The Dishwasher is a strange name, but the story of Yuki is actually pretty sad and engaging. Yuki dies in the hands of the dishwasher and is hallucinating. You play flashbacks of her in an asylum, trying to find her killer, but then again, she’s hallucinating and kills the wrong person. She crash-landed on the moon, trying to find the person making her hallucinate and find out why this is all happening to her. There’s a lot of detail in the story, so explaining too much will spoil spoilers. Just know that the story is excellent and very engaging.
The game is all about combat, which is superfluid, fast, and fun thanks to smooth and responsive controls. You will find different weapons like Cloud’s sword, a hypodermic needle, kamas, as well as a mini-gun arm attachment. You can use the right stick to use the blood dash to go through enemies and dodge them, but everything is just so fast and fun that you just forget the controller is in your hands. You can hit enemies with a light and heavy attack as well as a unique attack with B, such as a grab, needle jab, or chainsaw attack, depending on your weapon. After you damage an enemy enough, they will have buttons flash under them. Hit it and see a brutal execution move that just looks awesome. The game is very punchy, heavy-hitting, and powerful, thanks to the excellent combat system.
You can equip beads that add attributes to Yuki, and you can also use magic skulls that do massive damage to enemies. I just can’t really describe how excellent the combat is until you actually play it. It’s like trying to explain how good Devil May Cry’s combat is. There’s just no way, unless you actually play it. Boss fights are also fun and unique, but some can be brutally difficult to beat. Dodging and twitch reactions are key to staying alive in the game, so this is no walk in the park. The game will just take your breath away with how fast-paced it is, but I guarantee your fingers will ache after a couple of levels.
The art style is just awesome, with a very messy, dark, and smeary style. It looks like you can’t tell what’s going on, but it was done in such a way that you can make everything out just fine. I love how dark and brutal the art is, so it just helps portray how helpless Yuki is. I didn’t really find much wrong with the game except for the brutal difficulty. The enemy variety is pretty high, and there are plenty of boss fights. After you finish Yuki’s story, you can even go back and play the dishwasher’s side, so it’s like two games in one. This is probably one of the best XBLA games I have ever played, and it should not be passed up.
Dead to Rights has been a very rocky series since its debut in 2003. Retribution is not only the best in the series, but it completely redeems the quality and value of what made the game so great. The story isn’t anything new to gamers, with Jack Slate and his dog Shadow trying to revenge his father’s death and also wipe Grant City clean of corrupt cops and criminal syndicates. What is good in Retribution are the voice actors, characters, and action. The guy who plays Jack’s voice is pretty good at putting emotion across to the player.
But you usually don’t come to budget shooters for a story, right? The action is great here, but repetitive. The action consists of two elements, which are shooting and melee. First fighting consists of breakers, combos, counters, and executions, which can be pretty brutal. Fighting is usually a last resort, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. I did find fist-fighting a bit stiff, and the controls were a bit awkward. You can use enemies as human shields and grapple them as well, so at least the fighting has depth and isn’t just mashing a button until your fingers bleed.
Melee has other perks, like being able to pull a weapon on someone and shoot them in the head via execution. The game is very brutal, and it shows what you can do to enemies. I do wish there were more environment executions, but you can’t really expect that from a budget game like this. One thing I noticed is that when you are locked in fighting with someone, enemies tend to completely miss you while you knock the guy down. This really helps fend off frustration, but it does seem a little weird when you notice it. There are a large variety of enemies, ranging from weak to super strong, but they aren’t unique and just feel like standard soldiers.
Shooting is fun, but weapons don’t really pack a punch. The game is very cover-based and is similar to Gears of War but doesn’t feel as smooth as that game. You can slow downtime and focus on headshots (which are key to getting through guys quickly). There is a large variety of weapons in the game, but they are pretty standard and generic, so don’t expect crazy sci-fi weapons here. The game has you scrounging for ammo constantly, which can get annoying and deadly. Guns have very small clips, and you can’t hold much ammo for each one, which really kind of works against you, and I hated this throughout the whole game. It’s manageable, but I’ve always wanted some sort of upgrade system to fix this.
My favorite part of the game (and what sets it apart from other TPS) is being able to play as Jack’s dog, Shadow. The animations are amazing, and he really feels, looks, and sounds like a real dog. The execution moves are brutal and satisfying, with him chomping on jugulars, blood spurting out, or even tearing out people’s crotches (when you do this for the first time, you get an achievement called “Crotchality!”). You can sneak around as Shadow, see heartbeats through walls, and plan your attacks accordingly. I loved all the takedown moves, but they recycle often and get old fast.
