaking tough as nails. The weapon arsenal is disappointing, and there are only a handful of different enemies. There isn’t enough new here to make it a true sequel, but the game looks damn good. For the low price, it is worth a fun play-through, but don’t expect tons of people to be playing online.
Now that we are almost done with this series, I am sad that the next one will be it. Episode 4 sees the gang trying to get on a boat and out of Savannah, Georgia, but things don’t go as planned. There are a bunch of new characters this time around, but most are hard to care for because they make brief appearances. By this point, most or a little of your gang will be with you, but this episode is mainly lacking the suspenseful choices like in the last one. We get bigger areas to explore, a little more action, and finally, a ton of zombies.
The series has been lacking any zombies lately and has just dealt with internal turmoil, but Episode 4 skirts this and brings the gang back to realizing that the zombies are the real threat here. There’s a strange calm before the storm within the group; the conversations are tense and borderline everyone going postal on each other. I found that there was a lack of gameplay here and that it focused more on delivering a story, but that is ok in this series. There is more action with some zombie shooting, action-oriented puzzles, and larger areas to explore. I sat through the whole episode in one go because it was so intense and entertaining. You always want to know what is going to happen next.
The new characters are hard to really like except Molly because of her shady personality. The new guys are brief and seem pretty generic. I really don’t care for Christa or Omid, who we met at the end of the last episode. Christa is selfish, and Omid is boring and just seems useless. What grows even more are the characters you have right now from the original group. Clementine and Lee’s relationship really blossoms here, and their trust will be tested.
This episode is just a mishmash of everything from the past ones: lots of zombies, action, large areas, new characters, and tense conversations, but nothing very serious. What has stayed the same throughout is the constant, intense atmosphere that makes you stay in the game, and you never want to quit until it’s over. This is my favorite adventure series of all time. The game puts you in control just enough to make you feel like you made all the important choices. The game has been built up to the climax, and the cliffhanger ending here is so abrupt and so sudden that you just hang your end, knowing you have to wait another month or two for the last episode. This is just like a good TV series, but better.
Shooting things is what this game is all about, and I mean all about. Borderlands is highly successful in mixing RPG with FPS, bringing the best of both worlds to the table. Borderlands 2 is more of the same, just bigger and more badass. If you didn’t like the first game, you won’t like this one either. Fans of the last game will be very happy with this second installment.
There is actually more of a storyline here, with more main quests. Of course, there are 50+ side quests that you will pour dozens of hours into. You get to play as a new set of characters, but in the same classes. I stuck with Maya the Siren again in this one, and I loved her phase-locking ability, where I could make enemies hover in the air for a bit or do damage to large enemies. You will also be happy to know that you can customize your character’s head and skin as you find new ones as loot, but I would have liked a more detailed character customization system; it just feels a bit tacked on.
There are just so many different enemies and guns in this game that I couldn’t even count. The guns are all varied with different stats, but you will be micromanaging them again, and it does become annoying. I wound up selling or dropping about 80% of the guns I found because a lot of them are pretty useless. This goes for shields, relics, grenade mods, and other things. There are six different classes of weapons: rocket launchers, pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, sub-machine guns, and shotguns.
You will always be switching between different weapons in your four slots (that you slowly unlock). I never stuck with a single weapon for too long because I was always finding better ones. Enemies are constantly dropping loot, and some weapons are rarer than others. Some do elemental damage, which is actually a huge factor in Borderlands. Armored enemies are weak against corrosive weapons, and shielded enemies are weak against shock weapons. The new slag weapon coats enemies in purple goop that makes them weak to any weapon fire. Some of the weapons are pretty unique; I never found two that looked the same. Some have unique abilities like faster reload and better accuracy as you fire, and even one gun was cursed that slowed me down and made obnoxious noises when I fired. Some guns you can throw when you reload, and they will explode like grenades and regenerate in your hand. The guns are just awesome in this game, and you will be looking for new ones every second you play.
Of course, the game is tough as nails, but as you level up, you can unlock new abilities. This game is designed for multiple playthroughs because you will probably reach around level 30 and maybe a bit further even after you complete every single quest in the game. You won’t unlock all the abilities or even get the best loot until you do. In fact, Borderlands 2 is more designed around co-op this time around because the best loot is only available to more players on board. The game is also extremely tough without someone playing with you. The game keeps enemies leveled up with you, so that makes the game even more difficult than the last. One thing that I really loved was the badass tokens that would raise stats just a smidgen for completing in-game challenges.
