Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days starts off with a rather disturbing opening scene, which quickly sets the tone for this relentlessly violent trip through the Shanghai underworld. And while it’s a hell of a ride, it’s also extremely short even by today’s shooter standards. Clocking in at just about four hours and with a fairly enjoyable but short-lived multiplayer mode, it’s a very tough game to recommend. There are a few things it does better than the first game and some it doesn’t, but it’s largely the same affair as its predecessor.
With the launch of the iPad, Apple has given game developers a new platform on which to stretch their prowess for mobile gaming. The iPad offers several key improvements over the iPhone that make it a different and certainly better gaming platform. The combination of the large multitouch screen, fast processor, the finely tuned OS, and the ubiquitous App Store offer a fantastic platform for both established and indie game developers to create a name for themselves. Today, we review an indie effort called Samurai: Way of the Warrior HD by MadFinger Games.
I won’t waste a lot of space describing why StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is such an important release. Even if you don’t know much about the legacy of the series, chances are that you already know enough thanks to your favourite gaming websites and blogs buzzing about the title constantly over the last few weeks. Let me just say that the original StarCraft (released back in 1998) and its expansion pack Brood War are some of the best real-time strategy games ever made. These games have stood the test of time thanks to their well-balanced and addictive gameplay, an epic story backed by detailed lore, and a wildly popular multiplayer mode.
Racing games don’t age well. You can remake classic puzzle games, platformers and side-scrolling shooters, and they’ll retain their old school charm, but that doesn’t usually work with racing games, especially arcade racers. It’s why they tend to gather dust once the new ones come along. So it’s natural to approach the HD remake of Hydro Thunder, an old Midway coin-op arcade racing game, with a hint of scepticism. Then again, this is one of the showcase titles from this year’s Xbox LIVE Summer of Arcade promotion, so it may just have a couple of tricks up its sleeve.
As a game reviewer, a casual game that is also a movie tie-in isn’t something that would have me marking my calendar in anticipation. So when Toy Story 3 arrived in the mail, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. But since this is a bit of a lean period in terms of game releases, I thought I’d take a crack at it. First off, despite its target audience, this is not a casual game. Secondly, and more importantly, it’s not bad at all. In fact, it’s pretty damn good.
Platformers have seen a resurgence of late. Be it the wildly successful Super Mario Galaxy games on the Wii, the ubiquitous Ratchet and Clank series on the PS3, or the seemingly endless supply of indie titles on the Xbox 360 and PC, it appears that creating games that have people jumping around is a fairly lucrative business. And then you have Limbo, which turns the whole genre on its head and makes it its bitch. About time too, and here’s why.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men was a game full of imperfections. In fact, I’m being too kind by even calling it that. A lot of it was quite poor; the shooting mechanics, the hit detection, the animations, the overall graphics. Most people who picked it up probably didn’t play it all the way through, and you really can’t fault them for it, because it was an unpolished game that never should have made it to shelves in the state it did. But many who did play it look back at it fondly. It had a simple story, but it worked for the kind of game it was. Same goes for Kane and Lynch, the game’s main characters; poles apart, but equally despicable and yet likeable at the same time. And despite little co-operation from the gameplay department, the balls-to-the-wall action was undeniably fun.
“Well, it’s free”. That’s what keeps running through my head. See, Alien Swarm is a hard game to review or criticize, not because it’s anymore subjective than your average video game, but just because it’s free. Anything negative you have to say about the game is immediately countered by those two magical words. It’s too short? It’s free. Too hard? It’s free. Too focused on the multiplayer aspect? It’s free. You can see where I am going with this. So for the sake of the review, I will pretend that this is one of the many, many games that show up on XBLA/PSN for the usual price of 1200 MS Points or whatever.
In Deathspank, you’ll be spending most of the time dispensing “justice” and being “heroic”, because those are the favourite words of the titular protagonist. Justice, you will find, is all about balance. It does not discriminate, be it merciless orques, undead skeletons, dragons that swallow felt salesmen, sabertoothed donkeys, smelly orphans, or unicorns.
There’s something to be said about a fighting game that has no HUD to speak of – no health bars and no ultra meters going ballistic – but can still accurately indicate exactly how well or how badly you’re doing in a fight purely through gameplay. UFC Undisputed does that brilliantly, and that’s one of the reasons why last year’s game was a surprising success. The one criticism levelled at the game though was that it was extremely technical. In the game’s defence, mixed martial arts (MMA) itself is technical. But very much against today’s gaming trends, it just wasn’t accessible enough. This year, UFC Undisputed 2010 aims to change that.
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