Submitted by Los

A little backstory..

Way back in 2003, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released. It was, and still is considered one of the best action-platform games to come out for its time. It was followed by a not so welcomed sequel, The Warrior Within and a somewhat more respectable ending of the trilogy in The Two Thrones. As the story closed with the final installment, there were still a few unanswered questions explaining how the Prince went from this intriguing acrobatic heir to the throne in The Sands of Time, to the Godsmack-listening emo in The Warrior Within. Cue The Forgotten Sands. (Supposedly.)

The story for The Forgotten Sands doesn’t necessarily add anything to the original trilogy. It is set between the first two games and is more of a separate adventure for the Prince which rides on the trilogy’s timeline. To my recollection, there aren’t even any references to the actual Sands of Time, which is one of the main arch’s for the story. And interestingly, if you were for whatever reason put side by side the cover of The Forgotten Sands with the poster from The Sands of Time movie, you will be struck with some similarities. But, according to everyone involved, the two properties had nothing to do with each other.

But I digress. Onto the Review.

The Forgotten Sands is one of those games that you hear about, get excited for, and then while you’re playing it you can’t help but wonder what got lost in the translation. I’m not saying it’s a bad game, it’s actually fairly entertaining. But playing through it you can’t help but feel like something’s missing, or something is just not right. And by the time you figure it out, you’re fighting the final boss and then you walk away feeling like you just got taken advantage of. (The taken advantage of where you don’t really fight what’s going on but at the same time you’re not really happy with what’s happening. Just to be clear.)

To get to the point, there are give or take 6 different types of enemies you encounter. Repeatedly. And the various (or not so various) booby traps (ha-ha, booby. Hush it, I’m easily entertained) are the same saws, spikes, spiked pillars, etc. over and over again.  The combat gets old fairly quickly because of the lack of a decent system. There are a few combos but when you get put in the middle of a wave of enemies your first reaction is just to swing away hack and slash style.

And added to the combat are 4 elements that you may use against enemies. Earth, which surrounds you in rocks acting as a shield. Wind, which blows all enemies away when the Prince pounds on the ground. And then Fire and Ice, which are very similar and forgettable as bonus powers. You’ll find yourself using Earth and Wind more than the other 2 anyway, and for good reason, since they actually help you in sticky situations. All these powers can be upgraded by an XP system that is fairly basic and nothing to really write home about.

There is a cool ability of being able to freeze water. When you first get the ability you think to yourself “this is fairly interesting and pretty fun.” But like the combat, it gets a bit repetitive, so towards the middle of the game you think, “how many busted pipes does this damn place have?!” Then finally during the final stages you get smacked in the face with a series of platforming puzzles involving this power that make you take a breath when you’re done saying, “that was awesome!” It’s just too bad they waited till the end to drop those puzzles on you. Not only were they more difficult, but I’ll say they were the most fun I had platforming in the whole game.

Bottom line, if you sit down to play The Forgotten Sands, you won’t be disappointed. Yeah, there are a few gripes I have with it but it’s nothing out of the ordinary for a Prince of Persia game. You don’t go to a restaurant for the bread, you go for the food. Same thing here, you don’t play Prince of Persia for the combat, you play for platforming and puzzle solving. It’s what the series is known for, where it strives, and what is consistently great about The Forgotten Sands. It may have been pushed out there for the sake of coming out shoulder to shoulder with the movie release, (Proof? Why would they just leave the 2008 cell shaded Prince reboot hanging out to dry when it was obviously set up for a sequel?) and the story may not actually fit in the timeline of the trilogy, but that doesn’t stop The Forgotten Sands from being a game worthy of the name Prince of Persia.

Verdict:  Rent it.
3.75 / 5

If you’re a big Prince of Persia fan, buy it. But, for no more than $35 because if you’re good you’ll be done with it in less than 12 hours. And since it’s an easy Platinum Trophy (one playthrough) if you plan it right, there won’t be much to come back to once you’re done.

You're in good hands with Allstate.

There you are, slipstreaming the straightaways and cutting every corner with surgeon-like precision. You send your European supercar into a perfect drift, pulling into a gorgeous 180. Suddenly an asshole driver t-bones you into the rail from behind, and three cars pass you by. In your old racing game, you’d have no choice but to gun it after them and hope for the best. Now imagine you could trigger an industrial accident the likes of which have only been seen in an insurance executive’s nightmare that brings an entire city block down on the cars that screwed you. In Split/Second you can do exactly that. And… that’s, about it.