Shadow also comes in handy when you play as Jack since you can order him to kill sick people or defend you. A lot of times I would send Shadow after a guy while I took on another, and it really feels good that the AI works well here. In one instance, two soldiers were walking away, and Shadow snuck up on one while I shot the other in the head. Of course, Shadow can go down, so you just go revive him, but using Shadow is key to staying alive and not dying constantly.
This is also the great part of the story, which is the bond between the two that makes you want to stick close and listen to the story. Shadow and Jack are best friends, and you really get to feel for them both. Visually, retribution is nothing special, but it isn’t ugly either. There are some nice lighting effects, and there’s a lot of detail in everything, but the game is very linear. One other annoyance is hidden badges throughout the game, and I hate shooters that make you go searching for hidden stuff because it detracts from the action. Other than that, Retribution is a great bargain bin purchase and is definitely a great game despite its repetition.
If you believe in “story over graphics,” this game is the epitome of that. It always saddens me how indie games can’t get AAA budgets because there are some out there that have better elements than AAA titles. Deadly Premonition is one of them when it comes to story, characters, and atmosphere. The game looks, plays, and feels like a pre-2003 PS2 game and is just downright ugly. I’ll get to that later, but right now you have to know how excellent this riveting story is. You play FBI agent Francis York Morgan, who is investigating a murder in the small countryside town of Greenvale. You meet the Sheriff and other citizens throughout the game, and the story is always unwinding with plot twists and revealing dark secrets about every single character.
The premise is a legend of the Raincoat Killer that rampaged through the town in the 1950s. It appears that there is a “New Raincoat Killer” mimicking the old one, and Morgan must stop this guy before he kills everyone Morgan grows close to. There are two parts to the game: driving around the regular world and entering the “Other World” to investigate crime scenes and find clues. This “Other World” is a lot like Silent Hill’s, but the game never explains what this world is or why it appears in the town. I hate how that was never answered, so it feels like it may just be tacked on. When you are in this “other world,” you get to use your guns and shoot creepy zombies. These zombies are really brain-dead and can only really hurt you if you are overwhelmed or backed into a corner. The AI is cheap, but that’s fine because you just want to know more of the story.
When you enter this world, Morgan will start profiling fuzzy clues together, and it’s up to you to find them, but thankfully the game scraps Silent Hill’s labyrinthine maze-like levels for straightforward linear ones, and I never got lost. There are red areas that show where to go, so you never get lost. The puzzles are very simple and don’t even require exercising your cerebral cortex, but it’s OK because you just want the game to move on to uncover more of the juicy story. The controls are very unintuitive, but the game works around them, so it’s never really frustrating. You hold X down to run, but you hold down RT to aim and A to attack, but LT is to lock on. The controls are strange and archaic, but they work for the most part. The weapons are your typical survival horror stuff like shotguns, pistols, and melee weapons, so don’t expect much in that regard.
The rest of the game is completely boring and downright yawn-inducing. Driving around Greenvale from place to place will make you fall asleep because the cars feel, sound, and drive like something from pre-2000 games. The game doesn’t even use real-time or dynamic lighting, but static lighting! Cones for headlights? I felt like I was playing a PS1 game sometimes. The cars sound like dying lawnmowers and drive like one too. There aren’t any people walking around, and the cars appear out of nowhere, like they just came out of hyperdrive. The developers even put in side quests and some sort of collectible card hunt, but why would you bore yourself so much? It’s dry, dull, and just not fun at all.
There are some RPG elements like having to watch Morgan’s hunger, tiredness, and even how dirty his suit gets, plus you can shave. Yeah, it’s WTF moments that are thrown in like that that really make no sense. They are unnecessary, but hey, they’re there. What really saves Deadly Premonition is that the developers knew the game’s flaws and built everything to accommodate them, like quick-time events during boss fights instead of a dodge button. It makes the game very playable, and I applaud them for doing this.
The only reason to trudge through is for the amazing story. You really care about the characters, and there is some freaky crap in this game that would even put some stuff in Silent Hill to shame. The game does drag a little bit with about 15 hours of gameplay, but they could have cut the fat out and made it about 8–10 if there wasn’t the terrible “open-world” part thrown in. If you can forgive horrible graphics, terrible animations, abysmal sounds, and archaic controls, you will be rewarded with a thrilling and deep story that is unforgettable.