This leads to the biggest complaint I have about the series: Respawns. You respawn at certain points, but you will die hundreds of times in this game. When you do, you have to backtrack to where you died, and these maps are huge. Some maps let you use Catch-A-Ride vehicles, but most of them don’t. This was just so frustrating when I would die 15 times while clearing an area, suffer through the long respawn animation, backtrack, and sometimes die in just one hit. You go into Fight for Your Life mode, which allows you to revive with full shields if you can kill an enemy. This alleviated the frustration a tad, but if there are no enemies nearby to kill quickly, you’re screwed. On top of this, the enemy that killed you will regain full health if you die. That includes bosses. This is just so frustrating and makes me want the game to end. The second thing I really hate about this series is the constant enemy respawning. Once you leave an area and come back, all the enemies respawn. This made doing missions annoying because I just ran by them all. I understand they have to respawn in a game like this, which is focused on large maps, but I personally found it a nuisance.
If you have friends, this isn’t so bad, but be warned when playing by yourself. Besides that, the game keeps the tongue-in-cheek humor of the last game with more characters and returns to the past characters. You really get to know them more this time around with about ten times the amount of dialog. The story is decent but has a pretty crappy ending. It is predictable and isn’t anything special. Just know that you are here to kill everything, and I mean everything. I found myself entertained throughout the whole game with double the number of areas to explore, more side missions, and just more of everything. I really wanted to see more change in the series, so in the end, this game just feels like Borderlands 1.5.
At least PC gamers get enhanced visuals with some nice touch-ups. Higher resolution textures, further draw distance, FXAA, and higher FPS, which can be capped at 120, This is the superior version over the consoles because you can’t get pinpoint precision while aiming with a joystick. I could snipe like I never could on a controller, and it made the game a tad more tolerable in terms of difficulty.
I only have a few major complaints, but they are just staples of the series. If you can tolerate the monotonous trekking around, respawning enemies, and constant death, then pick this up. Fans of the last game know what they are getting into, so this is a warning for newcomers. I recommend playing this with at least one friend because the game is brutal. Lots of enemies, lots of dying. I also didn’t quite care for the constant micromanagement of all the loot. This is a great mix of FPS and RPG elements and should be played by fans of either genre.
I missed out and passed up this game so many times on both the Xbox and PS3, but now that I have played it on PC, I’m a bit disappointed. The game has charming visuals and great humor, like all Behemoth games, but this is only fun in co-op and pretty hard and boring in single-player. If you buy this game, make sure you have at least one friend to play with and that you are both around the same level.
There are several characters available to choose from, each with its own magic powers. The magic is pretty weak until later on in the game, but once you get there, it is pretty useful. The whole idea is just to whack away at enemies until you reach each boss. The boss fights are pretty unique, some with environmental obstacles in the way of staying on floating debris in a river. Every so often, enemies will drop weapons or pets that enhance your stats or give you abilities. I was really disappointed in the weapons because they never felt powerful enough. I would advance several levels and be stuck with the same weapon. Once you get through a few levels, you will realize how hard this game is. If you die, you start all the way back at the beginning of the level, which is brutal and frustrating. This is why you need a friend or three along.
Co-op is much better because friends can watch your back. Just make sure you are on equal levels because one friend will find the game too easy or it will be really tough for the other guy at a lower level. When it comes to actually fighting enemies, there’s not much to it but to mash buttons. Enemies take forever to die, and there’s constant knockback from projectiles, which makes the combat even more frustrating. On top of this, there are annoying things like the weaponsmith. Having to run down a long hallway to see each weapon you have picked up is just annoying. Some levels also carry on for far too long, so if you die near the end, you will probably not want to play this game anymore.
The visual style is excellent with the classic Behemoth style, and even the humor is great. One level in a forest has animals literally spewing liquid feces because they are scared of the boss slowly approaching behind you. The humor is what makes you want to keep playing, but there’s not much of a story here, which is fine for this kind of game. The controls are responsive, but it is everything else wrapped around the combat that makes this frustrating.
