“Darksiders” at Amazon.com

Rated Mature; Reviewed on PS3

Darksiders is one of the crop of bad-ass, third person adventures that glutted the market after “God of War 3” took the entire industry to school.  While I enjoyed Darksiders it falls far short of “God of War” in nearly every area.  It may not be completely fair to compare the two games so directly but it’s more difficult to ignore the similarities.

The story of Darksiders is simple enough, but hurt by the concepts introduced and a failure to fully embrace them.  We’re told that the “Charred Council”, and their servants, the four horsemen of the apocalypse mediate the uneasy between Heaven and Hell.  But while the game adopts many aspects of Christian mythology it stops short of committing and never engages God or Satan.  This leaves an intellectual power-gap that’s never sufficiently explained and leaves the player unsatisfied.

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“Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom” at Amazon.com

Rated Teen; Reviewed on PS3

This was a truly enjoyable game.  A simple, engaging story; likable characters and interesting gameplay.  In most of the particulars it’s a fairly standard third-person adventure; but a very well done one that oozes charm.

Some might say the length is “too short” but at about 15 hours I felt it actually could have been a bit shorter.  I deeply appreciate a game that takes as much time as it needs to tell its story and ends.  “Majin” does fall, partway at least, into some of the traps.  There’s some backtracking that feels a little too much like work (especially when trying to collect all of the “Memory Shards” which only appear at night) and some of the later levels approach a “been there, done that” vibe.

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“Infamous 2” at Amazon.com

Rated Teen; Reviewed on PS3

Sucker Punch Studios “Sly Cooper” along with with Naughty Dog’s “Jak and Daxter” and Insomniac’s “Ratchet and Clank” made the PS2 the undisputed home of platform adventure gaming.  With the power of the PS3 those companies have all moved on to more realistic adventures.  Naughty Dog with “Uncharted”, Insomniac with “Resistance” and Sucker Punch with “Infamous”.

“Infamous” was an experiment for Suck Punch.  A team that lived and breathed platformers rife with mini-games took on an enormous open-world game with coherent super-powers and a storyline based on the player’s moral choices.  They mostly succeeded.

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“Splatterhouse” at Amazon.com

Rated Mature; Reviewed on PS3

Splatterhouse is a remake/homage of the Namco classic arcade game (I originally played the superb TurboGraphix 16 port).

The story remains the same: you’re Rick Taylor who, with the help of an ancient, sentient mask is fighting through hordes of demonic creatures to save your girlfriend Jennifer.  This iteration leans very heavily on Lovecraftian sources and imagery which is starting to approach trite, but since it’s rarely done well it can be forgiven.

You interact with two primary characters, Rick (who spends most of the game dazed and confused) and the mask itself (which adds a raunchy voice-over to the proceedings).  The villain of the story, Dr. West, is about as cardboard as they come and Jennifer (stolen by West because she looks like his dead wife) is, for all intents, a prop.

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This is one of those rare games that’s instantly engaging and completely engrossing.  Most puzzle games have a varying period of total confusion and frustration until that “aha!” moment when whatever arbitrary rule set being imposed makes sense.  With Auditorium there’s oddly no ramp up at all: the mechanics are introduced so slowly and easily and with no imposed time limits.  You’re free to play with each of the tools and explore their effects on the environment and while you’re definately learning it just doesn’t feel like work.

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Authored March 2008, Originally appeared at GameSpot

Initial reviews of this game were middling while later reviews steadily grew in appreciation. This may point up an issue with mechanics of reviews in general: people that speed through games to meet a deadline often don’t get the best impression of them. This game does take a while to truly savor.

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Authored June 2008, Originally appeared at GameSpot

Finally finished this game (which I started long ago) off.

Like the UBISoft classic “The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” this game works hard to provide compelling narrative explanations for game mechanics. In this case a fairly generic young man, Desmond, has been captured by a mysterious, powerful organization. He’s hooked up to a computer system which can replay ancestral memories, in this case those of a 12th century assassin named Altair. Apparently Altair was the last to know the whereabouts of a mysterious religious artifact lost during the Third Crusade that the organization wants. You must control Altair through a period of his life in order to learn the location of this artifact.

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Authored December 2007, Originally appeared at GameSpot

This downloadable game implements SIXAXIS motion controls to simulate the motions of real bowling. Although this game will suffer many (and many ignorant) comparison to Wii Sports Bowling the games are really in two different (bowling) leagues.  Where Wii Sports excels at being a “kiddy” game High Velocity Bowling takes a much more realistic tack and provides many more options for deeper play.  A large selection of balls and throwing styles are available.  You can even review the wax pattern on the boards if you wish.

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Authored December 2005, Originally appeared at GameSpot

An amazing experience and a great capstone to the Jak Trilogy. Sony really does have the action platformer genre locked up.  Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper are the kings of that hill now (and this is coming from a serious Nintendo fan).

If you were scared off by the difficultly of the second game don’t worry – this one is easier although by no means a cake walk (some missions are downright frustrating).  Thankfully the most frustrating missions are optional (unlike the second game which I nearly abandoned a half-a-dozen times).

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