The Signal was a continuation of the main game and showed Alan fighting himself in his story and not knowing why. Following the signal from Zane, Alan must stop himself from killing himself in his story and wake up to reality. The Writer continues this with Alan trying to reach the lighthouse and get back into the cabin to stop himself. The story is very strong and answers some questions that you may have had at the end of the main game. The end boss fight also feels like a huge finale and comes to a nice close without a big open cliffhanger.
The episode isn’t as combat-heavy as The Signal, but it has a lot more unique platforming and adventuring sections than The Signal, plus it’s not nearly as hard. There are more words you can burn up to create things in the environment to kill the dark beings, and these tend to be more useful and unique. There are no driving sections in this one, unfortunately, but it makes up for it with more varied gameplay.
The Writer really mixes up all the elements in the Alan Wake universe very well and gives us one final shake-up of all the things we’re familiar with. This is what makes The Writer stronger than the last episode, plus the conclusion of the story really helps as well. If you just so happen to have waited almost a year to get this, you’ll notice some minor things, like the slightly aged graphics, but other than that, this DLC is strong and solid. I still wish the DLC would introduce new weapons or something in here, but at least it doesn’t recycle the same areas from the main game. The price is a bit steep even for something better than The Signal, but fans of the game need to get this to conclude the story.
DLC tends to get criticized a lot for either price, length, or the amount of content it has, and developers have a hard time striking a balance between the three. The Signal (which is the first of the extra chapters that came free if you bought a new copy) suffers from this as well since it is so short, clocking in at about 2–3 hours. Yes, it’s really just a 1-2 sitting play-through, but it does provide a good addition to the already award-winning story.
Alan Wake is inside his own story once again, but the real him is writing ways to kill himself in the stories. Why he’s doing this is unclear until the very end, but each time you advance through the chapter, it gets more and more violent. There aren’t really any changes or additions except finding supplies, and sometimes enemies and environmental hazards are hidden as words that you may burn up with your flashlight (like at the end of the main game). It’s interesting and makes you really feel like you’re in a story, so this subtle addition adds to the experience.
Other than that, there are no new characters, weapons, or anything else, so just kick back and enjoy the quick little story. You do run into Barry again, but other than that, there’s no one else in the game, which is a disappointment. Another issue The Signal falls under is backtracking areas you already played in the main game. Plus, The Signal is very combat-heavy and can get extremely difficult at times.
The Signal is a must-play for fans of the game, but if you didn’t dig the main game too much, you should pass. If the game were more robust and added deeper and richer content, it would be so much better, but Remedy took the safe route and stuck with the main game’s ideas only.
Mass Effect 2 has a slew of great DLC, but Kasumi’s Stolen Memory is probably the shortest of them all. The DLC has two short parts to it. The first is you trying to find Kasumi, which doesn’t really make you feel so much, and the second is sneaking into Hock’s safe to find Kasumi’s stolen gray box, but it all seems pointless in the end.
There’s a good boss fight at the end, and it gets pretty intense, plus you can pick up a new weapon as well as some other things like credits, salvaged parts, etc. It’s your typical standard ME2 affair, and there are no gameplay changes, of course. Kasumi is a great character, and her stealth abilities really shine in combat, and she can get you out of trouble in a pinch. She’s a very mysterious character and has a lot of sarcasm to her, so she’s great to listen to and has an interesting past.
I would have liked to see more than just a little infiltration mission since there’s so much potential with her, and hopefully we’ll see her in Mass Effect 3. The whole DLC can be beaten in just one sitting, so you might feel like your $4 was wasted, so this isn’t the ME2 DLC available. It’s great for hardcore ME fans, but casual players of the game should pick this one up.
Oh, Peter Molyneux, you’re such a tease. You always make these simple ideas seem so grand and innovative, yet when we play with them, they don’t seem so. Why does Mr. Molyneux do this? No one may ever know, but it’s probably best for him to keep striving to make his games better, but Fable III isn’t an amazing game at all; it’s just a good game.
Let’s start with the story. Fable II had an awesome and memorable story, but Fable III tends to fall on a mediocre and typical one. You have to gather allies throughout the land of Albion to rise against your evil brother, but really, there’s a stronger force at hand (I won’t say for spoilers). The whole story is generic, the characters aren’t too memorable (except Reaver!), and following a nameless hero is getting old. Other than that, it’s decent and has a couple of twists, but it just treads on without doing much new to the series.
