Review: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Let me make myself clear: Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands is an extremely fun game. It follows the classic formula of the other Prince of Persia games: perform high intensity acrobatics with simplistic combat mechanics and death-defying puzzles. But Forgotten Sands executes this formula so well that I want to almost say it is better than Sands of Time. Almost.

It’s a high quality game and you really should play through it if you are remotely interested. The mostly challenging campaign lasts about 6-9 hours packed with AMAZING graphics. The story, while mostly original, is intriguing until you get your first super power (from there on out, it’s pretty bland).

That said, PoP: FS is very repetitive with the combinations of traps (you will see at least ONE saw-blade down every hallway) and it isn’t until the end of the game do you experience the most rage inducing puzzle/trap in the game.

I like to call this trap/puzzle/GRR RAWR moment event the jumping through walls while solidifying and unsolidifying them. This is pretty much the only time you see how stupid the Prince is, and I quote “HURR DURR, LOOK, EMPTY SPACE. I HATE LEDGES”. Prince jumps to death. This happens absolutely no where else in the campaign until the end.

Another thing to note, this game is best played with a controller. If you do play with one, turn off the Steam overlay. There are some really horrible bugs with the overlay.

After you beat the campaign, you are treated to a great narrative at the end that makes it sound like you get to continue playing after you beat the game. Seriously, the Prince sets you up with this whole “but the hardest part of the journey was meeting my father” and then the screen flashes in the way it does when it loads transitions in levels. Suddenly you are back to the main menu. Game over. Trolls win.

Forgotten Sands has three modes you can play after you are done (though I’m not sure why). Most likely you’ll never play them. For maximum enjoyment, log onto UPlay and unlock the Ezio costume, it makes the game so much better.

Verdict: BUY IF ON SALE

Review: The Wonderful End of the World

The Wonderful End of the World is basically the closest thing we can get to a Katamari clone on the PC. It’s fun, strange and just plain silly. The game controls are much better than Beautiful Katamari, but they still need work.

If you love Katamari and want a time waster, get this game. Do note, the music is nowhere near as good and the physics are not as tight as they are in the Katamari games. There are plenty of levels to keep you going.

Verdict: DEPENDS

Review: LEGO Batman

Yes, it’s LEGO Batman, and you can just shut up.
I’ve always had a rather rocky relationship with the LEGO games. Mainly because the developers fail to see all the horrible horrible problems with their games, but I buy them because my brother likes to play them and it’s LEGO (who doesn’t like LEGO?).

Best thing is, this review can pretty much reflect any of the LEGO games. The following is an instant award winning review.

Verdict: SKIP

Review: Mini Ninjas

While Mini Ninjas looks like a childish game, I will inform you that it really isn’t. Combine Ninjas, the Thief series, a chibi art style, loads of humor, and the Hitman series and you get Mini Ninjas. The story is well executed and the worlds you travel to are amazing. The visuals are superb!

I really really really cannot stress how much you need to play this game. IO Interactive did a fantastic job with Mini Ninjas, and it’s definitely something you should experience.

The downside is that this is probably a 6-8 hour ride (only if you go for all the items. If you don’t the game lasts about 3-5 hours). The game is so short, but it is a lot of fun and you’ll enjoy it. But do try to find it cheaper than $15 dollars.

Verdict: BUY

Review: Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead is a great zombie game. I definitely prefer this one over L4D2. Left 4 Dead has more believable characters, better atmosphere (plus it is easier to navigate), less of the “aw man, I have to be Jockey again”, more balance, and interesting locations. The downside is that the guns are not that great, but it is forgivable because it adds to the “panic” feeling.

Overall great game. I do advise that you wait until it goes on sale, so that you get a better deal.

Verdict: BUY

Review: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction

To start off, I played this on the Xbox 360 before and beat it. The console version was great (looking over the horrible network issues it has), and the PC version is just as good, HOWEVER: the campaign is littered with mouth sync issues, the invasive DRM makes the game take FOREVER to start-up, audio settings are not as good as the consoles (it’s either can hear them kinda or not at all), the visuals are par with the 360.

IF YOU ARE A VETERAN OF SPLINTER CELL GAMES: This game plays quite a bit differently than previous titles. There is more focus on eliminating all the guards rather than a focus on stealth. Stealth elements are there, but it is nowhere near the same degree as the original Splinter Cell game.

That said, this is definitely a game you should play. It is much easier to get into than previous Splinter Cell games. This is also not a game for children. Violence-wise, this is on the level of a Jason Bourne movie. The key turn off is the amount of language, with the majority of it being rather vulgar.

The story is decent, it’s not to the level of BioWare writing, but it keeps the game going. The locations are fairly large and expansive, which is nice. There are plenty of places to hide in the level, which allows for a fair amount of stealth. I’ve read other reviews that nagged on the combat, but I found no problem with it.