The premise goes, you are a contestant on a reality show called Split/Second, where you race opponents through a Michael Bay orgasm of flames and destruction to win “credits,” unlock cars and advance to the next episode of the show. Each episode opens with what sounds like the announcer from the History Channel and a leftover fade-in from NBC’s Fear Factor. There’s an outro to each episode that’s similar, and that is the only part of the game that even resembles a TV show. The idea had promise for sure, so where is the announcer during the race exclaiming with each crunch and crash? Why aren’t you winning any money? There’s not even a crowd on hand to watch?

It's easy to name your price, only from Progressive.

One quality that every racing game must absolutely positively have, is that is has to feel fast. Split/Second definitely hits the mark here. While there is no MPH indicator in the game, yet it doesn’t matter. The cars feel like they are approaching light speed, and that if you gun the accelerator for one second longer, your flatscreen TV might explode.  Another requirement every racing game must have is a collection of vastly exotic cars, perhaps with customizable categories. In Split/Second, there are pretty much only three types of cars: European looking supercar, American looking muscle car and Sports truck. Even though there are upwards of 30 cars to unlock, they all look nearly identical and not a single solitary one of them is customizable in any way other than paint color. They all do drive a little different and you do have to match different cars to different tracks, but the cars themselves are disappointing at the very least.

The tracks themselves start to all look the same as well. There’s over a dozen, but they fall into categories of: city, industrial area, or airport. None of them are ugly or awkward looking, but not a single one is stunning in any way. There are several game modes: Traditional races are straightforward; You race other cars, strategically setting off accidents and explosive demolitions to destroy the other cars and win the race. There’s a demolition mode, where you race a single circuit alone as the environment automatically crumbles spectacularly around you. There’s a weird helicopter mode, where you race around a circuit, evading missiles fired from a pursuing attack helicopter. With each evasion of missile waves, you earn the ability to deflect the missiles back at the helicopter and destroy it. I can’ do a better job explaining …It makes just about no sense whatsoever. There’s a mode involving explosive barrels falling off of a truck which is too stupid to even describe, and an elimination mode that is included in just about every racing video game in history.

It's so easy, a caveman could do it.

Split/Second is quite a lot of fun… for an hour or two. The thrill of driving through constant fiery chaos quickly wears off. Numerous bugs also start to annoy. Certain parts of the environment which were harmless in one race cause your complete destruction in the next. Sometimes you bounce on top of cars, sometimes they drive straight on top of you.  Overall, the game seems to just really, REALLY wants to be Burnout. My suggestion if you want a destructive racing experience is to go pull Burnout Paradise out of the bargain bin. It does just about everything Split/Second does, and it does it better. If you really love racing games it’s worth a rent, but overall Split/Second is Kinda/Stupid.

"Oh yeah, this is going to go well."

Prologue: Trust No One in the Darkness

Everyone is afraid of the dark. Some are more afraid than others, but anyone that tells you that walking around in the pitch black isn’t terrifying is flat out lying. In Alan Wake, the darkness is your true enemy. The only message, the only strategy that the game truly offers you to survive is to “Stay in the Light,” and in Bright Falls, light in the darkness is fleeting to say the least. Alan Wake is a game that exploits this basic human fear, and it does so perfectly, inducing a terrifying dose of nonstop thrills.

Chapter 1: The Story

Alan Wake’s greatest strength is the immersive, HBO series-worthy story. With an amazing complexity, perfect voice acting and cinematic scope, to say the story draws the player in is quite an understatement. Alan Wake provides you almost hourly with an amazing gaming moment to rival some of the best that the last few years of games have to offer. The premise is deceptively simple: Successful thriller writer Alan Wake and his wife arrive in Bright Falls, a small town bordered on all sides by mountains, lakes, and endless woodlands. To reveal why they are there, whom they meet or what locations they visit would each be a massive spoiler. That fact alone is a testament to the depth of the story. What can be said is that the game is structured much like a television series, with cinematic episodes, bookended with “previouslies” and end credit cliffhangers. Each chapter peels away a layer of the plot, answering some questions and asking even more. This story would stand on its own in any entertainment media. As for the ending? You’ll have to see for yourself.

