[Today's article comes from our man in Japan: John Johanas. Japan must be stuck in a time nexus though because it's a review of Dead Space. The nexus is probably making its way across the globe so the rest of us are screwed in a few hours. It took him back 16 months; I hope it takes me back to the early 90's so people stop ridiculing my Zubaz pants]

Alright, so I just played this-BACK THE FUCK OFF OKAY-, and I have to say that Dead Space is the most kick-ass game to ever come out, like ever. Some of my bros told me what kind of hot shit this thing was, and I am here to confirm it. This game is hot shit. So hot, in fact, that my palms are getting sweaty even writing this review!

Dead Space is a balls-out action space shooter. That alone should cause you to shit your pants in excitement. If it wasn’t enough, though I might as well let you in to a secret. Ok, come here … quietly … ok, are ready? Because here it-YOUBLOWTHEFUCKINGARMSANDLEGSOFFALIENBITCHES! Bet that blew your mind huh? They actually tell you NOT to shoot the head. I know that will send a bunch of you bitching, but for those who can grasp it, it is abso-fuckin-lutely ball-bustingly fun. They make this crunch sound, too, it’s really awesome (trust me on this one).

Isaac Clarke: space baller

Let me give you the old Stillman rundown:

When went right: EVERYTHING

What went wrong: NOTHING

There you go, but I might as well elaborate.

Story is in-your-face from the get-go. You (my main man, Isaac) and a couple of other space dudes are out and about for a cruise in deep space when you go respond to some giant drill machine that lost communications. These idiots must have never seen a space movie (or played Dead Space for that matter) because it’s obviously a set up. Big, bad, necro-fuckin-morphs are turning these crazy religious space dudes into wacky knife-hand aliens. Now its up to you, a space engineer with balls so big they don’t even fit in his suit, to make things right. ISAAC’S IN THE HOUSE AND HE’S PLAYING FOR KEEPS!

How do you like your alien? Al dente or extra crispy?

The next 12 hours are you using wacky engineering tools to blow the shit out of those bad dudes. They come from everywhere: air vents, toilet bowls, air vents, the sky, and air vents!

People try to hype this game up as scary, but don’t be a bitch-ass. You KNOW there are crazy alien motherfuckers there, so why are you worrying when they pop out of the roof all of a sudden. Don’t worry, bro, my giant spinning saw blade will show you who’s got the right stuff. BOOYAH!

If you can’t ignore the fact that this game is 99 percent ripped exactly from Resident Evil 4 and Half–life 2, then you are a fool who can’t shut their mouth. I don’t remember either of those games taking place in space. Nor do I remember any knife-hand aliens. You are an idiot and don’t deserve to even open the shrink-wrap on this one.

I really don’t know what else to say besides that this game is da bomb. I should probably stop now or there is fear of massive nut busting in the next few minutes.

[Today's Heavy Rain review comes from John Humphrey Johanas, Esquire, through the teletape from Japan. He freelances for popular gaming blog Backhand of Justice, and also runs a webcam website

This game came with a lot of hype that I chose not to get involved in. All I knew before getting in was that this is supposed to be a ball-busting emotional thriller with more of an emphasis on story and choices than gameplay. The great Luke Stillman even controversially debated with himself over whether or not this is a “game” despite having not played the final retail version! All in all, this looks to be something that is destined to get fucked up.

I’ll give you the bottom line right away: I’d recommend it. Overall, the game kept me entertained to the point where I got all the endings and the story intrigued me enough to even go that far (Let’s forget that trophies are involved). HOWEVER, I’m going to go there and say that this is nowhere near as revolutionary as it was hyped up to be. It does have lots of polish to cover that up, though.

The good

The main draw of Heavy Rain is the plot. In a nutshell, it’s The Bone Collector meets Saw. Nothing incredibly new. We have four characters searching for the elusive Origami Killer (or are they?). There are adult themes (or are they?) and this is supposed to be pretty realistic (I’ll leave that up to you to decide). The whole thing starts solidly and builds from there. I have some gripes about the ending, but the four characters are well developed and the situations can sometimes be very complicated and harsh. The option to have players die and still let the story continue adds another interesting aspect to the gameplay.

Despite this being a good point, I’ll say that the whole thing isn’t as deep as it is being made out to be. I personally never got too attached to the characters and supposedly tear-jerking scenes fell flat to me. I guess I’m the one to blame though, for not being married with children.

Yep ... there's the rain, as advertised. 10/10

The alright

Graphics: Now, it’s hard to argue that the environments are not amazingly detailed. However, it is very plausible to argue that the character models are creepy as hell. While excellently modeled, they sometimes feel like wax figures. And, I think there is something wrong with their eyes. They all look blind or something, based on the way they move. I was surprised that with all the emphasis on the effort made to the faces and expressions, that they could miss the mark so significantly. Final Fantasy XIII accomplished this so much better, even in the case of lip-synching. It’s impressive, no doubt, but downright strange at times.

Voices: Sure they grow on you, but just like the faces there is something a little off about all of them sometimes. Try other languages for more fun!

Choices: The game has a solid mix of excellent, serious choices where one’s moral conscience gets riled up. Those are the good ones. Some of the others are not so interesting. I know that something is better than nothing, and it’s impossible to have EVERY option available to you, but sometimes I felt I was pigeonholed.

Music: It’s great, but a little over the top. When it starts getting epic in a nice fight scene or a critical story moment, it’s fine, but when a hypnotic piano melody breaks out every time I sit in a chair or open a door, it gets kind of ridiculous.

What's that? Why is my face so shiny? I'll tell you, but I have to press square, triangle and waggle the analog stick first

What were they thinking?

The controls: I have no idea who thought the R2 trigger walk mode was a good idea. Not only that, but why can’t any character run? If Ethan were so desperate to save his son, you’d think he would pick up the pace a little. As far as the QTE, what can I say? Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. The scene in the demo when Shelby has to push a three button combination to slide past a dumpster will remain in my mind as one of the silliest moment in gaming.

I would say this is as close as you come to the game/not game line, although sitting somewhere towards the former. It basically is a gimmick game, if you don’t mind me calling it that. Gameplay wise, this isn’t much of a step up from Parappa the Rappa, but not many people will notice that anyway.

Like I said before, I’d recommend this. I enjoyed it, I just can’t help thinking how I enjoyed it so much more 10 years ago when it was called Shenmue.

I have the strange feeling though that this game will not stand the test of time. A plot completely relying on the twist will no doubt diminish in value once everyone knows it. I would strongly suggest getting out there and playing it immediately if you even consider yourself interested. I was thick enough not to see the twist coming my first play through so maybe you won’t either.

And on the subject of the ideal but implausible remakes: Silent Hill 2 on this engine would be unbelievable.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Borderlands. It was the surprise hit of 2009 and the constant trickle of DLC doesn’t hurt in sustaining that trend. While Gearbox’s first two DLC offerings: the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned (incredible) and Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot (terrible) were small in scope, the third is a more significant experience.

What went right

Characters

The story in Borderlands was never more than wafer thin. That being said, the characters were hilarious and well presented. This continues in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx (hereafter referred to as Armory).

Fan favorites such as Scooter the mechanic, Marcus the weaponsmith and Moxxi the, uh, harlot?  – return and are more hilarious than ever.

