Archive for the ‘Game Reviews’ Category
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on November 4th, 2007
Some games take time to gain acceptance. This game started out a fledging curiosity, now the obsession has hit and everybody wants to play air guitar except with the a controller shaped like one. The game is Guitar Hero 3. This is the first installment that has hit every major console at the same time. This also marks the first time where they really pushed the concept of actual guitarists and musicians coming out to help such as Bret Michaels, Slash and the Sex Pistols. Some would describe it as a sell out especially since the team that made the original Guitar Hero was busy making Rock Band and the reins were left to Neversoft. How would they fare; could they possibly mess up what made the first two Guitar Heros so great?
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on October 28th, 2007
Some things just go together. Like Peanut Butter & Jelly, Sonny & Cher, Siskel & Ebert (okay, not so much). Puzzle Quest brings something together in complete harmony like no other game before it. Puzzles and Role Playing Games. Sure the Zelda or Breath of Fire series have puzzles in the game, but we are talking full integration where every battle is decided in a Bejeweled-like interface. Complete with mounts, spells, and other rpg-like elements; this could be the best idea of putting things together since I tried fritos and cream cheese. (Come on, you know you are curious)
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on October 3rd, 2007
Halo 3, the hype machine; have you drank the kool-aid, errr the Game Fuel yet? In the midst of a media storm and $170 million opening week sales, Halo 3 was released to the public in three different versions. For most people, the regular edition was enough to satisfy. Some like myself opted for the limited edition, which includes a tin and a bonus disc. Others decided they wanted a Master Chief helmet and opted for the legendary. No matter which edition you decided on, you were more interested in the amazing gameplay & multiplayer from the previous incantations. By the time it takes to come down from the caffeine buzz generated by the mixture of code red & live wire (& cough syrup I believe), though, you realize that Halo 3 — while awesome on many fronts — isn’t quite the mega-wonder we all had hoped for.
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on September 23rd, 2007
Bomberman has long been a friend of mine. I spent most of the early to mid 90’s playing either the original Bomberman or Bomberman ‘93 for the Turbo Graphix 16 System. I played each until their eventual conclusion and then wouldn’t touch them for years. So when there was word that a Bomberman game would come to Xbox Live I was very excited. But at the same time I was very skeptical. So skeptical, it took me about two months to download it and the accompanying first expansion pack. However, what came out of it was quite possibly the best multiplayer Xbox Live Arcade game of all time and one of the best reasons to own an Xbox 360 that doesn’t involve a first person shooter.
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on August 7th, 2007
Simplicity takes time. That’s the only logical explanation as to why a chess game has not appeared on XBOX Live Arcade until the team @ Freeverse & Strange Flavour decided to release some popular board games for us to enjoy. The give us Checkers, Mancala, Reversi as well as Chess for a very tidy 400 Microsoft Points ($5). While the release is far from perfect, it is one of those cases where we take what we can get.
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on July 29th, 2007
Guitar Hero 1 made big business. Guitar Hero 2 made bigger business and became a phenomenon. Due to the success of the first two, Activision decided to release a stand-alone themed Guitar Hero. After some deliberation, it was decided they would release Rocks the 80’s including tunes from my favorite decade. Included in that decade is my favorite type of music which is well represented: hair rock. Long hair, lipstick, blistering guitar solos and high pitched screams. Quite possibly the decade that most had in mind when they first or saw or heard about Guitar Hero. The Red Octane team was taking a chance on a smaller setlist but possibly paving the way for future themed releases. I am happy to say that the effort is a great step in the right direction but not one without bumps in the road.
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on May 30th, 2007
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Board Games can be great experiences for families and friends to come together and enjoy themselves. A dice roll, a few spaces moved on the gameboard, and some money gained or paid are all sometimes a game needs. Up until May of this year there had not been any board games for XBOX Live Arcade. There had been a good handful of card games but nothing like Monopoly, Scrabble, or even Chess (there was Backgammon but who actually plays Backgammon?). That changed when …
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on May 24th, 2007
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ROUND ONE, FIGHT. I’m something of a Mortal Kombat junkie especially in my younger days. I started playing the original arcade game when I was very young and played 2 (still the best to date), 3, dealt with 4 and even dabbled in Deception. I adored the movies, though for obvious reasons I was poed at some parts of the second movie but still liked it. I even bought one of those silly MK controllers for the Playstation 2 (Scorpion naturally). So when I heard that the…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on May 21st, 2007
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I guess I’m a sucker for old school shooters. When I was a little chap, it was about the vertical shooters like Galaga and Centipede. As I grew older, I found myself starting to lean towards the horizontal shooters as well including R-Type. However, I did not find myself playing a shooter from start to finish until I came upon a game for the Turbo Duo (Turbo Graphix 16 w/super cd attachment). Actually it was the pack-in for the system. That game was Gates of Thund…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on April 8th, 2007
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When I got my XBOX 360 in late November, the only game I was regularly playing on my Playstation 2 was Guitar Hero II. It was still captivating, it held my interest because it was an amazing game. Needless to say when they announced that it would be coming to the 360, I was both excited and a bit perplexed as what to do. I mean it is the same game right? It has updated graphics and sound, and exclusive songs. But it’s going to require me to buy another guitar. It has achiev…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on March 22nd, 2007
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A single console rarely gets five different releases in its library. The Playstation 2 has been fortunate (or not so fortunate according to Jack Thompson) to get five Grand Theft Autos. III, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and now Vice City Stories have provided essentially the same game engine with new features and missions along the way. The Stories line was games that started on the PSP and then ported over. Liberty City Stories was a good port and a fun game to play. However,…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on January 28th, 2007
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The Rainbow Six series of console and pc games has always been about realistic tactical warfare. These games are not for the faint of the heart as with any Tom Clancy shooter. In their latest offering: Rainbow Six Vegas; they take that realism and then put it in the anything but real land of glitz, glamor, and high rolling. Las Vegas, Nevada. A town where nobody sleeps and that’s unfortunate because you are going to need all the skills and firepower you can muster at all hours …
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Game Reviews by Brendan Surpless on January 7th, 2007
Gameplay
Hype. Hype is a piece of the media that we never want to admit to ourselves, or anyone for that matter, we let get the best of us. After all, how many times has the hype for something become so huge that it turned out to be a real bummer once you finally played it? When message boards started rambling in 2005 about a game coming from Microsoft Studios (made by Epic) entitled Gears of War, a small look into Microsoft’s history of product release, would easily entail a game that would …
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on December 17th, 2006
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If you ever visit my house, you might be a bit underwhelmed from the outside appearance. It is a simple three bedroom place with a few trees and a handful of assorted plants. If I can concentrate on growing something I do fine, but since I’m not really used to the space, things can look out of sorts. So when I received Viva Pi�ata from the minds of Rare LTD, I was a little worried. Here I was given a new garden to cultivate and grow various plants, trees, & bushes in hopes of attracti…
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Game Reviews by Ryan Erb on December 8th, 2006
Well it is finally here; the Wii has been released by Nintendo and with it comes my very first review of a Wii title. As most of you surely know Wii Sports is included in the package with every system and it showcases some of the Wii Remote’s impressive capabilities. Beyond its apparent simplistic look its offers more depth than originally expected. Initially thought as a mere technology demo, Wii Sports turns out to be a game in itself.