"Suck Energizer, Bitch!"

Chapter 2: The Gameplay

There are daytime adventure sequences in Alan Wake, but they are relegated to searching and non-interactive conversations. Alan Wake thrives in its nighttime sequences, consisting of a majority of the gameplay. The highly touted “Fight with light” tagline is mostly accurate: Alan Wake must make his way through “The Darkness” from checkpoint to checkpoint, represented by lightsources of varying intensities. At his disposal to do so are a few scant weapons consisting of flares, flashbangs, a revolver and a few rifles. A flare gun is occasionally offered as an option as well as intermittent lightsources in the environment. Unfortunately for Alan, almost none of the light bulbs in Bright Falls have been changed for a long, long time.

The gameplay seems simple at first. Alan’s physical enemies appear in the form of those referred to as “The Taken.” In human form, they attack with axes, sickles, and plain old bum rushes. To defeat them, Alan must weaken them with light, and then shoot them with a weapon. (There is a significant flaw in the game here, see Chapter 4.) A significant yet simple device used in the structure of the maps is the notion of the “path.” The path usually consists of the straightest point between the safety of the lighted checkpoints. Yet by staying on the path, Alan will find few weapons caches with vital ammunition and spare batteries. In order to gain enough inventories to make it safely to each checkpoint, Alan must stray off of the path into the deep darkness to find carefully hidden caches of ammunition. It’s there he must face additional waves of the “Taken” A significantly more difficult task than staying on the path. Also, at times, caches will provide you with either far more than you will need, or woefully little for your effort to stray from the path, making Alan Wake either extremely susceptible to injury, or extremely powerful against his enemies. This is an excellent decision by Remedy. It makes it very difficult to anticipate what’s just ahead. There is an extremely small learning curve on the control scheme, but the strategy on how you use your scant inventory of weapons take a lot of practice. The inclusion of Alan’s indispensable flashlight alone makes for an excellent gameplay innovation.

"I gotta fix this? You know I'm from New York City, right?"

Chapter 3: The Graphics

For a game that took 5 years of development, the graphics are a little outdated. Still, the environs of Bright Falls and the dynamic lighting in the ink black of night are passable and not at all distracting form the immersive nature of the adventure. Remedy did their game justice, especially with the rendering of its characters, all motion captured from real actors whose faces were also mapped into the game. The graphics represent a good effort by Remedy, and are far superior than either of the Max Payne games.

Chapter 4: The Problem

There is a glaring, yet understandable problem for Alan Wake, and it lies squarely within the gameplay: Guns are a completely unnecessary addition to this game. As proven by Heavy Rain, guns are obsolete in a well written, immersive adventure game. Alan Wake’s most effective weapon is the light, and the weapon that is the most satisfying to use is Alan’s trusty flashlight, which triples in intensity with a squeeze of the left trigger. To finish off one of “The Taken” however, Alan must weaken his enemy with the flashlight, and then pepper them with a pistol or rifle. It is painfully repetitive. Why I believe guns were incorporated into the game, is most likely because they wanted to satisfy Max Payne fans, and also the belief that video games with guns sell better than those without. It is a hard fact to dispute. Unfortunately, their inclusion nonetheless detracts from the quality of the game.

In addition there are driving sequences, as well as a few platforming sections thrown into the game, which are clumsy and seem out of place. Also, flying inanimate objects are an additional danger Alan Wake must battle, which at times, can come from off-screen. Its one of the well known no-no’s of video game design. The game is doubtfully at its best when Alan is frantically making his way through the darkness, having to quickly decide between fight or flight in nearly every situation. The problems listed above pale in comparison to the strength of the story and the cinematic immersiveness of the environment. These strengths are more than enough to carry the game as one of the best of the year.

Dumbass.

Epilogue:

For those who complain that Video Games aren’t innovative enough, (me included) Alan Wake stands out. Its thrills aren’t cheap, and the game earns it’s leeway with gameplay mechanics and vague objectives. The game could, and by all accounts will continue with DLC episodes, perhaps solidifying Alan Wake as a franchise and a moneymaker: Something the industry will need if it is to continue with its revival of the adventure game genre. I can easily recommend Alan Wake to everyone. The game will forever make me a little more afraid of the dark, and I’ll never again enter the evening without a drawer full of batteries and a flashlight.

Slick, Effective, Immersive.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is the latest entry in the Tom Clancy Splinter Cell franchise. It’s a stealth action game… or a 3^rd person shooter? A tactical shooter? Free Runner? I’ve finished the game, and I still have no idea. All I can say for sure is that Sam Fisher is back, and boy is he pissed.

The strongest aspect of this game is the story. The game is presented in a sequence of extremely well thought out episodes, in which Sam exacts revenge for the apparent murder/abduction of his daughter, Sarah. The mission objectives are “painted” onto in-game surfaces within the world itself, providing a slick, seamless transition between areas. Also enhancing the game play are excellent cinematic interludes that provide more than a few extremely cool “wow” moments that add to the already formidable gravitas of the Sam Fisher character. Story wise, this is clearly one of the best Splinter Cell offerings. Unfortunately, there is little else in the game that shines so brightly.

The biggest difference between Conviction and the previous Splinter Cell games is the new cover system control scheme. It was widely publicized that Sam would be able to effortlessly slide from one cover to the next, leaning around corners, hanging off of ledges, sliding over obstacles in order to “hunt” his enemies, instead of merely dealing death from the dark. This cover system is an excellent effort in pushing the Splinter Cell franchise into evolving, yet it’s extremely flawed. There is nothing smooth in Sam’s cover transitions. For instance, he can stick to boxes, cars, columns and barriers to hide from enemies, yet he can’t move around a single corner at all without braking cover. He can jump to ledges, hang above enemies and peek under doors, sometimes. The only way to discover such things is to explore angles with the cameras, and highlight hard to see indicators that alert the player to cover opportunities. In some cases, even a slight shift of the camera can scroll through three different covers or actions, making it extremely difficult to select the one the player wants.

I'm Trying!

Close up kills, which used to be a thrilling aspect of previous Splinter Cell entries featuring bone-crunching neck snapping and knives into the spinal column are all of the sudden very clumsy. Sam stops to say “hi” to an enemy before putting two in his chest. And Sam’s deadly, silent blade? Nowhere to be found. Are we honestly to believe that Sam has access to black market high-tech weaponry, but he can’t stop by the local hunting shop for a survival knife?

Another strongpoint of the franchise used to be the dramatic, dynamic lighting. In this game, the lighting is much more abundant which does force Sam to be quicker about his stealthy maneuvering, yet it punishes the player at every opportunity for taking these tactical chances to get close to his prey. The much vaunted mark-and-execute function in the game is another puzzling addition. Sam can only utilize this talent after performing a close up kill. Why in the world is Sam robbed of superior aiming skills until he periodically elbows someone in the face?

Sam used to choose a weapon load out before each missing. This time, since Sam no longer has the vast support from Third Echelon, so he has to rely on found weapon caches sprinkled throughout the game. These weapon caches feature a disappointingly shallow selection of weapons, sporting obtuse and all too easily obtained upgrades, Most of which have no silencing option. Also, Sam’s trusty SC-3000 weapon, a staple of previous games, has no sniping capabilities, robbing the player of another previous aspect of Splinter Cell games, dealing silent, deadly long range kills from across open spaces.

There are also four or five interrogation scenes in the game, in which Sam has the opportunity to creatively rough up his higher-value targets who have some secrets they’re reluctant to spill. This could have been a really effective addition to Sam’s arsenal, all the more illustrating his rage. Instead, it’s just a “press B to interrogate” repetitive bashing of the bad-guy du jour. Besides the cinematic value, which could have been provided just as well with a cut scene, it just falls flat.

"I'm not talking Fisher! Unless you press B."

This game represents a whole mess of missed opportunities for the franchise, but I can’t blame the studio for attempting to try some new things. After the clunky and painfully slow previous entry in the series, the pace is considerably quickened in a handful of the areas Sam explores. Yet, there are still too many “trip the alarm and it’s over” moments in the game. I will give credit where credit is due: Gone are the painfully long waits for enemies to get in just the right position, or the endlessly tedious, “hide the body” errands. Gone are the annoying guard dogs, computer hacks, email checking and data stick collecting. Still, this game has too many elements missing that overshadow what has been added.

Splinter Cell: Conviction would have been excellent if it had been what the studio promised: A fast paced stealth action game, where Sam hunts his prey, instead of the opposite. Instead we get lukewarm, awkward game play wrapped in a very immersive, well thought out story. The franchise, and the newly focused, vicious, irate Sam Fisher, deserved a lot better.

When God of War was released in 2005 it set a new standard for character action games that many developers still haven’t lived up to. Everything about the game is on an epic scale, and the character and set design are consistently impressive. All of this is set to a dynamic musical score and runs at a fast and smooth frame rate.

Kratos has a diverse collection of attack options you can experiment with if you choose, but the game allows you to progress on simple button mashing if you want to keep it light and fun.

The revamped visuals on the collection disk are thorough and well done. They may not compete with today’s games, but they never stand out as old. The game looks good.

There are some elements that make GoW fall short when compared with alternatives for today’s gamer, however. The restricted camera means you take shots from enemies off screen, fumble around to find obscure entrances to the next section of a level and you’ll be switching thumbstick directions to move towards the same target if the camera angle suddenly changes on you.

Some of the puzzles are needlessly frustrating, like the Hades blade towers, and others seem silly for a god-killing war machine like Kratos to be engaged in, such as “Stonehenge Tetris.”

Playing the original God of War is a great way to get ready for the release of the new game, and I’m sure that’s why the collection exists, but it’s probably the only reason you should play it at this point.

Mass Effect 2 is appealing to lots of gamers, and for good reason.  If you like shooters, RPGs or dialog driven stories then you’ll find something about it to latch on to, and in the process you’ll discover how good the other parts are.  What’s worth noting is that it keeps the mixture of those elements balanced, and presents them all with a high budget polish.

As a continuation of the first game, or as a standalone story, Mass Effect 2 excels at making you interested in its characters.  The optional crew member loyalty missions are unique and you’ll want to do them all.  Recruiting all of the possible crew members and completing their side missions makes up more than half of the game and is the best part of the experience.  It’s not a grind or a chore.

Other than a few small design issues – close quarters combat can be disorienting when combined with cover, and scanning planets for minerals becomes tedious – Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game that transcends its basic “save the galaxy” plot by populating your part of the universe with interesting characters that you feel invested in.

Mass Effect 2 is available on Xbox360 and PC.

Thinking about the concept of Stop Stress is probably more entertaining than playing the game.  Your bikini girl beach dream is inturrupted by the morning alarm clock, throwing you into an acid trip anger frenzy that lasts all day long.

During the journey you trash your apartment, kill your boss, throw bricks at cops, fight off  hallucination monsters and axe airport security guards in the face.  Quite visceral for a WiiWare game, no?

The only problem with Stop Stress is that the controls are horrible and despite the above list of fun-filled activities, the game manages to be boring to actually play.  Fun to show off to friends, and worth a laugh under the right circumstances, maybe, but after reading this you already know what the best parts are, and they’re less fun than you’re imagining them to be.

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury is available for download on WiiWare.

It’s The Rocketeer, Ironman, and Independence Day with a hint of Nathan Drake, all rolled into one!

Submitted by Los

Games come and go. Some stay in your head others buzz off and are forgotten. And then there are the few that you sit down and play through till it’s done and then can’t help but ask yourself, “what the hell was that?” Dark Void is that game.

You play as Nathan Drake, as The Rocketeer. No, wait; you’re Will, my mistake. It’s so easy to confuse the two (damn you Nolan North. How about taking a little break before over exposure gets us all Northed out). The story takes place in the ever popular, rarely ever used in video games, World War II era. But there is a twist. You get sucked into the Bermuda Triangle and get thrown into another dimension where there is a war going on between the Survivors, humans who have gotten there the same way you have, and the Watchers, a sort of alien/robot species that once ruled over humans and who are trying to get back into the regular dimension to take control and enslave humanity once more.

And that’s about where I lost track of everything.

Somewhere between bad story telling, mediocre third person shooter gameplay, and trying to not fall off cliffs and ledges to my death, I was starting to lose interest really fast. It’s as if they wanted the gameplay to tell the story for them so they didn’t bother introducing characters or explaining who and what. This is fine. But not when what you’re doing is boring and slowly paced. That is, until you reach the later parts of the second half of the game. That’s when someone pushes the Ludicrous Speed button and passes by the stuff that you were actually wanting to know.