The real prize here might go to General Knoxx, however, who is a cynical and jaded officer sent in to clean up the mess from the first game. His commanding officer is a 5-year old (damn nepotism) and the radio transmissions from Knoxx to command are beyond hilarious.

In addition, some of the new bosses like Mr. Shank are pure gold, and even the drab Athena (your new ally) transmits messages hidden in advertising streams for a male enhancement product called Engorge.

New guns

Borderlands is all about the guns, and with the level cap increasing to 61, the gun algorithm becomes more powerful. That being said, if you farmed New Haven as extensively as I did, then your level 50 guns are going to hold up through the entire expansion, and if you had some real gems you might not even find a replacement during a single playthrough.

Gearbox has added an additional tier of rarity above ‘legendary’ and while they could have chosen heroic or godlike or something, they went with ‘pearlescent.’ I have not yet seen one of these mammoths but I can only assume when one drops it won’t disappoint.

Moxxi's back with her entourage of ex-husbands. You even get to meet one and Mr. Shank is one of the best characters yet

New enemies

The original Borderlands and even the expansions suffered from a lack of variety in enemies. By the end of the game you were tired of seeing the same skags and bandits over and over again. While Armory suffers from this a little bit, there are several new and interesting foes.

There are the mighty Devastator mechs of the Crimson Lance that look like those stupid mechs from the Matrix sequels. There are skag riders where you can kill the skag but the midget rider hops off to continue the attack. There are the towering strider-esque War of the Worlds enemies.

There are also a substantial number of new Crimson Lance foes such as the pyro, the engineer, the medic and the chemical soldier. There are also Crimson Lance ninja assassins, pesky floating drones and jetpack soldiers.

What really make the new enemies more interesting than the offerings from the original game are that they are more strategic. In Borderlands, I used my ‘best’ gun in pretty much all situations. It was a jack of all trades, and worked equally well against everything. This is not the case in Armory.

I now switch between 3 situational guns, the aforementioned standby, a corrosive weapon for pyro units and machinery and a fire weapon for everything else. Without a balanced arsenal, some enemies are simply too difficult to bring down.

What were they thinking?

Vehicle focus

Armory centers around a massive highway in the desert, and much of the game will be spent in vehicles. While they’re still primarily for fast travel and not so much for combat, it’s curious that Gearbox would take one of the weakest elements of Borderlands and focus in on it. While it’s great that there are now 3 interesting vehicles to choose from instead of the one boring offering from the original, it’s still not ideal.

This is not a driving game, it’s a shooting game, and that should always be the focus. In addition, the fast travel system is gone from the expansion area so you have to drive everywhere, a frequently time consuming process. That being said, the new monster truck with home missiles removes much of the aiming weaknesses from the first game’s vehicle combat, and some of the stunts you can pull off with the racer are incredible.

Beware the Jabberwocky. And the giant Crimson Lance mech suit. The original poem was cut off

Group focus

I realize Borderlands is a group game, and Gearbox wants to encourage group play, but it was nice that you could solo the entire first game. While the standard campaign is still possible to do alone in Armory, there is a new end-game boss called Crawmerax the Invincible who is a level 64 elite. The only way to do this solo is either to play a certain class and spend an hour shooting it, or use a well documented glitch.

Because this boss has the highest % chance by far of dropping the new and highest tier of weapons, players will want to farm it like they did New Haven. Unfortunately, it looks like getting in a group will be required and given the lack of widespread voice chat on the PS3 this is a painful thought.

Difficulty

I farmed New Haven, a town from the original Borderlands, for hours finding the best guns. Because of this, the random weapon generator eventually came up in my favor and I have guns that are hugely overpowered. As a result, I could breeze through the campaign in Armory, tearing through the Crimson Lance in mere seconds.

That being said, if you played the original game once and didn’t spend hours at level 50 beefing up your character, your arsenal is probably insufficient to get through the first couple missions at level 50. At the very least, there will be much dying and respawning involved. Once again, Gearbox has failed to adequately balance the game for the intended levels.

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is the biggest and best DLC thus far released for Borderlands. I had a blast, and laughed out loud at least a dozen times. If you liked Borderlands, you’re going to love Armory. General Knoxx definitely needs a spinoff game.

After only a brief time playing it, I could tell that Final Fantasy XIII will definitely be passionately argued about. How could a game with such budget and hysterical hype live up to the games that came before it? Luckily, it seems as though the production team didn’t seem to concern itself over all of that.

What will shine through (if you can get past somewhat cliché Japanese RPG concepts) is that this game is unique in its own respect, and game play wise, is vastly improved from anything we have seen in the series before.

I’ll skim over the obvious and get to the interesting parts.

More than the sum of its parts?

The Graphics are amazing. Character movements and environments are the finest around bar none and CG almost seems unnecessary. An unbelievable amount of polish gives us a game that will definitely set the standard for a while.

The music is so good that you won’t miss Uematsu or the historic victory theme by the end of the first hour.

Black Friday deals are just as irresistable for evil robots; quick, to the mall!

Gameplay wise, this game has the most intense battle system (and quite possibly the best) so far. The action is fairly similar to the free-flowing battles of FFX-2, but I like to compare it more to a puzzle then just hacking the attack button. This time, characters have their own “job classes” called optimas, of which can be switched around on the fly between preset combinations. Magic and skills rarely cross-class and throughout most of the games, the skills between characters are so varied that everyone has their own purpose. 

A big gripe some people might have is that the player is only in control of the lead character while the computer AI handles the other two characters. Actually, this is for the best since sometime action gets too hectic for even one player let alone three. Plus, the AI is likely better than you are, handing out buffs and health when they are needed. I suppose you can think of them as gambits from FFXII but without you having to set them up.

George Lucas had some Star Wars clones lying around that Square Enix rented to save money on development

The game has a pseudo-autocombat option for yourself as well in which the computer selects for you the most suitable commands.  I would presume this is actually a necessity since combat is so fast that one has to be on edge most of the time, switching between optimas on the fly to go back and forth between healing, attacking, buffing, and defending. Of course you can still command your main character manually if you so desire. This is where the puzzling aspect comes in. While it may be possible to plow your way through enemies only attacking, you won’t be doing it fast. The game ranks each battle on your speed and if you don’t perform up to snuff, your loot will shrink. The fun is figuring out what the quickest way to tackle any fight and who is the best for the job.

With no MP system and your health refilled after every battle, encounters exist in a very temporary environment which gives even more the feel of a ‘give it all you’ve got’ experience.

The game steals the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X and renames it the Chrystallium. It works in the same way but each job class has it’s own series of crystal webs on which to spend points to gain stats and skills. Just like FFX, leveling seems less important since battles continually net upgrades to your characters.

If you look at these aspects, Square-Enix took the best features of previous games and amalgamated them into an amazingly solid system. It’s deep enough that post-game fights will warrant a lot of planning and strategy to win, but easy enough that you don’t have to be fluent in it to finish the story.

