Pads & Panels

Title: MLB 11: The Show

Platform: PS3 (PSP)

ESRB: E

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer: Sony San Diego

Rating:

Review by: Archie Easter

With baseball season in full swing, it’s also time for baseball games to make their seasonal trek to consoles. With that, MLB 11: The Show is hitting the mound this year with a few changeups to the series formula. Past entries of the franchise have sometimes been short on additions and new features, but MLB 11: The Show assuredly slides home as more of an evolution than last year’s turn at bat. (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: Rango: The World

Platform: PC

Developer: Funtactix

Rating:

Review by: Sarah Kumley

Rango is a family-friendly movie released earlier this year, about a chameleon who finds himself in an old west town called Dirt. To prolong the fun of the movie, parents and children can also play an online game, Rango: The World, which takes place in Dirt one year after the movie ends. In the game, players walk around the town and talk to different characters to receive missions. Players gain points and can advance their levels by completing these missions. If a player stops in the middle of a mission, the journal keeps track of all the steps needed to complete it.

Players move around the world by clicking on the ground in the direction they want to go. To enter a building or move to the next section of buildings, the player must click on an arrow on the ground. In much the same fashion, to talk to characters throughout Dirt, players click on them and select what they would like to discuss from a list that pops up. Players may also find artifacts along the way. These can be collected by the player but do cause them to lose some energy points, which can be regained later. (more…)

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Title: Madden NFL 11

Platform: 360 (PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, DS, iPhone)

ESRB Rating: E

Publisher: EA Sports

Developer: EA Tiburon

Rating:

Review by: Dan Braun

With EA owning the exclusive rights to football for the past few years, every fall, gamers face the same question: “Is this year’s Madden worth buying?”

It’s a nagging question, as nearly everybody on this side of the pond loves (real) football, but nobody wants to shell out for a paint job and roster update. Madden NFL 11 delivers enough to justify its place for both new users and veterans, but may not be the best update for the franchise. It looks wonderful and plays smoothly most of the time, but terrible play calls, online issues and a few other question marks and it’s hard to dub this the pinnacle of the series. (more…)

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Chris Park spent an entire week running around Los Angeles to cover the Electronic Entertainment Expo. One of his stops was Nexon America’s booth to check out the publisher’s latest free-to-play games, including an in-depth look at the upcoming Vindictus. Park reports… (more…)

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Title: Fat Princess

Platform: PSN

ESRB Rating: T

Publisher: Sony

Developer: Titan Studios

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Fat Princess wins, almost automatically, for its hilarious premise. There are two factions with castles at opposite ends of any given map. They have each captured the opposing team’s princess and are holding her in their respective dungeons. The princesses both have sweet tooths, however, and neither team is above exploiting that to their own end – namely, feeding the women piece after piece of cake to fatten them up and therefore make them harder for the rescue team to carry back to home base. (more…)

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