So why did I keep playing? Simple. I’m a sucker for flying. I love flying in games. That coupled with my love for the 1991 Disney movie The Rocketeer, Dark Void had an unfair grip on my jetpack ignition. Don’t get it twisted, the flying is not the greatest, but if you need a fix and want to do some air combat then this will tie you over. They had some neat ideas when trying to put this game together, it’s just too bad they were poorly executed. Like hijacking a UFO, which sounds like fun doesn’t it? Well it was the first time. But doing it’s drawn out button pressing over and over isn’t exactly a good time. And then there’s the “which way is up? Oh, never mind, I just found this nice hard wall” problem that kept popping up for me. If that wasn’t when I was trying to follow something in the air, it was the kickback from initially turning the jetpack on where I’d go shooting off flailing in the air for a few seconds before I rocketed head first into a wall. Apart from a few annoyances, I can’t complain about this aspect of the game because it is what I was looking forward to the whole time. I guess you can say I had fun with it. Sadly, those flying levels took up about 35%-40% of the game itself.

Umm, call me crazy, but aren’t your legs supposed to be burnt off by now?

The rest of the game you were on foot shooting different colored robots. This gameplay is what got me weary. It was playable, but there just didn’t feel like there was any depth to it. And then you had this weird vertical cover system. Where you would rocket up to a ledge, and hang underneath it but not like you would think. You’re crouched behind a vertical ledge in a very uncomfortable and unnatural looking position especially for someone with a jetpack on their back. And if you think that would mess with your head and cause you to go a little dizzy, trust me, you are spot on.

In the end, it’s hard to say go out and play this game. Because I for one would be happy never touching it again. Sadly, the ending leaves it wide open for a sequel. It’s too bad you’ll be left wondering what the hell just happened when the game ends, leaving that want and need for a sequel nowhere to be found. The story felt very slow and then very rushed with no happy medium. And the only part of it all that’s enjoyable is a small percentage of the game as a whole. When it was over the smile on my face was priceless, because I knew that I can finally toss Dark Void into itself. (Get it? A dark v… nevermind.)

Final Judgment,
2.5 Water Bottles Full of Pee, out of 5

Speaking of which, be careful after you play a lot of the flying levels and then go to pee. This surprisingly deadly combination caused me to get dizzy and almost fall over into my toilet.

Submitted by Geekboy2424 a.k.a. The Young Gamer

Legos. You like playing with them right? I mean, who doesn’t?

This is the first thing that comes to my mind. I have never seen a game like Banjo and Kazooie N&B, and I would like for somebody to tell me about one. In a nutshell, Its Banjo Kazooie, with cars instead of Kazooie’s talents. You can make ANYTHING. The only catch is that you have to unlock it in the story mode, which isn’t that much a problem because the story mode is fun and a collectathon just like the old games. It’s got the same sense of humor that only Rare can provide. You collect Jiggies by beating challenges by making cars that fit the description for the challenge. Its a lot of fun, and as you progress, you unlock the more awesome parts for your vehicles.

The story isn’t much, but it gets you by and gives you a reason to collect everything. So if this game sounds like your style, then try out the demo! It actually represents the game very well, and you get the feel of the game as soon as you’ve played it. I love the game, and hopefully you will too!

Trash Panic has a simple and amusing concept.  You’re presented with a conveyor belt full of items that you need to fit, one at a time, into an enormous trash can.  In order to make all of the trash fit, you have to burn, disintegrate and compact all of it without letting the can overflow.  If too many whole objects fall out of the can you fail the level.

While that sounds like a quirky stress reliever, the problem with Trash Panic is that it’s a little too difficult for its own good.

The game has five levels, and I couldn’t make it through the third on normal difficulty before giving up.  Being held up by the steep learning curve is unfortunate, because the game scales like Katamari Damacy – giving you larger and more ridiculous objects to deal with and bigger ways to explode and digest the rubble as you progress.

That sounds like a good time, and it is at first, but it takes a more dedicated player than myself to enjoy all of it.  I wasn’t hooked enough to struggle through the difficult and repetitious parts to benefit from the fun of the increasing scale.

Trash Panic is available for download on the PlayStation 3.