Little known fact: This character is not named Snow for his chilly demeanor but rather because he's a snowman who murdered some guy and is wearing his skin like a suit

A controversial new game structure: the giant tube

The biggest issue in the game will no doubt stem from the linearity aspect. Bottom line: a majority of the game is an absolute straight line. The first real ‘dungeon’ where you can potentially go in two directions is potentially only the final one. There is the large area of Gran Pulse roughly three fourths through the game that allows players to tackle some optional missions, but they are actually discouraged. Standard places like revisit-able towns and NPCs with which to speak are nonexistent, and while dialogue exists it is not a focus.

For someone who is still sitting around waiting for their Final Fantasy VII remake, this will obviously be a huge issue and potentially a gamebreaker. For me, I found it great, and it was particularly because of the positives produced from it.

The best part about the linearity is the story. The game starts out somewhere near the middle of the story and subsequently fleshes itself out through flashbacks. Proceed a little further with the story and players are shown more dialogue between characters. This leads to a better opportunity for character development. Without time to goof around, you won’t get lost in ‘what am I supposed to be doing here’ and instead are constantly on the way to your goal.

This is Shiva, one of your summons. She can turn into a motorcycle, which you can then ride into battle. Hey, don't ask me

Paths constantly diverge between characters, and the beginning of the game forces you to use preset groups in order to train you to experiment with everyone. This does double duty story wise of making everyone interact with each other. If you get confused with all the wacky terms thrown around, don’t fret. The game has an internal encyclopedia to detail all aspects of the story and its players.

I might as well say it; the characters are pretty good this time around. While most Final Fantasy games have an overly emotional and whiny protagonist, this iteration takes itself a little more seriously. Lightning is cold, fighter Snow is overly cocky, Sazh is the realist and so on. Even 14-year-old Hope who is already being labeled as the whiny baby is not that bad and winds up having the best one liner in the game along with a hefty summon. Whatever you don’t like about the characters when you first see them winds up changing by the end once they grow, which is a pretty remarkable feat. Overall, they are all likable and well acted (at least in Japanese) so there isn’t much to hate there.

How much you like this game will boil down to how much you like the story. It’s nothing new in terms of rogue group against overall bad dude/world devastation, but at least the presentation is interesting. No major twists or random final bosses come from nowhere (I’m looking at you FFIX), although things start to get convoluted towards the end. It winds up being just as you expected and somehow over fairly quickly despite the storyline taking about 40 hours or so to complete (although the entire sequence of the game takes place over the course of a matter of days). I attribute its brief feel to the fact that the game prohibits you from grinding or doing side quests. When everything is so streamlined the story comes to focus and that’s what it should be all about anyway. Don’t worry about missing anything, either. You can’t even do everything (trophies) until after you finish the game and have seen the ending.

This gentleman has a Chocobo that lives in his afro. They have a symbiotic relationship where the Chocobo subsists off food that falls into his hair, and in return provides valuable grooming services

East vs. West

The fact that Square-Enix has limited the player’s freedom in order to tell the story this time around is exactly the opposite of its predecessor and is a decision that works well in the context of the game. It is a love it or hate it style, though and as I said before, I expect much polarizing Internet rage from this one.

Players must realize that this isn’t a Western RPG, it is the representative Japanese RPG that will probably not change your mind about how the Japanese make their games. If you take this as it is, though, it’s a fantastically well-crafted product that is fun and exciting to play. Square has gone in a brave new direction that succeeds at differentiating this game form the others in an expansive series.

Ok, so maybe Bubble Bobble isn’t in there, but people need to relax and take a step back. Darksiders isn’t just a ‘re-skinning of Zelda,’ it’s a unique product that builds off the success of its predecessors (as do all games). Critics have short changed Darksiders, because it’s one of the best action adventure games in recent memory.

What went right?

Style

You play as War, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, and the story takes place in a post apocalyptic earth inhabited by angels and demons. War has a chunky, powerful look that hints at Joe Madureira’s (the art director) origins in comic books. His giant sword and bulky armor has a Blizzard / Square feel and although sometimes that stands in contrast to War’s swift and fluid motions.

In addition, the environments vary significantly from desert wasteland to eerie gothic cathedral and even ruined urban environments. Enemies are distinct and well defined by their silhouettes, and the giant bosses you occasionally face off against are memorable in appearance.

War’s combo maneuvers look satisfying and effective, and even the cutscenes and menus feel fully integrated into the art style. Do you like the way Warcraft or Diablo looks? Do you like gaslight fantasy? You will love Darksiders.

Combat

What is it with people and ‘button mashing?’ ‘Oh my god that game takes no skill, it’s just a button masher!’ ‘You can’t beat me fairly in Street Fighter 2, you just mash buttons!’ You know what, I love mashing buttons. Not only does the combo system in Darksiders reward button  mashing with fluid combos and impressive weapon sweeps, but adding in secondary weapons and additional abilities adds some depth.

Exhibit 1 shows War stabbing somebody. He will do this during the game many times. He has a stabbing problem and needs community support

In addition, your horse (Ruin) adds some great horseback combat in certain scenes that is a welcome change of pace. There are also ‘finishing moves’ for each enemy when you get them below 1/3 of their health that allows you to finish them in one hit with a brief canned animation. While they are somewhat simplistic, and sometimes you see the same one ten times in a row, they are extremely well integrated into the combat. Not only can you begin them at any time (even mid sword swipe), but they aren’t wholly distinct actions and while you’re performing the killing animations your sword sweeps can hit other enemies. You aren’t taken out of the game world.

Furthermore, there are two additional resources that add choices to the combat. The first are wrath abilities which are the equivalent of magic, and can either do direct damage or increase your armor etc. Finally, there is ‘chaos form,’ which is where occasionally you can change into this ridiculous flame demon for a brief time where you’re invulnerable and do absurd damage. I cannot reiterate enough how this requires no skill and completely breaks the game especially when you use it on a boss and wtfpwn them in ten seconds, but it’s so satisfying each time.

There is this hilarious delay after you trigger it where War transforms into this full screen demon where you get to anticipate what’s coming. Even better is that many of the later enemies react to your transformation (although with less horror than they probably should) and just makes it that much more satisfying. Every game needs chaos form. Even Tetris. It’s the greatest game mechanic ever conceived.

Storyline

I’m not going to lie: the story in Darksiders is pretty thin. That doesn’t change the fact that it has one of the greatest final ten seconds of any game ever made. If you were at all excited about the game, and can see the potential that Vigil has unlocked with this initial effort, then you can’t help but find the ending to be incredible.

They have set up the perfect sequel, and introduced an idea that everybody with any sense was thinking about during their playthrough. I completed the game and then went back and watched the final ten seconds on YouTube about 10 times just to appreciate just how great it was. Well played.

This demon, while giant, is unfortunately mere fodder for War the unstoppable dynamo

What were they thinking?

Lack of debris

You’d really think the apocalypse would have more trash. The world of Darksiders is oddly sparse, and even more curious is that Vigil first puts you in one of the worst environments. Most developers like to start on a strong point, but Darksiders looked terrible right at the start with simple burnt out car models and empty streets and developed into a brilliant postapocalyptic fantasy playground.

Boss patterns

I realize this game took a lot of cues from Zelda, but boss fights were one area where they might have considered real innovation. The bosses are visually impressive but boil down to pattern recognition. Only two of the 8 or 10 boss fights utilize the game’s combat system, and it’s no fluke that those are the most satisfying.

The boss fights could also have used some more epic orchestral soundtracks. Or at least use the Mortal Kombat theme song for every boss fight. That would have made this game of the year.

This thing on the right is War's chaos form. This thing on the left is a demon meeting the chaos form for the first time. $50 on the chaos form, I'll give 10-1 odds

Environment traversal

Vigil wanted to sell Darksiders as an open world game, but it’s not really open world. While there are convenient teleportation locations that speed up travel time significantly, they are too few and far between to make backtracking to a specific location to search for items anything other than a chore.

In addition, the minimap has a woefully small view range and makes frequently consulting the cumbersome map a necessity.

Confusing puzzles

Some of the Darksiders puzzles are great with elegant solutions. Some, on the other hand, aren’t intuitive and have few cues to clue you into what you’re supposed to do. In addition, some of the later puzzle sequences go on a little too long. That being said, many of the puzzles build on skills you’ve been taught previously in the game and give you a clear sense of progression.

These shortcomings of Darksiders are small and niggling, and for good reason: Darksiders is a high quality game. It is fun and just the right length. It has great set pieces and interesting environments. Its combat is fun and its ending is one of the finest in any game.

While Darksiders won’t have the impact of a classic Zelda game back when they were still innovative, it builds on and adds to the experience to the point where ex-nostalgia it is likely the best Zelda game of all time. Darksiders won’t be game of the year. I probably won’t play it again. But it’s a fun romp that is more than worth 12 or 14 hours of your time.

Also: chaos form. The defense rests.

What went right?

Free Running

Free running, or Parkour (Italian for ‘awesome’), is what makes this game great. You play as Ezio Auditore, and his ability to run, leap and scramble up and down buildings and across rooftops is impressive.

Movement in open world games has frequently fallen into two categories: either it is far too restrictive and cumbersome to get around or it is far too easy and everything is mindlessly streamlined. Assassins Creed II finds the perfect compromise between the two. It is simple enough to traverse the landscape while holding the high profile action buttons, but at the same time you can’t just press up and ‘climb’ to scramble up facades. You have to actively search for handholds to maneuver around.

Water, once the only natural predator of the Assassin, has finally been neutralized! I'm pretty sure the story arc is setting water up to be the force behind the Templars

While Ezio is fairly sticky in terms of grabbing onto nearby ledges, it’s the ability of the engine to interpret what you’re attempting to accomplish that completes the experience. Instead of grabbing every ledge, Ezio will for the most part leap to your target on command. Rarely did I find myself leaping to my death accidentally (only when I intentionally jumped but didn’t look to see if there was a building below me) and similarly you can fall as far as you want in one go and don’t have to laboriously drop from ledge to ledge to move downward.

Finally, the animations are stunning and Ezio never grabs a climbing point that does not exist. Every time he places his hand, it’s on a ledge or a windowsill or something plausible. He also rarely makes superman jumps to the extent that Nathan Drake does in Uncharted 2. I would have paid full price for an Italian Parkour simulator; everything else fun in AC2 is gravy.

Assassinations

The title alone would suggest that assassinations are important to the gameplay; fortunately they don’t disappoint. Most of the game gives you free reign over how you want to approach an assassination. You can go for the generic ‘stab in the face’ technique or the air assassination. You can pull a target off the roof of a building or hide in a haystack and stab them as they pass.

This isn’t even considering any of the non-hidden blade weapon types available to you, all of which have unique and breathtaking animations. Even the assassinations I’d seen many times before remained fresh and entertaining, and towards the end of the game I was discovering new animations I hadn’t previously seen.

One segment in the game teaches Ezio how to appreciate beauty. You have to watch the sunset for 35 minutes real time. Ok, I kid. It's 15 minutes, max

This doesn’t even touch on the combat, which is amply varied. You can use standard attacks. You can grab enemies and throw them through breakable objects. You can disarm the enemy, or counter their attack as they strike. You can throw dust into their eyes or use a smoke bomb to stun them. You can shoot them from afar with throwing knives or a rudimentary pistol. You can distract them with hired courtesans, mercenaries or thieves and then execute them from behind.

The range is mind boggling and while the fights are slower and more deliberate, AC2 rivals Batman for most compelling combat mechanics due to its finishing moves alone.

Stealth

I’m not going to pretend that this game is Metal Gear Solid. The stealth mechanics aren’t integral and it’s easy enough to go through the game with your sword at the ready, mowing down legions of guards. That being said, there are some fantastic moments when you are surrounded by 20 guards, drop a smoke bomb and race up the front of a building. You drop out of sight of the guards and manically search for a hiding spot to evade them before they find you again and pelt you with arrows and stones.

While you’re never really in danger, it’s fun when you’re forced into scrambling across rooftops recklessly and occasionally missing a ledge vs. the usual more measured and cautious running tempo.

You'd think after this guy watches me murder 50 of his friends he'd be less cavalier about attacking

Atmosphere

This is a beautiful game, and although there are pop-in issues, Ubisoft’s recreation of Renaissance Florence and Venice is lifelike. Despite its massive size, it’s not that repetitive. Sure, some of the towers are clones of each other, but each district has its own distinctive feel and I started to recognize familiar landmarks and identify the quickest escape routes when the guards caught on to my stabby ways.

Eat your heart out Batman

Pimp my home

Money is fairly abundant in the world of AC2. Fortunately, there is something to do with it beyond purchasing weapons and armor. You receive a (run-down) villa early in the game and to be honest it looks like a piece of crap. Vines and dirt cover the exterior, and the town in which it resides (your family’s land) is for the most part abandoned.

As you pump money into renovating the town, not only does it start to open up and offer you discounts at the local stores, but everything starts to look shinier. In addition, tax revenues periodically fill your coffers, and your early investments are more than repaid over time.

One mission tasks Ezio with finding delightful flowers for a gala he's hosting. Ok, not really. Unless gala is slang for face stabbing

What were they thinking?

Assassins Creed II: Fish Monsters

I don’t know who was in charge of character models, especially that of the women, but they have this horrendous fish-monster thing going on. One character in particularly clearly grew up in Chernobyl as her mouth is quite simply the gaping maw of hell. Imagining that she might be real is terrifying.

Story

The story in AC2 has high ambition, and while it may have helped if I played the previous AC game instead of just reading the Wikipedia plot summary, I’m pretty sure it would have been crap and cliché regardless. Fortunately, the story gives you just enough incentive to fulfill the missions and experience the gameplay.

House call

While your villa periodically receiving money is a great mechanic, you have to return to the villa to collect the revenues. While this might have been ok if you could go back when you chose, your villa can only hold about 80 minutes of tax revenues and so you’re forced to return to your villa at a minimum every hour and a half if you don’t want to waste periodic inflows.

In addition, you can only change your weapons and armor at your villa. Unfortunately, when you purchase new weapons or armor pieces they are automatically equipped. Because I had the best armor and weapons about 60% of the way through the game, I was forced to return to the villa to change back into the best equipment each time I purchased some of the lesser items just to complete my collection. Considering the stores next to my villa offered the greatest discounts, I did most of my shopping nearby. It was still inconvenient.

Assassins Creed II Hot Coffee mod. AO Rating

Reactive combat (especially with swords)

While the combat is exquisitely animated, it is somewhat reactive. The best moves come from countering your enemy’s attacks, and so sometimes I found myself standing around surrounded by a dozen enemies waiting for one to strike so that I could counter and horrifically murder them.

In addition, many weapon types have special ‘charge up’ attacks which are fun to perform. Unfortunately, the sword is not one of them. What makes this disappointing is that the best weapon in the game is a sword, so you’re forced to choose between quality and combat enjoyment.

Replay story missions

You can replay any past mission that you have completed at any point in the game. Of course, ‘any past mission’ means any non-story mission, so some of the best missions are inaccessible once you complete them. This means you only get one playthrough of some of the best and most unique missions, a disappointing choice by Ubisoft.

Assassins Creed II is the last major release of the year, and fortunately Ubisoft saved the best for last. This is certainly the best open world game of all time, and one of the greatest games I’ve had the privilege of playing this year. Unless you have a phobia of humanoid fish people (in which case you’ll be terrified by this game), go pick up Assassins Creed II.

If you’re not yet sold, consider this: you can both hug Leonardo Da Vinci, and beat up the Pope. SOLD!

I have long considered Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn to be the finest offline RPG. Bioware seamlessly streamlined the unwieldy Dungeons & Dragons rule set into a beginner friendly game system and layered a still impressive and non-linear story over the top. The scope of the game was unlike anything experienced up to that point, and it has long been the barometer against which all CRPGs are judged.

It is surprising then that I can claim without hesitation that Dragon Age: Origins is better in nearly every respect. The only checkbox in the Shadows of Amn column is that it had Minsc (which was nearly enough for it to keep its title of greatest ever according to my ‘Minsc is God’ adage).

There are a surprisingly small number of dragons considering it's their age. It should have been the Hurlock or Giant Spider Age

What went right?

Combat: Combat in Baldur’s Gate had so many problems. It was stilted, it was uninvolved and sometimes I had to depend on glitch solutions to tough fights instead of strategy. While not everything has been fixed, combat in Dragon Age has adopted many combat mechanics from MMORPGs and it is a big step forward.

First and most important is the aggro mechanic long used in MMOs incorporated in Dragon Age. Functionally this means that enemies will attack the player they deem to be the greatest threat (usually the one doing the most damage to them). Warriors have talents to gain the attention of enemies, and therefore battles take on a more traditional tank / healer / DPS dynamic vs. the free for all battles from Baldur’s Gate. I hardly ever felt like battles were spiraling out of my control, and effective use of crowd control abilities can transform a seemingly unwinnable battle into a manageable affair.

In addition, abilities are no longer limited by resting; they’re limited by a mana/stamina system and cooldowns. In Baldur’s Gate, there was no incentive to do anything but use abilities as fast as possible. In Dragon Age, especially in larger fights, there is a big tradeoff between resource management, cooldown management and threat management.

Furthermore, while many of the boss battles are reminiscent of MMO raid bosses in their infancy, heavy on ‘tank and spank’ fight types, there are a few that are more detailed and become pattern management more than fighting a big life bar. Finally, there are few ‘game changing’ abilities like Greater Whirlwind or Dragon’s Breath from Baldur’s Gate that are simply superior to everything else and my active ability repertoire was quite extensive by the end of the game.

Comrades: A significant improvement in Dragon Age is the party system. No longer are you forced to choose between interesting companions. You now take them all with you in a Final Fantasy esque manner, and can substitute them in and out as you choose. Most importantly, they receive the full experience that you’re gaining even when they’re not in your party, so even if you don’t use them for a while they’re never underpowered.

More significantly, each has their own distinct personality and their spontaneous interactions with your other companions are hilarious and fascinating. While in Baldur’s Gate you could annoy your party members to the point of leaving you, it was almost impossible to do unintentionally. In Dragon Age, on the other hand, there is incentive to create a harmonious party as companions gain abilities the more they like you.

Finally, there is significance to your decisions both for party members and in general that isn’t seen in most games. You can get in disagreements with your companions to the point that you fight and kill them. If you do so, they’re gone forever. You can disagree with them on a decision so important that they leave you, forever. In addition, no matter how much you think you’re not going to be interested in a character, give them a chance and they will grow on you.

The blood in the game can be a bit over the top. Bioware should have done more market research by murdering some hobos

Choices: I have long claimed that realistic moral choices in games were a pipe dream.  I was way off base. There are many decisions in Dragon Age, but no ‘right’ decisions. Even games like Bioshock that claim there is a fair tradeoff between the good and bad choices, the game betrays that promise in the end when one path is revealed as superior.

In Dragon Age, on the other hand, there are over a dozen significant gameplay decisions where I still don’t know whether I did the right thing. I don’t even think there was a right thing, there are only different things. While the broad strokes of the game would be the same on a second playthrough, choosing a different origins story and different solutions to game problems would create a significantly different experience.

Story: Don’t listen to critics saying ‘the story is cliché and repetitive, it’s just a Lord of the Rings spinoff!’ Have these critics ever played a Middle Ages era fantasy RPG? That’s like saying ‘Battlestar Galactica is just a cheap Star Trek rip-off because they both take place in space, in the future, with aliens!’ While I would struggle to find flaws in your argument if you want to make it, I believe that interesting stories are in the details and not solely in the setting.

It is in the details where Dragon Age excels. The origins mechanic where you start the game in one of six potential scenarios all feel completely different, but as you progress through the game you realize they’re fully consistent with the game world. You will encounter each race and player type and realize how your experiences coming to terms with the game world correctly set your expectations for how NPCs will react down the line.

The only thing the Ogre can't understand ... is love

Open-ended: I’m not going to pretend that Dragon Age is non-linear. It has a very traditional area system where each area has an overarching quest but you can tackle the areas in the order of your choosing.

That being said, there are huge dungeons to explore, and significant chunks of them are not necessary to progress. While you’re going to run into enough of the optional segments just wandering around looking for the next area, there are also times when you find the exit door and choose to backtrack to that fork in the road and see what you missed. Frequently it’s more than just trash monsters and there’s a minor quest or named enemy you almost skipped.

Customization: While Dragon Age doesn’t have more customization than the Baldur’s Gate games, and certainly no more than most MMOs, the loss of the D&D license was for Bioware a blessing in disguise. While there were many aspects of the D&D ruleset that were impenetrable unless you cracked out the rulebook, everything in Dragon Age is clear and progressive.

You choose an overarching skill area such as damage spells or control spells as a mage, or tanking vs. DPS as a warrior, and then there is a clear connection from weaker abilities in a 4 ability tree to stronger abilities. At no point do you encounter non-sequitur skills. If you take the weaker frost spell skills, it unlocks the stronger frost skills. Given Bioware games’ inability to respec, knowing what you’re getting into is a welcome development.

Presentation: If a character is more than throwaway place filler, and they have dialogue trees, their lines are fully voiced. While your character is silent, the voice acting for the NPCs is fantastic. A few of the conversations are cliché, but for the most part the emotion really comes through and adds to the experience.

The dwarves, surprisingly enough, live underground and are miners and blacksmiths, a substantial departure from prevous dwarven lore

What were they thinking?

