Throughout its development process, Sony Santa Monica kept God of War III closely under wraps. Details were few and far between, and all we had to go by was Stig Asmussen’s quiet assured look during interviews when he talked about the latest (and final) chapter of Kratos’ quest for vengeance. Given how the odds were stacked against him, it spoke volumes of what was in store for us.

The weight of the franchise is a great one to carry; two directors before him had done a fantastic job of taking the franchise and its protagonist to astronomical heights. All this made it very easy to forget that God of War III is Santa Monica’s first game on the PlayStation 3. After three long years of building a bomb from scratch, Santa Monica has finally arrived in style, riding the back of a gigantic titan, with Kratos in tow as he climbs a mountain to begin his final assault on the Gods of Olympus.

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When BioShock 2 was first announced, I was among the few skeptics who felt that the game should have been left alone. The original was one of the few games that went beyond gameplay thanks to its great setting backed by a thought-provoking story, fun gameplay and a very satisfying ending. It was a game that stood well on its own. So, to me, a sequel always felt like a bad idea from the start. I started playing BioShock 2 with that same mindset, expecting it to be a throwaway sequel made to cash in on the critical and commercial success of the first game. Though it felt quite underwhelming initially, I came out quite impressed in the end.

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In 1497, the priest and leader of Florence, Girolamo Savonarola carried out the Bonfire of the Vanities. In an act of open hostility towards the Renaissance, Father Savonarola and his acolytes collected objects such as books, art, cosmetics or anything that fell under the category of ‘immoral excesses’ and burned them in bonfires across the city. Had it not been for Ezio Auditore, the golden age of Italian art, culture and architecture would have been lost.

Mixing historical events and fiction with incredible finesse, the downloadable episode that serves as the thirteenth memory block of Assassin’s Creed 2 picks up immediately after the Battle of Forli. Ezio returns to Florence to retrieve the Apple of Eden from Father Savonarola. But the good priest is in control of the city and has his lieutenants (by choice or coerced) running the city. Needless to say, these are dark times for Florence, and if the premise wasn’t bleak enough to get through to the player, the city has a perpetual cloud cover giving it a washed out look to underscore the point.

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The IVG 30-second Bayonetta compatibility test:

1. Did you enjoy Devil May Cry 1 and 3?
2. Do you like anime/manga?epi
3. Can you NOT blink for a long, long time?

It is absolutely essential that you nod your head vigorously to all three of those questions before you even think of exchanging your hard earned money for this game. Still with me? Alright then.

Hold Me

Bayonetta is the logical culmination of the stylized-action genre that a nice man named Hideki Kamiya revolutionised with the first Devil May Cry nearly a decade ago. This was however, before Capcom realised that betting their cash on games that just don’t sell despite all the goodwill and critical acclaim was a bad idea. Post epiphany, and after Clover was shown the pointy end of the stick as just reward for creating gems like Okami, God Hand and Viewtiful Joe, Kamiya left Capcom and created Platinum Games with fellow brainiacs Atsushi Inaba, Shinji Mikami and the rest of the Clover team.

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Dante’s Inferno is a God of War clone. There! So now that that’s out of the way, and half the people have skipped to the last paragraph and score, let me talk to those of you who haven’t cast it aside as a bad game just because of it. Anyone who’s played Darksiders knows that a game based on borrowed ideas can still be fantastic. So if Darksiders can be great, then Dante’s Inferno can be great too.

But it isn’t. On the surface, there’s not much technically wrong with Dante’s Inferno, but the things you earlier overlooked as slight niggles, slowly gnaw at you the longer you play, which eventually sucks the enjoyment out of it. To be honest, I know nothing about the Divine Comedy, so there’s no way for me to tell how faithful to the original the game is. But in the game, you play as Dante, who must journey through the nine circles of hell to rescue his wife Beatrice, who is being held captive by Lucifer.

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The following review does not contain any plot spoilers

By now it would be safe to assume that when it comes to RPGs, Bioware can’t do anything wrong. Last year, the RPG juggernaut delivered a near flawless old-school role-playing experience with Dragon Age: Origins. And now a couple of months later, they’re back with one of the most anticipated titles of the year - Mass Effect 2, a game that sits pretty much on the opposite end of the RPG spectrum when compared to Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware certainly has broken a lot of rules and created some new ones with Mass Effect 2. RPG purists may have some trouble adjusting to its bold new direction, but whichever way you look at it, the end result is probably one of the finest and most memorable gaming experiences you’ll have in a long time. If you’ve played the first game in the series and loved it, there really is no reason for you to read the rest of the review; just go buy the game and start playing it already. The more skeptical ones can read on.