Secondly, the combat that Lionhead keeps changing with every game is very simple, yet there’s a uniqueness to it. Each attack is mapped to one button: firearm, melee, and magic. It’s a mixed bag as to which you should use since magic is the deepest of the three. You can equip a different magic gauntlet to each hand and mix attacks, and there are 15 combinations in total. Holding down B will allow you to charge it for an area attack, but they made this weird control scheme where you have to press the analog stick toward the enemy to make anything go that way. This is annoying when using your gun because while you reload, you are walking toward your enemy, so you have to stop pressing forward while you reload. There are some pretty gruesome fatality kills, but otherwise, combat is a bit awkward and simple. On another note, the enemies just swarm on you and don’t really do much else and can lead to cheap deaths (mainly the Balverines), and there isn’t a huge variety of them. Hobbes, humans, Balverines, wolves (early on only), Hollow Men, pretty much every enemy from Fable II, and not many new additions.
As you kill things or do things in the game, you can turn them good or evil, and each weapon has three different criteria to make it a truly heroic or evil weapon. This will also make it more powerful, but leveling up 50 legendary weapons? Fable III is full of unnecessary mundane things that only the hardest of hardcores will ever complete. The whole good and evil are used well here during the second half of the game when you become ruler. You decide the fate of people, cities, and other things to add money to your treasury (why you do this will spoil the story). It does make you feel powerful and is probably the best part of the story.
The game features something very unique, and that’s your central hub. You can press the start button anytime, and you will go to a hub with your map and everything else you need, such as changing weapons, clothing, makeup, the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, the Xbox LIVE co-op, the achievement wall, your treasury, etc. It’s very intuitive and unique (and there’s no loading!). On the map, you can fast travel to any city, and all gnomes, keys, and quests are marked so you can keep track of them. You can also buy real estate on the map instead of wandering around everywhere and doing it on foot.
Secondly, Fable is all about exploring, and there is more exploring than there are main quests. There are a ton of side quests, such as finding 50 gnomes, keys, and 30 Aurorian flowers. These are for opening silver chests and just getting achievements, but you will need the strategy guide or some online guide because, boy, it is frustrating to find these things. You can find dive spots, dig spots, and books as well, but it seems endless and doesn’t really pay off achievement-wise (except for the books).
Another (almost) useless thing that has stuck around is relationships and expressions. Peter insists that these things are unique and innovative, but they really don’t do anything except make it feel like something from The Sims. Expressions can be used to raise the level of like or hate. Go high enough, and you can propose to someone. You can also have sex with people and catch STDs, but this only feels like it’s for laughs more than anything useful. Another feature Molyneux pushed was the hand-holding idea. This is not as great as he claims and is useless (and in disguise) as an AI pathfinding replacer. You only really use it to guide people around during certain quests, so don’t get too excited about this.
Lastly, the game features a new way to acquire levels, expressions, jobs, and other items through The Road to Rule. As you complete sections of the game, you can purchase chests using guild seals that you get from defeating enemies or completing quests. This is an interesting way of upgrading, but you wouldn’t miss it if it were gone. Secondly, the same goes for those stupid jobs that you can do to make money. After you try each one, you’ll be done because it’s mundane, and you don’t earn as much gold after you buy up a lot of property.
Overall, Fable III tries too hard instead of starting anew. The game looks the same as Fable II, and in turn, it looks outdated with muddy textures and some low-resolution models, and the only thing that looks good are far-off vistas. The game also has a lot of British humor and may not suit everyone, but the voice acting is pretty good. With only a few side quests being memorable, a generic story, and some useless, overhyped features, Fable III is disappointing, but not as much as you’d think. If you liked Fable II, you’ll love this, but haters will still hate it.
The Xbox 360 has probably struggled the most hardware-wise since its launch in November of 2005. With extreme overheating issues, loud disc trays, and high-pitched disc spin-ups, it’s been rough. After the new Xbox Elite came out, we fixed some issues with a smaller 45-nanometer processor for slightly faster load times and less heat. It featured a bigger 250GB HDD and more solid hardware, but it was still having overheating and RROD (Red Ring of Death) issues. Now that the Xbox 360 S is out, it fixes all these issues with grace.
The console has a new slick gloss finish design with stylish air vents, and the whole concave thing is out the window. All the buttons are touch panel buttons and release an awesome “ding” tone when touched. The tray is quieter, the HDD is now built inside, and there is a much smaller power supply and brick. This is all noticed right out of the box, which makes it worth another purchase. The biggest addition is probably the built-in Wi-Fi as well as a Kinect port. The Xbox memory unit slot has been removed since you can now back up saves on a flash drive, but people who have items saved on one will be out of luck here.