Those are just some things that make this game really frustrating to play. Playing with a friend eases that a bit, but it seems the game could use more polish. Even lining up shots is hard because the characters are 2D, and you can sometimes just walk right behind them or in front of them because you weren’t lined up upright. I, for one, gave up on this game early on because it was just too damn frustrating. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, though. I feel some people like this kind of thing, but being a Behemoth game, that is highly expected. For the low price, you are getting a fun and challenging co-op game, but if you don’t have any friends, the game will be tough and boring.
If you loved Super Meat Boy, you should check this game out. Will you love it as much? Probably not. TBP is all about a little girl who picks up some mysterious cursed book that turns her into a demon in her dreams. The game has a Lovecraftian style but the same 8-bit graphics as Super Meat Boy. The game features twitch reflex platforming and combat.
The platforming is simple enough, with abilities to double jump and cling to walls, but the game requires mastering the controls to maneuver through nigh-impossible paths that require pixel-perfect timing. The combat is actually what brings this game down so much. The developers tried to make it too complicated. Hitting the attack button doesn’t really do much damage to enemies, which is stupid. You also don’t get a multiplier if you use a standard attack. They want you to be “creative” and use the dash attack, knock them into obstacles, and use the high kick. I know these kinds of moves don’t belong in this kind of game. The combat system is convoluted and requires too much thinking for a game that relies on instinct and muscle memory responses. After a platforming section, I start wailing on an enemy and realize I have to think about this combat system. It hurts my brain and really messes with the momentum of the otherwise solid platforming and controls.
There is a neat checkpoint system that allows you to put it wherever you want. If you get enough purple orbs, you can fill up your checkpoint meter and stay still for a while. This will place a checkpoint at that spot, allowing you to save them for complicated platforming sections. This alleviates the frustrating combat that leads to some cheap deaths. If you do well enough on a level, you can unlock special stages that are from the iOS version and user-created.
With all of this combined, They Bleed Pixels would be great if it weren’t for that combat system. You just can’t stop and think about fighting when you are on a good platforming run. The custom checkpoint system helps remove some of that frustration, but in the end, I just want to hit an enemy a few times and be done. Even having to do the complicated moves just to flip switches is pretty annoying. If you can look past this, you will enjoy this game, but most people will just stick with Super Meat Boy.
Diablo III is one of the most long-awaited games in history. StarCraft II and Duke Nukem Forever are in the same boat, but Diablo III is something else. Everyone who played the last two games was either in high school or college at the time and is now in their 30s and 40s. 12 years in the making with so much turmoil and history to write a novel about. Now that the game is finally out, is it any good? Blizzard surprised us with StarCraft II and how good that game is, but can they do it twice in a row? The answer is yes. The game has its fair share of problems, but they were mainly during launch with a plethora of glitches, balancing, and server issues. Most of the major problems have been patched now, so I won’t spend time complaining about that because I didn’t experience any issues apart from the occasional server error.
The story in Diablo III is fairly good, but only people who played the last two will truly appreciate it. I found the middle of the game to be pretty uneventful, but the ending was great, with a few plot twists. You play as one of many hero classes who are trying to stop the Prime Evils from taking over the world. Not just Diablo, but Azmodan, Mephisto, Belial, and many others. One of the best things about the game is the many different locales, from indoors to outdoors. The art style is absolutely beautiful, leaving you with plenty of great scenery to look at.
Of course, a dungeon crawler isn’t one without a lot of loot, and Diablo III has an endless amount. The best loot is at higher levels (60 is the cap) and on Nightmare difficulty. This is really a game for people who want loot. You can blow through the story and reach around level 30, but it will take another play-through to get the best loot. Why do you want this loot so bad? To sell in the auction house for in-game gold or real-world cash. That’s right. Cash. People can bid on it or buy it outright, but don’t expect anyone to bid on the crappy stuff. Only level 60 loot is really being fought for. I tried selling dozens of rare items throughout my playthrough and only sold one for $1.25. Really sad.