Mass Effect 2 is a direct sequel to 2007’s Mass Effect and the second chapter of a planned trilogy. Despite featuring a brilliantly realised sci-fi universe, excellent writing and an epic story, the first game was marred by a few technical flaws, largely uninteresting combat, a cumbersome inventory system and repetitive side missions. Mass Effect 2, however, addresses all of those flaws while making some major changes to the standard RPG template. A lot of fans (including myself) had expressed concerns over the game inching closer to a shooter than an RPG after some of the early previews. Yes, the combat system has been revamped to resemble a shooter, “quests” have become “missions”, complete with a summary screen at the end and many of the RPG elements are redone and some are stripped off entirely. However, the game is still an RPG at heart and everything you loved about the first game is here, better than ever and everything you hated is nowhere to be found.

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Boring!

There really isn’t a better (or nicer) way to sum up Dark Void. It’s a rare example in recent memory of a game which turned into a chore to finish. And when that happens, it pretty much defeats the whole idea behind gaming. You can very well imagine how boring a review for a boring game would be. What would be more interesting, however, is to try and re-construct the meeting between the developer and the publisher, where Dark Void got the green signal for full steam ahead. Before we begin though, it is important to clarify that while Dark Void is boring, as a game, it is technically adequate and playable. With that said, lets get cracking, shall we?

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Fans of Assassins Creed 2 may be aware of the missing 12th and 13th sequences in the game. While leaving the game incomplete is bizarre and frustrating, Ubisoft’s official statement blamed shortage of time for the missing sequences, adding that they would be released as future DLC. Now, almost two months later, the first instalment or sequence 12, named The Battle of Forli, is out. So is it really worth the extra money?

The Battle of Forli picks up right after Ezio joins the Order of the Assassins. Remember Caterina Sforza, the flirtatious woman you met at the docks outside Forli just before leaving for Venice? Teaming up with Machiavelli, Ezio must protect Caterina and the town of Forli from an assault. The Orsi brothers are leading the attack and it is up to you to stop them. Things heat up even more when Ezio realises that the attack may have been a decoy set up by the Spaniard in order to get his hands on the Piece of Eden.

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War is AWESOME! Don’t give me that look; you know it’s true. As a video gamer, we know that better than anyone else. Sure there are games like Armed Assault and Operation Flashpoint, which try to show that the battlefield is a brutal and unforgiving place, but thanks to the efforts of games like Call of Duty and Army of Two, we know the truth. War is awesome. You get to kill foreigners (preferably of a different skin colour or at least of a different ethnicity) with tons of cool weapons, you get to go to all of these picturesque locations (and blow them up) and you get to watch huge explosions as the laws of nature bend to slow down time so you can fully appreciate them. There is the slight inconvenience of getting shot, but if you hide behind a table or a rock, your body regenerates and heals itself. What’s not to like about war?

Yes, in case it isn’t obvious, Army of Two: The 40th Day is from the school of stupid when it comes to war. And it seems to be aware of it and remains blissfully uncaring. I guess the developers realised that it isn’t possible to yank the subtlety chain after you have destroyed the entire city of Shanghai in the opening cutscene and decided to just roll with it from there on. And it works, in a way. So we have the two protagonists - Salem and Rios (whose names I had to Google to find out even after finishing the game twice. Yes, the writing and characters are that forgettable), who land in Shanghai on some sort of a mission and some bad guys just happen to start bombing the hell out of the city soon after that. And that’s pretty much it.

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Darksiders isn’t a very original game. Take, for example, the Zelda-like dungeons and equipment, the God of War style finishers, the Soul Reaver-like wings, or the most blatant example a Portal gun that creates, well, portals… I could go on. But that’s really not the point of this review. Sure, the game borrows a lot from other titles, but it does so rather well. It won’t have you screaming “bloody rip-off!” every time you come across a familiar gameplay mechanic, instead it will have you thinking “how do I cross that bloody chasm over there so I can get to that treasure chest?”. Darksiders is the perfect example of why there is nothing wrong with borrowing ideas as long as you make a great game to go along with it. This first effort from developer Vigil Games is surely a promising one and is guaranteed to leave an impression.

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