The console also has built-in HDMI and can support up to 1080p, but other than these new features, nothing else is really new. The console also can’t technically RROD anymore due to there being no red LEDs. The console’s plastic casing does feel a bit cheaper and less sturdy than the other consoles, but being 10x lighter really makes up for it. I highly recommend upgrading to the 360 S if you really hate your old console or if it’s about to bite the dust. Trading in your old console could make up the difference and make it well worth the purchase.
BioShock 2 was a great successor to the original but didn’t live up to the hype or the cinematic quality of its predecessor. It suffered from repetition (loot, go through the section, save Little Sister, gather ADAM, rinse, and repeat), and it didn’t have the scripted events that made BioShock so epic. This, in turn, made you want the game to just end after a while, and the developers played it very safe by making the entire game almost exactly the same. It did have an excellent story, though, and this is what made the game great.
Minerva’s Den has you playing as Sigma, who is a Big Daddy sent by Milton Porter to destroy The Thinker. The Thinker is a computer that runs Rapture, but you are also being told by Reed Wahl not to destroy the computer. Along the way, you are able to meet six little sisters and a couple of big sisters, loot to your heart’s content, and experience the excellent dialog, story, and pacing that should have been in the second game. There are two huge levels in Den, with little things hidden everywhere, as well as a new plasmid, Gravity. Well, new splicers and upgrades are found by finding them on dead bodies instead of Power to the People stations.
The story is really excellent, with you being completely clueless and just following Porter and Tenenbaum’s voice to do as they bid. You discover most of the things going on down here through audio diaries, and some can be pretty haunting. There are a few scripted elements, but the level design is also well done, and there is enough to do here to keep you busy for a good 4-5 hours. You will really want to savor every moment by looking in every nook and cranny as well as completing all of the great achievements.
What BioShock 2 was lacking is made up somewhat in this little DLC that could. While the art style and objects are recycled, there are a lot of new ones that haven’t been seen anywhere in the world of BioShock, such as computer-related objects. It’s a good change and really helps mix up the visuals. With a surprise twist ending that makes you slap your forehead, Minerva’s Den is well worth the money, and I hope it isn’t the last BioShock 2 DLC.
Ninja Theory has had a hard time establishing itself as a talented developer. With the major hype of Heavenly Sword, Lukewarm sales of the crappy Kinect Joy Ride, and the controversy of DMC, it’s struggling. Enslaved is probably NT’s most successful game, mainly commercially, due to its better marketing. The story is probably the game’s strongest point, as character development and combat take a back seat.
You play Monkey, a guy who escapes a slave ship that’s crash-landed in post-apocalyptic New York. Along the way to escape, he finds himself stuck and enslaved, but a young woman named Trip needs his muscle to get her back home further west. The relationship between Trip and Monkey is what makes you keep playing, and their constant fight for freedom is heartwarming.
The combat had a lot of potential, but after the first chapter, you’ll get tired of it. It’s the same two combos over and over again, with a crappy camera that can’t stay put. Sure, the angles are cinematic, but if you get backed into a corner, it’s nauseating. The camera can’t stay put at all, and it leads to cheap deaths and frustration when mech after mech is beating you down. You can charge an EMP burst to disable shields and make the mechs temporarily stunned, and this is essential to defeating them due to their constant blocking and shielding. You can command Trip to use a decoy so long-range mechs shoot at that instead of you so you can climb around and get to them. Some mechs have weak points that allow faster kills, and you can use your staff as a projectile weapon equipped with plasma rounds and EMP rounds. This staff is also used for puzzles and exploring as well.
So combat is pretty finicky, but exploring can be a blast thanks to huge sprawling vistas, easy-to-see glowing handholds, and whatnot. Occasionally the camera gets in the way here or the controls can be a bit touchy, but it’s not nearly as frustrating as the combat. You’ll notice orange orbs floating around everywhere, and these are used for upgrades, but you can only upgrade if Trip is in the vicinity. There are some points where you can use Monkey’s Cloud hoverboard, and there are a few exciting moments like chasing a giant mech, but this feels a bit tacked on.
The game also has pacing issues since the first chapter is epic, and the next six or seven are the same repetitive area-to-area beating mechs up and jumping around the affair. It’s a shame that Enslaved feels like it’s only 80% complete because it needed a lot more polish. Even though the game looks good technically, it’s pretty bland, with just lots of green everywhere. There’s no unique art style or anything, and this is a shame. The mechs all look the same, and the enemy variety is less than half a dozen. Boss fights sometimes feel epic, but they repeat often, so Enslaved is iffy on every subject. I do recommend this as a great weekend rental or bargain purchase.
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ORC is probably the worst game in the entire series. It's objectively awful. Being bad isn't different. Different is Outbreak…