Imbalanced: Some of the combat mechanics in Dragon Age are imbalanced to say the least. While a well rounded group is necessary, all that really means is you’re going to need a mage, the big hitter of the party. Combat assignments usually went something along the lines of ‘warrior 1, you take that guy, warrior 2, you take that guy, healer … heal, and mage, you handle those 18 guys over there.’

Some spells, such as cone of cold, are so overpowered you wonder if Bioware even tested them. It ‘freezes’ enemies in its radius, completely incapacitating them with a near 100% success rate. Any enemy can be frozen up to and including the final boss. The effect lasts for 5-6 seconds, and the cooldown on the spell is barely longer than that, so as long as mana remains you can keep a boss permanently frozen. Obviously this makes fights far easier.

In addition, area of effect spells are so powerful that I could frequently kill 10 or 12 enemies in a pack before they even reached me using a combination of damage over time and knockdown effects. I imagine the developers thought friendly fire on mage spells would prevent their abuse, but I rarely found it to be a problem.

Mage vs. melee ... in Dragon Age this fight is no contest

Copout: In a game all about choices and living with the consequences of your decisions, it is frustrating that Bioware chose to implement a gift system with your companions. Small decisions increasingly annoy some party members, decreasing their affinity towards you. To counteract this, you can give them huge numbers of trivial gifts to move them back into the friendly category.

While there are some story-related gifts that make sense in context, I question how many throwaway trinkets a companion really wants before they stop caring. Also, why would a character that hates me want to accept a gift from me in the first place? The system is only slightly redeemed by different gifts being more appropriate and having a greater effect on certain characters compared to others, adding a marginal layer of realism and complexity.

Difficulty curve: It’s likely that Bioware didn’t play through this game too many times, because the difficulty is greatly skewed from beginning to end. In the early parts of the game, I found myself struggling with most of the fights and a few of my characters would die each time even on the ‘normal’ settings. Later in the game, however, I would power through all but boss fights as I had become an unstoppable juggernaut. There was a real difference between fights before and after you have a well equipped healer and tank in your party.

In addition, while the mechanic where your dead (unconscious) party members resurrect automatically at the end of the fight was a great one, the regeneration rate of your health, mana and stamina between fights is frustratingly slow. I didn’t want to progress until at full strength, so most of the time I would just sit around. It’s not like there’s the risk that enemies will stumble upon you when you’re still weak, there were no mobile foes. Sometimes I would make a sandwich while waiting the 60-90 seconds for my bars to fully refill.

Finally, potions make the fights trivial as long as you have enough of them. In most MMORPGs, the cooldowns are such that they become emergency use only items. In Dragon Age, on the other hand, they can fill in for a healer entirely as you commonly pick up potions from trash mobs potent enough to refill your entire health bar.

This was, at least for me, by far the hardest battle in the game. And it is also extremely early on. I had to use the 'run in circles like a baby' technique

Crafting: Dragon Age has an extensive crafting system, with recipes and reagents required to create what turn out to be very helpful items. Unfortunately, the requirements are far too high and reagents far too difficult to find. I focused in herbalism to create potions for my characters, but ended up never making anything. While I could find potions off monsters left and right for free, creating just one comparable item required four reagents and an expensive recipe. It just wasn’t worth it.

Rushed ending: It’s clear that despite the delay in the game’s release date, Bioware was rushed to get the game out the door. The first 80% of the game feels well paced and epic. Once you begin the final sequence, however, it feels like everything happens too quickly and some of that ‘grand final encounter’ feeling is lost.

Tactics system: The tactics system for your party is helpful in theory, allowing you to set up situation contingent actions for your party members to minimize micromanagement. In practice, I still told them what to do most of the time. Unfortunately, once you’ve given a single command such as ‘attack this enemy,’ they won’t do anything else until that enemy is dead. There should be a ‘return to scripted action’ button, or something along those lines. I would frequently forget my healer wasn’t automatically healing until after it was too late.

Quest confusion: The quest system could have been significantly streamlined. You pick up multiple quests along the way, but the journal merely records actions you’ve taken instead of clearly delineating what needs to be done. It’s easy to forget what the mage guild is asking you to do, and it’s frustrating to re-read a multi-paragraph summary instead of scanning a bullet point that says ‘kill this man.’

Dragon Age is an epic game. I didn’t go out of my way to finish every quest, and there were four or five non-trivial ones that I passed over. Even so, the game took me over 40 hours to complete. This isn’t a measure of the Final Fantasy ‘grind for 20 hours in the same place with random encounters’ filler length, either. While there are extensive dungeon crawls, there are no random enemies and all actions contribute to progression.

The dialogue is the most involved of any RPG to date, and the satisfaction gained from conquering some of the later multi stage scripted boss fights is incredible. I felt a connection with my character by the end of the game, and would love to see where his adventures next take him.

Hopefully that is wherever Minsc is. That is potentially the only addition to this game that would make it even more epic. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

Imagine waking up on Christmas morning. It’s early and nobody’s awake, so you sneak down to check out the tree. Lo and behold, presents everywhere! Now, imagine that those presents are Skags, viciously snapping at your heels. Instead of Christmas morning, it’s the future and you’re in a post apocalyptic wasteland, and there are guns, and bandits … you know what, this metaphor is terrible. Long story short: Borderlands is an incredible and addicting game.

Borderlands seamlessly merges first person shooting with role playing mechanics into a package that is the best and most addictive game I’ve played in some time. The ‘just one more gun’ mechanics will draw you into the game and the solid shooting and co-op tomfoolery will keep you there for a good long while.

If you like shooters, you must play Borderlands. If you like RPGs, you must play Borderlands. If you only play Spider Solitaire between phone calls, you must play Borderlands. [For all ‘X’, ‘X must play Borderlands.’]

What went right?

Progression: Most reviews are going to focus on the guns of Borderlands, or the graphical style, or the shooting mechanics; don’t worry, I’ll get to those. The real jewel in the crown of Borderlands, however, is the sense of progression. RPGs have always had character development, but previous ‘role playing shooters,’ such as System Shock 2 or Bioshock, did not include significant increases in power. Sure, you add plasmids and gain additional health, but the splicer that could kill you at the beginning of the game could still kill you at the end (if you’re grossly incompetent).

In Borderlands there are no such worries about lowly starting level Skags. Occasionally for sport I’d shoot one for 100x their health, but usually I let them nip at my heels as I ignore them. Go find a low level player, foolish Skag! You continuously pass through low level areas during the game while returning to towns, and it really gives you perspective on how far you’ve come. In most shooters, weapons remain the same with the same old damage even at the end. In Borderlands, however, you inherently grow in power outside of equipment and there’s nothing more satisfying than encountering a frustrating enemy from a few levels back and one-shotting them in their stupid face.

Second Wind: Another great mechanic in Borderlands is the ‘second wind’ effect: once you die, you have a short period of time to kill an enemy in order to resurrect yourself with low health but a full shield. While it can be frustrating to die with nobody around, or while fighting a boss who has far too much health to kill before you bleed out, but there are an equal number of moments where you are brought down by an enemy with a sliver of health remaining and you catch him in the back as he retreats towards cover, saving you time and money. I had one fight with six separate second winds, and the frenetic rhythm of some of the battles with repeated deaths and resurrections is exhilarating.

