“Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” at Amazon.com

Rated Mature; Reviewed on PS3 and PC

Skyrim is the kind of game that people either love (and almost definitely already know they’ll love) or hate (and almost definitely know that they’ll hate).  My time with Skyrim trailed off after just shy of 190 hours of playtime – to which category do you think I belong?

I had planned on playing the game on the PS3 but after getting the Collector’s edition on Christmas my son started playing it.  Knowing that my time with the game would be indefinitely delayed I took advantage of Steam’s one-day 50% off sale and bought the game on the PC.  This resulted in us playing the game in the same room most of the time.

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“Uncharted 3” at Amazon.com

Rated Teen; Reviewed on PS3

Uncharted 2 was perhaps as close to a perfect game as I’ve seen.  It had flaws (and a lousy final boss fight) but it improved on the first game in nearly every way.  Controls were streamlined, difficulty was smoothed and the scale of the story grew.  Most importantly new characters were introduced and the characters we had grown to love from the first game were allowed to grow.  The last conversation between Nate and Elena was one of the best endings to  game ever.

The gameplay in Uncharted 3 evolves slightly from the previous games but is still tight.  You can now shoot in pretty much any circumstance and toss grenades back at the bad guys (a great idea that unfortunately fails about as often as it succeeds).  The weapons and tactics from the earlier games were great and return with only slight tweaks.

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“Dragon Age 2” at Amazon.com

Rated Mature, Reviewed on PS3

This is the highly anticipated follow-up to the deservedly wildly popular “Dragon Age: Origins”.  While not a bad game in-and-of itself by any means this is unfortunately less than its predecessor in nearly every way.  Despite it’s length it feels like an expansion rather than a full game; like an interlude between chapters of the “real” story or perhaps a prelude to “Chapter 2”.

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“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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