The best loot comes from bosses, which are highlighted in gold. Main bosses give you the best stuff, but they can be tough as nails. Some bosses were pretty easy, such as mid-level bosses or blue sub-bosses. There were a few that just kept killing me, but I didn’t die all that often. The penalty isn’t very severe, with just 10% durability of all your equipped items taken away, but you can always repair it at a town center. One thing I didn’t do at all was buy items. I always found the best ones as drops rather than at shops. I didn’t even craft any items, which is a shame. I found this to be sorely wasted. I did like the new gem ability, which will raise the stats of items significantly. Weaker gems can be crafted into more powerful ones as well.
Of course, you can take a buddy with you, but you really don’t have to. This is only recommended for Nightmare difficulty, but most people will probably want to take a long break from the game and come back a few months later when the game feels a little fresher. After I finished the game, I felt I needed a long break because you are just clicking around madly while using 1-4 keys for your attacks. I sure wasn’t disappointed here because there are plenty of abilities to learn; I just wish you could hotkey more of them instead of just four. I even wish there were some better AoE attacks because the last two acts throw a ton of tough enemies at you, and you are constantly boxed in. I managed, but it would have been nice.
At the end of the day, you are just clicking around furiously at everything that moves and trying to find the best loot in the game to sell in the auction house. This is a game for people who are dedicated. Sure, you can enjoy the single-player mode, but if you really want to experience the way Diablo was built to be played, you must continue on with a second playthrough on a harder difficulty. Sure, the game has good voice acting, some of the most beautiful pre-rendered cutscenes I have ever seen, lots of abilities, and tons of loot, but in the end, this is all this game is about. Looting, clicking, and selling. If you don’t like that, then you will hate this game.
My biggest complaint would have to be that the layout of each level is nearly the same. There is a fog of war on the map, and you have to discover where everything is. There may be some side quests, hidden chests, and sub-bosses, but I found this tiring and kind of boring. What’s here is great; I just wish there was a little more variety. Another thing I will complain about is the game’s DRM. You need to be online at all times, or it will boot you and you will lose your progress. I hated this more than anything, but Blizzard has successfully sidestepped pirates, and I applaud them for that. It’s probably the only video game ever made that isn’t pirateable. Other than this, the game is great and well worth a purchase.
Oni was a very hyped anime-style game back in the day. This game was made by Rockstar before getting into 3D Grand Theft Autos and other games. This game has a lot of potential but is flawed in a lot of ways that make the game more boring and frustrating than bad. With that said, the only redeeming quality is the good-looking combat animations and challenges.
Right out of the gate, you will notice that the controls are complete, both upside and backward. All the combat moves are on the shoulder buttons. Why in the world they thought of this is beyond me. You actually don’t really use the face buttons all that much. This makes jumping, fighting, and shooting clumsy and cumbersome, and you can’t change the controls to something more natural. These are just some of the worst action and adventure controls I have ever used. The actual combat is fine, but executing these moves is a pain. I felt like I was stumbling over myself because I had to think about the controls. These just aren’t natural! Jumping with R1, L2, and L1 is kick and punch, and you pick up items with R3. What?! I felt like I was trying to solve a Rubix cube, not play a game.
Secondly, there is the exploration factor. The levels are boring. They all look pretty much the same, with flat, boring textures, and the design is confusing and labyrinthine on some levels. There’s no direction, and your compass is useless. The bar gets smaller as you get near an objective, but if you are two flights down, it will act like you’re standing right next to it. Enemies are stupid and clumsy, boss fights are frustrating, and the game just can’t compensate for its own design with the clumsy controls. I can’t tell you how tired I got after just three levels of finding this colored console to open the same colored door over and over again.
The story isn’t really worth sticking around the 14 levels either. The anime cutscenes are nice, but you probably won’t even get through this slog of a game. I tried really hard to keep going, but there was never a change of pace. It didn’t help that there is no mid-level saving and the checkpoint placement is unfair. If you quit in the middle of a level, you have to start all over. There are just a lot of annoying things with this game, but even if it were flawless, you still have the fact that the game is just boring and not very fun.
When it is all said and done, only the hardest core of anime fans will stick around until the end. You really had to have played this when it first came out, then come back for nostalgic purposes. The game is just clumsy and boring, but it has so much potential if only the developers spent more time on it. As it stands, I really can’t recommend this to anyone.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !