I’ve been playing a lot of Darksiders the past couple of weeks taking a whirlwind tour through post-apocalyptic Earth as War, one of the four Horsemen.  Along the way I’ve killed many the demon, rode many the mile and amassed a collection of armaments and weapon enhancements to make Kratos proud.  I found the game [...]

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In continuing my writing on a year-and-a-half-old Blogs of the Round Table topic, I come to the subject of gameplay variety. I wrote about this topic myself roughly a year before it came up on BoRT, but it may be time to revisit the subject.
The two examples I like to look at for gameplay variety [...]

Read the rest of Variations on a Theme, Part IV: Variety

I’m done with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. I can sum up the bulk of my frustrations in two words: Bad Platforming.
It’s funny - I don’t remember quite so many bottomless pits in any of the Star Wars movies. Sure, there was the part in Empire Strikes Back where Luke lost his hand and fell, [...]

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I’d never before played an import game. This whole thing was really kind of an accident. Wait - I’m not making any sense. Lemme ’splain. No, there is too much. Lemme sum up.
I’d been wanting to play Prototype for a while, and when I found a copy the PC version on EBay for $20 whereas it’s retailing [...]

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Greg wrote about how MadWorld disappointed him, so I figured I’d offer an altenate take.  If you haven’t read his take on the game, please do so.  I’ll wait.  Oh, spoilers will be included so if you don’t want to have things ruined, now is your chance to leave.
Ok then.  So here we go.  MadWorld [...]

Read the rest of The MadWorld Rebuttal

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge [...]

Read the rest of Keepers: Twilight Princess

I finally finished Mercenaries 2 this morning.  Technically, I finished it last night, but I had one achievement left which I knocked out this morning while riding the exercise bike.  Oh yeah, I can snipe vehicle drivers while working out. I am just that good.  On second thought, that explains why I haven’t lost any [...]

Read the rest of Final Thoughts: Mercenaries 2

So, Mercenaries 2 dropped on Sunday, and with it, seamless drop in, drop out cooperative play.  Basically, by default, when you’re playing, any one on your Friends List can just pop on into your game and help you blow stuff up.  On paper, it sounds great but in reality, it’s kind of unsettling.
I was playing [...]

Read the rest of Seamless Co-op Etiquitte

Ok, so not all game designers. Hell, I’m sure that most of them are fine, upstanding, young men and women, but lately, I’ve been playing some games where the design choices are so infuriating, that I feel the need to round up the various designers and smack them. At the very least I’ll [...]

Read the rest of Game Designers are Irritating the Bejeezus out of Me