Pads & Panels

Title: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Platform: PS3, 360, PC

ESRB: M

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

Ah, Call of Duty. It must be coming towards the end of the year already. With Modern Warfare 3, the behemoth military shooter franchise finally sees the end of its Modern Warfare storyline with this game, in my opinion the first in the series that truly doesn’t really see much in the form of innovation so much as doing just enough to get by and get the title out.

While that last statement still rings, keep this in mind: Modern Warfare 3 is still an expertly crafted first person shooter, with all of the flourishes that the series has become known for. It’s just that I’m starting to feel a bit of fatigue from the annual release of these games. There’s only so far one can take this genre, and for some people — myself included — it’s starting to see a logical end. Or a need to go back to the blueprints and start thinking up a new war style to exploit to keep things fresh. But I digress. (more…)

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Title: Alice: Madness Returns

Platform: 360 (PS3, PC)

ESRB: M

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Spicy Horse

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

American McGee’s Alice was a PC game that perfectly illustrated gaming at the turn of the millennium. Its art style was influenced by Tim Burton’s subverted gothic style — despite beating even him to the punch in weirding up the property, as he would nearly a decade later — and it had the extreme type of gameplay that was really starting to popularize gaming at the time. It hasn’t aged particularly well, but its blend of PS1-inspired platforming with a more mature combat style helped it stand out among other titles in its day.

It’s hard to say if that uniqueness alone was enough for it to deserve a sequel, but its cult status among its fans probably more than likely guaranteed that Alice would once again return to Wonderland, this time with Alice: Madness Returns. Fans of the series will probably find much to love in the game, with its creepy art style, its new game plus and enough collectibles to drive a player mad as a hatter, but ultimately its questionable design choices that pop up from time to time and clear lack of polish will be the true element to drive them insane, albeit in a less enjoyable way. (more…)

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Title: Bastion

Platform: 360 (PC)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Supergiant Games

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

Is it possible to reinvent the old school action RPG about the end of the world again? I was more than a little skeptical, but Bastion took the long-standing trope and grabbed me by the ears and made me pay attention and listen, and showed me a whole new world in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time.

To paraphrase the world-weary voice of the narrator, the Kid wakes up on a floating rock in the sky after the Calamity, a cataclysmic event that much destroyed the planet and caused everything to splinter apart and become somewhat weightless. As he explores what’s left of his part of the world, he finds that paths will build themselves up right under his feet, always giving each of the game’s areas a “more than meets the eye” feel. The Kid eventually finds the Bastion, the meeting place for the residents if anything ever went wrong, but the only one he finds there is the old man, the one who narrates the story. He explains to the Kid that he needs to travel what’s left of the planet to find cores from each of the remaining areas so that they can rebuild the Bastion and use it to attempt to reverse the effects of the Calamity. (more…)

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Title: The Gunstringer

Platform: Xbox Kinect

ESRB Rating: T

Publisher: Microsoft

Developer: Twisted Pixel

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

In the realm of undead marionette cowboy video games focusing on motion controls, The Gunstringer is the only entry. And that’s why, no matter its faults, the title demands the attention of gamers. But with Twisted Pixel (Ms. Splosion Man, The Maw) behind its development, the unique entry for Xbox Kinect keeps the faults to a minimum and the fun at its max.

The Gunstringer also happens to be the name of the game’s main character, or at least the only name we come to know him by. He is a sheriff who was betrayed by his posse and killed. Only, The Gunstringer is simply a marionette, and the story takes place on a theater stage which is framed by a live-action audience. The player takes the role of puppeteer, lifting The Gunstringer to start the game, as he crawls from his grave, now undead and bent on revenge. (more…)

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Title: Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

Platform: PS3, 360, PC

ESRB: M

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Blue Castle Games

Rating: [3 out of 5]

Review by: Matt Peters

Frank West is back. The reason that last sentence wasn’t punctuated with an exclamation point is because it’s been happening so frequently as of late. Between Dead Rising 2’s DLC and fighting games, we’ve seen plenty of the war-torn photographer. Off the Record marks the first time Frank’s been in a starring role since the first Dead Rising, and time has not been on his side. (more…)

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Title: Batman: Arkham City

Platform: 360, PS3, PC (to be released)

ESRB: T

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Rocksteady Studios

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Rating:

When it was released, 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum was perhaps the greatest superhero game ever made, and for good reason. It was stylish, stuck to the source material pretty closely — despite the ending getting a tad bit too video gamey — courtesy of Batman scribe Paul Dini, was graphically impressive, and had some excellent voice work, bringing in Batman mainstays Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill to voice the titular character and the Joker.

