Review: Bayonetta

I've seen this game compaired to Devil May Cry on crack. I don't believe it myself. It's more like Devil May Cry on Speed and Acid at the same time while tripping on Mushrooms and LCD... This game is extreamly fast paced when in combat, with few moments inbetween to explore and relax for a moment.

Bayonetta is a fun game that doesn't take it self serious like many games, including the original Devil May Cry. You may come to notice that the entire game is one giant fan service to display a hot video game chick while keeping us happy with constant sexual innuendos and dances. The fantastic color effects and butterflies that flash around the screen with every attack and landing made are just added to the strange fun of the game.

Do not expect this game to wow you with it's storyline or the cut scenes between many of the fights to be as wondrous as the rest of the game play. Those two things on their own seem to be more tedious and boring while waiting to continue to more interesting parts of the game.

Perhaps my favorite part of Bayonetta, is the difficulty levels. Easy mode is just that, so damn easy you didn't even know you were fighting before you won. Normal is harder then to be expected for a normal setting. Hard mode, if you are not good at this game you will have your cute witch ass handed back to you in no time. Just like a game should be. There is even a setting higher then Hard (much like Devil May Cry's Dante Must Die mode) but I suck, so I've never gotten that far yet.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Review: Prince of Persia

At first glance I was like everyone else when it came to the newest Prince of Persia game. I was a little leary on the red and blue scarf thing, but it was Prince of Persia it had to be a good game. I don't think I've ever been more wrong in my life, and I was married once so you know I've been wrong a lot. Prince of Persia has the same basic play style of the master piece of gameing Sands of Time, but that was all could have hoped to redeam this game.

In a nut shell the games biggest flaw is it is too damn easy. There was no way to lose this game. There was no gauge to watch to make sure you didn't fall to your death and have to reload. Considering how short the game is, this is a major set back to game play. Why worry or think a path through when you know you will always be saved, and not have to panic to reverse time like in previous games.

The graphics and sounds were okay, but still with numerous issues for me. The characters didn't blend with the background, a small black outline around each character made them appear to be in front of many of the scenes rather then part of it. They were textured cell shades while the background and landscape were simply textures. Then there was the talking... I found myself wanting to leap the prince off a cliff just to silence him for 2 seconds, unfortunately to jump to my death only made him cry like a little girl before being saved every damn time.

The combat system is perhaps one of the worse attempts at fighting ever. While not a major fan of button mashing to win a battle, I'm a hate filled bigot against Quick time events. And that is what combat in Prince of Persia boils down to, one giant annoying quick time event. Because I can't click on an button within the microsecond of time give the boss gains three quarters of his health back so I can slowly widdle away at him until the next quick time failure of mine.

Overall Rating: 4/10

Review: Darksiders

In a lot of ways this game can be compared to Devil May Cry, but much to our dismay not enough of it. Like Devil May Cry you play a virtually indestructible swordsman, in this case War, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. As per your namesake your job is to destroy anything and everything that comes in contact with you. Judging by War's massive body with over sized hands and feet, with a head amounting to a pushpin in size, this is no challenging feat for our hero.

I think the story writers for this game were counting on the minuscule brain size of War to escape the need to fill us, the player, in with details that we don't want. Like why we are killing in the first place, or what was the point of all the crap we go through. It wasn't until the very end that you get any sort of real progression in the story but even that was a little flat and seemed to be little more then an excuse to make a second (or more) game(s) with the other three horsemen whom by the way, do not make a real appearance in this game at all. Yet even then this game seems to take it self a little too seriously at times.

The graphics were pretty. The world which you slaughter demons through is actually rather small, it does not have much time to overdue the visual effects. The 1 millionth scrap of paper floating by is barely noticeable when your moving on to the next ruined section of the city. From the sewers and underground railways to skyscrapers and highways, the game does not linger too long. The demons consist of the same few archetypes but that is to be expected in a short game like this.

The entire game is done with voice actors. To my astonishment the voices seemed good. Overall the voices seemed to fit the characters that they were coming from. Demons that looked like they hissed has a hissing voice, massive greater demons had deep booming voices. I was shocked at this development, a game developer who put care into their voice acting? This really is the Apocalypse.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Review: Ninety-Nine Nights (N3)

With a name like Ninety-Nine Nights, you could imagine that this game is massive. Had this been a video review I would have cut away to Admiral Ackbar yelling "It's a trap!". N3 is a tiny tiny game. You should be able to complete this game in less then an hour if you don't explore the simple landscapes.