However, the prompts for actions are incredibly small and picky. For example, during one part of the game you are underground and have to crawl on a pipe in order to stealthily get over to the next room. Unfortunately, the pipe intersects with other pipes, so pressing A will either get you to jump over the guard rail (where a million guards are standing, talking about some stupid plans and how “IF I SEE FISHER I’MMA GONNA KILL HIM”) or hop onto the exact pipe you don’t want to be on.

These events happen more than once in the game, though it really does add to the suspense when the game makes you do the direct opposite of what you intended to do.

But even so, this game is a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it.

Verdict: BUY

Review: Beat Hazard

Beat Hazard is a fun game, I won’t deny that. But do note that the music analysis system isn’t as in-depth (detecting beat or tempo) or accurate as you would expect. Your bullets are completely powered by your music, so if you have a song that isn’t very intense, good luck completing the level.

It is very difficult to keep track of your ship. Asteroids (when they explode), cause a bunch more asteroids, just to make it more difficult to see anything. Firing at them can produce points, but really, it’s not worth it. The bosses have moves that make it hard to see when they are firing (for example, they can fire this one pixel thick laser that kills you instantly if it hits your ship). The backgrounds change color making it hard to figure out who is firing at who.

Basically, the gameplay is challenging, in a bad way. Music only really affects the power of your ship but nothing else. This is a game you do not play for hours with, this is a game you play a small session just to fight off boredom or something.

However, should you get this game, I highly advise you also purchase the iTunes DLC (should you use iTunes).

Verdict: It depends on your love of music games, but all in all, PASS

Review: Metro 2033

Want to play a less buggy version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? Well, here you go. Metro 2033 is pretty much S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (post-apoc. FPS simulator) but with no optimization. Good luck running it on an old machine.

Despite how hard it tries to make itself look scary, it really isn’t. This is like playing DOOM 3 with full bloom and the brightness set to max. The enemies just look odd, but they aren’t that frightening.

As for gameplay, you’ll get lost a lot, the compass that comes with your logbook isn’t very accurate. There is practically no HUD whatsoever in order to keep things both realistic and partially frustrating (just a minor detail really). There are quite a few guns but the majority of them just suck, you’ll use your pistol the most.

Storywise, I’m told this is based off of some book. The book is probably meh (or not, some people tell me the book is nothing like the game), just like the stupid story on the loading screen, oh well.

Overall, Metro 2033 is a game with a decent amount of atmosphere but not much else. It’s also not a very long game (about 8 hours at most).

Verdict: PASS

Review: Shattered Horizon

If Shattered Horizon was summed up in only a couple of phrases, they would be: omg, why am I spinning all over the place, awesome I’m in space, die die die, knife fight, why am I losing?, omg I’m the best, BOOM! SPACE HEADSHOT.

Despite its flaws, Shattered Horizon is an interesting experiment. It’s a fun game and really interesting, to say the least. It has a lively community for the most part so you will find people, but those people might be too good. I can’t say if you’ll ever find people in your ranking, but if you do, then great job (you did better than me).

That said, it’s fun experience for what it’s worth. Do note that you need a pretty powerful computer to run it. Also, get it when it is on sale. You’ll enjoy it for a while.

Verdict: BUY

Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

You heard it before, this game has bugs. But I’m gonna give credit to Aspyr, for they’ve pretty much fixed all of the bugs and made this an almost flawless Star Wars experience.

The story is really intriguing and the graphics look fantastic. Characters have depth to them and real backgrounds, which is nice but could have been explored more. SWFU does have additional content when you beat the game, but that content is rather short. Additionally, the game has this habit of making you explore the same planet about 80 gazillion times. There isn’t enough variety in the levels.

All in all, you’ll be paying for a pure single player experience for the main game (which takes about 8 hours to complete) plus 3-4 free DLC mission packs (which aren’t all that terrible). For it’s price, you could do better, but you really should play Force Unleashed in some way if you haven’t already.

Verdict: WEAK BUY

I don’t advise you to buy this unless it is at a really low price (like $15 dollars or less).

Review: [Prototype]

Looking at this game, you’re probably wondering…”Should I buy [Prototype]?”. It depends. Prototype is a basically the definition of a murder simulator. All you do in this game is kill and attempt to hide.

The AI is crap, the locations are meh, you see the same civilian about a billion times in the same area you are in, the missions have barely any variety (other than kill more people and run up a building) and Alex Mercer is so emo it’s not even funny.

So should you get this game? The only thing [Prototype] has that GTA, Saint’s Row, and Just Cause don’t have is extreme gore and constant killing in grotesque ways. If you want something with a bit more depth than that, I would advise you to look somewhere else. Otherwise, welcome to New York, Mr. Mercer.

Verdict: PASS