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on November 28th, 2006
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Promotional games have come and gone. Typically they involve some movie or tv show, kid or blockbuster related. Once in a while, they center on food such as the M&M’s game for Playstation 1 or perhaps the 2 or 3 McDonalds games. Burger King decided that their king character which was a cartoon character onto himself deserved not one video game about him but three. Better also make that for one of the top systems today. The XBOX 360. What will we charge, just $3.99 with a value me…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on November 25th, 2006
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I knew that when they announced Guitar Hero 2 many moons ago, I would be running not walking to my local EB Games and procuring the game ahead of time. I mean what was there to not love about the first one, hard rocking music, every air guitarist’s dream and addictive gameplay. I am happy to report that the second is more of the same; there are new songs, new levels of difficulty, and the same great gameplay albeit with a few new quirks. However, don’t let that little flaw deter…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on November 6th, 2006
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Happiness can be found inside a comic book. For years, especially in my youth, I would pick up copies of Daredevil, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and more to be fascinated by the intriguing story lines and the wonderful art. Sure there was comic book based games when I was younger but most of them weren’t good enough to use as toilet paper nevertheless a coherent video game. That started to change as time went on especially once they started to add RPG elements to the game…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on October 1st, 2006
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I am a huge fan of the Evil Dead series. The perfect blend of movie style with a steady dose of horror and more than plentiful slapstick humor. The main character; Ash voiced by Bruce Campbell has to be one of the top ten heroes of all time as the witty boomstick shooting, chainsaw waving good guy. I had not played any of the previous Evil Dead games for Playstation or other systems, but however I was automatically sold when I saw this title in the Circuit City c…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on August 20th, 2006
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Baseball, a sport that is near and dear to my heart. I played it from age 7 to age 16. I never was quite that good; I had a lot of natural talent and I did hustle; however I never worked at the gifts I was given enough to take myself to the next level. So, me like many have resorted to the crass style of playing games that emulate something we wish we were. To be honest, I sat on this review a long time, not the game itself; I’ve been playing it quite frequently. But the review, …
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on July 7th, 2006
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Newer super hero cartoons usually leave me feeling bland to be honest. They generally pass them off as too kid friendly and not enough to satisfy me as an adult. Not to mention that they often use anime style drawn characters almost too much that the cartoons become borderline ugly and generic to look at. Thankfully in recent years there have been a few exceptions, one being Teen Titans. Its familiar cast of Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven & Cyborg are fun to watch as they appeal to both kid…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on June 26th, 2006
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Since nobody really plays Playstation portable games (at least nobody that will admit it), Rockstar finally did the smart thing and ported the best selling PSP game ever to the Playstation 2 console. I am happy to report that Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is here, for the PS2 in all of its greatness with a budget price tag. As one would expect, it has all of the great replayability one would expect from a GTA game, however it has the graphics one would expect from a PSP port too. The …
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on June 11th, 2006
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The Driver series has had a pretty interesting history to date. The first two games were very impressive driving sims for the original playstation and showed a lot of potential. However, when it came to the playstation 2 and subsequent nex-gen consoles, Driver 3 (or Driv3r) took a bold step. The step to become the first real Grand Theft Auto clone. However, it was best described as a failure. Plagued by bugs, collision detection and just general bad gameplay, most feared that would be the end…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on May 27th, 2006
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Special Editions are nothing new to dvds, they are good ways to make the perspective consumer take that “double dip” and buy something more than once. However, when it comes to video games, this is a rare occurrence. However, with the advancement of technology and games using the cd/dvd format, the opportunity is there to make games with special content. Not to mention with games being released two or three times due to the platinum/greatest hits moniker, it is a great chance to lure people lik…
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Game Reviews by Michael Durr on May 13th, 2006
Scene in EB Games/Gamestop: wow, Rampage: Total Destruction for $20; didn’t I play that game when I was a kid at the arcade or on my NES? Yes, yes you did. And for the record it hasn’t changed much. Rampage has made its PS2 return and hundreds (or at least dozens) are anxious for George, Lizzie & Ralph to start punching buildings again. To this game’s credit, they get something pretty decent to fill the bill. In addition, even if the main game doesn’t provide enough umph, the bonus material will certainly take …
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