Gotham City Impostors Review (XBLA)

Gotham City Impostors is a rare breed. Coming along mere months after the critically acclaimed and long anticipated Batman: Arkham City, Impostors offers you a skewed look at the Batman universe through a pair of mentally imbalanced eyes. Playing as either a member of the ‘Bats’ or the ‘Jokerz,’ two street gangs taking after their favorite costumed celebrity, you will find yourself running and gunning through the streets of Gotham in an inspired and satirical FPS.
“His is the path of righteousness, ours is the path of cordite and home-brew explosives.”
The game is spawned from a four issue story from Detective Comics (#867-870) wherein the Joker drugs Gotham City, causing mass hallucinations leading to Batman inspired…

Shank 2 – A Review (XBLA)

Developer Klei has brought its bloody 2D brawler back to Xbox Live Arcade with the release of Shank 2.  Sequels are always in a funny position with me, be it video game sequels or movie sequels.  You always hope that the sequel is better then the original, but more often then not, the sequel just let’s you down and can’t deliver on what the original brought.  Will Shank 2 deliver a better experience then the original Shank, or are we looking at just another effort to get your money out of your wallet?  Let’s find out with my full review of Shank 2 for the Xbox 360.
Story:
Ok, let’s get this out of the way first;…

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Review (PS3)

Okay, let me try this again…
I got most of the way through my first review of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning by the time I got a call from my editor asking for a progress update. We talked over the game for a bit and I found myself admitting to feelings that were very contrasting to the way my review was piecing together. I wanted so badly to like this game. An open world action RPG with deep customization? Right up my alley. It has everything going for it. It’s the first major release from Curt Schilling’s (yes, THAT Curt Schilling) 38 Studios. The game has a tremendous pedigree of talent. New York Times bestselling author…

King Arthur 2: The Role-playing Wargame Review (PC/Steam)

I consider myself lucky that a while back I had the opportunity to play Total War: Shogun 2 and review it for Gaming Shogun. At the time I felt lucky because I got to experience the immense depth and choice players had when playing that game and how it had great replay value due to all the choices.  You even had a choice of how deep you went, you could play it a lot like a Risk simple strategy game or you could go in and orchestrate the movements of each of your units each step through the battlefield.  I tried a bit of each and still it took days, weeks, just to get a…

ASH II: Shadows Quick-Review (iOS)

ASH II: Shadows is Konami’s follow-up to the well-received ASH on the iOS platform. A JRPG in the vein of the original Final Fantasy, ASH II features a lot of crisp, hand-drawn visuals that really pop on the iPhone 4S retina display. The game follows the story of an ostracized warrior and the party members he teams up with. While the writing in the game is somewhat cliche, overall the story gets communicated well and, along with the visuals, really help to sell the game world. In fact, several times I could not wait to find out what was going to happen next in the chapter.
Throughout the course of the story’s first chapter (the game…

Law & Order: Legacies (PC/Steam)

So there were plenty of nights that we would watch a television show that makes the noise Dun Dun throughout it. We would follow the witnesses as they discover the victim and continue as the process carried right through the sentencing of someone who may or may not be guilty and may or may not be found so. It usually had some degree of closure and most episodes tied up the story, sometimes neatly, other times as messy as the audience could except. Dick Wolf has continued to bring up Law And Order in many fashions over the longest running television crime series ever so it would make sense that eventually they would make a…

Razer Star Wars: The Old Republic Gaming Mouse Review

The Star Wars: The Old Republic-branded gaming mouse from Razer is now available. Based on Razer’s Naga Epic gaming mouse, the Star Wars: The Old Republic-themed version features a new chassis with some harder angles and a Stormtrooper/Star Destroyer-esque, white coloring. What else does the mouse have to offer and is it worth the $139.99 price tag? Find out, after the jump!

Quarrel – A Review (XBLA)

It’s been a while since my last review, thanks to the holiday hangover in regards to game releases, but today I get back into the saddle with my review of Quarrel for the Xbox Live Arcade.  Quarrel was originally released for the iOS market a few months ago from developer Denki, due to the fact that they couldn’t find a publisher to release the game for any other system, until now.  The XBLA version of Quarrel is far superior to the iOS version in almost every way, with online multiplayer and more game content, such as additional game modes.  This version may have more bells and whistles the last version to be released, but is…

Razer The Old Republic Headset Review

Razer’s line of Star Wars: The Old Republic themed peripherals is now out on for public consumption (save for their keyboard with built-in LCD display). We got to play around with the headset portion of that line and have finally assembled our thoughts for your perusal. The headset features Dolby 7.1 virtual surround sound, braided cabling, 50mm sound drivers, and a sturdy boom microphone.
The overall design of the Razer Star Wars: The Old Republic headset is pretty darn slick, with lots of cool angles and even red and blue lighting effects (and millions of other color combinations) depending on what side of the force you wish to represent. Unlike the gaming mouse end of the…

Please Stay Calm Review (iPhone)

This is one of those games I have been playing for quite a while (back in it’s beta days) and keep meaning to write up but find myself playing it instead.  Please Stay Calm is a zombie apocalypse game that utilizes your phone’s GPS and FourSquare to create locations for it’s MMO.  This isn’t the only game out there that does it, it is just probably one of the most successful.  Did I mention it is free?
Please Stay Calm is set in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse when all the government agencies have pulled out leaving survivors to their own devices and decisions on how they are going to live their lives.  Scavenging becomes…

The Dark Knight: Golden Dawn Deluxe Edition (Graphic Novel/DC Comics)

It really isn’t too surprising that with the success of the Dark Knight movies, the incredibly well done Batman Arkham games and the cancellation of Batman The Brave and The Bold for a darker Knight animated series in development that Dark Knight graphic novels and comics would start to take a grittier, darker approach than previous incarnations of the caped crusader.  As a result, a lot of jewels of the writing world got to shine in this element. A couple of the more notable being the dynamic duo of David Finch and Jason Fabok who were given the reins of the Batman: Dark Knight series in which we get to feel the pain that Gotham…

Dustforce! Review (PC/Steam)

Games are usually an escape from life and so often have strange and unusual premises but you don’t find a whole lot that have you play a janitor armed with your push broom.  Even fewer have you play as part of a janitorial team working to clean up the forests of leaves.  That however is the premise of Dustforce and in it’s format the theme works just fine.

Dustforce is a 2D platform aerobatic action game in which players have to sweep, swipe and jump their way through multiple levels cleaning up leaves while avoiding thorns, destroying leaf clumps and saving woodland creatures from leaf possession.  I honestly didn’t fully understand the last part of leaf…

Zombii Attack Review (WiiWare)

In Zombii Attack, players must defend themselves from waves of zombies in an attempt to help the scientist Dr. Zii develop a cure for the zombie outbreak. Players are given a giant catapult and a variety of projectiles to hurl at the zombies from rocks and tires to mines and explosives. There are 18 different levels a few of which you are able to destroy some buildings in. There is even a bonus driving game thrown into the mix where you must run over zombies while avoiding parked cars. While defending yourself against the wave of oncoming zombies you are also tasked with capturing some zombies as well. These are used by Dr. Zii to…

All Zombies Must Die! Review (XBLA)

I’m an old school gamer as avid readers know, so as soon as I heard this title and saw how it was made my first thought was “Zombies Ate My Neighbors” that blasted onto the Super Nintendo and into the hearts of old school zombie hunters as you ran through 50s style camp saving the neighbors and killing the zombies.  So when I saw a trailer for All Zombies Must Die! I figured we were in for this generations version of the same game, just with updated graphics but what I found was a very well made game which while paying homage to the old game also pays homage to pop culture in general and…