Skags: the only natural enemy of the Borderlands player

Guns: Here we finally are – the guns! Don’t worry, they do not disappoint. The variety of guns is perhaps not quite as great as the developers make out given they mostly share a dozen or so stats and weapon models, but the combinations create nearly infinite variations. The functional difference between the guns is primarily due to what class you choose, be it pistol, shotgun or sniper rifle etc. as well as which elemental damage and other statistics you go for. Most of the excitement isn’t so much associated with the guns themselves, but for the childlike glee that comes from opening a weapon chest and hoping to find a purple (epic) or orange (legendary) weapon. Sure, it’s mostly vendor trash, but once in a while …

Customization: The game makes quite a big deal of its ’87 bazillion guns,’ but the gun you choose is but a small part of your character’s identity. The skill trees for each player are varied and the choices you make really do adjust the strengths and weaknesses of each character. There are class modifications and grenade modifications that can adjust magazine size, weapon damage type, whether your grenades damage enemies or heal you etc.

Style: Yeah yeah, you all know about the graphical style, but the world of Borderlands is more than just guns, and most of the characters are zany and completely over the top. Boss freeze-frame introductions and enemy comments are some of the little touches that transform otherwise faceless foes into memorable encounters.

My name's Brick. I like easy listening music, bowling and PUNCHING PEOPLE IN THEIR FACES RAAAAAAAAARGH!

What were they thinking?

Slowdown: There is some unforgivable frame rate loss on consoles when the action on screen becomes hectic. This is mostly when you shoot a squid-like insect worm in his fat face and the bloodsplosion and particle effects along with a giant ‘CRITICAL’ word flash up on screen, dropping playability to zero. While it is sometimes amusing to get a still image confirmation of the no-doubt horrendous damage you just inflicted on some poor innocent squid-worm, it would be nice if everything was tuned to the hardware’s limitations.

Repetitiveness: I understand that it’s tough to introduce more variability than ’87 bazillion guns,’ but every town pretty much looks the same, every human enemy until the very end of the game looks the same, and I can practically count the number of separate ‘enemy types’ there are with one hand. Was it too much to ask for different map tilesets, or a couple enemies that weren’t just Skags with poison/fire etc.? I am grasping at straws here somewhat, but what do you want from me? The game is amazing and this is the negative section of the review.

IN THE FACE!

Disorientation: Modern games have come up with a useful invention: guidelines on where to go. While there is a diamond on your compass that shows you the general direction, sometimes that leads you to the opposite side of an impassable wall from your objective, and you have to circle around the entire map. I found myself opening the interface constantly to make sure I was going in the right direction and either an onscreen minimap or a Dead Space-esque quest line would have been immensely appreciated.

Borderlands is not without weaknesses. The slowdown likely can’t be fixed given console hardware limitations. The co-op mode really needs a trading interface, and having to look at the ground to pick anything up is fiddly. These are trivial in comparison with the ridiculously addictive gameplay mechanics on offer in Borderlands. I wanted to exclude the negatives section from this review, but I haven’t yet received my duffel bag of cash from Gearbox yet (seriously Gearbox, what’s the holdup?).

If you have an especially addictive personality, you might actually want to stay away from Borderlands. Or at least get a few weeks of snacks ready before you start so you don’t starve to death. I suppose being addicted to a videogame is a little better for your health in the long run than being addicted to most other things.

Don’t miss this instant classic. Now excuse me, I’m off to settle an old score with Skagzilla.

I wanted to like this game. I love the adulation of heavy metal music and the simultaneous reverence and lightheartedness with which the game treats its narrative and characters. I was even on board with Jack Black. I was rooting for you, Tim Schafer.

The bottom line, however, is that this game just isn’t fun to play at any point. While there are brief highlights, this is a clumsily executed disaster which was only as glorified as it was because of its creator and cast list. It is an unfortunate fact that adventure games, with their threadbare gameplay mechanics, might be the only genre at which the creative and charming Mr. Schafer can excel.

Brutal Legend is a short game, and it might be worth renting it to see the inspired character and environment design and listen to some of the genuinely hilarious dialogue. If there’s a good YouTube compilation video out there, however, you’re probably better off with that.

What I Liked

Characters: Before Brutal Legend’s release, the largest area of concern was whether Jack Black would be able to integrate himself into the world. Would it become a constant distraction, with Eddie Riggs constantly shouting ‘Nachoooooo?’ That’s why it’s remarkable that Jack Black is possibly the best part of the whole package. Eddie Riggs is convincing, charming and hilarious. Jack Black imbues him with a personality that is at once ridiculous and easy to identify with. 

Complementing Riggs are a host of amusing sidekicks and adversaries whose dialogue is limited but never trying. Even while accomplishing fairly mundane tasks such as driving from one location to another, there is frequently a conversation with another character that is laugh out loud funny.

Soundtrack: Heavy Metal music does not frequently hit the top 10 list these days. It’s out of fashion, and not just by a year (decade) or two. That being said, its themes resonate with popular fantasy tropes and it never feels out of place in the world of Brutal Legend. Not only is there a constant stream of heavy metal emanating from the radio in ‘The Deuce,’ your car, but the action is punctuated with expertly scored cut scenes. It is clear that this music inspired the game and even if you’re not a fan, it never becomes offensive and might even convert you.

BEHOLD! My reaction to the game

World Design: Brutal Legend is like a heavy metal Mario Land in 3-D. Instead of bizarre pipes and other random crap coming out of the ground, however, the world is filled with massive car parts, skull piles and mastodon bones. It is equally outlandish as the Mushroom Kingdom, but has a solidity and consistency to it that makes it feel alive and real. The world is composed of multiple areas, although the transitions are never jarring and nothing feels out of place. You never feel like you’ve been teleported somewhere else.

What were they thinking?

Real time strategy mechanics: It’s generally a bad sign when none of the positive elements of a game involve gameplay, and Brutal Legend is no exception. Real time strategy has never been effectively streamlined for console controls, and this isn’t the game to crack the code. There are too many problems to list, so instead I’m going to mention a few negative anecdotes. They all stem from the fact that you can’t control your units globally; they have to be in voice range of Riggs (or your equivalent leader, if you’re playing online).

This might have created the interesting experience of being a field general with limited lines of communication, but instead your units just get lost on the field. There is a strict unit cap and many times units will inexplicably end up on one side of the map so that they’re both useless and occupying valuable cap space. There is a ‘summon all units’ guitar solo, but in my experience this only worked for existing units on the field and not just new units about 50% of the time. In addition, there’s no minimap so it’s difficult to find lost units without wandering aimlessly while the enemy pushes forward.

When I do this, you guys go nutshit crazy on whatever I'm pointing at. In this case, I'm pointing at Tim Schafer for making this game

Furthermore, while there is a strict rock paper scissors mechanic in the game, there is no way to destroy existing units if you’re strategically misallocated. Sometimes you know you’re mismatched against the enemy and have to merely send your existing units to die before you can replace them. This results in the best strategy frequently being to just rush at the opposing stage with your leader and initial army as interim strategic adjustments are near impossible.