Now, that would all be for not if it weren’t for the gameplay, which did a damn fine job of making the player actually feel like the caped crusader. One of the greatest feelings that Arkham Asylum was able to evoke was that of combining action, adventure, stealth, and subtle detective elements into the gameplay to create something that was not only fun to play, but highly addictive as well. In all honesty, the only problem that many players had with the game (ending non-withstanding) was the fact that the game was limited to Arkham Island, which meant that most of the action took place indoors, save for the random encounters on the small stretches of land between the buildings of the asylum. Fortunately for bat-hungry gamers, Arkham City took the fight to the streets, and what a fight it is. (more…)

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Title: Brink

Platform: 360 (PS3, PC)

ESRB: T

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: Splash Damage

Rating:

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Since its release, Brink has been very divisive in the gaming community, and for good reason. It’s one of those games that has gotten pretty much anyone with any sort of interest in first person shooters either enrapt or enraged with what it has to offer. (more…)

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Title: Cell Bound

Platform: iOS

Publisher: Hothead Games

Developer: Hothead Games

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Cell Bound is the latest of Hothead Games’ mobile offerings, working to create a new type of match-based puzzling, with an ongoing mode that feels similar to Tetris, but with a brand new premise. Players simply control the rotation of a Petri dish as cell slide in from the sides to the center, threatening to contaminate the surface. They can be eliminated, however, by connecting five of the same color. So players spin to make color combinations with the ever speedier cells coming from all sides (which goes a long way in building tension quickly), trying to prevent them from reaching the outer edges of the dish. It’s a fun premise, offering a fresh take on puzzling, but the cells speed up a bit too fast, and without distinct level progression or depth as with Tetris, Cell Bound ultimately ends up feeling a little shallow, despite its three modes of play. (more…)

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Title: Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime

Platform: XBLA (PSN, PC)

ESRB: E

Publisher: Atari

Developer: Behaviour

Rating:

Review by: Eric Stuckart

Since 2009, Ghostbusters: The Game has been sitting on my ‘to do’ list for quite some time, as I heard that while it might not be the greatest game out there, it had enough spirit and character to stir up the nostalgia factor and be a decent title to purchase once the price came down. That being said, when I heard that Sanctum of Slime, a sequel of sorts, was being released as a downloadable twin stick shooter, I was already losing hope. I’m sure that Atari probably lost a little bit of money with the last one, as it wasn’t exactly a high-profile release, let alone the type that would be demanding sales, but it wasn’t that bad, was it? (more…)

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Title: Blacklight: Tango Down

Platform: XBLA (PSN, PC)

ESRB: T

Publisher: Ignition Entertainment

Developer: Zombie Studios

Rating:

Review by: Archie Easter

A downloadable title with big aspirations, Blacklight: Tango Down is a slightly futuristic FPS that’s no slouch in the graphical department. Dashing good looks aside, Blacklight’s central multiplayer mode is fun and includes much of the standard FPS fare in its seven modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Last Man Standing. Much in the same way as many popular shooters like Modern Warfare and Battlefield, progression trough the multiplayer allows players to gain ranks and unlock new weapons in addition to armor customizations. While the game’s presentation hints at an overarching storyline, the scant backstory of the game is buried in two small paragraphs in the “How to Play” section. The only single-player mode available is the 1-4 player cooperative “Black Ops” mode that consists of short mission objectives that lack any narrative against waves of AI opponents. In addition, the enemy AI in this mode is out to lunch, with enemies that get stuck behind cover and routinely run to the same positions. (more…)

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