After you get so far in the game, you get to unlock a new character to play through a small game with. The stories have a strange mix of plots. Your give almost the same story only with a different character. The game even allows you to unlock characters that you've never seen in previous storyline. It's a cluster of useless characters that you learn quickly that you really don't care much about.

N3 also has this fun way to make you pull your hair out. Boss Fights! That's right, you get lots of boss fights. The fun comes in when you get struck by the boss. Say goodbye to your hp because one hit from the boss makes your health drop so fast you might as well quit if you don't know how to run for it. Don't expect your mini-army to help you, they are useless.

Graphics are horrible. Everything looks the same. All soldiers and enemies are cookie cutter creations. Don't expect much variation in this game. To top off the gingerbread soldiers the games highest graphic setting makes everything blurry and hard to see. You can see the pixels and cubes all over the place.

I would only recommend playing this game is you are incredibly bored and want to hate yourself for spending money on a pile of refuse.

Overall Rating: 2/10

Review: Fable II

Fable II... What can I really say about this game? The game lets me be evil. I get to wander the streets randomly slaughtering villiages for my own ammusement causing the helpless weaklings to run in fear at the mear sire of me. Aside from that, I can't really think of anything good to say about this game.

The graphics are mediocre. The scenery outside is nice at times, but then you hit the city and see it's pretty much the same thing over and over again. There seems to be only 10 types of villagers, 2 guards, and all the bandits and monsters have only 2 or 3 design sets.

The voice acting is dull and listless. If you don't find yourself falling asleep in the middle of every conversation, I think you need to settle down on the caffeine. No character seemed to have any real life to them, most of them are clearly simply reading a script and that's all.

Playing the game is an exercise in your will to not butcher people who refuse to shut up even when you are butchering them. Sure you can buy all their houses and profit off them, but after a while you make so much gold off these people you can't even find anything to do with it. After you king yourself from owning everything what else is there to do? I have no clue. Guess I'll go back to murdering people aside from that and playing with your dog, I can't find anything to do.

Overall Rating: 3/10

Review: Dragon Age Origins

While not a stunning visual game Dragon Age Origins is full of the most basic and classic features of the tabletop geek days of my youth playing D&D with my friends. You have your basic races and classes and nothing more. Character design is very limited and boring with dials that make minor changes that you'll never see anyway from the back of your characters head.

Throughout the game you have given many many choices of what to say and how to interact with NPCs. Most of these boil down to: good, indifferent, and asshole. Sadly despite the options, most of the npcs react in the exact the same no matter the choice made. Very few times did I find myself pissing off the populus while being an ass to everyone I met. I was still hero to even the people I just insulted and threated moments before.

The combat is basic. You select an enemy, click the button, and off they go to battle. You can perform stronger special attacks but when your team mates join you most of the time the enemies don't even stand long enough that you end up wasteing the special. You can alter your teams AI so they react in specific ways in combat, but they work so well on their own with premade setups that you won't even notice the feature. DAO also allows you to switch party members in combat to take control over someone else while your main character runs off to follow the AI which makes your style of play seem weak and inefficiant. Most of the switching will only be to heal your party since despite the clever fighting AI, your party is retarded when it comes to not dying.

The abilities you can gain outside of combat are some of the most useless abilities ever made in a single game. Sure you can make poisons and set up elaborate traps to cause ample amounts of damage to enemies before they can even reach you. However even on the games highest difficulty setting these will be a giant waste of time and energy on your part when you can charge in and massicure the lot in a third of the time. Stealing ranks highest in the useless catagory. You can rob every man, woman, and child (I mean that too, it's not a phrase in this game, you can really rob every man, woman, and child) but the payoff is so small and no one reacts to the theft.

The game has an amasing story. For a while... After one area or two you begin to feel the repeditive and predictable nature of the game coming out. The oddest thing about the games massive flaws, is the fact that you want to keep playing anyway for hours on end, ignoreing the many graphic glitches and repeditiveness. It is like the afor mentioned D&D games of old. You were bored hours ago but you just keep playing in hopes of something amasing an memerable will happen. When your dreams of glory are dashed on the rocks like so many others before it, we keep playing anyway like a retarded gerbil in a wheel.

Overall Rating: 6/10