Pathfinding: The pathfinding in this game is goddamn awful. The only time in which it functions within the realm of reasonable expectations is when there is a direct and open line from where your unit is, to where it’s trying to go. During one of the later story missions, there is a narrow bridge between you and the enemy army. My entire force could not manage to progress across this bridge, even after I separated them out into individual groupings. By the end, I considered burning my entire apartment down just to ensure the PS3 and Brutal Legend disc was destroyed. I settled on trying to lure the enemy across the bridge myself, dying several times in the process.

Here is Eddie Riggs cutting some throats. If only he could have done this to me on the install screen to save me some frustration

Pacing: Brutal Legend a short game (unless you try to find every collectible), and the pacing feels all wrong. The first half is a slow build and then the second half is a speedy race to the abrupt conclusion of the story. It almost feels like the developers ran out of time and just decided to end the story. There is a central antagonist for most of the game but instead of a massive crusade against him, the meat of the game involves infighting, and your campaign against the evil overlord lasts all of five minutes. When the credits roll, you will likely be dissatisfied, and the multiplayer is centered on problem numero uno: the RTS mechanics.

Brutal Legend was one of my most anticipated games this year. Potentially that’s because I had only played Tim Schafer’s old catalogue and not Psychonauts, but I had faith that a full team could create compelling gameplay dynamics. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and no matter how much I want to sugarcoat the experience, it’s terrible all around. Its minor positives are hugely outweighed by the frustrating mechanics, and you’re better off giving this one a pass. Buy the soundtrack instead.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is like a Michael Bay film: you correctly anticipate every plot twist and the characters are one-dimensional archetypes yet despite that you still have a great time. You know Nathan Drake. You know Elena, Sully and Lazarevic; you can probably recite their lines for them. This is a pulp adventure serial come to life, only this time you get to take the reins and save the day.

Uncharted 2 is a brilliantly executed game fleshed out into an engrossing experience through the tiny oft-overlooked details, whether it’s the characters’ lifelike body language, Drake’s running banter or the way your clothes get wet when you take a swim. The combat is smooth and well executed, the gameplay is varied and the pacing is rarely too slow or too frenetic. Finally, the comedic vein that infuses the whole experience is charming.

Among Thieves is not a perfect game. There are minor control issues, the action set pieces can be a bit much and there are minor checkpoint annoyances. That being said, if you own a PS3, you can’t go wrong with Uncharted 2.

What went right?

Story: It is ridiculous how cliché the plot of Uncharted is, and how each character is lifted straight from Indiana Jones. That being said, the narrative moves along at a speedy clip and keeps your attention relentlessly focused on the next goal. Locales change rapidly; you really feel like you’re on a globe trotting adventure. What truly makes the game special, however, is the characters. The dialogue is witty and endearing, the villains are believable, and wandering around listening to Drake’s stream of consciousness is delightful. I think the final lines were the most amusing of the whole game and I for one can’t wait to revisit the cast in another adventure. Hopefully a Victor Sullivan spin-off: “From Port to Port.”

Gameplay: Run & gun, cover based shooter, stealth-action game, platformer, rails shooter, puzzle game. I’m not referring to multiple games. Every one of these game mechanics is included in Uncharted, but the real magic is how they are all knit together into a cohesive whole. Jumping between these styles feels natural as they’re integrated into the narrative. The pacing is superb throughout and you’re never burnt out after too many arena gun battles, jumping puzzles or stealth sequences in a row. The only thing missing from this game is inventory management and a leveling system, which I hear is being incorporated into Uncharted 3: Origins.

I said I wanted this place clean when I came back! Now we're going to have problems.

Combat: Gone are the enemies from Drake’s Fortune that I believe were called the T-1000. While these are still videogame enemies, they don’t suck up 100 bullets before death (maybe only 5 or 6 this time). Another step forward from the original Uncharted is in the variety of enemy. It’s now greater than ‘Pirate’ and ‘Bandana Pirate.’ Mr. Riot Shield, Sir Body Armor and Mean Mr. Gatling Gun make an appearance, along with the classic Demon Yeti. This isn’t even mentioning helicopters, tanks or collapsing buildings (the only natural enemy of Nathan Drake). Finally, Drake has been going to the gym and has greatly expanded his stealth repertoire with a variety of silent hooks, jabs and neck snaps.

Graphics: I don’t want to make too big a deal of this because I’m firmly in the ‘gameplay, not graphics’ camp, and this game can be hit and miss with the character models and environments in some places looking just great, not spectacular. That being said, when everything comes together as it does in mountain villages or ice caves, for example, this is the best looking game ever made. There were two or three (or ten) moments where I was literally exclaiming ‘holy shit’ while alone in my apartment. The neighbors have installed an extra lock on their door.

Humor: There are many funny little touches in Uncharted 2, but the best of all is Drake’s journal. The margin notes and comments Drake has added to the clues he finds are side-splitting and in keeping with his personality. Naughty Dog should branch out into travel book writing.

Hey check it out, I'm going to make this look as stylish as possible! Time to turn the gun sideways

What were they thinking?

Checkpoints: Among Thieves is great at not forcing you to replay completed segments of the game, with one notable exception: the ‘arena battles.’ These are where you walk into a large area and have to kill several waves of enemies before progressing. While these are fun gameplay segments, sometimes it’s frustrating when you kill 19 out of the 20 enemies and then accidentally fall off a cliff and the autosave restarts you at the beginning of the arena. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of any indication of which falls you can survive and which you can’t. It is merely a binary value: either you are completely fine on landing, or the jump was two feet too far and you instantly die on impact. Enjoy fighting those demon yetis again.

Getting Lost: While Uncharted 2 is a linear experience, there are a few segments where I was hopelessly unsure of where to go. I would wander around climbing bookcases and abandoned cars until the helpful tooltip appeared that told me to climb the street sign. While this may merely be a symptom of my crippling incompetence, it would have been helpful to have less subtle lighting cues pointing towards where to go next.

If i move very very slowly I don't think they'll even notice I'm here. If I can't see them they can't see me right?

Jumping Puzzles: These are generally pretty good, and Nathan is adept at grabbing ledges that are in arm’s reach. That being said, these puzzles can be frustrating either if you miss a jump in the right direction, assume it was therefore incorrect, and spend minutes searching for alternatives, or if you do the opposite and repeatedly attempt something that looks like it could work but won’t.

Cinematics: I am conflicted on this one. The action set pieces are exhilarating, but sometimes they felt too limiting. While it’s nice that many of them weren’t strictly cutscenes, holding down one button and watching the action unfold as I flee from a truck down an alleyway is hardly different from simply watching. The experience felt too guided in parts.

Verdict

It is worth mentioning that the game also has a very robust multiplayer mode with multiple game modes and a few interesting elements such as very quick close-up combat options and vertical gameplay. I hesitate to put too much stock into its staying power, however, considering an online juggernaut named Modern Warfare 2 is fast approaching. The single-player experience is a must play and the multiplayer is just gravy.

Is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves a perfect game? Of course not. Don’t get caught up in the 11/10 hyperbole. The flaws are minor, however, and they are vastly overshadowed by the positives in the experience. There are more than a handful of ridiculously over the top action sequences that get your adrenaline going and make you marvel at Naughty Dog’s creativity. In the end my biggest criticism of the game is that there isn’t enough Victor Sullivan, something they will hopefully rectify in the future.