Pads & Panels

Title: Mafia II

Platform: 360 (PS3, PC)

ESRB: M

Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: 2K Czech

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

More than three years after the first trailer was released, Mafia II is finally on store shelves. And while Mafia II gets a lot of things right – mostly on the storytelling side – it’s going to leave a lot of people wondering what 2K Czech spent all that development time doing on the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. But despite that, Mafia II still has a few fun tricks up its designer sleeves. (more…)

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Title: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

Platform: 360 (Wii, PS3, DS, PC, PSP)

ESRB: E10+

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive

Developer: Traveller’s Tales

Rating: 4.5/5

Review by: Sarah Kumley

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 plays much the same as the other LEGO games, but with everyone’s favorite adolescent wizard. The game follows the stories of the books and movies featuring Harry and his young friends for the first four years they attend Hogwarts. The students attend classes to learn new spells and can switch between them for whatever tasks need to be performed. Players can also switch between characters as some spells are only available to certain ones. There are also parts of the environment that cannot be accessed from the beginning, but rather can be once certain spells are mastered. It is through the spell unlocks that puzzles and progression unfurl. (more…)

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Title: Iron Man 2

Platform: 360 (PS3, Wii, PSP)

ESRB: M

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sega Studios San Francisco

Rating:

Review By: Eric Stuckart

Games like Iron Man 2 only reinforce the stereotype that movie franchise games tend to allow for the quality to be completely thrown out the window in favor of getting it on shelves by the time the movie premieres. It also shows that the best of intentions don’t always pan out. (more…)

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Game of the Month – April

Splinter Cell: Conviction (360, PC)

Publisher: Ubisoft – Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

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Splinter Cell: Conviction is arguably the best installment in the series, and definitely the most accessible. It allows players to tackle it as an action game, but rewards them for stealth execution. And Conviction is a case of the entire package being greater than simply the sum of its parts, with campaign, co-op and competitive multiplayer offering plenty of value.

–Bill (more…)

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Game of the Month – March

God of War III (PS3)

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment – Developer: Sony Santa Monica

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It may try just a little too hard at the end to give itself some artistic relevance, but God of War III is the perfection of the balls-to-the-wall action that has become the standard for the genre, emulated by countless others. The “final” installment of the trilogy is all killer, no filler, bigger and more badass than the series has ever been, and still Sony Santa Monica found the room to try some new ideas along the way. A great “conclusion” to the epic story of Kratos.

–Bill (more…)

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Split/Second hit shelves yesterday for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. A review should be coming soon, but to hold readers over until then, we’ve posted our video interview with Split/Second‘s franchise design director Paul Glancey, who was kind enough to take some time at PAX East to answer our questions. In the video, he explains how the single-player campaign works, the strengths and weaknesses of the game’s three main auto types, as well as “Power Plays” and how they’re used to wreak havoc on the various stages and competitors. Bill Jones interviews, films and edits. Video is filmed and presented in HD.

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Title: Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie

Publisher: Titan Books

Writer: Commentary by Mark Millar, Contributions from Cast and Crew

Review by: Thomas Braaksma

Spoiler Alert! If the reader has not seen the movie or read the comic and does not want to know everything about it, hold off on Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie. This book will give away a lot of the plot and the differences between the comic and the movie. With that being said, the question at hand is whether after the movie has been viewed is this companion book to the Kick-Ass franchise worth picking up? The answer to that could be yes or no depending on the reader’s commitment to the franchise and their concern for intricate details, down to costumes, the story’s origin, writers’ thoughts and actors’ takes on the material. Creating the Comic, Making the Movie is really for the most die-hard of fans. (more…)

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Title: Kick-Ass Premiere Hardcover

Publisher: Marvel

Writer: Mark Millar

Artist: John Romita Jr.

Rating:

Review by: Thomas Braaksma

These days most people watch movies and television to get their entertainment fix. Comic books usually get tossed to the side and at times mocked as an irrelevant form of media, at least until a movie is made about them. In the case of Kick-Ass, even though a movie was in mind from the conception of the book, it hardly seems necessary to have any other interpretation of this almost perfect comic book.

Reading Kick-Ass is a much better option than, say, renting Law Abiding Citizen or whatever number Saw movie studios are pumping out this year. Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. take a concept that every comic fan has at some time fantasized about – putting on a costume and pulling a Batman on some bad guys – and put together a truly inspired, truly original and highly entertaining book. (more…)

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Title: Dante’s Inferno

Platform: 360 (PS3, PSP)

ESRB: M

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Visceral Games

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Dante’s Inferno is a third-person action-adventure game that takes the epic poem to disturbing new realms, as the title character battles his way through the nine circles of hell to save the soul of his lover. While many games have copied various mechanics of the successful God of War franchise, Dante’s Inferno clones them all, essentially becoming God of War with Christian source material and different skins.

The button-mapping and prompt-based real-time scenarios are all there, and Dante’s Inferno mimicks them incredibly well, which is as much of a compliment as it is an insult, as there couldn’t be better source material to mimic in the genre. From front to back, Dante’s Inferno is essentially the poor man’s God of War. (more…)

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Title: God of War III

Platform: PS3

ESRB: M

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer: Sony Santa Monica

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

“In the end, there will be only chaos.”

This was the promise set forth by Sony for God of War III, and on all fronts the conclusion to the premiere action series in gaming delivers just that – pure chaos. God of War and its first sequel set, and subsequently raised, the bar for action gaming, laying out the framework that every action game since has turned to for inspiration, or at the extreme end of title’s like Dante’s Inferno, copied down to the button-mapping.

Such hype would leave many sequels destined for disappointment, but God of War III raises the bar once again. There’s a new king of the action genre. (more…)

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