Peter Jackson's King Kong

King Kong was fantastic, as far as "official movie games" go. It stayed true to Jackson's remake but made enough departures from the movie to stand on its feet as its own game. I appreciated the HUD-less design and how they made it work without making the game too difficult....

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Star Wars The Force Unleashed did a great job of reminding me that deep down in my core, I still like that galaxy far far away. While the previous statement certainly is true, The Force Unleashed is not without its flaws. Before singing its praises, I'll dig into what I...

Rock Band 2

They fixed the worst of the interface issues I had with the first game, allowed me to bring ALL my songs from the first game over to this one (so I don't have to swap discs when I want to play songs from the first game), made online World Tour...

Mass Effect

Mass Effect was awesome. Now, that is to say that the experience I'm left with is one of awesomeness, even if the game is flawed here and there. My biggest complaints with the game were the following: 1. Texture popping is rampant. You can't enter a new area, or make...

Fable II

While I loved this game, it was not as different from Fable 1 as I would have liked. You have the same three experience paths and experience earning mechanic--you earn specific skill-based experience as well as generic experience that can be used for all skills. The action felt good for...

Too Human

Sloppy doesn't begin to describe Too Human. This game had a lot of good ideas. Not one was implemented well. It's like the designers put all their great ideas down on paper, looked at the list and said, "Great! This'll be the perfect game!" Then, inevitably, they were faced with...

Guitar Hero Aerosmith

I'm not a mega Aerosmith fan or anything, but I do like some of their songs and I generally like their bluesy electronic rock. Here's the thing though: This could have been an "album" download for Guitar Hero 3, not its own game. It doesn't do anything differently than GH3...

Virtua Fighter 5

Virtua Fighter has always been a very technical fighter, and I appreciate that. It's graphics are top-notch, the sound is great, and the little touches in the level design are really impressive. The designers obviously have a passionate attention to detail. There are a few flaws in this game,...

1942: Joint Strike

Yay! Another remake of an old favorite of mine! Wait, what!? It's buggy as hell and has very few new features? Hm.... So, first of all, I played this game in co-op over XBLA. This is the way that I would recommend playing it, since in single player, your fighter's abilities...

Braid

Braid is one of those games that after about an hour, you are convinced it is one of the best things in the world. It falls apart, however, the moment you beat it. Up until the end, the story remains compelling and seems like it's building up to a meaningful...